How to win friends and influence people? By learning to play the guitar! The days of learning to play the guitar for passion is gone the way of the typewriter and other dinosaurs. Now the selfie generation wants to learn a couple of chords, a popular song or two and become instant rockstars.
Godwin Stephen, a guitar teacher at the Risen School of Music, believes it has a lot to do with peer pressure.
“Everyone wants to be different, unique and feel special in some way or the other. There are three kinds of students I see.
“There are those who are studious and learn music purely out of a performance point-of-view, and there are others who use their knowledge and talent to learn instruments and there are still others who pick up instruments to show off.”
Earlier, music used to be a niche thing as we only heard orchestras and radios playing it, he says. “Today, we have a lot of bands coming up. This is the age where people want to be part of bands.
“The kind of audience and fans that bands garner now are really growing and makes them aspire to be rock stars. This is the basic mindset for students now who start playing and the drive that makes them learn music.”
Is this a rising trend in Bangalore? Godwin replies in the affirmative. “Bangalore is a city where bands have a good base and are thriving today. Young people who thought they could achieve something are getting good platforms here.”
Got the looksJohn Jeban Thomas, a music teacher in Bishop Cotton Boys’ School, thinks this trend is the result of the artiste-based influence on this generation.
“A few decades ago, the music scene was dominated by Iron Maiden, Deep Purple and Pink Floyd among others. These musicians displayed a lot of quality and were respected by everyone. The generation who used to listen to that kind of music were very lyrically and musically sound. But now this generation does not really care about quality. They care more about how the artiste looks. Their musical interest is based very superficially on their outlook and not so much on the music actually. There is very little appreciation for the technical work but rather, more for how they present themselves on stage. The same is followed by people who want to learn music now. They give more preference to appearances rather than good music.”
On the bright side, John says the students who learn music nowadays want to learn based on certain songs they like. “They can improve a lot faster without any background knowledge. This will eventually make them interested in taking music seriously and make them creative. Music may start from a boundary but hopefully becomes a window to explore,” he hopes.
Danny Peterson, a music teacher and owner of Musiking in Banaswadi, looks at this trend more positively. “There have been instances when students who come just to show off have caught the attention of passersby who asked them where they learnt music from! Many who have joined my school due to this are now good musicians themselves. So it is a good side-effect for music schools!”
Danny also feels that carrying a guitar around is a huge boost for children who have low self-esteem. “Some kids have their confidence built up thanks to the attention they get and that makes them strive to do better.”
He further explains that playing a musical instrument is about being an artiste. “There are people who learn to be cool.
“Carrying a guitar around gives people a kind of status among their peers. Even movies encourage this trend. You see a lot of actors carrying guitars and playing song or two. The same translates for fans in real life, though how successful they are in wooing anyone is another story,” he quips.
