Idle Sunday Thoughts
An annoying post where a pianist explains guitar tab and guitar songwriting
As a pianist, I can sight-read almost anything within reason, including orchestral scores and choral music. I can’t get to first base with guitar tablature, which always struck me as the ultimate capitalist feint: “Here, we will give you something easy to start with that will ineluctably cripple your growth after a certain point and keep you walled off with the self-same community (other guitarists). Please don’t learn to read music, that is a distraction from our main interest, which is selling you more and more guitar gear to compensate for the fact that you can’t play in bands that use any conventional notation.”
Yesterday: guitar tab. Today: A.I.
There was a big blow up about some NY Times “best songwriters” poll. I paid no attention, I know little of this topic, but I am aware that mighty Brad Mehldau pounced with a post praising Billy Joel.
Not long ago a buddy of mine had watched the recent the recent documentaries about Bruce Springsteen and Billy Joel. He said that he was surprised, but that he ended up thinking that Billy Joel was a better and more versatile songwriter than Bruce Springsteen. I drew myself up to my full height of 88 black and white keys and declared in a condescending fashion: “Of course you are right, and it comes down to only one thing: Billy Joel plays good piano up and down the full instrument in any key, while poor Bruce has to find his way around always starting from E, A, or D on his guitar.”
Counterpoint one: Henry Kaiser on guitar tab.
Counterpoint two: Joni Mitchell’s Blue is the one of the greatest albums of all time, and she wrote a lot of it on guitar.1
ah…but she plays piano, too!
This post is 200% on point. I’ve been a serious guitarist for 55 years and have reasonably good arranging and theory skills. But many years ago I decided to attend law school because I knew that my poor sight reading would preclude many opportunities. And while the NYT Songwriters kerfuffle is a whole other can of worms, in my view Brad Mehldau hit the nail on the head.
I may be mistaken but wasn’t guitar tablature invented as a tool of the postwar Kumbaya folk music movement? Easy to learn a few chords, find a cheap guitar and gather around the campfire. Laying the groundwork for the great folk-rock plug-in! And Punk! I think serious musicians always knew the hard path was the one that had to be taken.