The Guitar World is Going Insane by Ray Bell, Instructor of Guitar and Mandolin, Boyd Music Academy, You've Got a Friend Magazine, Winter, 1997

The guitar world is going insane. This has been going on for a long time in the United States, and if it has not begun in other countries I would be a little surprised. The psychosis is not full term yet, but it must be getting close. The guitar is carrying so much social baggage, there is hardly any room left for information that could lead to real learning. I should point out here, that I’m not speaking about students that are actually studying the rudiments of the guitar, and in their correct order. To all those, I say bless you, and may you outlive rock and roll. That is a very generous wish for you because rock and roll probably has a half life of at least 25,000 years. I was at a trade show several years ago, and I stopped by the late, great Mel Bays booth to visit for a while. He looked around and said, You know, sometimes I feel like I’m standing in a box of granola, with all the flakes and nuts running around, (he shrugged his shoulders,) but that’s the business! How right he was. Its getting serious, folks. Not only do we have rock and roll, but an entire culture has been built on it. A facade built on a facade. A young man came into our store, and asked about guitar lessons. At the outset of our conversation, he assured me that he had already learned all of his Led Zeppelin. So what do you say to this guy? How do you establish a curriculum? Quite frankly, I’m at a loss. I have no idea what is supposed to come after Led Zeppelin, unless its the police, or a trip to a hearing clinic. Here is someone who has been so swallowed up in this pseudoculture, that there will be no small shafts of light filtering in from reality. This is not an isolated case. I see it every week. What is to be done? Who knows? We are at the party; maybe we should just try and enjoy ourselves and ask the Mad Hatter to pass the tea, or just sit quietly and hope no one notices us. You cant take these students (for lack of a better word) and say things like: This is a C scale, and this is how you play it, because they will notice right away that it does not sound like the groups they know and love - groups with names like Plutonium Sandwich and Dead Chickens Don’t Tell. They have been programmed, and will not accept anything else. If a young man wanted to become a legitimate guitar teacher in these bizarre days, I would say, Just do the best you can, and don’t worry about your success rate, because it has already been set at 1/2 to 1 percent. I’m sure this is not true in universities or special schools, because they are in protected environments. These figures are from street level, and involve people who would have no occasion to be in a university unless their bones were ground to powder and used to plaster the walls. I’m sure other instrumental teachers have their own struggles, but it couldn’t be as crazy as the guitar world. There are terminologies coming out of the guitar world that are just as crazy as the world from which they came—surprise, surprise! Have you ever heard the term power chord? What does it mean? As pertaining to music, absolutely nothing. Had it not been for purposefully induced distortion, this term probably would never have been coined. Ah, distortion, now the angels have yet another reason to rejoice! As to the power chord, as far as I know, all other instruments have escaped having this stupid term applied to them. It comes exclusively from the insane world of guitar. Could you imagine having someone like Leonard Bernstein saying something like, Now, between the cellos and violas, I’ve written a power chord. It would have never happened. Why? Because there is no such thing as a power chord. It is simply an interval of 1,5, or 1,5,8. Boys and girls, a power chord is something that runs from an electrical appliance to an outlet in the wall, and is spelled a little differently. People that learn to play the guitar by ear, also have to make up terms by which to refer to certain items. Here are three examples: Eagle Claw “D” Long “A” Axe Handle “G” These terms are probably best known in the south and southeastern United States. Yes, I am from this region, but one day I found a Yankee guitar book, and there were no loved ones around to protect me, so I read it, and things just haven’t been the same since. If I knew of another musical instrument that had so many mental problems attached to it, I wouldn’t feel so badly about the plight of the guitar, but we guitarists seem to be alone in this. If the mandolin was as prominent in popular music as the guitar, then mandolinists would probably be right in there with us. Maybe there is a little salvation in obscurity. Be careful what you wish for, because you might get it.

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