Musical Archaeology on YouTube

As a teenager growing up learning the guitar and music in the 1970's and 1980's I couldn't have dreamed of the information resources that we now have at our fingertips. Hours spent dropping the needle (yes, that would be the record player's needle) on to the intro to Hendrix's Purple Haze led me eventually to a decent version of the intro. Of course 5 minutes of watching him play it would have made it all so much easier to understand and ultimately more educational. At that time however it wasn't likely that I would get to see video of him playing, let alone have the chance to rewind his performance the 10 times it would take to understand what he was doing...

Fast forward to today and not only can I find 8 live videos of Hendrix performing the song on the first page of a YouTube search, but also a host of Hendrix fans offering their own videos of how to play the song and its solo. The accuracy of the fans offerings aside, this is an amazing resourse, a community of people showing you the way they think its played. This is something that every student should be taking advantage of.

Of course the wealth of information to be found on YouTube isn't confined to rock, but every style of music you might be interested in. For instance, I just did a search for Klezmer (Secular Jewish Dance Music) on YouTube and found video performances and even a few lessons. File sharing allows people from all walks of life to share the things they love, it's like having an enormous group of friends from which you can borrow videos on an endless variety of subjects, indefinitely.

For the serious student of music, musical archaeology should be a part of your weekly practice schedule. Peeling back the layers of time and peering in at great players performing their music at the peak of their careers will teach you so much about music, about them and about your instrument. If you're studying blues slide guitar, watch blues players play, view their lessons and live videos. Make a study of it. How do they move, what chord shapes and tunings do they use and what scales. When you're working on learning a new song, just getting the notes right is great, but learning the types of fingerings the player used to perform those notes, what model instrument or amp they used to get their sound is all incredibly valuable information.

Of course you will often find that the camera cuts away just as the player peels off that 16th note run from hell that you can't figure out, or the video goes psychedelic as he or she plays the coolest chord in the world. It's not a perfect view into the past but it is incredibly educating at its worst and totally revealing at its best.

As a guitar player I have created a short list of important guitar figures I think you should dig up, some modern and some old. Some you might have heard of and many you probably have never heard of. I've tried to avoid the most obvious. My list does include some greats in different styles, but also musical freaks who do things no one else does and so are worth looking into. Some I just think are funny, either way it's better then watching videos of cats playing piano. Please ad to my list via the comments box, thanks. Enjoy!

In no particular order:

Pat Metheny

John Petrucci

Leo Kotke

Jeff Beck

John Scofield

Roy Buchanan

Buckethead

Allan Holdsworth

Manuel Barrueco

Kurt Rosenwinkle

Stanley Jordan

Yngwie Malmsteen

Eric Johnson

Michael Hedges

Eliot Fisk

Ry Cooder

Chet Atkins

Albert Collins

Andres Segovia

Danny Gatton

Steve Morris

Jr. Brown

Joe Pass

Bill Frisell

Andy McKee

Lenny Breau

Ani DiFranco

Micheal Angelo Batio