Jul 26, 2026 02:20 AM
(This post was last modified: Jul 26, 2026 02:22 AM by C C.)
RICK BEATO
https://youtu.be/GB3gr03sJ_Y
VIDEO EXCERPTS: I'm sitting in this park in Salsburg, Austria. It's a beautiful day today. Tons of people walking in the park, riding bicycles out for their afternoon activities. But one thing I don't see, even though we're in the birthplace of Mozart, is anyone sitting out here playing with an acoustic guitar.
To be fair, if I was in Atlanta now and I went to Piedmont Park or some other park, I would probably not see anyone sing out with an acoustic guitar either. This was something that I did regularly, and any of my friends that played guitar would do back when I was growing up in the 1970s.
[...] Now, at that time, many of the things that you heard on the radio were songs that everyone knew, that had acoustic guitars in them. Not only did they have acoustic guitars, but they had lyrics that everyone knew, and they had harmonies, and people were able to sing harmonies back then.
[...Now it's...] "We don't know how to do harmonies. How do you know how to do harmonies? That's amazing. Be like, "What?" Today, could that be because there are very few songs that are played with acoustic guitars that are popular? [...] in the States, they're wearing earbuds and they're looking at their phones.
[...] Another thing is that most people don't know the same songs anymore because of algorithms. No two teenagers are living in the same universe. They literally could be sitting on benches next to each other with their earbuds on, and they're hearing completely different music.
They're in their own worlds essentially. The phone is a mirror that they are looking into. It's who you are. There is no monoculture. No one knows the same songs anymore, which is part of the problem. That's why no one can sing along.
[...] If John Mayer was sitting here, I mean, who can really play John Mayer songs? Some of them are so hard to play. [...] You know, it's kind of like people don't really play Joni Mitchell songs because they don't know the tunings of them.
[...] But you know what could be played on acoustic guitar? ... Good old Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Alice In Chains, Smashing Pumpkins, Stone Temple Pilots. Go back to the early 90s, and you can play all those songs.
[...] And every one of them had a riff. They started out with cool riffs. ... Any of these songs, if they were rock songs, you could play them on acoustic guitar because they were all written on guitar. Many of them were written on acoustic guitar.
[...] Honestly, by the time you got to John Mayer, his songs were way too hard for people. They couldn't figure them out and play them. I mean, John has a really unique style, but his songs, not all of them, but a lot of them. are unplayable. That kind of started with Dave Matthews, too. A lot of his songs were very difficult for me to teach people. ... I could play them. I could teach them, but it was really hard...
https://youtu.be/GB3gr03sJ_Y
https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/GB3gr03sJ_Y
https://youtu.be/GB3gr03sJ_Y
VIDEO EXCERPTS: I'm sitting in this park in Salsburg, Austria. It's a beautiful day today. Tons of people walking in the park, riding bicycles out for their afternoon activities. But one thing I don't see, even though we're in the birthplace of Mozart, is anyone sitting out here playing with an acoustic guitar.
To be fair, if I was in Atlanta now and I went to Piedmont Park or some other park, I would probably not see anyone sing out with an acoustic guitar either. This was something that I did regularly, and any of my friends that played guitar would do back when I was growing up in the 1970s.
[...] Now, at that time, many of the things that you heard on the radio were songs that everyone knew, that had acoustic guitars in them. Not only did they have acoustic guitars, but they had lyrics that everyone knew, and they had harmonies, and people were able to sing harmonies back then.
[...Now it's...] "We don't know how to do harmonies. How do you know how to do harmonies? That's amazing. Be like, "What?" Today, could that be because there are very few songs that are played with acoustic guitars that are popular? [...] in the States, they're wearing earbuds and they're looking at their phones.
[...] Another thing is that most people don't know the same songs anymore because of algorithms. No two teenagers are living in the same universe. They literally could be sitting on benches next to each other with their earbuds on, and they're hearing completely different music.
They're in their own worlds essentially. The phone is a mirror that they are looking into. It's who you are. There is no monoculture. No one knows the same songs anymore, which is part of the problem. That's why no one can sing along.
[...] If John Mayer was sitting here, I mean, who can really play John Mayer songs? Some of them are so hard to play. [...] You know, it's kind of like people don't really play Joni Mitchell songs because they don't know the tunings of them.
[...] But you know what could be played on acoustic guitar? ... Good old Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Alice In Chains, Smashing Pumpkins, Stone Temple Pilots. Go back to the early 90s, and you can play all those songs.
[...] And every one of them had a riff. They started out with cool riffs. ... Any of these songs, if they were rock songs, you could play them on acoustic guitar because they were all written on guitar. Many of them were written on acoustic guitar.
[...] Honestly, by the time you got to John Mayer, his songs were way too hard for people. They couldn't figure them out and play them. I mean, John has a really unique style, but his songs, not all of them, but a lot of them. are unplayable. That kind of started with Dave Matthews, too. A lot of his songs were very difficult for me to teach people. ... I could play them. I could teach them, but it was really hard...
https://youtu.be/GB3gr03sJ_Y
