|
Post by Helmut83 on Mar 29, 2019 20:10:13 GMT
I recall many comments by people Jeff has worked with over the years talking about his guitar playing and overall musicianship. We all know the people he has worked with are among the best in the world. If you can't play or if you are average, you are not recording with or getting on stage with any of them. Unless you are driving force of the band by writing the songs. John Lennon wasn't a good instrument player either.
|
|
|
Post by coathanger on Mar 29, 2019 20:15:12 GMT
I recall many comments by people Jeff has worked with over the years talking about his guitar playing and overall musicianship. We all know the people he has worked with are among the best in the world. If you can't play or if you are average, you are not recording with or getting on stage with any of them. There's a massive difference between a songwriter who can't play and a non-songwriter who can outperform Eddie Van Halen. Jeff Lynne is somewhere in between. You WILL record with the best of them if your written material is good enough, regardless of your technical ability. It makes money and attracts the technically proficient to assist. George Harrison wasn't that great a technical guitarist if you want to go down that route, but as an icon he did wonders for Jeff Lynne's career by association.
|
|
|
Post by Timeblue on Mar 29, 2019 23:12:07 GMT
So Jeff is an alcoholic who cannot play the guitar....if he is,so what? He hasn't built his empire on those qualities. Everyone has their opinion and never the twain shall meet so let's just all sit back (with a drink or two or three) and praise the lord that he,Bev and Roy got together one day and started this glorious adventure..... I'm going to go against the current for once in my life ( ) and give an unpopular opinion, which in this case means disagreeing with what you said, Timeblue . Again, not a personal attack on you (in any case, a questioning of your message), hope by now you know that. It's always a tempting thing to do, in the middle of a discussion, to place yourself in an apparently neutral position and come out with a resounding message advocating for peace on the forum and the brotherhood of man. It will make you look like Ghandi, you'll get lots of likes by people who feel uptight about any disagreement (and whom, in any case, could always stay away from the thread) and you'll emerge as the great wise man whom looking over the discussion was able to put away differences and restore peace. I don't doubt that you had the best intentions when you said that, but why not let the ball roll a bit more? In spite of a few heated up phrases, the discussion about Jeff as a guitarist was being interesting to me, as a few members who know what they are talking about gave interesting opinions. What those "peaceful" messages do is attempt to kill the discussion. Again, when was the last time this forum had had an interesting debate about Jeff Lynne or ELO before this one? We have lost that lately as a forum. I don't know if the maturity is lacking, but any disagreement or criticism on Jeff seems to make an alarm sound and suddenly too many people are on their nerves and about to have a nervous breakdown, that's why those messages of peace are welcome with a sigh of relief. And if, like me, you don't celebrate such messages of peace in the middle of an interesting discussion, you'll be the biggest terrorist and promoter of violence this forum has ever seen. I know it, but I feel we have to defend civil discussion too, otherwise all we'll be doing here is sucking Jeff up all day long. That would be boring as hell and I think it shouldn't be the purpose of a forum. Again, this is not an attack on you, Timeblue ; you are someone who usually doesn't shy away from some discussion and stating your point of view and and I respect you for that. In fact it's the first time I see you come up with this kind of message (of which there have been many before). I mean, I'm all good for loving and praising each other, but I think there should also be a time for debate and that time should be respected. That being said, I join you in your toast for the genesis of ELO. My reply was not to appear like a messiah preaching love and peace, I thought that the thread was starting to turn a little nasty (imo) so I thought I'd say what I did just to lighten the mood. I didn't do it to antagonize anyone, certainly not you Helmut so if I did then I apologize. I must state here that Jeff ISN'T my favourite member of the band,that honour falls to Bev and I've had a few 'heated' discussions on here with certain forumites over the years regarding him!
Anyway,i look good in a dhoti....
|
|
|
TIME
Mar 29, 2019 23:48:20 GMT
Post by StrangeMagic on Mar 29, 2019 23:48:20 GMT
I said a Bigby, maybe a Leslie. It's just a couple of short phrases. <snip> I've just released who you are. We had virtually the same discussion on one of the Facebook groups and another very similar one regarding the fact that I reckoned Jeff couldn't give a shite about his RRHOF award. It's clear your very loyal and protective of Jeff and that's laudible but I think I'll duck out at this point now though cos it's pretty clear we're never going to see each others view. BTW.. You've mentioned it twice, what's a Bigby? I've never heard of it I'm protective of the truth, in particular. I don't like to see people spread unfounded rumors about Jeff. Jeff doesn't often use a Bigby, but I've spotted one on a studio instrument, never a performing instrument. This is a Bigby on an epiphone. That's all I'm teaching you about guitar.
|
|
|
Post by Grroosss on Mar 30, 2019 0:21:21 GMT
There’s been a lot of great discussion and excellent points brought up here. Now, I don’t know very much about guitar, and I have no definitive proof since I’ve never seen him playing right in front of me, but personally I consider Jeff to be better than a “mediocre” guitar player, and that he doesn’t get by solely on his songwriting abilities. I’ve read that his colleagues have praised his playing going all the way back to his days with The Chads, and I’ve seen videos where his playing sounds pretty dang good to my musician’s ears. I’ve also seen videos where he’s played a few wrong notes. That doesn’t make him any worse of a player; he is only human, after all. So, in my mind... not awesome, but above average. Jeff himself has stated that he’s not a virtuoso on any of his instruments, but “good enough for recording purposes”. I’d argue that even in the best and most successful groups in history, you rarely have musicians with amazing technical abilities—and I’d argue that it doesn’t terribly matter, because there’s so much more that goes into making a band and their music good: the songwriting, the producing and arranging, creativity and innovation, how well the group ‘gels’, the passion behind the music, etc. For any song by any band ever, I’m sure you could find musicians who could play the song with better technical abilities, but this doesn’t necessarily ‘improve’ the song; sometimes there’s just a special life or character to a song, a unique flavor, an energy or rawness or emotion, whatever it is that gives you chills when listening to it, that is what makes the song appealing and that is nearly impossible to capture as well as the original band, no matter how much more talented you may be. Of course, there’s a certain baseline of ability needed so that the music doesn’t sound atrocious, but given that pop and rock melodies tend to not be very technically challenging, it’s easy enough for adequate musicians to create a nice product. As for lip-syncing... if you ask me, all you have to do is go back to videos of concerts vs mimed TV performances from the ‘70s and ‘80s to know that if Jeff is eating the microphone, it’s live!
|
|
|
Post by ShardEnder on Mar 30, 2019 1:41:30 GMT
Here's an exhibit for the case that Jeff could have been a guitar virtuoso if this was the direction he wanted to take rather than choosing to develop his all-round songwriting and production craft:
Apart from being a great showcase for the signature "violin" trick (which he actually learned from his predecessor in the Nightriders), just try to keep up with all those classic riffs that young Jeff was able to pull out from his back of tricks!
|
|
|
TIME
Mar 30, 2019 6:55:07 GMT
via mobile
Post by jackpunch on Mar 30, 2019 6:55:07 GMT
I've just released who you are. We had virtually the same discussion on one of the Facebook groups and another very similar one regarding the fact that I reckoned Jeff couldn't give a shite about his RRHOF award. It's clear your very loyal and protective of Jeff and that's laudible but I think I'll duck out at this point now though cos it's pretty clear we're never going to see each others view. BTW.. You've mentioned it twice, what's a Bigby? I've never heard of it I'm protective of the truth, in particular. I don't like to see people spread unfounded rumors about Jeff. Jeff doesn't often use a Bigby, but I've spotted one on a studio instrument, never a performing instrument. This is a Bigby on an epiphone. That's all I'm teaching you about guitar. Ah, I see. I thought that might be what you were going on about. You mean a Bigsby tremelo. That's a Bigsby, not a Bigby.... And it clearly isn't a spelling mistake since you've called it a bigby consistently. You've just had a Spinal Tap "dobly" moment and made yourself look like an idiot. Before you start teaching me about guitar perhaps you should learn the basics. Get yourself to Amazon.com, there'll be a guitar for dummies book available I'm sure. BTW... What on earth is a studio instrument. A guitar is a guitar. Your comments make it clear to me you know nothing about guitars.
|
|
|
TIME
Mar 30, 2019 8:17:45 GMT
Post by Helmut83 on Mar 30, 2019 8:17:45 GMT
My reply was not to appear like a messiah preaching love and peace, I thought that the thread was starting to turn a little nasty (imo) so I thought I'd say what I did just to lighten the mood. I didn't do it to antagonize anyone, certainly not you Helmut so if I did then I apologize. I must state here that Jeff ISN'T my favourite member of the band,that honour falls to Bev and I've had a few 'heated' discussions on here with certain forumites over the years regarding him!
Anyway,i look good in a dhoti....
Come on, Timeblue ! I won't be taking any apologies when there's no reason to apologize at all. Obviously you didn't do it to antagonize when yours was a peaceful message, it's just that I wanted to keep on talking a bit more about Jeff as a guitarist. And in that sense, I'll add that two songs on "Zoom" feature what in my opinion are great guitar solos: "Easy Money" and "Ordinary Dream". In both of them Jeff plays a distorted electric guitar in quite a messy, rowdy, energic, somewhat untidy style and I love what he does in those songs. Now, when those songs were played live during the Zoom "tour" (if you could call it so) this is what happened: 1- "Easy Money": Jeff played the solo, respecting the style of the original, but the melody itself was quite different. As a whole the solo sounded quite OK to me and for me he came out reasonable well of the attempt, but there were a couple of parts where he kind of mishit the strings and it didn't sound that good, as if the technique wasn't too polished. 2- "Ordinary Dream": Marc Mann played the solo in great fashion and very similar to the original. Take a look from 1:28 on at "Easy Money": PS: Timeblue , the member who disagreed with you about Bev being your favourite ELO member wasn't Fluffy, was she?
|
|
|
Post by Helmut83 on Mar 30, 2019 8:36:01 GMT
Of course, there’s a certain baseline of ability needed so that the music doesn’t sound atrocious, but given that pop and rock melodies tend to not be very technically challenging, it’s easy enough for adequate musicians to create a nice product. I agree. Once you meet that minimum of ability (which is achievable with a bit of practice for most everyone, unless you have motricity issues) the rest is songwriting. That's what will make your music be good or bad.
|
|
|
Post by Timeblue on Mar 30, 2019 10:50:12 GMT
I'm protective of the truth, in particular. I don't like to see people spread unfounded rumors about Jeff. Jeff doesn't often use a Bigby, but I've spotted one on a studio instrument, never a performing instrument. This is a Bigby on an epiphone. That's all I'm teaching you about guitar.
Ah, I see. I thought that might be what you were going on about. You mean a Bigsby tremelo. That's a Bigsby, not a Bigby.... And it clearly isn't a spelling mistake since you've called it a bigby consistently. You've just had a Spinal Tap "dobly" moment and made yourself look like an idiot. Before you start teaching me about guitar perhaps you should learn the basics. Get yourself to Amazon.com, there'll be a guitar for dummies book available I'm sure. BTW... What on earth is a studio instrument. A guitar is a guitar. Your comments make it clear to me you know nothing about guitars. Helmut83 this is why I tried to lighten the mood a little......
|
|
|
Post by coathanger on Mar 30, 2019 19:16:38 GMT
I've just released who you are. We had virtually the same discussion on one of the Facebook groups and another very similar one regarding the fact that I reckoned Jeff couldn't give a shite about his RRHOF award. It's clear your very loyal and protective of Jeff and that's laudible but I think I'll duck out at this point now though cos it's pretty clear we're never going to see each others view. BTW.. You've mentioned it twice, what's a Bigby? I've never heard of it I'm protective of the truth, in particular. I don't like to see people spread unfounded rumors about Jeff. Jeff doesn't often use a Bigby, but I've spotted one on a studio instrument, never a performing instrument. This is a Bigby on an epiphone. That's all I'm teaching you about guitar.
Hi SM, a tremolo arm on a guitar is used to give expression to playing by slightly lengthening or shortening the strings using a Spring mechanism to give a vibrato or pitch bend effect. It's fairly standard on a lot of guitars and can't be regarded in any way as just a 'studio' item. Most Fender Stratocasters (one of the most commonplace guitars available) feature a tremolo arm, with probably its most famous historical exponent being Hank Marvin from The Shadows, as do many other makes and models of guitar such as the big fat semi-acoustic ones favoured by Brian Setzer of Stray Cats, a brilliant guitarist by the way. My own Stratocaster has a tremolo arm fitted and I've most definitely used it live on occasion. The Bigsby bridge and tremolo combination shown on the picture you posted is just a variety of tremolo arm, nothing more elaborate than that. Have a look at this link for a more complete description: Bigsby Vibrato Tailpiece
|
|
|
TIME
Mar 30, 2019 22:49:20 GMT
Post by StrangeMagic on Mar 30, 2019 22:49:20 GMT
I'm protective of the truth, in particular. I don't like to see people spread unfounded rumors about Jeff. Jeff doesn't often use a Bigby, but I've spotted one on a studio instrument, never a performing instrument. This is a Bigby on an epiphone. That's all I'm teaching you about guitar.
Ah, I see. I thought that might be what you were going on about. You mean a Bigsby tremelo. That's a Bigsby, not a Bigby.... And it clearly isn't a spelling mistake since you've called it a bigby consistently. You've just had a Spinal Tap "dobly" moment and made yourself look like an idiot. Before you start teaching me about guitar perhaps you should learn the basics. Get yourself to Amazon.com, there'll be a guitar for dummies book available I'm sure. BTW... What on earth is a studio instrument. A guitar is a guitar. Your comments make it clear to me you know nothing about guitars. You probably don't want to criticize people about spelling mistakes, black pot. If you can't figure out Bigsby from Bigby, well... Obviously a studio instrument is one he only uses in the studio. I'm not answering any more of your comments. But feel free to rag on me some more, if you enjoy it.
|
|
|
TIME
Mar 30, 2019 23:10:49 GMT
Post by unomusette on Mar 30, 2019 23:10:49 GMT
Here's an exhibit for the case that Jeff could have been a guitar virtuoso if this was the direction he wanted to take rather than choosing to develop his all-round songwriting and production craft: Apart from being a great showcase for the signature "violin" trick (which he actually learned from his predecessor in the Nightriders), just try to keep up with all those classic riffs that young Jeff was able to pull out from his back of tricks! I love this to bits, thanks so much for posting it Apparently they used to do The End by The Doors too - do you know if there is any recording of that floating about?
|
|
|
TIME
Mar 30, 2019 23:11:36 GMT
Post by StrangeMagic on Mar 30, 2019 23:11:36 GMT
I'm protective of the truth, in particular. I don't like to see people spread unfounded rumors about Jeff. Jeff doesn't often use a Bigby, but I've spotted one on a studio instrument, never a performing instrument. This is a Bigby on an epiphone. That's all I'm teaching you about guitar.
Hi SM, a tremolo arm on a guitar is used to give expression to playing by slightly lengthening or shortening the strings using a Spring mechanism to give a vibrato or pitch bend effect. It's fairly standard on a lot of guitars and can't be regarded in any way as just a 'studio' item. Most Fender Stratocasters (one of the most commonplace guitars available) feature a tremolo arm, with probably its most famous historical exponent being Hank Marvin from The Shadows, as do many other makes and models of guitar such as the big fat semi-acoustic ones favoured by Brian Setzer of Stray Cats, a brilliant guitarist by the way. My own Stratocaster has a tremolo arm fitted and I've most definitely used it live on occasion. The Bigsby bridge and tremolo combination shown on the picture you posted is just a variety of tremolo arm, nothing more elaborate than that. Have a look at this link for a more complete description: Bigsby Vibrato Tailpiece coathanger, thanks for trying to help. I know what a Bigsby is and I know what it's used for. I said "studio guitar" meaning I saw a guitar so equipped in a photograph of a guitar in a room of Jeff's home studio (The Barn) that I've never seen him use on stage, either when I was present or in videos or photographs of a performance. Studio guitar = guitar Jeff uses in the studio and not on stage. Stage guitar = guitar Jeff uses onstage that he may have also used in the studio. Maybe he'll use a guitar onstage this summer he's only used before in the studio and it will become a stage guitar. I only mentioned seeing it in a photo of the studio to establish that Jeff is familiar with the effect and may have used it in the song. I know a Bigsby is not just a studio piece. I know some guitars come equipped with them and I know you can add them as an accessory. Obviously a guitarist can play a guitar equipped with a tremolo arm onstage if he or she desires. Next time I'll type an essay so there's no misunderstanding. I just didn't want people to have to wade through all that verbiage so I used shorthand. Too short, I see.
|
|
|
Post by tightrope on Mar 31, 2019 1:38:00 GMT
I recall many comments by people Jeff has worked with over the years talking about his guitar playing and overall musicianship. We all know the people he has worked with are among the best in the world. If you can't play or if you are average, you are not recording with or getting on stage with any of them. Unless you are driving force of the band by writing the songs. John Lennon wasn't a good instrument player either. Think Travelling Wilbury's.
|
|