Donovan Banks

When Jimi Hendrix came on the scene he was brilliant. He had showmanship and could play really well for the time and took a new perspective on some old songs as well. He adopted some cool stage moves, loud guitars and what I can only describe is blasting the audience away with something new and exciting.

If I were to go and play like that today I will be seen as unoriginal, with uncontrolled audio, poor guitar tone and I wouldn’t play much again. I certainly wouldn’t become world famous. But Why?

The industry today has become very technical. A lot more people have access to a lot more info and teaching so there are a lot of really good musicians out there. With this amount of technical knowledge, simple music isn’t very simple and has to be really tight to sound good. A good guitar solo today has to be a great guitar solo and must be played extremely well or it will be considered amateur.

I guess it will happen that way, we need to progress with everything, including music. So the musicians we revere and hail as heroes or pioneers have been studied and improved upon. My problem is now we have incredibly high standards being set. The guitar world is made up of rockers like Satriani and Vai who are immensely good. Jazz musicians like Tuck Andress, finger style players like Paco de Luca and yet people are still craving something new and exciting. While the Rock and Roller’s of the 60’s were new and exciting, Then the heavy metal of the 80’s. Nirvana brought something new in Grunge and after that Metal got heavier and even started fusing with Hip Hop. Now we have guitarists like Andy Mckee who plays a very interesting mix of finger style and tapping. Zak Kim who plays 2 guitars at once has also become a YouTube sensation because it is new an interesting.

But what next? Does that mean I need to learn to play guitar in a new, fancy way? Do I need to learn to play ultra fast or with new, crazy effects? The odds are against us as average musicians.

There are a lot of musicians out there. I think even more guitarists because it is fairly easy to learn compared to some other instruments. The competition is hot, the standards are high and I reckon it is a mammoth task to make some sort if living from this industry.

Sometimes I wonder why I bother….