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Thread: Jimmy Page at Oxford. VERY worth watching.

  1. #1
    Forum Member S. Cane's Avatar
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    Jimmy Page at Oxford. VERY worth watching.




    Even if you're no Ledmaniac like myself, it's wonderful to see how articulate, polite and pleasant Page is.

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    Forum Member S. Cane's Avatar
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    Re: Jimmy Page at Oxford. VERY worth watching.

    Btw I really don't know why I watched this. I knew I shouldn't.

    Now I am DEEPLY into a heavyweight nostalgia and jamais vu sensation, regarding Zep's golden years.

    The feeling that I'll never get to see them live kills my soul everytime I take the time to think about this band or whenever I see Page talking.

    Now I need a Les Paul and some booze for tonight.

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    Forum Member Offshore Angler's Avatar
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    Re: Jimmy Page at Oxford. VERY worth watching.

    Sergio,

    You've been playing long enough we need to start working on your standards and get you into the upper echelons.

    Here's some homework for you. For starters, listen to the following three artists:

    Robben Ford (Try Start it Up)

    Roy Buchanon

    Danny Gatton

    This trio will cover a lot stylistically and hopefully start some bells going off.

    We'll leave Coryell, Baxter, Moore, Landreth and Walsh for later.


    Led Zeppelin was the right band at the right time. They lead the way for AOR music and paved some ground, but there were much better bands at the same time. Ritchie Blackmore could smoke Page on any day. Page did some interesting acoustic stuff with some alternate tunings but other than that he just played the pentatonic blues with a fuzz. IMHO.

    There's soooooooo much more to being a guitarist.



    With a purple umbrella and fifty-cent hat,

    Chuck
    "No harmonic knowledge, no sense of time, a ghastly tone, unskilled vibrato, and so on. Chuck is one of the worst guitar players I know" -Gravity Jim

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    Forum Member S. Cane's Avatar
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    Re: Jimmy Page at Oxford. VERY worth watching.

    Chuck, taste and feeling has nothing to do with "better".

    I like Page's sloppy (yes, I know he is) playing and love Zep for what they were. I know all the dudes you mentioned and I know how good (and therefore too sterile for my own taste, regarding some of them) they are. I can't listen to Larry for more than 20 minutes, I find him boring and insipid. But that's ME.

    Others I do like.

    Blackmore may be indeed a "better" composer than Page, but I prefer to play/listen to other guys like Page, Gilmour... The way they arrange their stuff just makes more sense to me and is more organic for my own style of playing. For instance, I can easily play any Floyd or Zep song note for note, but Blackmore's stuff is just too uncomfortable to me. I always build my own stuff within the scales when I play Deep Purple live.

    It's a personal thing, man. To some people, there is indeed more to being a guitar player. to me it's all about being who you are through the 6 strings; either way, the audience will like you or not.


    Nevertheless, I enjoy your point of view.
    Last edited by S. Cane; 11-18-2017 at 09:43 AM. Reason: Putting some things in better phrases. My English is too rusty

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    Forum Member S. Cane's Avatar
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    Re: Jimmy Page at Oxford. VERY worth watching.

    Btw I never really thought there was anything special about Joe Walsh but I respect him and like his stuff just the same.

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    Forum Member Offshore Angler's Avatar
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    Re: Jimmy Page at Oxford. VERY worth watching.

    Quote Originally Posted by Sérgio View Post
    Btw I never really thought there was anything special about Joe Walsh but I respect him and like his stuff just the same.
    Wow, Joe is the foundation for so much! The way he melted boundaries between delta blues, funk, rock and county. From the James Gang through the Eagles, so much ground was broken. Yeah, I get that his roll as the Clown Prince of R&R sometimes obscures his artistry, but man, can that guy write and play a song. He probably taught JP a lot about playing too. He even ran for President of the United States. Don't forget that Joe Walsh sold Jimmy Page his Les Paul, so much of that famous Zeppelin music was played on Joe's guitar.

    Plus, unlike Zeppelin, the bands Joe had played in are great live. Zeppelin - well let's just say that they had some really rough shows, many recorded. They weren't exactly known as being as tight as Tower of Power. Take away the 32 track Neve console with unlimited punch-ins and they're a garage band with a great front man. (Again IMHO.) An interesting one yes, but not exactly a beacon of virtuosity.

    One is still playing with an iconic band and has a great ongoing solo career. The other gets trotted out like a circus oddity every few years.

    To each his own and that's cool.

    But I challenge you. You like that raw unpolished sound for guitar. Awesome! Dial up some Tower of Power What is Hip? and listen to the guitar. Raw, unpolished, the clams left in to bake and yet totally awesome and musical. Dig some of that and imagine what it's like to play in a groove like that!!!!!!!!!!


    It's all good,

    Chuck
    "No harmonic knowledge, no sense of time, a ghastly tone, unskilled vibrato, and so on. Chuck is one of the worst guitar players I know" -Gravity Jim

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    Forum Member S. Cane's Avatar
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    Re: Jimmy Page at Oxford. VERY worth watching.

    Believe me, Chuck: I really like your posts. And you are not wasting your Latin, I do pay attention to all you say to me and will listen to many of the guys you mentioned, there are some pretty good ideas in your reply.

    You see, music isn't the same thing for all of us... And the guitar players I like most are the ones with more heart, which is what I have too. I used to be a skilled and very technical Classical guitar player at the University where I learned it, but that style/instrument/way of being a musician never really made me feel anything.

    On the electric guitar, however, which I picked up considerably late, I am not nearly as technical nor skilled. I consider myself a hero by having had the balls to pick it up and step on a stage after decades away from any music, and embrace an entirely different approach. But rock n roll and blues always ran in my bloodstream, I had to do this before I die. Guys like Page made me have the courage of doing it even though I'll never be as fast and Bachian as a Malmsteen.

    Thanks for taking the time to discuss music with me and please don't stop doing it. I am sure if we were in person, each one with a guitar and a beer, we'd do a lot of cool jamming and have great ideas together.

    And don't hate me, I just love Zep, that's all. Can't help it.

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    Forum Member Offshore Angler's Avatar
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    Re: Jimmy Page at Oxford. VERY worth watching.

    Quote Originally Posted by Sérgio View Post

    And don't hate me, I just love Zep, that's all. Can't help it.
    Just puts you in a large club! Nothing wrong with liking LZ.

    Like I said, it's all good. Just promise me you'll keep your eyes and ears open to new possibilities as you grow as a musician.
    "No harmonic knowledge, no sense of time, a ghastly tone, unskilled vibrato, and so on. Chuck is one of the worst guitar players I know" -Gravity Jim

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    Forum Member S. Cane's Avatar
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    Re: Jimmy Page at Oxford. VERY worth watching.

    Quote Originally Posted by Offshore Angler View Post
    Just puts you in a large club! Nothing wrong with liking LZ.

    Like I said, it's all good. Just promise me you'll keep your eyes and ears open to new possibilities as you grow as a musician.
    I don't know what makes you think I don't do that.


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    Forum Member OldStrummer's Avatar
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    Re: Jimmy Page at Oxford. VERY worth watching.

    Quote Originally Posted by Offshore Angler View Post
    Just promise me you'll keep your eyes and ears open to new possibilities as you grow as a musician.
    Just butting in here with my useless $.02...

    I'm on this forum for that very purpose: to learn and grow. Yes, I'm an old guitar player, and never a has-been, but more a wannabe.

    As much as I'd like to sound like someone, I think in the end I'm better off now just trying to sound like ME.

    You folks are probably sick and tired of me prattling on about Robin Trower. One of the reason he's one of my top guitar players is that he's still alive. And, as Jeff Beck has proven, getting older doesn't mean losing your stuff.

    So, never a Zep fan, but that doesn't mean I can't appreciate the success and influence he's had on many. Just not on me.

    And right now, I'm testing the waters on getting lessons. The teachers I've been investigating online in my area, have both replied to me that while they teach jazz, blues and electric guitar, they are trained classical guitarists, and that means they bring "extra" to the table: teaching proper position, music theory, fingerstyle, etc. At first I thought, why should I get all involved with that?

    Well, the truth is that I need a kick in the pants. I think I need to discard everything I think I know and put myself in the position of being a blank slate. So, if it means sitting through basic fingerstyle chord exercises before moving on to the next step, so be it. Maybe that will enable me to better pick up the styles and compositions of a Trower, a Beck, a Page.

    Make sense?

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    Forum Member Offshore Angler's Avatar
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    Re: Jimmy Page at Oxford. VERY worth watching.

    The secret to being a good player is discipline and hard work. Theory makes the work less heavy-lifting and more finesse.

    "I want to sound like me" is a bit of a trap IMHO. You need to learn to pick someone else's work apart note-by-note, understand their positioning, the way they work the rhythm, etc. to build the foundations. You didn't just pick up a guitar and make random notes and call it sounding like you. Unless everything you've ever played is an original you're playing somebody else, and that person was channeling someone who came before them.

    When you start picking a piece apart and trying to assimilate the nuance, you're working and learning.

    If you want to get good, you need to work hard at it. If you want to get very good, you need to work very hard at it.

    The guitar highway is littered with the detritus of guys who bought guitars, learned 4 barre chords and the pentatonic, called themselves blues players and then bragged about their tone. Avoid that trap. Push yourself to learn, because the quantifiable, measurable progress you make will bring you a lot fun.
    "No harmonic knowledge, no sense of time, a ghastly tone, unskilled vibrato, and so on. Chuck is one of the worst guitar players I know" -Gravity Jim

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    Forum Member ch willie's Avatar
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    Re: Jimmy Page at Oxford. VERY worth watching.

    While I agree with OA about working very hard to get good, I believe it's wrong to put down guitarists who want to sound like "me." I'd much rather hear John Lennon's playing than SRV, and Lennon, who probably never tore down another guitarists playing, sounded like no one else. On the other hand, George Harrison, the "better guitarist" found "me" through tearing apart the guitar playing of Chet Atkins and other; he worked hard to find "me." So I can see both sides of it in these two guitarists, but I think it's wrong to put down either one or the other.
    If we'd known we were going to be the Beatles, we'd have tried harder.--George Harrison

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    Forum Member OldStrummer's Avatar
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    Re: Jimmy Page at Oxford. VERY worth watching.

    Well, doggone it, I *like* Offshore Angler's approach to playing! Pity we don't have a "like" button.

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    Forum Member dirtdog's Avatar
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    Re: Jimmy Page at Oxford. VERY worth watching.

    Well this thread has taken an interesting turn - from inspiration to chops and what is "better". My, my, my, you'd think as actual musicians we'd know better!

    My feeling is Zeppelin was greater than the sum of its parts and still is. As a guitarist, bassist and drummer, I get different things from different aspects of Zeppelin - none of which has anything to do with my skill or lack thereof and/or the total sum of my influences - which are pretty esoteric.

    Back on topic: I'm an unabashed LZ fan - they're my top '60s British rock band - which for me includes the Who and the Stones (and doesn't include the obvious). This an interesting oral history from JP's perspective.

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