Comments by "John Dwyer" (@pup1008) on "The MOST Important Musical Skill" video.

  1. It fascinates me as to why some people have an innate ability to play whilst others - ME! are fecking dire at it! I had a mate at school who went on to be in a reasonably successful band here in the UK (helped along by their drummer being Jason Bonham! ) but he "acquired" a guitar one lunchtime at school & within 20 minutes from ear & never having played before was playing "House of the Rising Sun" to a good standard. I can get some basic stuff (thank God for Oasis! ) out of my badly abused acoustic but that has been 4 or 5 years hard graft & a labour of love. Probably the BIG mistake I made was in never having any formal teaching - I went straight into YouTube videos & learnt songs by rote. It has only literally the last couple of months that I realise how important scales are & not just in getting musical theory but building up all important muscles & memory as to where strings are. When you hit a hard chord so perfectly mid song & it rings out beautifully like a peal of a bell to the extent you stop & listen to it.... You are on your way!
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  2. Agreed! You've got that 2000 hours thing where anybody is supposed to be able to be an expert at anything in that time but I think that is crap! I will never be able to come close to Usain Bolt over 100 meters, play chess like a pro or get my head around fairly basic physics & algebra - you are BORN with an innate musical ability. 5 years in I can knock out some half convincing Oasis covers that I have purloined from YouTube but stand as much chance as my pet cat of actually working one of their songs out for myself. I have realised a few of the mistakes I was making & am now a big advocate of practising scales & might even take proper lessons.
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  3. Thanks for the advice! It fascinates me as to why some people have an innate ability to play whilst others - ME! are fecking dire at it! I had a mate at school who went on to be in a reasonably successful band here in the UK (helped along by their drummer being Jason Bonham! ) but he "acquired" a guitar one lunchtime at school & within 20 minutes from ear & never having played before was playing "House of the Rising Sun" to a good standard. I can get some basic stuff (thank god for Oasis) out of my badly abused acoustic but that has been 4 or 5 years hard graft & a labour of love. Probably the BIG mistake I made was in never having any formal teaching - I went straight into YouTube videos & learnt songs by rote. It has only literally the last couple of months that I realise how important scales are & not just in getting musical theory but building up all important muscles & memory as to where strings are. When you hit a hard chord so perfectly mid song & it rings out beautifully like a peal of a bell to the extent you stop & listen to it.... You are on your way!
    1