Musician topic: Music you hold "sacred"

[Analog_Kid]

My producer and I had a discussion about this yesterday:

Is there any music that you, as a musician, think of as "sacred"? What I mean is, you conciously choose only to listen to it and never try to learn how to play it yourself. As if actually learning how a artist plays their particular music will take away some of the mystery it holds for you and, thus, lessen the enjoyment of it.

I'm that way with a few artists myself. Opeth, Devin Townsend, and Immortal come to mind. I've never tried to learn how to play any music by any of them because it would take away some of the mystery of why I like their music as much as I do. In a way, learning exactly how they do what they do would be over-analysis to me.

What are your thoughts?

 

[Jayde]

I am learning bass and I was going to learn how to play the bass parts for some Opeth songs (mostly on Blackwater Park, mostly on The Drapery Falls). But then I was afraid that I'd screw them up and it'd just be blasphemy. So, Opeth is sacred to me.


I'm not sure if I qualify as a bassist yet, but I can play other instruments and I sing, so I am a musician. I swear.

 

[Obyeybyeogone]

I don't yet play any instruments, but i'd think learning how to play it would let you appreciate hearing it more, is there any sense to this

 

[Misanthrope]

Im not good at theory when i listen only. I have a nice skill to recognize the sounds and reproduce them but cause i have never had any longterm musical training i do not know the names. I can listen to a G and its minor third once, pic up the guitar a week later and play the exact same thing but unless i look down to look at the fret i have no idea its a G. If i need to regonize a sound i actually remember how does it sounds on guitar or remember the whole scale until i hit the note. Anyway...i cannot hear something an not at least try to play it. All music i truly like i always find myself playing it, even if i dont make a concious efford to memorize it if i love a song, i memorize it pick up a guitar days later and play different notes and scales until i play it correctly. Most of the times i dont have a hard time but ocaccionally bands like Opeth trow me unusual intervals ( in metal not in general ) like 6ths or 7ths ( i can pick up sevens but its a bit weird sounding to me with distorsion and without jazz elements ) so then i DO make a concious efford and try to play them out. I dont know if i try to keep a band sacred but i hope i dont because if i do i cant, i always end up memorizing and playing.

 

[lumen]

"sacred" for me: anything by Dan Swano

I started learning how to play a Katatonia song (I was thinking of entering it in the cover's contest on their website) but before long I gave it up because I was afraid I'd wreck it for myself.

Coincidentally, I was actually thinking about this exact topic while I was walking to school today, listening to Nightingale. I love to sing along, and I considered learning to play some of the songs. But I quickly abandoned the idea, for all the same reasons you've described.

 

[Till Fjalls]

I know what you mean by this post, but I am not sure If I actually hold any music sacred as such. I have found though, that music I really truly love often does lose some of that mystery when I learn it on guitar, or even learn the lyrics. Unless it happens to be a very complex song which I learn myself. I find tabs to demystify songs too much. However, by spending hours figuring out a song, I get to hear nuances that I otherwise may not have noticed, and can truly appreciate how much effort went into the songwriting.

So you are both right and wrong!

The only true sacred music to me is that which I satumble upon and am blown away. This almost always dies away though, and I come across something new and better.

 

[Juggie]

I didnt learn anything from Orchid, because the music wouldnt be as good if I analyzed it.

 

[D Mullholand]

Oob. Never. I mean, for me Anathema's "Judgement" is as sacred as it can get, but I still play half of the songs and even sing them while playing! And it doesn't diminish the "mystique" of the original - not by the smallest margin.

I hate to bring it up all the time, but phrases like "music won't be as good when you analyze it" just diminish the value of the music in the eyes of the person who says it. Music is not christianity, after all, it won't fall apart when you study it!

D Mullholand

 

[RogueSpirit]

On the contrary, if I really like something I'll try and learn how to play it so I know how they get those melodies. Then I can attempt to assimilate it with my playing.

 

[YaYo]

I dont learn complex songs that i love. If the song is easy (eg one guitar part) to play then i can learn it without killing the song. But i find that once i learn a song i tend to play it on guitar so much that i never listen to the original, and suddenly i start thinking of the song as a hollow one guitar piece with no vocals/drums/etc and then when i eventually go back to the CD the mystery has diminished and i no longer listen to it as a whole, it becomes a collection of parts.

Ive wrecked quite a few songs that i learnt on guitar, and i learnt my lesson and never learn more than a riff here or there. I do however study the style and riffs of bands and write my own stuff in the same way for experimentation, but that never involves studying more than 1 or 2 riffs. It becomes pretty hard to not learn riffs because i can figure them out very easily for myself, so its gotta be a concious effort to never try.

But yeh like i said, if the song is easy to simulate on one guitar then most likely its not a complex song, and learning it doesnt diminish it at all. (eg i learnt Benighted all the way through recently, and still love the CD version, as well as enjoying playing the song on guitar).


enough.

 

[yourdeadgroom]

Actually, it takes an utterly stunning song for me to bother learning it, so actually I work in the opposite way
I appreciated Morningrise alot more once I figured out both guitar parts to Advent- that is one hell of a complex song!
I am more cautious when studying an individual guitar player though. I used to worship Marty Friedman (ex-Megadeth, incase you live under a rock ), but then I got a couple of his tutorial videos, and came to see all of his licks- since then the mystique is gone somewhat, as I keep seeing the same riffs popping up, but with very minor changes in them. Although, just to totally contradict that statement, I love Yngwie more and more as I get the music for his songs- it brings out the diversity in his playing, and is cool to see how some of the similar riffs come in, but with all these cool little changes in them. But I try to avoid doing this, as I said it can lead to bad things.......