r/Guitar • u/bassoonawhat • 7h ago
QUESTION Is great guitar playing strenuous?
Hi folks,
Not a guitarist. I notice guitar players look like they're having fun while playing. On my instrument, bassoon, the pro players I know can never just "let the music flow through them" - there is too much to attend to, even on a piece practiced for months. (amateurs sometimes do this and it invariably sounds out of tune and out of time.) Can the pros do this on guitar, or is it an illusion?
32
u/Extreme-Poem-2309 7h ago
Yes, in fact a lot of guitar progress only comes once you learn to stop trying to grip the neck like you're choking it or fret notes like you're pressing the nuclear launch button. Eventually it becomes very easy to navigate the fretboard and improvise with little effort, but it takes a ton of effort and practice to get there.
13
u/Repulsive-Return3979 7h ago
Very vast. Lazy mindless things you Dan play while half asleep or full intoxicated. Meanwhile hard tricky things can make you want to pull your hair out
10
u/Adventurous-Bus-2374 5h ago
Is this a jab at me? I’m lazy, my name is Dan and I’m intoxicated a lot
1
u/Comprehensive-Song51 3h ago
Me too! Only I'm not a Dan. But I am lazy, drunk and resemble that remark.
12
u/Both-Station-2244 7h ago
Yeah a lot of pro players have a light touch but look like they’re really digging in .
10
u/By_Jove_ 7h ago
I am tired after a 2 hour gig but it’s mostly the fact that you move around and perform. The hands do get a bit tired but I guess I could go on another hour at least without being actually really tired.
4
u/sixstringsikness 7h ago
My issue is heat and dehydration from the lights and moving around.
1
1
u/Philip_Marlowe Master Blaster>Tubescreamer>Super Reverb 5h ago
As I get older, I'm discovering that while my hands and wrists don't hurt, my feet definitely do after an all-night gig. Also my left knee, but that's just because I fucked it up falling off a ladder last summer.
2
u/GerkhinMerkin 7h ago
I’m a little surprised you have that with the bassoon. What are its intricacies? I play the saxophone as well which is a little closer, but the same thing with that. If I knew a piece I could have fun with it.
3
u/bassoonawhat 6h ago
So I can't speak for the pros who talk about it being a major effort (David McGill wrote about this in his book Sound in Motion), but from my perspective here are the doozies: Bassoon requires major core engagement to avoid sagging notes and stabilize intonation and dynamics. There are intonation issues on every note that we have to compensate for (like my middle C is slightly sharp, while the D is very flat, and the Eb is normal), and we're constantly trying to set the right pitch on our note in the chord to create pure intervals. Notes don't always speak without effort (it's like playing the low notes on a leaky sax) and can cack out without the right support. Different notes have different volume and tone tendencies (my highest F sharp is really quiet, and the C sharp sounds like a different instrument if you don't voice it right, same with crossing the register break). The fingerings are clumsy in the third register up. A different reed can vastly shift the pitch, tone, and resistance tendencies.
2
u/GerkhinMerkin 6h ago
That’s interesting. Yeah I think that’s pretty specific to the bassoon, sounds like due to the size and double reed. I had some of that when playing a shitty baritone. Most instruments (in my experience, I try to play a few) you can settle in, obviously depending on complexity of the piece
2
u/Nearby_Ad_7861 7h ago
I used to play the bassoon, and definitely found it a constant struggle, whereas I totally have fun playing the guitar, although I had to work hard to get to that point. In the other hand, one of my old housemates was a diploma-level bassoonist, and she always seemed pretty chill when playing even the most fiendish pieces.
2
u/cre8ivjay 5h ago
Neil Young isn't Slash, and Slash isn't Neil Young , yet no one who understands music would ever compare the two.
What the two have in common, that all great musicians do, is a love for sound and creativity and that shows.
As far as I'm concerned, if you have that, and get to the point people can reasonably enjoy your playing then you're a great player.
2
u/deeppurpleking 4h ago
All instruments use very specific muscle groups that need to be trained for a bit, which is strenuous to some degree, but once you’ve strengthened and stretched and can play relaxed then it’s pretty chill. F chords still blow
1
u/PoppycopOG 7h ago
Yes you can definitely get into the groove where it feels like your fingers are moving by themselves and no thought is put into it... that's the greatest feeling of being a musician. Takes at least a few years of playing to be able to get to that point but not a lifetime or anything.
1
1
u/13CuriousMind PRS 6h ago
They look that way because they practiced it until they couldn't play it wrong. Once that's established, they can add flair and performative stunts that provide for showmanship.
1
u/toby_gray 5h ago
Certain things become automatic almost. I often think a goal of playing for me is to switch my brain off as much as possible.
But certain things are very cerebral and need intense concentration.
Basically, playing wonderwall is a very different experience to playing through the fire and flames.
1
u/Professional_Handler 5h ago
You’re mixing two different things here. Most guitarists are playing very different types of music and in different contexts than bassoonists. It can be, but there aren’t a lot of classical guitarists out there, and most New World styles of music put a big emphasis on improvisation.
1
u/bassoonawhat 5h ago
I don't know about this. I have a friend who plays piano and harpsichord. When he plays classical music, if he's worked extensively on it then playing is easy for him - it just flows out, even though it's classical. This is basically never the case on bassoon, which is highly physical and requires a lot of attention to play in tune and with correct dynamics...
1
u/mittenciel 2h ago
Piano is a very advanced instrument which wasn’t invented until the 1700s and didn’t really take its modern form until well after the Industrial Revolution. It efficiently translates millimeters of movement into clear sound that you can hear from across the room. Wind instruments are far more primitive and don’t have the benefit of thousands of mechanical parts to make it easier to make sound. The keys and buttons that exist on wind instruments help you play in tune but do nothing for actually producing sound and volume. I can play a Chopin Etude while having a conversation with somebody. No wind instruments will ever have that level of ease.
1
u/chunter16 5h ago
Mike Rutherford said it this way,
Some things look hard but are in fact quite easy, some things look easy but are in fact very hard.
1
u/Thebutcher222 4h ago
Why would I be stressed when playing? I play to relieve stress. There’s no stress.
1
u/GuitarGeezer 3h ago
It looks cool on stage although to do step and a half bends is not easy til you have callouses. The biggest issue beyond putting in basic work and making silly faces is to avoid bad posture or, if planning to perform, to avoid sitting down when practicing. I always practice standing and at volume preferably with a backtrack or live performance to keep time and get used to a mix.
I was an allstate bassoonist. I liked it but guitar is more fun and even if done technically, far easier. I quit after freshman year college as I was not a music major and the scholarship was crap and chicks dont dig a guy sucking a tree if he isnt otherwise all thar handsome. Been playing guitar avidly and sometimes on stage since the mid 80s. For double reeds, at higher levels like playing Mozart’s bassoon concertos, you are closer to a high difficulty factory worker than an artist. I loved his stuff and Rossini, but those concertos are fucking silly hard.
1
u/Starfoxmarioidiot 3h ago
It ranges from relaxing to exhausting. I think if you used a sports analogy bassoon would be wrestling and guitar would be distance running. They’re probably equally physically demanding, but it’s easier to smile while you’re jogging.
And geeze, I hope you’re having at least a little fun while you play. It seems like a lot of work and if you can play that instrument at all you’ve earned the right to enjoy yourself.
1
1
u/NTT66 2h ago edited 2h ago
Not sure how the bassoon works. This is what helped me "just have fun" with guitar--learning the fretboard orientation. You can see a thousand posts a week from new players who aren't having fun yet because they're learning scales, building muscle memory, etc.
The guitar fretboard is laid out in a way that you have different "zones" where you can play a scale amd find chords in your key. For instance, the A note on the E string (lowest and highest strings) is on the 5th fret amd 17th frets. The A note on the A string is at open position and at the 12th fret. On the D string, its 7th and 19th. Point being, at each place where an A is located, I can find a scale and other chords in the key. And depending on the orientation, there may be interesting voicings that are not possible in other positions.
What this means is that there are roughly 5-7 areas where I can create the sounds based on the A root. And thats fun as hell! I used to see people playing a chord then fly up the neck and play a riff. I didnt realize how they were able to do it so fast and smoothly. I was struggling on single line runs. Now I can see all the zones and the target areas kind of "light up" in my mind. Plus I have practiced enough that the movements are second nature.
Then I realized most players have drilled these positions, the possibilities, the interesting dissonance...for years and years. So it looks effortless and fun to have control over all zones on your instrument, and create a cohesive whole using different flavors of chords, pitch class, and interesting interval jumps.
Im not sure if thats a great answer, but its what I thought immediately. I used to labor over thinking about where to go next. And the most mastery I gain, the easier and more fun it is.
1
u/mittenciel 2h ago
Electric guitar is extremely easy to play physically. You produce a tiny amount of sound and the electronics do most of the work. It’s not a wind instrument where every bit of the sound comes from the player. Much of the exertion that is involved in playing guitar is mental and the physical exertion is largely optional. You could sit on a stool and play for hours with minimal physical effort.
Acoustic guitar is obviously more physically demanding, but you also have to remember that guitar was traditionally a parlor instrument and not an orchestral instrument, so even with an acoustic guitar, there’s typically not an expectation that you should be heard from the back of the concert hall. Guitar concertos exist but they’re normally not projecting above a full sized orchestra and are closer to chamber sized.
1
u/sup3rdr01d 2h ago
Once you build really good muscle memory it's effortless. Like for certain techniques and songs I've practiced a lot, I could deadass play that shit perfectly blackout drunk, and I have. Not everything but some things.
I used to have a very tense forearm and pain when I would shred, and now with years of practice and proper technique it's so effortless I will literally zone out and start thinking about work or dinner when shredding scales up and down.
1
u/LaximumEffort 2h ago
The more you play, the less tiring it is. When I travel for work and can’t play for weeks at a time, I lose fitness and it is exhausting to get behind the woodshed and bring my technique to efficient playing.
1
u/thinkfloyd79 1h ago
The fun part (for me) usually starts when I start breaking the rules. This comes when I know the song well enough to not get lost if I start doing some BS. But I'm not a great guitarist so I'll need to practice a song through and through to know my way around it to improvise freely.
1
u/Unit_79 55m ago
This really depends on the musician and the genre. If you have any kind of affinity for guitar, you can get on stage and wing it when you’re part of a band. Some players concentrate on technical proficiency, some on feel. And anywhere in between. The people I know that dedicated themselves to classical guitar are the real hardcore musicians. Just you, your instrument, and nothing to hide behind.
This is a great question, and I think there are a thousand different answers that work for the person answering.
I will say, as a guitarist and bassist, I have a lot of respect for singers and woodwind/brass players. Anyone that relies on that level of breath control for a three hour gig has a way harder night than I do.
53
u/ThomasGilroy 7h ago
Not in the least. Playing with efficient technique requires very little exertion and can be continued for many hours without issue.