Why You Need To Learn Both Acoustic & Electric Guitar

hey everybody I'm Rigby Otto Rhett so wait a minute do we even turn it on yeah I'm recording right now okay hey everybody everybody I'm Rigby Otto it's no water Otto today we're talking about acoustic electric or both now the reason that we are talking about this particular topic is because I did a video a month ago or so that is actually my biggest video ever and it's called the top 20 acoustic guitar interest of all time and people that I knew said to me wow I didn't know you knew how to play acoustic guitar this isn't what I said what are you talking about I can't believe you knew all the sun's when did you learn him do you learn him for the video I said no I learned him 40 years ago and and I it just didn't register with me that people don't play the people kind of has specialized you know people used to pitch complete games in the 70s you know you'd have four players the Orioles at four 20-game winners but now it's it's all it's everything else specialized now but if you think historically of records the Beatles the Led Zeppelin the stones everybody played acoustic and electric I'm multiple songs many times I'm you know even through the seven Boston had yeah peace of mind the first chorus comes in with acoustic guitar by the end there they do the distorted electric jars Zeppelin did virtually all the coup stick records like like like the third record head yeah you know Tom's yeah tons and they would mix those two things and but when did that actually stop what about the 80s Dave let's go because red is 1990 doesn't allow well I guess my take on it would be that all the synth stuff came in real heavy yeah so your you had a lot of symptoms froze and and keyboard intros in lieu of guitar intro stuff right but I mean you turbos did use I mean I was because I saw people on a debtor live was suggested a lot yeah that's that's one song I can think of but I don't know it's it is kind of interesting because it's it's it's I think it is that decade that really that started because the 70s was much more of a crossover you actually hear country you here folk on top 40 and then in the 80s it became so you know because specialized yeah that you've all of that kind of went out the window you wouldn't hear James Taylor on top 40 radio next to Duran Duran or whatever was on at the time so I think it's much more of a yeah like a decade time thing like where this 70 60 70s it was really heavy because of the folk influence yeah and then that kind of went out and then it came back in with the songwriters later on and like the mm so located back and grunge everybody hey yet when I mentioned grinding grunge I have to stick up there grunge they had a coup stick yeah you know Nirvana nevermind had the song poly that was actually on a classical guitar and Pearl Jam used to gusta guitar all the time Soundgarden Chris Cornell really used it more more like a 70s incident Alison Jane's you know and Stone Temple Pilots right but and but then think about the top forty even during in the 90s you had a few bands maybe like Goo Goo Dolls and stuff that would use acoustics but mostly it was all start to become sampled stuff the beginning of the digital age man yeah well wanted to play with all these new sense and explore like what the possibilities were using computers for instruments and so it kind of I think that pendulum started to swing away from you know the traditional acoustic folk II but so if I think of someone like John Mayer now do you think of John Mayer as an acoustic artist no he's he's much more like a blend yeah like yeah yeah he crossed over both yes but but somebody like Dave Matthews was a primarily an acoustic boy yeah but I think if you think of Mayors earliest hits they were I think mostly on acoustic yeah they weren't daughter's yeah why Georgia yeah that whole first record is nothing but basically what he did here Atlanta yeah yes then that was like that you know late 90s early 2000s singer-songwriter acoustic driven yeah I would say it actually started in the mid nineties if you think of all the Lilith Fair type bands there are a lot of acoustic Jule and all those yeah Sarah McLaughlin had a lot of acoustic guitar songs so I mean it was still prevalent but it was much more of Chandra yeah it wasn't you didn't it was much more pigeon-holed where like when it first started 60s and 70s it was much more which is an acoustic guitar no track yeah isn't necessarily oh it's this type music it's you know none of the new metal bands really used acoustic guitar but but bands like very few yeah I mean I'm trying to think of any any acoustic Avenged Sevenfold have they had a big acoustic song yeah yeah I remember when I was teaching guitar lessons one of my students that was like the first thing they wanted to learn it was actually really great it's like a drop D thing and somebody let me know in the comments what it is because I can't remember but oh they well you you you would find occasional acoustic songs that you I'm thinking of late 90s bands like tonic for example that actually use you know stick and electric guitars it's I'm actually good guitar riff really good guitar riffs yeah yeah but but a lot of the bands I mean they really didn't I mean you know you're it's there was a pole time period there where you really it's really hard to think of the of any band it was really heavy but not like not like Zeppelin used to use net are weird they have no it softer song have acoustic in right yeah I mean yeah I mean even the only stuff that kind of come out like some of the Chris Cornell's solo stuff or like Chevelle and stuff there's a whole bunch of bands that you're really in they yeah just yeah it kind of looks like okay you know we're not doing that and I'm not sure why because you can do having music on acoustic you can but it's do you think a lot of players today that are starting out are starting out primarily on electric and avoiding acoustic is when I started playing but honestly the first probably four years that I played guitar were primarily on acoustic and learning acoustic German song and I think that had a huge has a huge effect on how I play today because I started out learning rhythm and how to play along with a song and learning how to play a song from top to bottom yeah rather than just learning licks and solos and stuff and I think that's informed how I played today and it's actually I think prepared me to make a living as a guitar player because when you're actually playing in bands and gigging 95% of the time you're playing rhythm yeah I'm playing along and I feel like because of things like Instagram today you know it's a lot of people just sitting alone in a room in front of their phone and just like trying to cut apples heads off like me like but I wonder if that's having an effect on people that are starting today you know I think it's I think it's still similar I think a lot of people still start on acoustic because um I mean I did it I'm never the first song I learned was My Sweet Lord by George Harrison and that was like 12 string acoustic and so I think I don't know there's I think something about the acoustic that it's you don't have to plug anything in you can play it anywhere yeah that's always enticing and you know there is that thing about well if you can get good on acoustic you can definitely transcribe over electrical well I think that that that was a I think that was a thing that people thought back then but I don't know if the desks I don't know I think today that but yeah I definitely when I started that's the thing oh you can be good on acoustic you can Jennifer I started my first guitar was a 12 string so I it was a 12 string yeah why not man yeah right I got Double Down let's go for yes I think there is something to that as well like yeah Harding on an acoustic building that dexterity in that finger string building your calluses up on a heavier gauge string you know I I personally as a teacher when I was teaching kids I would always start at want them to start on acoustic and I would start with strumming patterns yeah yeah because they are the basis yeah for they're not only basis for rhythm but a lot of people write songs based on strumming patterns and yeah it's a lot easier to play in sing when you're doing a strong patter that's based just off an eighth note going up and down yeah and I found that that was some of the hardest stuff to teach people yes to do well I guess the down down-up knows I had the hardest thing was always the rhythm yes because they could they could typically get the left hand going if they were you know playing that way but yeah it was always a strumming that would screw them up and that was always the most important thing because you know usually took weeks you know and get a basic story I never found a good way of explaining a strumming pattern other than like okay down down up up down down down down down and I'd like try and like write it out and draw arrows and it's just never work I would always grab the the students hand and go like this down up down up yeah up down up and you skip over the strings on this one down stroke you don't yeah yeah but it's so esoteric that yeah yeah you skip over as a producer I always found with drummers I'd say what what are you playing on the drums there what is it pattern you listen to the guitar pattern the dude is givin you your kick drum pattern your snare patterns right in the strumming pattern well dude how many's a hearing well I've been what I still goes like what I used to do sessions and guys had bad right hand technique we would put tape over the string so they wouldn't hit the wrong string oh yeah I did that plenty yeah and I mean and you tell people they like no you didn't know for power and people would play power chords and you'd have to tape the G B and E string so they will my god yes so they could just sit there and do this and not because they couldn't be yeah it's unbelievable all right this week everyone I need you all to practice your muting yeah right hand strumming technique I mean isolation muting is the most uh thought about yeah underrated yeah thing that is absolutely essential to have as a guitar especially on acoustic yeah anything but especially bass yes oh my god how would people come in and play they'd be playing on the a string in the e strings ringing and I'd say don't you hear that like nuts so sometimes ken my old assistant would go over and he'd sit next to them and he press with his thumb on the low E string because we couldn't have aware of their technique he would mute it for the people and I sit there in the chair is this recording going oh my god you gotta be kidding me well and I won't name names but yeah I've seen some big-name people with that probably had we tied a sock around a guy's face because he kept hidden right and we're like you gotta mute that I need like I can't play it I can't do it and it literally got down to we need to get another bass player in here to do it and he finally was like what can we do and he wouldn't let us use tape because he's a vintage prized bass didn't want to get tape on so we took a sock literally took a sock and tied it off at the first fret so he could play it and it was it worked yeah I mean look the best way to figure this stuff out is pull out your phone and record yourself playing something by yourself the the voice memo the recording whatever it is does not lie recorder does not lie because when you're when you're playing you're not actually hearing what you're playing you you hear what you think you're playing but then when I always do this when I'm practicing or trying to learn something it's always way better what you're thinking yeah then when you listen back you're like oh my god but it's great because it will tell you exactly what you need yeah tighten up on yes right bidding a note a tune or yeah muting something or your right hands all over the place it's yeah I'll just tell you a story here so Rhett and I went to see Larry Carlton play a couple weeks ago Larry's 71 years old he hadn't played in two weeks and he never hits a bad note ever and there are guys like that that will go for years and never hit a bad note he will jump up to a high fret and it's never a fret too low it's always at the right fret no matter what he's playing there's never rushed note there's never a drag note but it's but as incredible feel and these these techniques that you learn at the beginning that you drill that he had all these fundamentals he mastered as a young kid yeah and and is never it doesn't matter how long he goes without playing it just doesn't go away that's why this stuff for those of you that are teaching kids or those of you that are young that are below you know 25 years old or so and still developing your technique these are things that you want to focus on you want to focus on on getting the that I don't say perfection but as close as you can get to perfection where you don't have strings ringing where you don't miss it notes by a fret we're if you get used to playing things perfectly one of the things with Larry is he was doing studio sessions and if you play badly on one session you got a rep for that and then you wouldn't get any more gigs so yeah the only guys that were playing back in the 70s and the 80s were guys that never made mistakes like Lukather yes right right I hope it's a the other thing too with with people learning or starting out or young and their playing career play with a drummer yeah just don't play by yourself and play with records play with a drummer go find the best drummer you can find and don't play with a drummer that plays with a metronome no the worst no no no learn to groove with a drummer in his groove or get him to play to you that was huge for me as a young player because you go you can play with records you can do a you know play you know by yourself but the problem is with that is you enforce your bad habits and you don't even know it you know so if you get with a drummer that can play and it has a good groove it really opens up a lot I mean you know yeah if you don't have access to a good drummer though I really like practicing instead of just sitting with a metronome a lot of times I will just download a drum loop yeah like a really good your drumming drop you download one that's played by human being right yeah right something that repeats just like a two bar loop or whatever that you can sit and practice playing rhythm to playing lead to that is huge and while we're talking about technique one thing that always drives me crazy is vibrato people that haven't worked on or haven't developed a good vibrato that is like the most that's one of the greatest things about guitar is the fact that we can vibrato like a human voice yeah and and add that element of expression yeah that so many pianists can't do that drummers can't do that so yeah that's one of those things that you have to develop I think early on and the best way I can think of it is to try and mimic a singer go go listen to a great singer that's got a great foot broto and learn the vocal line whatever they're doing and try and mimic that on yes string it and you should be able to vary vibrato different speeds different widths that's that's a big thing yeah I would find a lot of players when I first started producing the players that grew up in the 80s that would have really wide vibrato as opposed to some me that listened to Albert King there's people that had narrow vibrato Stephen Prados BB King that would you know like you always add well your time is great Dave and you have great vibrato that's that's a thing that I noticed I mean the first time I met you and heard you play that's why you're sitting here still well and and that's why I'm friends with Dave cuz I heard him playing the music stars like oh this guy's amazing well what's funny we're talking about vibrato that's really as a kid what I honed in on for some reason the vibrato was like the biggest thing for me so like a lot of early employers like Leslie West Mountain Kendricks our King Frampton all these kind of guys that were more melodic players I wasn't a fast player so I really honed in on okay well like you said the vocal lines of things trying to mimic a human voice yeah or a horn or something like that so yeah vibrato what I love about vibrato is it's very signature of the person yeah yes everybody has a different vibrato even if you mimic other people you are inherently gonna have your own Arbroath yeah and it always comes through so I always love players that I know their vibrato very well you know Steve Luger there's one I can hear him like yeah that's you know Brian May yeah there's a lot of tons of players like that and that's to me the kind of unique little piece that you know yeah you can cop all the notes and stuff but you have robot rock like I hear you play here you go I know you guys justify your bribe totally vibrato IDs well because that's what I hone in on because I'm used to doing that but same with more players sounds you know singers and stuff so but I definitely think like you said though yeah the technique you get your rhythm tight because that's that's every it's very very important because ultimately when you go to play with other musicians the greatest thing about the greatest bands is all of their grooves just walk you know I noticed when I started producing in the early 2000s I started to have drummers come in that played with a click and every single they played with a click in practice they played a clicking with a click in pre-production and they needed to play with a click they had they couldn't I said why do you play with a click yeah you should be able to just feel this stuff and that just became a thing where every drummer was obsessed with that and I think that that led to playing with tracks well in a grid pattern yeah yeah exactly and and and then I thought you then you start to find it's a generalization but I would start to find that a lot of people had really bad internal time and pulse not necessarily not rhythm but they just couldn't even they couldn't play evenly spaced quarter notes right and were there where they didn't have the swagger to to move to the moon to move it to lay back right or whatever it was either dead on and that's off because everything else is moving or they were just often they could never find it so yeah I know what you say I know a lot of sessions like that and it it was kind of sad because I'm I saw great drummers that had to play to a click and yeah that used to bother my mind too because I'm like well I can't you just you know feeling you know and and but that was the normative day so I guess whatever but you know my favorite drummers that I've ever played with are guys that live exclusively do not play with click tracks or anything and they are players that have such a great feel for the song and they know the song not just the groove not just their fills or what the bass player is doing but they know the song and they know how to push and pull time right like ok we need to pick up we're gonna add some more energy in the chorus and so it's pushing a little bit or they're listening to the vocalist and and either bringing the vocalist forward or pulling it back a little bit like those are my favorite and the best drummers I've played with for an I was just on tour last week with Ross McReynolds and he's a perfect example of that you know and he can play to a click if need be but live he never does and it also prevents the thing that happens when drummers have like a metronome app or like a laptop or something where you end a song and the crowds cheering and it's like this come on man like more than one everybody ready okay - so it's like dude just keep it going especially on like a rock show just right just in the song into the next one or god forbid you should fade into another song from the other one and then the whole clique is still going on right I've had that where the guy had to be Eddie Eddie turtle turn it off for another song cuz he couldn't or I've been in a you know session or on shows where we're playing off of an Ableton session they're running tracks in the computer fails oh yeah and oh man yeah that's like okay I think bring out the cases one now where we're kind of testing gigs over who could really play because if the click goes away the jacks go away then it's like okay keep it going - now who's really listening that's that's the thing it's like who's really listening to the other people on stage versus just okay the tracks are behind me and I'm just gonna listen to my apart and do my thing you know yeah when that computer blows up it's separates the so there's there's a couple different types of time that I want to talk about as well getting back to the acoustic thing is that playing with a pick and strumming versus playing fingerstyle playing fingerstyle is harder to play and groove because each finger has to have its own coordination and work together as a unit and when I listen to somebody like Paul Simon or when I was doing that video on these acoustic guitar intros and and some of the songs I was considering like the boxer or I mean a lot of Paul Simon's great hand parts are very intricate and you really can yeah he was great or Jim Croce or Gordon Lightfoot yeah a lot of those those are things that that I grew up playing and that fingerstyle playing is really important I think Denton - oh definitely it's it's very much keyboard yes something's very similar so it's and a lot of those guys you could tell that they grew up on keyboard instrumentation or they grew early classical - classical guitar right yeah so that's another thing I grew up I played classical guitar that was kind of a natural extension and there are people you know you there guitar players like Leo Kottke that we're playing a lot of music was acoustic yeah that I learned back in the 70s it was just you know yeah people finger picks some people finger picked with their fingers so maybe a finger picked with finger picks and you had to do both yeah like the old blues I mean Robert Johnson yeah the country blues style yeah light as Hopkins and all that stuff that is some of the most intense rhythmic you know because you're playing the bass line the rhythm and sometimes the melody yes simultaneously yeah and keeping it in timing in the pocket yeah and and probably for a lot of those guys was because they didn't have a band yes no right or Chet yeah is this gonna say chef was a great example of that I mean you talk about playing three parts at once and he did it and it was just a miracle to watch it because it was incredible you know and and sadly that that kind of went out of favor for a while or wasn't as popular but it came back but it was you know from like in the 50s man Chet was he was the man I mean you know it was like he was that's why you have the Chet Atkins scratch yeah I mean he had all right models because he liked Les Paul a lot of those guys that were just in that realm you know they were world Travis was another guy that did that a lot a lot of the country guys were you know even James Burton like the guy played with Elvis on his early stuff all that chicken pickin stuff he was doing all that Ricky Nelson records and stuff it it it was just a different technique and I think it did stem from classical guitar and piano playing so there's also flatpicking and playing picking patterns where you're skipping strings that was a big thing and something that everybody seemed to be able to do back when I was growing up as well yeah I'm trying to say that everything was better in the old days okay no but picking YouTube in the old days so but I remember fun good at event taking you know a Zeppelin record and listening to and going oh my okay what are you had no direction you had nobody's showing you what do you have to sit there pick it apart so you were like when you've realized okay he's not flat picking right it's part he's doing this okay what am i you know how do I do that you know and I mean that was a big part of is figuring out the figure thinking patterns yes I said yeah I remembered using your ear well how could he play what's his thumb doing yeah and and you realize cuz when I as a kid I thought okay maybe there's two guitars playing then you realize that it's not you realize oh he's doing this and more you're less than the Gordon Lightfoot are Jim Croce that actually has two guitar players finger picking yes yes but thanks but then you really can't figure yes but like you know Paige you know you'd listen to that stuff our I did his kid and it would be like dumb fat oh okay what is he doing cuz it wasn't like and I'm not slagging the Beatles but it wasn't like playing for court Beatle so he was much more intricate in some of the Zeppelin stuff as far as the intros and all of course then I realized he had open tunings and that was another yeah revelation but you know another thing speaking of the beatles though when I was doing my keyboard video the other day was less singing about sounds like lady Madonna Paul McCartney was a hell of a keyboard player still is I mean he if you think about the alternating octaves and then a lot of his piano parts I mean he took piano lessons and people used to do that and they had skills yeah it was very common John Lennon played keyboards you have played piano and and keyboards yeah everybody could play the piano and the Beatles pretty much you know everybody could play the play keyboards and a lot of these bands not only that most of the guys in bands could sing as well yes which totally helped yeah I mean by model I always tell people to yeah even if you're if you know you're not a good singer way sing anyways because it helps with everything you don't you have to be the Eagles and and and I always tell people it's like the some of the greatest singers ever were not sinners they they would even admit them Sami well we I know we've talked about this to the the people that would never make it as singers I mean if you say is Neil Young a great singer and he has total d-bags great melody and he has great character I mean it would you say that he's he's a technically a great singer no no if you are a reactive about that of an art or Bob Dylan know these are some of the greatest song songwriters and singers of all time Hendricks Hendricks generous was not a great singer if you were to say oh listen to you know Pavarotti or right but and there's you know there's a lot of those singer I mean Joe Walsh is one I remember he always said I can't stay on the voice he said I don't know why I'm singing the Eagles when I'm singing next to these other guys they made me sound good you know but but same because it does it helps across the board everything helps your melodic sense your timing your phrasing especially I can always tell guys that have really good phrasing are typically sinners yes okay I'll help you get a gig yes yeah I can sing and play this is true I almost I can count on one hand the amount of bands I produced over 20 years that there were more than one person that could sing in the band usually there were no people that could sing in the band yeah yeah but but if a band that had two singers that I mean to legitimate sing that was listed was rare and then you think you go back and you think of Kansas or you think of journey or you think of of the Eagles or there were everybody was saying and everybody was a great singer you know yeah well I really winded well yeah for the Beatles yes right right right or or even the stones I mean Heath what amis is a great singer I loved ya boys and in those are the guys that you know typically they're like well I'm not a front guy so I'm just a side guy you know I'll sit in the back you know but I agree I mean those are typically I love the singers that typically don't think of their guitar yeah I always the song happy the stunts like happy is one of my favorite songs of all time yeah and Keith sings the verses on for those of you that don't know it it's on Exile on mainstream you should check it out it's it's a great song and Keith this singing and then Mick comes into the chorus and then you realize and you're thinking man he's a great singer and then Mick comes in then you're like oh wow then you realize that Mick is really great so well it obviously Richard realized that early on but when he comes in I got yeah oh yeah yeah when they had those harmonies David it was great so yeah that's you know that there there is a benefit of Eddie Van Halen could sing he wasn't Michael Anthony but he made those two parts in the background that gave van Halen there was a lot of good staff around stuff on Van Halen powders that I mean to me that was really yeah massive part of their sound the early records are never art yeah definitely yeah and you can tell the brothers when they sang together because they had that heart instant harmony you know kind of thing between them so yeah they're again know everybody in that band saying okay so what is the takeaway from this well everyone's got homework this week yeah so practice your strumming patterns for Court yourself singing pattern making patterns least learn at least two yep and sing your major scales up and down and then major arpeggios to the next video I think one other thing too is with the acoustic thing I think just to be a varied around a good round musician you should play as many instruments as you can there cuz yeah a girl I trick or whatever and I used to laugh because my dad used to tell me is like whoa always have an acoustic guitar because when the lights go out you can still have a party because you can still play and people will gather around the fire and you still have music and you don't can't plug it you know like well your amps in here this is useless and lights go on so it's like he's yeah you're gonna grab that acoustic Oh to that for you fellow guitarists out there if you really want to step your rhythm game up and you're playing overall up learn bass yeah and learn how to play bass with the intention of not sounding like a guitar player on the bass because we all know what that sounds like when somebody who plays guitar guitar player playing bass like right they can things they can oh it's just it's a guitar two less strings on it's easy ya know learn bass and learn picking learn finger style the whole thing and there again you'll all he has you'll always have a gig yeah oh yeah yeah I have you can play guitar sing and play bass forget it I mean I just had rap Blake bass we just did a video two days ago the rep played bass on and and people were marketing about the fact that you're a good bass player right now I'm always surprised me right it does something real like man you're great guitar player well I got a buddy what a flat for mentioning that in one of my favorite guitar records was weather report it has no guitar and I'm like that's how good the basis on that right right it's like it influenced me as a guitar was that good it's like yeah it's not a guitar but listen to it it's that incredible and it was like that so I agree fully yes play bass yeah yes let us know your comments in the comments section follow Rhett at retro on YouTube and Instagram and Dave is on Instagram now dojo guitar a guitar and and I have swag coming in so I will have said even one of those shirts okay and follow me on instagram because just because because I actually play the guitar and Instagram where I don't always play the guitar by the way congrats on a million subs yes thank you yeah well I I'm here because of rat No yeah but you guys helped out hey I'm glad to be here man thanks everybody

Channel: Rick Beato

Views: 123,498

Rating: 4.9291868 out of 5

Keywords: rick beato, everything music, rick, beato, music, music theory, music production, education, Acoustic guitar, Electric Guitar Lesson, improving your rhythm, guitar strumming patterns, playing with a metronome, finger picking, music discussion, rhett shull, dave onorato, finger style playng, how to practice, improve your rhythm, how to improve your time on guitar, Led Zeppelin, the Beatles, the rolling stones

Id: 37AULidmKDE

Length: 32min 6sec (1926 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 15 2019