What Do You Say To A Question Like This " Are You Good At Guitar ? " Options

[Eat-Sleep-andJam]

I was talking to someone that never knew that I played guitar yesterday and he asked "Are you good at guitar ? "



I thought about it and I didnt know quite what to say?
What defines good on the guitar. Or for that matter great or even Excellent!
This might be a hard question to answer but if anyone has any general ideas feel free to share.

- John

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[radarlove1984]

There's no right answer. It just depends on who's listening.

People will subjectively compare other guitarists to their favorites, then judge accordingly.

I've heard names like Steve Vai and Dimebag Darrell mentioned already. Personally, I don't think either one of them is very good. Their technique is amazing, but their music is terrible.

It's subjective. I'm right and you're wrong and that's the way it's going to be. And it's like that for everyone. You can't talk someone into liking another style of music by explaining that it's harder to play than the style they already listen to.

As far as I'm concerned, guitarists can only be objectively compared by their metronome BPM, but that isn't music and it doesn't prove one player is better than another. It just shows who has a better technique.

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[Ric]

As far as I'm concerned, guitarists can only be objectively compared by their metronome BPM, but that isn't music and it doesn't prove one player is better than another. It just shows who has a better technique.

I sort of see what you're saying - comparing players by metronome speeds just tells you who's fastest - not who's best.

What makes someone "best"? As people have already discussed, that's an unanswerable question - but I genuinely believe it has nothing to do with speed, and lots to do with technique and, more importantly, musical inspiration.

It's a bit like when I'm riding my 'bike - speed in the right place is awesome (ZX6R A1P if anyone's interested ), but used inappropriately it's plain stupid. What gets best results, however, is to have the skills and techniques and to apply them in all the right places.

I think the right answer to the original question is a confident "I'm okay". This suggests that you're confident in your own ability - but you know and acknowledge that there are far better players than you.

After all, if you were asked, are you a good bike rider, how many people on the planet could possibly answer "I'm brilliant"? Rossi, Doohan and others at the same level.

But the rest? Pedrosa, Edwards, Hayden and all the others - utterly brilliant as they are - would still have to concede that they could do better.

Are you really one of the top ten best players on the planet? Probably not*. In which case, humility and humbleness is by far the best way to go - and if it's a girl who's asking, then you're going to score far more points by being understated and quietly confident than by being egotistical and arrogant


* I say this as probably one of the world's top ten worst players at the moment... but I'm working on it!

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