Do people like watching other people noodle on guitar?

[tedtan]

Generally speaking, I agree with the "keep it short and to the point" crowd, but I can listen to noodling by the few people who are capable of pulling it off in a musically interesting manner (the aforementioned Greg Koch being one of them). But players of this caliber are few and far between.

 

[DrakkarTyrannis]

Honestly? No. The only reason I'm even watching people play is for gear reviews. I even skip through Ola's vids when he's doing the riff of the week and stuff like that. I don't want to watch someone play unless it's about the gear

 

[chipchappy]

yeah i'm not a fan.

I mean shit, i don't even like hearing myself noodling 99% of the time. It all just sucks

 

[Protestheriphery]

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...

For far too many years I would go check out gear demos, and pay too much attention to what they were playing, because I was of the mindset that they were providing a proper example of what a piece of gear was for. Nowadays, if somebody just starts shredding on a demo, I'll quickly exit out, because its irrelevant to what I want to find out about said piece of gear.

 

[Protestheriphery]

Honestly? No. The only reason I'm even watching people play is for gear reviews. I even skip through Ola's vids when he's doing the riff of the week and stuff like that. I don't want to watch someone play unless it's about the gear

Same. I skip all the playing and watch only for the jokes.

 

[Protestheriphery]

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

Thats why I stopped watching Fluff and most gear demos in general. Everything sounds massive and super polished, regardless if its an amp, pedal, or vst. Theres a lot of studio magic behind the curtain that they're not disclosing. The same piece of gear wouldnt be remotely close if I tried it at home. Makes sense when you factor in how they're in bed with the companies of said products.

 

[Leviathus]

Guitarists that i'm into: yes
Silly gooses on youtube: not particularly

 

[rikwebb]

There was a Devy workshop on youtube where he was playing clean, finger picked stuff etc whilst talking and answering questions that could count as noodling around but it fit really well i thought

 

[TheBloodstained]

There was a Devy workshop on youtube where he was playing clean, finger picked stuff etc whilst talking and answering questions that could count as noodling around but it fit really well i thought

He seems to be doing that a lot, which I think is pretty cool
He's a mellow guy IRL and the mellow/subtle background ambience he plays just fits so well with the casual and relaxed approach he has to the clinics/workshops

Ontopic:
Rabea Massaad can noodle in my ears all day long if he wants to! I absolutely adore his playing. Interesting note choices, tasteful licks and solos and really heavy riffs here and there.
I have a soft spot for Ola too because of his goofy persona. I really enjoy his short riff challenges
I guess Per Nilsson and Mattias Ekhlund deserves a mention too.

Well... and then there is one of the guitarists from my band. He's just the kind of guy that can write an epic riff any time, anywhere. It's equal parts annoying and amazing, really!

 

[rikwebb]

He seems to be doing that a lot, which I think is pretty cool
He's a mellow guy IRL and the mellow/subtle background ambience he plays just fits so well with the casual and relaxed approach he has to the clinics/workshops

Yeah i agree, kinda helps it move along too, some of them can drag I've noticed but the Devy ones like that i don't feel they drag

 

[I play music]

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.

It's because they can't play

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.

this. Someone with impressive playing I'll watch any day. And skip the talking.

 

[Metropolis]

Why not, not every guitar/music related video has to be just about gear itself, or theory & technique. Depends on who's doing it, if it's some boomer trying to sound like Bonamassa or Clapton I close the video immediately. Same goes with every other djent kid out there.

 

[Señor Voorhees]

I mean, I DO like watching people noodle, but not during reviews. Arnoldplaysguitar is a great/terrible example. He opens his reviews with a big long song which I can typically not care less about, but then goes on to do a great review of the products. I'll sometimes go back to listen to the song, but I typically just like hearing the review. The benefit with him is that it's structured well. If you don't wanna watch the playing, you can just skip it. You don't have 2 or 3 noodlefests sprinkled in the middle of information.

 

[Fenriswolf]

Thats why I stopped watching Fluff and most gear demos in general. Everything sounds massive and super polished, regardless if its an amp, pedal, or vst. Theres a lot of studio magic behind the curtain that they're not disclosing. The same piece of gear wouldnt be remotely close if I tried it at home. Makes sense when you factor in how they're in bed with the companies of said products.

That's why I've gone back to my gear standards when I first started playing. I've wound up with more guitars that I like that I bought because they look cool than meet my super specific list of specs. One of my favorite sounding guitars I don't even know what kind of wood it's made out of. I sound enough like me through whatever, if I want to record something, I can youtube how to make it sound like everyone else.

 

[Science_Penguin]

Kind of?

 

[Flappydoodle]

Usually not, but there are a few guitarists where it would make sense.

The Jari video above, I quit after 1 minute. He can play fast melodic "metal" scales and arpeggios. Skipped each in the video. Same thing. Quit. Same for someone like Ola. Maybe I want to hear how something sounds, but he will just play the same thing for 8 minutes, with occasional bits of talking which is usually uninformative.

But someone like Greg Koch (mentioned earlier in this thread), his "noodling" just leaves you speechless and he rarely repeats himself. Or Devin, where his noodling would be creatively using loads of effects and layers to actually build something cool. I could watch those.

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.”

Unfortunately, YouTube is pushing people directly away from creating this sort of content.

The metric now is for the amount of time watched, not just the number of clicks. And there are certain thresholds to hit. It's why you see so many videos that are 10:03 long.

YouTube wants YouTube *channels* to be just that - like a TV channel with a schedule of content (FAQ Monday, Gear test Friday etc) and a standardised format. That's why channels have intro splash screens, outro credits, waffle at the beginning and end - all to use up time but also to make their content more branded and "episodic." Most creators are even calling their uploads "episodes" now. Creators are also rewarded for the frequency of their uploads and YouTube encourages you to schedule releases.

If you think about it, as a guitar channel, how the fuck are you going to fill 3 episodes a week - 156 episodes per year - with anything useful? There's no way you can test/demo that many products in a year. Someone like Arnold is trying to put out high quality reviews, but his uploads are very sporadic, so that's one reason his account doesn't take off. Someone like Lasse has an awesome channel for gear nerds, but it's not successful at all.

That's also why there's such a lot of low effort content now - FAQs, personal drama ("I can't believe this happened"). It's much quicker to produce and it allows you to upload very regularly.

 

[Hollowway]

Usually not, but there are a few guitarists where it would make sense.

The Jari video above, I quit after 1 minute. He can play fast melodic "metal" scales and arpeggios. Skipped each in the video. Same thing. Quit. Same for someone like Ola. Maybe I want to hear how something sounds, but he will just play the same thing for 8 minutes, with occasional bits of talking which is usually uninformative.

But someone like Greg Koch (mentioned earlier in this thread), his "noodling" just leaves you speechless and he rarely repeats himself. Or Devin, where his noodling would be creatively using loads of effects and layers to actually build something cool. I could watch those.



Unfortunately, YouTube is pushing people directly away from creating this sort of content.

The metric now is for the amount of time watched, not just the number of clicks. And there are certain thresholds to hit. It's why you see so many videos that are 10:03 long.

YouTube wants YouTube *channels* to be just that - like a TV channel with a schedule of content (FAQ Monday, Gear test Friday etc) and a standardised format. That's why channels have intro splash screens, outro credits, waffle at the beginning and end - all to use up time but also to make their content more branded and "episodic." Most creators are even calling their uploads "episodes" now. Creators are also rewarded for the frequency of their uploads and YouTube encourages you to schedule releases.

If you think about it, as a guitar channel, how the fuck are you going to fill 3 episodes a week - 156 episodes per year - with anything useful? There's no way you can test/demo that many products in a year. Someone like Arnold is trying to put out high quality reviews, but his uploads are very sporadic, so that's one reason his account doesn't take off. Someone like Lasse has an awesome channel for gear nerds, but it's not successful at all.

That's also why there's such a lot of low effort content now - FAQs, personal drama ("I can't believe this happened"). It's much quicker to produce and it allows you to upload very regularly.

Man, that’s depressing. This reminds me of what the Spotify CEO said when he said artists can’t expect to put out content every 3 years and be successful. They’re all pushing for more low end content rather than banking on really good high end content.
What’s interesting to me is that TV and movies used to be this way, and then moved to better, but fewer productions. I mean, there are way more shows, but way more creators. Eventually this lowest common denominator crap will blow up as another medium comes along with killer content.

 

[mikernaut]

Sadly alot of that mentality is in probably most of entertainment businesses these days, just trying to get a quick buck off of minimal effort. I experienced this 1st hand when I went from previous triple A videogame studios to then work at Telltale Games. For the most part the deadlines were maybe half of what I was used to from previous studios and the mentality was more about quantity and just get it done as fast as possible with minimal effort which as a artist is disgusting to me. Look how that ended up, they went out of Business and screwed over hundreds of their employees from collecting their severance pay on no notice,

 

[gnoll]

Things just don't matter these days, do they?

With all these low-effort products and all this low-effort content around, how are we supposed to even have the resources to consume it all?

I guess I'll just spend my free time watching FAQ videos all day, ideally the ones with as long intros as possible. Oh yes please tell me what you think about Megadeth. While you're at it, why not let me know what you had for breakfast? Make it last, though! I want to savor this moment.

Mmm.....

 

[Flappydoodle]

Man, that’s depressing. This reminds me of what the Spotify CEO said when he said artists can’t expect to put out content every 3 years and be successful. They’re all pushing for more low end content rather than banking on really good high end content.
What’s interesting to me is that TV and movies used to be this way, and then moved to better, but fewer productions. I mean, there are way more shows, but way more creators. Eventually this lowest common denominator crap will blow up as another medium comes along with killer content.

I hope something better will come along too. But the fundamental problem is that we are all conditioned to believe that this stuff should be free. I've gone through that transition. I used to save my pocket money to buy cassettes of Pantera, Metallica. Then it was CDs and I always had my Discman in my ears and I ended up with a library of hundreds of CDs. Then Kazaa, Limewire, Napster etc and MP3 players happened. I didn't pay for music for years. Then Spotify happened, and I've been a subscriber since 2007. Since 2007 I have bought less than 5 CDs.

For people are younger than me, they have likely NEVER paid for music. Asking them to pay for it now just seems crazy.

If you look at Youtube now, no matter what you are into, there are unlimited hours worth of entertainment, and I bet 99.9% of viewers wouldn't be willing to hand over a single penny to the creator. I probably wouldn't either, to be honest, because there is so much other content that very little of it is actually valuable.

There are some channels out there who do well by putting out super high quality (like TV documentary-level stuff) every month - Mark Rober, Smarter Every Day etc. Their stuff costs a lot of money and time to make, but it can't apply to most genres (could never apply to music).

Patreon and YouTube membership has tried to bridge that gap by encouraging people support creators in exchange for perks. It's still quite immature as a platform though, and Patreon is busy destroying themselves by getting political now. At the end of the day, it's very hard to grow your channel without lots of free content, which is what attracts the audience in the first place. So it's a bit like being a drug dealer, where the lower level guys take all the risk but basically get no reward, other than the hope of moving up the ladder and becoming a kingpin eventually.