With all Due Respect (on The Guitar contest)

It's 4 am in the morning, I was just browsing thru, happen to come across this site, got intrigued by the contest going on over the website, so thought of giving a closer look.

I didn't really want to create a profile and post this thread, but I saw that there are some 34,000 registered members on the website, indicating that something serious is going on here, I couldn't stop myself from posting this thread.

I might sound like extremely arrogant and inconsiderate. But music and guitar is something I feel very strongly about, so I have to say this, with all due respect to the organizers and participants and the audience. Hope it will be taken in a positive spirit and to make things better for future of guitar in India.

I heard the recording of last 3 finalists. How could you decide who is the best among those 3? It's like comparing oranges with apples. The instrument is same, but still the styles are just completely different. Comparing between two different styles is like comparing two different instruments all together, say a violin and a flute. How could you compare them? I felt sorry for Ahooja (Classical Gas). Classical Gas is an extremely complex piece. We have to understand that Classical Gas was played solo on guitar where as 'On the Run' was in a complete band setting. We have to take out the drums and bass part from that to see what is left. So we were comparing one person with a single guitar to a whole band! I'm not bringing down Chintan's efforts, but I'm just emphasizing that we can't compare the two styles.

Competitions are never good in arts in my opinion. Even if we have to do it for sake of publicity or whatever reasons, there should be more specific criteria. We can't compare Ravi Shankar with 'The Beatles' even though both have been influenced by Sitar to some degree. Whole thing signifies I guess how unaware we are about guitar in general in our country, or actually about music in general. Again I would say that hope this comment would be taken in a positive spirit. After seeing this post, if a single person on this forum goes back and tries to investigate the basic difference between Rock and Classical and Jazz and Country and Pop etc. (even with having guitar a common instrument), or actually looks at the sheetmusic of 'On the Run' or 'Classical Gas' to see what it takes to play the two pieces, my effort of posting this thread would be worthwhile.

Thank you for reading.

Peace!
Shailendra

 

I can see your point Jozko ..

 

Thanks.
But since, you are new, you don't know that this topic has been done to almost death here.

We have had all sorts of duscussion and name calling, abusings, threatenings going on here.


Ultimately we decided, let the people decide what they want.
Are you against democracy?

 

and uh oh, HI JOZKO!
:beer:

 

Dude i completely agree with you!! There is no doubt that it is impossible to compare compositions played by guitarists of different styles. But if we go by your line of thought i think it is absurd how you think the sheet music of the songs is going to determine the quality of the music. Coz my friend it is foolishness to rate music according to how tough it is to play.

I think that is the point of any competition. A competition judges the musician/band as a whole not just how tough or technical their songs are. I agree technicality is one criteria for judging but that aint the ONLY criteria.
For christs sake i happen to play for a technical thrash band and i know for a fact that sheer technicality takes you nowhere. Judges in every competition tell us that my band (premonition) relies heavily on technicality and by doing that we lose out on points with regard to stage presence, crowd response, etc

In the instant case since we are supposed to submit SONGS and not just solos, the criteria for judging would include originality, quality of recording, tightness, etc. Keeping this in mind i decided to submit ON THE RUN.

 

Whatever it is....Just give the iPOD to the winner...Other things can be discussed leisurely...

 

it is foolishness to rate music according to how tough it is to play.

 

Peace my friend!

Hi Chintan,
Congratulations first of all. I hope you have not taken my comments as an offense, I really didn't mean to. I was not suggesting that we compare based on technical point of view. You did a great job on the song and we are in total agreement here! We have to look at just music. But what really moves someone is an individual thing. For me personally, classical stuff expresses my emotions in a far better way than the rock stuff. So being an individual thing, there really is no way to decide which music is better. With the sheetmusic my point was that I was wondering if people really realize this fact that this thing was played with the backing tracks of drums and bass and all, and the actual contribution was the solo (I'm assuming you've not recorded the whole drums, bass and rhythm part all by yourself). Even technically, the two pieces take two different approaches. You have to deal with the bends and all in your track, which is also not an easy thing to do correctly. In the other it's the right hand finger development. So comparing two pieces even technically may not be a good idea. But I'm biased towards Classical Gas as it takes a little more to develop the right hand fingers than to learn the bends. And not just technically, I'm baised towards Classical Gas in terms of the harmony and structure of the piece. But ofcourse, that's an individual thing. So again, there is no way we can compare the two pieces. I doubt if everyone here in this forum actually thought about it all. So my point was just to bring a little awareness, and emphasizing that we can't compare the two genres.

As far as public opinion and what actually moves most people, if someone had recorded a melody line say of 'neeley neeley ambar' or 'zara zara' with a backing track of drums and rhythm and all, they would have beaten you up in terms of the number of polls. Again I'm not suggesting that 'neeley neeley' or 'zara zara' are not good compositions, but as an artist you grow above those tunes at some point, I'm sure you know it.

I understand ultimately it's just the publicity thing, and a little fun. I wouldn't have stopped by if I hadn't seen those 34000 registered members here. I just thought may be my post will bring a little awareness about music and guitar and it's different styles.

Good luck for your future and,

Keep rocking,
Shailendra

 

OMGWTFBBQ, oranges taste better than apples. Moreso if you know a hot doctor

There, I compared them. See, as with any competition, essentially you can compare apples to even cauliflowers. Especially if you have a public vote.

 

^ Done.
End of any argument.


*Thread locked*

 

Actually i did the entire thing myself.

 

You seem to have missed the possibility that everyone may have thought it through before voting for On the Run just as you thought it through before saying that you'd have voted for Classical Gas.

And succes never really decided who was better and who was not. Let me put it this way...a lot of successful people are talented and a lot of talented people are successful.


And you seem to be equating a "musician's" community to the local junta without actually knowing what's inside.

 

If Qazi can win Fame Gurukul .. "INDIA's VOICE" .. you can imagine this is just a forum ..

PS: Not firing at chintan

 

Fame Gurukul is watched by mooncalves.

 

All stupid copies of stupid shows made by stupid Englishmen for stupid English-people. At least there were some hot contestants in those shows.

 

my simple answer to orginal statement.... i wud much rather listen to an easy piece well played and with emotion/ meaningthan a difficult piece played with mistakes and no emotion/ meaning. (not to take nething away from the entrants)
but the point is here, with all these members that u hav so rightly pointed out, we are all of a wide variety of different playing calibres. some of us have been taught whereas others have taught ourselves though websites like this or books, etc. the most important thig to look out for is the conveyance of the piece in a competition such as this, rather than which piece u prefer or like.
well... thats my opinion at least

 

To be true to the original poster, if u think Chintan's composition wasnt technical enuff, u need to hear it again....

Classical Gas v/s On the Run - A case study
Classical gas - a decent regulation composition on a classical guitar - nothing out of the blue.

On the run - u need to hear for the off beat notes, diffnt time gappings, and the fact tht he composed the entire track all by himself.

The question remains as to what ppl were lookin for in the 1st place - If it were to be IGT's best guitarist, i think u need to grill them more...if its abt IGT's best musician, then I think Chintan scores thanks to his bg tracks and leads package....

Next time, u cud put up an entry which is too complex, too melodious and technically awesome, if stripped for the bg and put in sheet music - i`ll vote for u for sure.

 

I can't help but laugh out with some of the responses

I love the counter arguments because they show the different perspective from yours and make you learn something in the process. But it's not even counter argument we are doing here. As often happens, we just start out saying things that probably are already running like movies in our minds, without even being bothered to notice what we are arguing against.

This thread should have gotton closed with the response of 'Alpha1' when he mentioned that it's just that I'm new here and all this was considered already, and it was left to public to decide later. But the thread is still going on. Chintan highlighted one sentence from my post (the one with the sheetmusic thing), and started the technique vs music talk. That sentence was not the crux of my post, but still I realized my mistake. I should have been more clear with respect to that sentence. But then I clarified to Chintan already guys. Repeatedly I mentioned that music is an individual thing. The original post is not about technique vs. music talk. It's about comparing two artists from two different genres. Both are geniuses in their own way. There is no way you could put a stamp that one is better than the other. I said that I'm biased towards classical thing, but then I mentioned that it's a very individual thing. I have high respect for Chintan's musicianship considering he can play drums and base too, but I felt sorry for the other guy in competition because even after his tremendous effort and enthusiasm, we put up a stamp that he's not good enough or someone else is better than him.

So I would say that before responding anything, please read my both the posts again to notice that my whole point was something else, like to point out that Grammy has more than 100 categories (as an example). We can accept such a thing from local junta, but not from a community that claims to be serious about music. And Mr. geniusoid, very humbly I should say that rather than putting my awesome complex entries in the competition next time, so someone else could decide for me how good I'm, what I'll probably do is I'll try my best to convince the organizers to not have a competition like this and if we really have to, then compare apples with apples!

May be the administrator should revert this thread back to Alpha1's first response, so we could use the time playing guitar rather than having some absurd arguments.

Keep having fun guys,
Shailendra

 

You are my best friend.
<3

 

Haha
I guess we indians lack that "Hotness" genes. (Mostly in our attitudes)

Sorry, but seems to be the truth.