What an opportunity! Nobody here wears shoes yet!!
In: Rocking in the free world Thursday Jan 24,2008General belief is that if you want to make it as a rock musician, you must play either electric guitar, bass or drums. I am not speaking about singing, that’s an other story. The fact is that indeed, general belief is …generally right, you have way more chances to succeed when playing one of those instruments. But of course, there are bands like Apocalyptica…
Other musical styles are more permissive and allow you to make a name for yourself in a less than classical way. When I say this, I am thinking about Jake Shimabukuro and his ukulele music.
His interpretation on ukulele of some widely known melodies, like “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” puts the instrument under a special light. Also, with songs like “Let’s dance”(see video below) he takes the instrument out of it’s usual musical area and this is exactly what makes it interesting.
Here he plays a flamenco-like song. While played on an acoustic guitar it would not make that a big impression, on ukulele it made me smile and listen it all the way to the end.
There was this joke with the 2 shoes salesman sent to sell shoes on a jungle village. The first one says “man, I don’t stand a chance, nobody here wears shoes I won’t sell anything” while the second says “what an opportunity, nobody here wears shoes yet!”
I think that it is not about what you do is more about how you do it and of course, what’s your unique point of sale, about how you identify your opportunities and the ways to exploit them. Nobody here plays cello in rock music?!What an opportunity! I’m in!
It is marketing if you think about it. Music nowadays is nothing but marketing.
- Tags: Jake Shimabukuro
Other people also liked these articles:
4 Responses to “What an opportunity! Nobody here wears shoes yet!!”
Leave a reply
Ovidiu OprescuRomania, 31 years
Playing the guitar since 17 and enjoying every moment of it!
Come meet me also on Mixx, StumbleUpon, Technorati, Digg, MySpace, MyBlogLog, Twitter, BlogCatalog
Also, why don't you add me to your blogroll? It's known to bring fortune and it will make you a better player! Honestly! ;-)
 |
 |
 |
Copyright © 2007 - GuitarFlame.com - is proudly powered by WordPress
Theme based on Christmas Days Theme, created by: Design Disease
Resources
Woodshed
January 24th, 2008 at 2:26 pm
I think there’s a lot of truth in what you’re saying.
I used to play the guitar (still do) and picked up an ukulele to play with it and became completely addicted. I started a blog about the uke and it’s been easier to get to the top of the pile than if I’d have started a guitar blog.
I think every guitar player should pick up a ukulele. The lack of strings and range force you to be more creative with rhythm and harmony. And they’re very cheap.
I can say for sure that ukulele players do wear shoes… most of them
admin
January 24th, 2008 at 2:35 pm
Well, Woodshed! First of all thank you for commenting here!
Well, indeed, as a niche it works better than with guitars since guitars are a bit too wide to be a niche and you can easily rank better for ukulele.
However I don’t have any experience personally speaking with ukulele, just that it fascinates me when I see some good players like this guy Jake Shimabukuro. You have experience in this line of music, so please drop by once in a while and maybe we could speak more about it here on this blog!
But…just as a curiosity…don’t you miss your guitar?
Woodshed
January 24th, 2008 at 10:43 pm
I still play guitar now and again, but it wouldn’t bother me too much if I couldn’t play guitar again.
The ukulele is definitely my instrument. I think every musician will have an instrument that suits them, that feels right. And the ukulele is mine.
It’s still nice to pick up a guitar and let a bass note ring now and again, though.
admin
January 24th, 2008 at 11:01 pm
To be honest I would try it too. Or at least a mandolin, lately I have been looking at some and I would try one for a few days, to see how it feels playing it.