Finding Your Unique Sound: The Balance Between Note-For-Note and Personal Expression in Learning Songs

Before there was YouTube , there was a bunch of people like me that were learning songs by ear , from a buddy , you know , maybe from a magazine , maybe maybe not , and that's how we learn how to play . So everything wasn't always exact , okay . Then YouTube came and you got all these YouTubers now that are going , or people on YouTube .

I should say not YouTubers , but people on YouTube . That's not how so-and-so played , whatever . And here's the thing that I always think is really interesting is when you , for instance , if you watch Jimmy Page play Whole Lotta Love live , it's not exactly the same as it was on the studio version , right , the solo is not going to be the same .

You listen to the Allman Brothers play whatever in memory of Elizabeth Reed . They're not even the song's not even close . Well , the structure is kind of close , but then the rest of it's just a jam , right . You listen to Randy Rhoads play Crazy Train . He's got the solo a certain way on the on the record . And then you listen to live audio .

I've never really seen video , but live audio of him playing , and the solo isn't the same . So your job is to decide how accurate you feel like it needs to be .

You know , and I'll show you some examples , but you know , I'm not trying to change the structure of the song , I'm not trying to change the most important elements of the song , but I do need to approach it because I'm a human being and I'm not jimmy page and I'm not randy rhodes and I'm not you know whoever , and , conversely , they're not me either .

Right , we're all different . So that's something to think about now . The second thing is positional stuff . So let me start with this . I always use the same example . It's a great place to begin .

So if I was playing playing Paranoid by Tony Iommi , which , again , I had played for years before I ever saw Tony Iommi actually play it , because when you're a kid , how do you see somebody play unless you go see him in concert , right ? So I come to find out later . He plays it at the 12th fret Up there .

Okay , never occurred to me as a kid , because when I was learning how to play it , I just went to the 5th string and I learned how to play it there . So you'll get somebody on YouTube that will go . I love YouTube for this stuff . That's wrong . He doesn't play it there , he plays it at the 12th fret , first of all . The pitches are the same .

What's most important is , how does it feel to you and how does it look in your brain for memorization ? To you Now , paranoid's a pretty easy example , but as you keep going it gets more complex with different songs .

Paranoid one's not right or wrong , it's just I'm not playing it in the same position that Tony Iommi is , and I have never lost an ounce of sleep on that . It's never bothered me in the least . Now , when you watch live videos of other guitar players that Ozzy has had , guess where 95% of them play Paranoid Right here .

So that would mean all of them are wrong too . And again , in somebody's mind that's fine . In their minds it doesn't matter , as long as they're playing it the way it sounds good to them , the way it makes sense in their brain . They're good to go and they're doing their thing . So that's step . Number one is positional when you're learning other people's songs .

Now , if I'm playing , you know I'm not changing the structure . I'm not doing that right . I'm not changing it into something else . I'm going to keep the structure the same , because that riff is very important . But let me show you something . If I went like this , which is the riff now watch .

So one time I'm playing the A up here and one time I'm playing the A here , which is right ? And the answer is , who freaking cares ? What matters is what makes sense to you , what feels good to you , because you're the one that has to play it . You might be the one that has to perform it on stage . Who cares what some YouTube dude thinks ?

It doesn't make any difference . You're not changing it . You're . You know the structure of the song . You're playing it in a way that makes sense to you , that feels good to your fingers , in your brain . You see , Now , if it's important to you to play it exactly the same way that Randy Rhodes did , then God bless you . I think that's wonderful . Then do that .

That doesn't make somebody else wrong , though . Randy hasn't been here for a long time and Randy's one of my favorite guitar players on the planet . I'm just saying this is music . There's a million other things that are far more important than whether you're playing the A here or the A here , if that's where we're going to get stuck in the weeds .

How are we ever going to finish the song , right ? So that's what you need to think about , and we could keep going with this . I mean , when it moves to the next thing , it goes D , e , open chords , fifth string power chords what do you want , Right ? And then you get to .

So you got this open a , that I'm doing this kind of palm meeting , and then somebody will go well , you know , he does a gallop in the third section of the fourth part of the fifth segment . Okay . So that's what you're going to focus

on . Now , again , I'm not saying that that's wrong .

What I'm saying is , in the real world , when you are a performing musician and you're learning all kinds of songs and you're playing in bands and all these other things , if that's where you're going to get hung up , this is going to be a really tough road for you , because what's most important is how does it feel to you , how does it look to you , what

makes sense in your technique , in your skill set ? That's what you need to focus on . If you think it's important to do it exactly the way that the record was , then again , god bless you . I think that's great . That's what you should do .

Okay , what I'm saying is you could listen to 10 different versions of Randy playing that and they're all going to be subtly different . Why ? Because he's a human being and when he was in the studio it was a moment in time and he did it away . And after he's done the song 500 times , it might be a little different than the way he did it in the studio .

He didn't change the structure necessarily . He's just changing subtle elements about it . So when you approach songs , I always want you to think about that .

Okay , I mean , there's a million examples I could give you of this , but ultimately , my point is is when you get together with other musicians and jam , if it's going to get that refined to where you know , oh , you should have played it there instead of here on the fretboard . Well , again , if you're finding benefit in that , that's great .

What I often think is , people are thinking that way because they've never and I can't say this for sure because I don't know everybody but if you've played in bands before and you've played out or you've toured or something like that , you know that music is somewhat flexible , a bit because you're the one playing it . Right .

If Joe Satriani right now is trying to cover Eddie Van Halen's stuff because he's playing with Sammy Hagar , he's obviously not going to play it exactly the same , as he's not the guitar player . He's not the same guitar player as Eddie Van Halen . They're both amazing guitar players , but they're both very different .

Just like if Eddie was alive and you asked him to play a Satriani song , it's not going to sound exactly the same . So why is it that we think that that's the goal for us ? Right ? We need to develop us as well . So I'm going to let this go , but I just want you to think about that a little bit .

In you know , when you're going through the process of learning songs , figuring out what's most important and why and how you're going to approach that that makes the most sense to you , so your execution of that song is as good as it can possibly be in a way that works for you .