Do people like watching other people noodle on guitar?

[gnoll]

I came across a guitar related youtube video recently and it started with this guy playing... sloowly... I started fast-forwarding and to my amazement his intro noodling went on for 15 minutes!! Then he started talking and basically didn't say anything except like uhm but yeah and uhm this amp like uhm really good uhm uhm yeah. And the video was like an hour.

When I watch youtube videos I want to get some value out of it, mostly information but sometimes entertainment. But watching some dude endlessly noodle on a guitar certainly won't cut it. A little playing to demonstrate something is fine of course, but that stuff should be as clinical as possible in order for a good demonstration, and kept short.

That video made me think though. Do some people actually like watching other people just play guitar? Like if it's not even a proper song or anything? Just noodling? To me it's like watching paint dry... or worse...

 

[Pat]

Not particularly - if it's just clips of playing then I'll watch if they're a minute or two, that's about it.

 

[akinari]

Depends on who's doing the noodling, I guess. If we're talking about 90% of the guitarists that I've seen on YouTube doing it... I'm not really interested, no. But that other 10% is probably less than 1% of the total number of guys out there, so there's still hope.

 

[Zhysick]

I don't like that. Can't speak of others...

 

[Demiurge]

Same as listening to it: if it's concise, tasteful, and has a purpose then it's OK.

 

[Rosal76]

That video made me think though. Do some people actually like watching other people just play guitar? Like if it's not even a proper song or anything? Just noodling? To me it's like watching paint dry... or worse...

I don't go out of my way to watch guitar players noodle on Youtube but I do enjoy watching Pat O'Brien from Cannibal corpse. There's this one footage of him messing around and the music actually sounded like the beginning of, "To decompose" from their Evisceration plague album from 2009. If Pat noodles and the music is a rough format for what might be a riff for a new song and/or whatever, I enjoy watching it.

 

[jaxadam]

I like it

 

[Señor Voorhees]

I used to like watching a lot of the Andertons videos, as I thought they were half-way decent looks at the guitars and gear that they would talk about. I couldn't stand the 2 or 3 minute noodle-fests, however... Like, it was nice hearing them play a little bit to show how the gear sounded, but talking for 2 minutes, then noodling for 4, then talking for 2 more and noodling for another 3 just kinda bores and annoys me.

I don't mind if that's the point of the video, as I do love play through videos, but if it's like a gear review I prefer more talking and small bits of demonstration vs fully mixed full tracks and 4 minute wanking.

 

[KnightBrolaire]

I feel personally attacked, all of my videos are just me noodling. Granted in my case I usually write out my thoughts in a thread here, so the video is more just to give supplemental data.

But seriously, I hate videos where people talk for 8 minutes and then play for one *cough* fluff *cough. I don't want to listen to you regurgitate specs that I can easily read on my own. If you have to open your mouth then you better be giving me some insight I can't get otherwise.

 

[jephjacques]

no

 

[budda]

Nope.

And people don't usually like hearing it either.

 

[gunshow86de]

Only if it's Per Nilsson.

 

[Steinmetzify]

I’ll watch Ola do it; he’s usually messing around with settings so it’s cool to hear different shit, plus his accent cracks me up.

The shit that bugs me is when I go looking for something specific and find a vid, click it and it’s this fucking guy that feels the need to explain why he made the video for 6 straight minutes, his setup, what color his guitars are/why etc

STFU and play what I clicked to hear.

 

[Hollowway]

Nope. I have zero tolerance for anything that’s not rehearsed, organized, and edited. That goes for noodling, reviews, etc. If I could give one piece of advice to youtubers, in general, it would be, “Get to the fucking point.”

 

[Bearitone]

If by “noodle” you mean lead work then yeah. Fucking annoying.

But, if rhythm playing then by all means noodle away.

I feel like i get basically zero impression of the character of a high gain amp from a demo where the guy just wanks away solos.

I skip all of that in hopes to hear some chugging and riffage. It’s why Ola, Kieth, Alex Chichikailo, and Jamie Slays are some of my favorite people to watch demo gear.

 

[Crundles]

I'll gladly watch a person noodle for a while, IF they are a good player in a style I'm not too familiar with.

Stuff like fusion, gypsy jazz, flamenco - it's fascinating to me, since I don't really have the vocabulary to do it myself.

A rando 15-minute blues wank or scalar shred - nah thank you I'm fine as is.

 

[USMarine75]

Looks like I’m in the minority. Definitely an unpopular opinion around these parts but...

I literally watch Wildwood Guitar vids with Greg Koch - for the noodling. His Live from the Orange Room webcasts are mostly improv noodling. I’m literally inspired by his riffs, technique, phrasing, etc.

Same with Nick Johnston interviews. And a lot of his live playing is “noodling” as he’s not playing strictly the recorded take. He’s improvising in the same vein as the recorded take but he def goes off on musical tangents (watch the two Dunlop vids).

And I love the Andertons vids with Lee and Pete (no Chappers). Same with TPS. They’re usually an hour long of noodling, stories, inane nonsense, without a wee bit of gear demo. Love it.

Y’all can keep Ola. Here’s how I dial in this particular product so it sounds exactly like me (with or without a ton of post production). Here’s how this OD pedal in front of my dimed amp changes my sound 3% vs this other one that changes it 2.7%. In a mix 93.75% (+/- 1%) of his product demos would sound exactly the same. You couldn’t pick out which was the Archon with Sentients vs a Fortin with Juggs in a mix. Entertaining sure. If that’s your thing. Cool. For me? Hard pass.

For those of you that only want to hear/see final products - you’re some weird musicians. Apparently YMDV

 

[tacotiklah]

Most of the time, I don't enjoy it. If I wanted to hear some dummy wank on a guitar for an hour, I just record myself for my own personal listening.

There are some people that do the noodling thing in interesting ways that I'll enjoy. Davie504 is a bassist youtuber that makes hilarious shitposting content that also is centered around really tasty bass wankery. But he doesn't over-do it or go on forever. He keeps it interesting, and breaks up the sick bass soloing with funny memes and jokes and all that. I wish more people would be like that with the youtube guitar hero crowd.

 

[Lorcan Ward]

Nope. I have zero tolerance for anything that’s not rehearsed, organized, and edited. That goes for noodling, reviews, etc. If I could give one piece of advice to youtubers, in general, it would be, “Get to the fucking point.”

This stands for all YouTube. If I watch a film or game review it needs to be from a script with tight concise structure.

I don’t really watch YouTube anymore because of the emphasis on longer videos with multiple ads. It just results in rambling and unnecessarily dragging the video out to reach x amount of minutes. The increasing trend of guitar YouTuber moving to cringey content and emulating pewdiepie doesn’t appeal to me either.

Noodling? I’d only really watch Stephen Taranto, Rick Graham or Brandon Ellis do their semi rehearsed improv videos but not for more than a few minutes. I used to love watching rusty Cooley or Paul Gilbert noodling videos when I was younger. I couldn’t watch any live stream noodling.

 

[KailM]

I generally don't click on any videos that are more than 7 minutes long because I'm supposed to be working on my grad school projects and it makes me feel better if I'm only distracted by shorter videos. So, no, I don't like watching noodling.