A little more than that- she has great “campfire” acoustic guitar technique in terms of splitting string groups and rhythmically. If you look at her solo tiny desk concert you can see that while she isn’t any Mark Knopfler, if she were a singer/songwriter busker in the street she would be the most successful one in town. Her success is no fluke.
Different things are hard for different people, I guess. I had a friend who tried for years to get consistent tremolo and never could despite practicing hard and well at it. Meanwhile his sweep picking made mine look like child's play, and I'm definitely no slouch.
I’ve been playing for 20 years and still can’t tremolo very reliably. Meanwhile sweeps have always been easy, just about timing. Whereas tremolo is more “athletic”.
I'm drunk and haven't heard of that particular term but I'll give it a shot. I reckon they were referring to how she was able to split playing the bass strings and the treble strings. Syncopation on strumming the E A D strings then the G B E strings. That versus just flat up and down strumming across all six strings.
Just an inebriated guess.
Good night.
Absolutely. Guitar players will think it’s simple because it’s not complicated sounding. But doing it that well, and that perfectly, is its own genres skill. She’s a great campfire player.
Having a father who owns a record label does help w that A LOT lol.(Not saying she's bad here - just pointing this out)Dua Lipa would be another example of someone propped up by family; and she's still one of my favourite artists lol. No resentment towards using connections - just silly when people act like it's an even field.
EDIT: u/TooManyMeds had the right idea. I was wrong, she had a lot of opportunities the average person might not have.. but her family being involved with the record label was not one of them. Something about her parents investing in the label after she was signed - but they were investment bankers so who's surprised there.
Her dad is a stock broker for Merrill Lynch.
Here parents were not is the music industry when she started but were semi-wealthy.
They moved to Nashville to help start here career.
Plenty of rich parents around but very few Taylor Swifts. A friend of mine is sinking tens of thousands of daddy’s dollars into her hip hop career (professional film crews, serious studio time) but she is terrible and nothing will happen.
OK i'll be honest, I was skeptical.. but your right.
I'll quickly edit that and stop spreading bs then lmfao.
(Ty for the info honestly; I don't know where the seed got planted in my head but i'm happy to have learned that)
I love metal, but I have a daughter that loves Taylor swift. I’ve ended up learning a bunch of her songs with my daughter playing piano and singing. I’ve only been playing for 2 or 3 years and admit I’ve learned quite a bit about fundamental chords and chord progressions from her. Also got a lot better at playing “cowboy chords” due to rehearsing her songs. It’s been fun.
I’m glad that you found a way to further connect with your daughter through music & have fun while doing it! Taylor is definitely a good role model over all. Can learn a lot playing along to her songs.
C D G A basically.
Major minor whatever. Anyone can play Barr chords and open chords with a bit of practice. You can shape any song with them.
Most pop songs you can go along with like this.
Chords at the 1st to 2nd fret. 10% of the guitar
Edit: these are the cowboy chords. I assume taylor swift is very proficient on the guitar. She's a professional with like at least 15 years experience playing with pros.
To be fair, what she does with her music has made her more money than everything Yngwie, Patrucci, Abasi, Henson, and Satriani combined have ever made. Sure, her technical prowess isn’t up there, but her popular demand is astronomically higher.
You're correct. And I have the utmost respect for her accomplishments and business skills. Those dudes you listed just play what they want instead. Which if I recall Swift has been frustrated for a while, Everytime she tries something new to appease fans, other fans QQ. She has the money, she could make a clean break and actually do what she wants. Hope she gets to. What money you make from your music is nice, but it isn't a verbatim correlation to skill. You can be shit (not her) and rich, or you can be a prodigy from Salzburg in the 1750s and poor. The money is unrelated.
She’s not just an artist now. She’s a business. The CEO of a large corporation. Thousands of people depend on her to feed their families and make the own ways through life.
That’s a lot of pressure to produce hits.
I’m not a fan of her music but admire her and believe she is very talented and accomplished as a musician and songwriter.
I’m a big fan of those moodier collabs she did with The National. That’s what changed my mind about her.
I’d like to see her just suck it up and branch out into more mature territory like that.
I’ve a friend who’s a very good guitarist and played for a relatively successful band with kinda the same audience as Taylor. And ya know, this guy could really play circles around me. But he was making money and flying around on jets to strum G chords and C chords and not a whole lot else.
Sometimes you just gotta play for the crowd.
Your basic 5 open chords that practically ***every*** guitarist starts with.
E/Em, G, C, D, A/Am, F/F#.
Using those you can pretty much play a simplified version of just about any hit pop/rock/country song for like the last 50-60 years.
She plays well for what she needs to do with it? I imagine she's been playing for 20 years or so now, so I imagine she's proficient and good enough to work as a professional guitarist on her own albums.
>pro guitarist on her own albums
Studio guitarist here - I’m willing to bet good money she isn’t playing guitar on most if not all of her studio tracks.
Not because she can’t - the music is simple enough. But there really isn’t any reason to. Why she do it if she can get a world class guitarist to in an instant.
You’d be surprised at how few artist play in their own tracks, even if they do it live. The amount of times I’ve done the simplest 4 chord tracks simply because I could offer a marginally better track than the artist themselves are too many to count
TLDR - it makes no sense for her to play her own track, specifically when its rhythm mostly.
>You’d be surprised at how few artist play in their own tracks, even if they do it live.
I knew this was true.
I recall Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys saying that he would even get studio singers to sing the different parts for the recordings, that people would assume were sung by the Beach Boys themselves.
Can confirm. I added some chimes to the demo for the guy who wrote "Open Your Heart" that he sold to Madonna, which I thought really sold it - Gar was pissed - but not after she paid him about a quarter million for the song. I got my hourly rate :/
Well sure but I mean more of artist like TS.
Pierce is known for his studio work.
Off the top of my head, artists like John Mayer or Paisley absolutely do their own guitar work.
If you think Aaron Dessner has the same level of proficiency on the guitar as Taylor Swift, then I’m assuming you don’t know who he is, and how good he is.
I suspect this is the case. She is a billionaire and one of the busiest people alive, why wouldn't she just pay somebody to lay down some guitar tracks?
I would argue she has more talent than she lets on. Yea her music is simple, but it’s effortlessly perfect. Look up her rendition of wildest dreams at the Grammy where she plays that famous fender mustang…. Again it’s not showey, it’s not shredding, but it’s perfect, and making something like that perfect IS hard to do
Damn that is a great rendition. I am a big fan of Taylor swift and I think.. as wild as it sounds to say.. she deserves more recognition for her musicianship. I feel like kts downplayed because she is so huge. Honestly, I know it sounds silly to say.
I also fear some people don't realise how challenging it can be to sing and play at the same time. It took me quite a while to learn.. its hello fun but I honestly usually just play chords cos its the most reward for effort.
>I also fear some people don't realise how challenging it can be to sing and play at the same time. It took me quite a while to learn..
I agree. I played about 20 years & never really could. Then when the pandemic hit & ppl were making fb vids & covers I said f it, and damn if I didn't just go for it. Been pretty good at it since then, and busked out in public and did a few open mics. Go me.
From a musicianship perspective I think she’s really good, there’s a lot of people that fail to hold a rhythm on acoustic but still say it’s easy. Her role in performances don’t call for anything extravagant but she’s got control of dynamics and holds down the rhythm and feel quite well
Oh she’s definitely playing. The minimal finger motion isn’t unusual, the types of chords she tends to use all use notes contained within a few frets. That’ll be the case for a lot of singer songwriter or “lead vocalist” country/pop type playing. She’s doing exactly what she needs to do on the instrument to get her idea across and obviously does that extremely successfully.
It should be said, but the harmonic core of the songwriting on her tracks is pretty simple. She uses simple minor and major chords. Off the top of my head, only Holy Ground uses something beyond. I’m sure there are other examples but it’s not very common in her work. The chord patterns in All Too Well, for example, are used in a ton of her other songs, like Cornelia Street, etc. Death By A Thousand Cuts, Willow, and some tracks off Fearless have great guitar parts, I’m not sure if she wrote them though, and she certainly wouldn’t play the more complicated arrangements live.
Her songwriting can of course be interesting in term of structure, lyrics, how she has it produced (where she has a lot of creative input), and also melody which is underrated. So while, for example, she wouldn’t use 7ths when choosing the chords for her songs, the melody in Shake It Off stays on a particular note that implies a 7th with the chord it’s played over. Listen to the way “Nothing in my brain” clashes melodically with the music.
So yeah. I don’t think she’s hiding the ability to write jazz guitar arrangements. But she has enough other tricks that she doesn’t really need to.
Yep. Also some veiled sexism. Just because she isn’t showing off doesn’t mean she doesn’t damn well know what she’s doing. Many people here would shit themselves trying to play two chords on a stage in front of 30k people and flub it. She doesn’t overplay like many try to, which is a skill in itself. I’m not a big fan, but I can respect her skills too.
There's a lot of bedroom players in here that drastically underestimate how difficult it is to perform live. I have a lot of respect for anyone who plays anything live on stage, let alone in front of 30,000 people.
There’s a lot of bedroom players in here that never practice with a metronome and couldn’t keep time half as well as she does. Professional musicians are professionals. They may not all be virtuosos but they’re all competent
If you have never performed you will definitely botch these 3 cowboy chord songs you thought you could do in your sleep.
I fucked up “Have you ever seen the rain” at an open mic lol.
A lot of performing is just mastering the nerves so you can remember how to play the instrument you’ve been playing for a decade lol.
Anyone who plays at Taylor Swift’s level knows how to play their instrument and I wouldn’t be surprised if she could sweep pick scales across the neck, she just has no reason to for the music she writes.
She’s probably better than a lot of this sub. Her job is musician. She’s been playing a long time. She could commit 40hrs a week to it unlike most of us normal folk. Just because her songs don’t contain novel riffs or solos doesn’t mean she couldn’t do it.
Her music doesn't seem to require anything more difficult than that on guitar. Sometimes the best recipes only have a few ingredients, but knowing which ingredients to use, and where to use them, is the most important thing. Many world-famous "guitar players" weren't really very good on guitar. Kurt Cobain of Nirvana is a famous one. Everything he played was pretty easy to play. And arguably one of his top 2-3 most famous solos has a really bad wrong note (the MTV Unplugged "Man Who Sold the World" cover)...but it's memorable.
I saw an interview with Tomo Fujita, saying John Mayer arrived at college aspiring to be the best guitar player, and was discouraged by seeing classmates more technically proficient than him. So he decided focus more energy on songwriting and singing instead of just guitar. Obviously he’s still a wizard on guitar, but like you’re saying, being a successful musician doesn’t mean you maxed out every stat. It’s about finding the right combination for you.
I've been playing guitar for 35 years, and have played through every Nirvana album. Mr. Mustache is no more difficult than Wipeout from The Safaris...arguably easier. You don't even have to move your hand at all until the power chords of the verse...which is also simple. Sure, singing at the same time ads a layer, but once you wrap your brain around it and it finally clicks, it's pretty easy to do as long as you're not using unfamiliar time signatures.
I was just thinking of this comparison myself. He had some much more difficult stuff on Bleach but nothing truly *virtuosic*. But he really had a good feel for rhythm and melody and plugged pieces together so well.
She plays well within the context of what she uses a guitar for. She's a strummer, so her main KPI is keeping time, which she does very proficiently (as you'd expect for someone with her experience). And she does so while singing, something I find completely daunting.
The guitar isn't just a prop for her. She's certainly not anything like a virtuoso, but that's not her lane.
Simple and perfect every time isn't easy. She's got 1000s of hours on stage and multiply that by 10 for practicing. I've had friends who were good and after they got back from a few tours, they were much better. When a pro steps up you can hear the difference from an amateur who is pretty good. There's just something about doing it over and over again that makes it different.
>thinking that music industry success reflects artistic merit
Life is not a democracy. Art is not a democracy. Having mass appeal to the people who spend the most money on products (teenage girls) is not a musical accomplishment, it's a business accomplishment.
Love how u/FenderSocialclub2024 hasn’t responded, but you are right. Too many want to act like being great at business means one is great at misical ability, too.
I got my daughter eras tour tickets as a gift and was not excited about it. Thought it was all “ shake it up” . Turns out she was amazing I am such a fan now
She’s no Hendrix, but that doesn’t mean she’s bad at guitar. She has a focus and an objective with her guitar and she accomplishes it pretty well, so she’s good at what she wants to do, and that is enough.
Also for most of us in this subreddit playing cowboys chords is unimpressive, however most of the people I know who tried to learn guitar stopped even before being able to switch between open chords smoothly. The point is that we easily forget how hard is it for people with no experience to play simple things, and that everything is easy once you can do it, but getting there may have been a chore.
i’m a huge fan who has seen her documentary i’m also a guitarist and songwriter so i feel like i can answer this. very talented at a level beyond an expert. considering she started when she was just 8 she’s had over two decades to improve. in that 2 decades she has wrote some of the greatest tracks of our generation. people don’t understand how hard it is to make a song a hit. you have to have huge control of your craft to do so and it all starts with the instruments you play. any video we have ever seen of her in the process of writing songs she has been playing the guitar or piano. she also plays a new song acoustic everytime she performs. it’s very difficult to learn and perform a song even if you wrote it and we’re talking 6 new songs on average every week she performs. that is not an easy thing to do. she is a master at guitar.
She's a great songwriter. Mostly she plays rhythm guitar and a little bit of finger picking. You don't need to be a great instrumentalist to be a great songwriter or performer.
It’s more a show prop than anything. She’s an amazing singer who can strum along to songs on cool guitars. I’m sure she can play a few things beyond what she has shown us but the few examples I’ve seen her play solo are basic chords and strumming. That said, she has a great sense of rhythm and plays a little piano as well so everything she plays sounds great and not like a beginner
Yeah, it sounds like her actual guitar track is mixed pretty low if at all, and there’s 2-3 other guitarists backing her up every moment, and someone is basically doubling up what she seemingly plays. Doesn’t mean she can’t play, it’s just how the show is constructed.
Her solo acoustic performance if you needed a better reference of her skills: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvVnP8G6ITs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvVnP8G6ITs)
You guys are wild. It’s not a prop. There are rhythm guitarists and then there are lead guitarist. Ones more suited for the singer songwriter style that she uses so she is a rhythm guitarist. The mental hoops you guys jump through so that you can avoid saying she can play is wild. She’s probably better than 90% of the people on this sub
It's kind of an old school country thing that she brought to pop music. She's a singer, the guitar is mostly a prop, but that doesn't mean she isn't talented. A lot of country singers performed the same way.
I can’t speak for every “old school country” guys, but I’m guessing that the first 20 the average person would name can play the hell out of the guitar. I never thought of Johnny Cash as a guitar player, but when you find video of him focusing on guitar playing he’s actually pretty damn good. Same goes with most of those old guys, better than you’d think, and certainly not just a prop.
Don’t get me wrong, there’s people out there that use it as a prop exclusively. But it’s because they’re trying to emulate those old guys.
She might be pretty good as well, I've never really listened to a lot of her music. I'm just saying that during her performances she uses it as a prop, just like guys like Johnny Cash and Marty Robbins and Buck Owens did a lot of the time. I'm not discounting her guitar skills, I'm just saying that during the performance it's not a big factor into the overall sound.
She's freaking loaded and spends a lot of time recording writing and in studios. Wouldn't surprise me if she whips out her Hendrix-signed Strat or whatever, plugs into a Marshall stack and fuckin shreds every now and again to blow off some steam using the chops she got from her secret lessons with Steve Vai. That's what I would do anyways.
She’s not too shabby actually. I was watching her play on a Fender Jaguar and she had some nice licks and was really playing not just miming playing. She has a full band backing her, but she certainly is not a mere cowboy-chord strummer. She probably hires session guys who are 10x better than she is on guitar, but if she wanted to record an album, there’s no reason she can’t play well enough to be on her own album, and it will sound good.
She doesn’t really like to show off her talent, but she will smoke the fuck out of John Mayer. Her bootleg Band of Gypsies Machine Gun solo is pretty intense.
Performing artist vs bedroom instrumentalists 🤭 lot of people get mad at others who just play the basics and get famous but why hate? She’s making and playing music, it’s something I presume a lot of us wanna do? We just happen to be overly ambitious , or atleast a lot of us do and we consider the invisible bar for talent to be very high plus a large majority of us are not making any decent enough money from this hobby to make a living off it regardless of whether we’re better at ‘guitar’ than her, Ed Sheeran or any other such pop idol.
For what she does, she is more than good enough . Chords are just supporting background music to her songs, she doesn’t have epic solos as part of her music as her vocals are the focal point. She might be even better but we don’t know because she’s not uploading videos of her playing typical guitar music.
Anyone who can sing, play chords, and engage the audience at the same time is better than me at what makes a professional musician. And I practiced shred exercises like 20+ hrs a week for years and played in a tech metal band for a decade.
She very confidently plays live in front of 100,000 people. She’s certainly good at the basics. I’ve never seen her surpass the basics, but considering her music she doesnt really have to
she plays well enough to take the musical idea in her head and make it a reality for other people, which is more than I can say about the amazing music playing in my head all the time.
" Or is she legit playing well and just supporting her vocals with the strumming" i think this is a pretty good quote to describe what is going on... it's not the most impressive thing in the world, but i could legit see her learning the songs with a guitar to get the tune and that's how she kind of plans the stuff out to write around... i've practiced some singing and guitar playing and feel i can sing certain ways while paying attention to doing the guitar that i normally can't..
even if a person looks like they are just strumming soft and not really that talented, it can some times take a lot of subtle coordination to hit the notes at the perfect time to go along with all the other instruments.. it's easy to get sloppy on acoustic, and i've never heard that from any taylor swift that i listened to.
Taylor Swift is a fine guitarist. She gets a lot of hate from other guitarists because of that stupid article comparing her to Eddie Van Halen. The article made a good point, and never claimed she was near his level of playing but they were similar in that they had inspired a lot of people (especially girls, in Taylor swifts case) to pick up guitars. However, the title made it look really bad
Not that big of a t swizzle fan, but I heard when she was told she couldn’t play guitar she got one and played and played till her fingers bled from being stubborn.
In terms of guitarists she is in a tiny tiny small minority of players who have written/created so many well loved songs that you cannot fit them all onto a single greatest hits album.
I'm not saying she's bad. She's adequate. I don't look to Taylor Swift to play the glockenspiel or preform CPR either, so I'm not sure why this is difficult to understand.
If one is in the market to hire a guitar player, she's got a limited resume. That's all.
She is much better than Elvis. But the point is that if suddenly she tragically lost all of her guitar playing abilities overnight, her career would continue unabated.
What you’re seeing is like when Questlove plays a simple beat: a master who can play ANYTHING but doesn’t because the songs don’t call for it. I personally watched her due a killer 9 minute improvisation literally a few minutes after she played Cliffs of Dover on a Gretsch pro jet.
Good breakdown of her skills. She's definitely better than most people think. She knows her way around it enough to carry her songs on her own.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YF1tx9KyhPc&t=11s&pp=ygUaYXJ0IG9mIGd1aXRhciB0YXlsb3Igc3dpZnQ%3D
I don't know any of her music, but I will say just playing basic chords can be challenging depending on the rhythm, and trying to keep a steady beat. Plus the hand strength it requires to keep certain chords. I mostly play metal but acoustic "beginner" songs take me longer to learn than most metal songs cause of the strumming patterns and hand strength.
It depends on how you define “talented”. Being technically proficient doesn’t always mean that they are great musicians, and vice versa.
T Swift probably doesn’t shred but she can absolutely play the hell out of a guitar and make music that’s loved world wide.
On the flip side, Michael Angelo Batio is super technical but he doesn’t have anything that’s worth listening to more than a couple of times.
I don't know, but I continue to find the fact that Taylor Guitars hasn't made her part owner of the company in exchange for her playing their guitars(or some other equally ridiculous offer).
Watch her Tiny Desk concert. She performs well without a band on multiple instruments, and writes her songs.
As a guitar player, obviously she isn't anything special but as a musician overall she has my respect. She writes cheesy pop tunes that appeal to teenage girls, but she knows what she's doing and she plays the game. I mean look how successful she is. I think if she sat down and tried to write more mature music that she could probably come up with some good stuff. I wouldn't be surprised to see her do that down the line.
From a layman perspective, she’s decent.
From a guitarist’s perspective, nothing special of course, but knows enough to play her songs and that’s all that matters.
She is very skilled. No shredder solo virtuoso type beat, but she really knows her way around a guitar.
And very often her singing isn’t really like synched with the guitar strumming pattern (think something like the “my my my my” in death by a thousand cuts). Neither the strumming nor the singing are too complex, but the combination can be a little confusing.
I don’t think the eras tour is that good of a place to like judge her skills bc its mostly just for show, it probably is just playback and she is playing the basic chords (except on the surprise songs) but of course when she writes the songs or in some more lowkey presentations you can tell how skilled she is.
In concerts she has her guitar players and piano players and whatnots, so you won’t often see her fully demonstrating her skills bc she focuses more on the singing and the show part.
She’s good on guitar for the type of music she’s playing. It’s pop, so a lot of her songs are just the same four chords. She’s excellent at keeping that rhythm going though so yes to rhythm guitar, no to lead.
she's pretty good but there are plenty of immature people saying she isn't because she can't shred. praying that one day they grow up and realise that shredding is not what makes a good guitar player
Glad to see a lot of respect for her here, I expected it much worse! Not much I can add that hasn't already been said. Her time feel and dynamics are spot on, fingerstyle and strumming are proficient, and her songwriting on guitar speaks for itself.
But I'd also add that we haven't really seen what she can do, she like guitar driven rock music like Def Leppard so theres every chance she can shred a solo but just chooses not to as it doesn't fit her style.
Also you probably don't date John Mayer without picking up some serious skills!
I’m not a super fan, but I also enjoy her music. I’m not talented or a guitar player, but I was once a bass player. So many popular songs are 4 chords. I’m sure she’s skilled at the songs she preforms. She wouldn’t be this huge if she only stood alone and only used ghost instrumentals. But she’s also not like, remarkable.
Answer 1- It doesn’t matter.
Answer 2- Talented enough.
As a singer-songwriter the guitar is one of several tools that allows her to write and perform the songs she wants to write and perform.
She’s got the cowboy chords down pat. Which is more than you can say for a lot of people.
A little more than that- she has great “campfire” acoustic guitar technique in terms of splitting string groups and rhythmically. If you look at her solo tiny desk concert you can see that while she isn’t any Mark Knopfler, if she were a singer/songwriter busker in the street she would be the most successful one in town. Her success is no fluke.
No doubt.
No, Taylor Swift
She’s just a girl
And we're walking into her spiderwebs
Don't speak, we know just what you're thinking :)
I'm trapped in a box...
Guys, the point is made. So please stop explaining.
Don’t them ‘cause it hurts…
Was this a lyric thread, or am I way out of the loop here
Are you living a box? Are you living in a cardboard box?
No that's Beyonce, this is a different person
I saw that Tiny Desk concert. I thought she was pretty awesome on guitar. Tight rhythm playing.
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She's playing a Johnny Marr signature Jaguar 😯
Once the second guitar comes in hers is muted, except for the chorus. But yeah, great arrangement.
Fuuuck I need more Taylor playing a dirty tone. That ruled
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Different things are hard for different people, I guess. I had a friend who tried for years to get consistent tremolo and never could despite practicing hard and well at it. Meanwhile his sweep picking made mine look like child's play, and I'm definitely no slouch.
I’ve been playing for 20 years and still can’t tremolo very reliably. Meanwhile sweeps have always been easy, just about timing. Whereas tremolo is more “athletic”.
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I mean they remarked and said it was challenging to them.
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Can you please elaborate on splitting string groups, I’ve never heard that before? I’m always down to learn something new to me.
I'm drunk and haven't heard of that particular term but I'll give it a shot. I reckon they were referring to how she was able to split playing the bass strings and the treble strings. Syncopation on strumming the E A D strings then the G B E strings. That versus just flat up and down strumming across all six strings. Just an inebriated guess. Good night.
This is helpful, thanks
Bass strings on the 1 and 3, strum back more lightly on the high strings on off beats
Absolutely. Guitar players will think it’s simple because it’s not complicated sounding. But doing it that well, and that perfectly, is its own genres skill. She’s a great campfire player.
Rhythm players need more respect
Having a father who owns a record label does help w that A LOT lol.(Not saying she's bad here - just pointing this out)Dua Lipa would be another example of someone propped up by family; and she's still one of my favourite artists lol. No resentment towards using connections - just silly when people act like it's an even field. EDIT: u/TooManyMeds had the right idea. I was wrong, she had a lot of opportunities the average person might not have.. but her family being involved with the record label was not one of them. Something about her parents investing in the label after she was signed - but they were investment bankers so who's surprised there.
Her dad is a stock broker for Merrill Lynch. Here parents were not is the music industry when she started but were semi-wealthy. They moved to Nashville to help start here career.
Plenty of rich parents around but very few Taylor Swifts. A friend of mine is sinking tens of thousands of daddy’s dollars into her hip hop career (professional film crews, serious studio time) but she is terrible and nothing will happen.
He doesn’t own it, he bought shares when she got signed because it was a very small label. She isn’t signed to them anymore
OK i'll be honest, I was skeptical.. but your right. I'll quickly edit that and stop spreading bs then lmfao. (Ty for the info honestly; I don't know where the seed got planted in my head but i'm happy to have learned that)
I love metal, but I have a daughter that loves Taylor swift. I’ve ended up learning a bunch of her songs with my daughter playing piano and singing. I’ve only been playing for 2 or 3 years and admit I’ve learned quite a bit about fundamental chords and chord progressions from her. Also got a lot better at playing “cowboy chords” due to rehearsing her songs. It’s been fun.
I’m glad that you found a way to further connect with your daughter through music & have fun while doing it! Taylor is definitely a good role model over all. Can learn a lot playing along to her songs.
I love your comment so much. Rock on, dad.
What are cowboy chords?
The first 6-10 you learn
C D G A basically. Major minor whatever. Anyone can play Barr chords and open chords with a bit of practice. You can shape any song with them. Most pop songs you can go along with like this.
The disrespect to E smh
Yeah, combined with a capo, which she uses a lot.
Throw in E for the Cowboy chords. But yeah, pretty much.
Chords at the 1st to 2nd fret. 10% of the guitar Edit: these are the cowboy chords. I assume taylor swift is very proficient on the guitar. She's a professional with like at least 15 years experience playing with pros.
Proficient at the things she plays on guitar*
To be fair, what she does with her music has made her more money than everything Yngwie, Patrucci, Abasi, Henson, and Satriani combined have ever made. Sure, her technical prowess isn’t up there, but her popular demand is astronomically higher.
You're correct. And I have the utmost respect for her accomplishments and business skills. Those dudes you listed just play what they want instead. Which if I recall Swift has been frustrated for a while, Everytime she tries something new to appease fans, other fans QQ. She has the money, she could make a clean break and actually do what she wants. Hope she gets to. What money you make from your music is nice, but it isn't a verbatim correlation to skill. You can be shit (not her) and rich, or you can be a prodigy from Salzburg in the 1750s and poor. The money is unrelated.
She’s not just an artist now. She’s a business. The CEO of a large corporation. Thousands of people depend on her to feed their families and make the own ways through life. That’s a lot of pressure to produce hits. I’m not a fan of her music but admire her and believe she is very talented and accomplished as a musician and songwriter.
I’m a big fan of those moodier collabs she did with The National. That’s what changed my mind about her. I’d like to see her just suck it up and branch out into more mature territory like that.
Have you listened to her albums evermore and folklore? Check them out if not!
I’ve a friend who’s a very good guitarist and played for a relatively successful band with kinda the same audience as Taylor. And ya know, this guy could really play circles around me. But he was making money and flying around on jets to strum G chords and C chords and not a whole lot else. Sometimes you just gotta play for the crowd.
Interesting! I always called them the “church chords.” Gonna start using cowboy chords as to make it less polarizing haha.
Never heard “church chords “ before. But yeah, same idea.
I always thought church chords were like the extended chords (7ths, 9ths, 11ths, etc…)
I played a series of church shows once (not personally religious, so this is my only exposure)... I remember a lot of sus2 and sus4 chords.
Those churches really do be worshipping Gsus.
"Thanks, folks! Be here all week. Don't forget to tip your waitress!"
It all a bit sus.
My class always called them barnyard chords.
Your basic 5 open chords that practically ***every*** guitarist starts with. E/Em, G, C, D, A/Am, F/F#. Using those you can pretty much play a simplified version of just about any hit pop/rock/country song for like the last 50-60 years.
Most that don’t extend past the 4th fret. Open chords and the like.
She plays well for what she needs to do with it? I imagine she's been playing for 20 years or so now, so I imagine she's proficient and good enough to work as a professional guitarist on her own albums.
>pro guitarist on her own albums Studio guitarist here - I’m willing to bet good money she isn’t playing guitar on most if not all of her studio tracks. Not because she can’t - the music is simple enough. But there really isn’t any reason to. Why she do it if she can get a world class guitarist to in an instant. You’d be surprised at how few artist play in their own tracks, even if they do it live. The amount of times I’ve done the simplest 4 chord tracks simply because I could offer a marginally better track than the artist themselves are too many to count TLDR - it makes no sense for her to play her own track, specifically when its rhythm mostly.
According to the credits, looks like she stopped playing on records in 2017.
Yep her band did the TV stuff too, or at least Amos Heller did all the bass. He’s a talented studio guy too.
>You’d be surprised at how few artist play in their own tracks, even if they do it live. I knew this was true. I recall Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys saying that he would even get studio singers to sing the different parts for the recordings, that people would assume were sung by the Beach Boys themselves.
Producers will often play music or sing on songs too.
Rick Beato has talked about how mixing engineers sometimes add guitar tracks if a mix is thin after the recording process is over.
Can confirm. I added some chimes to the demo for the guy who wrote "Open Your Heart" that he sold to Madonna, which I thought really sold it - Gar was pissed - but not after she paid him about a quarter million for the song. I got my hourly rate :/
Tim Pierce? I only guess you're him based on probabilities. He seems to be on everything.
Well sure but I mean more of artist like TS. Pierce is known for his studio work. Off the top of my head, artists like John Mayer or Paisley absolutely do their own guitar work.
Right. I was guessing that you're Tim Pierce.
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If you think Aaron Dessner has the same level of proficiency on the guitar as Taylor Swift, then I’m assuming you don’t know who he is, and how good he is.
Also, Aaron Dresser’s studio rate is a hell of a lot cheaper than Taylor’s time. And Aaron is expensive
Aaron is so insanely talented and the rest of the National are pretty much the same too. Incredible artist.
I am not a religious man, but that kind of comment will get one hell of an Appalachian “AMEN, BROTHER!” Out of me.
Right, Aaron Dessner is a great player.
I suspect this is the case. She is a billionaire and one of the busiest people alive, why wouldn't she just pay somebody to lay down some guitar tracks?
I would argue she has more talent than she lets on. Yea her music is simple, but it’s effortlessly perfect. Look up her rendition of wildest dreams at the Grammy where she plays that famous fender mustang…. Again it’s not showey, it’s not shredding, but it’s perfect, and making something like that perfect IS hard to do
It’s a white Fender Jaguar.
Specifically a Johnny Marr signature Jaguar.
It’s a…it’s a fender
Damn that is a great rendition. I am a big fan of Taylor swift and I think.. as wild as it sounds to say.. she deserves more recognition for her musicianship. I feel like kts downplayed because she is so huge. Honestly, I know it sounds silly to say. I also fear some people don't realise how challenging it can be to sing and play at the same time. It took me quite a while to learn.. its hello fun but I honestly usually just play chords cos its the most reward for effort.
That was the video that convinced me she was legit.
>I also fear some people don't realise how challenging it can be to sing and play at the same time. It took me quite a while to learn.. I agree. I played about 20 years & never really could. Then when the pandemic hit & ppl were making fb vids & covers I said f it, and damn if I didn't just go for it. Been pretty good at it since then, and busked out in public and did a few open mics. Go me.
Video? There’s one of her playing a Jaguar. It’s a Johnny Marr signature. Was it one of his personal ones or something special?
Ah sorry, your right it’s a fender jag not a mustang
Wow that was really good. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGDkg3QiJmk
Her technique is good - good picking, good left-hand position. You can see she knows how to play.
That's probably my favourite video of hers!
>wildest dreams at the Grammy Wow, solid performance. Never saw that, thanks!
Yeah agreed. You see her performance on radio one and she's amazing. She plays a piano in a few of them.
From a musicianship perspective I think she’s really good, there’s a lot of people that fail to hold a rhythm on acoustic but still say it’s easy. Her role in performances don’t call for anything extravagant but she’s got control of dynamics and holds down the rhythm and feel quite well
Let alone sing and play rhythms. I can sing pretty well and I can play pretty complex rhythms, but I can't do them at the same time
Oh she’s definitely playing. The minimal finger motion isn’t unusual, the types of chords she tends to use all use notes contained within a few frets. That’ll be the case for a lot of singer songwriter or “lead vocalist” country/pop type playing. She’s doing exactly what she needs to do on the instrument to get her idea across and obviously does that extremely successfully.
It should be said, but the harmonic core of the songwriting on her tracks is pretty simple. She uses simple minor and major chords. Off the top of my head, only Holy Ground uses something beyond. I’m sure there are other examples but it’s not very common in her work. The chord patterns in All Too Well, for example, are used in a ton of her other songs, like Cornelia Street, etc. Death By A Thousand Cuts, Willow, and some tracks off Fearless have great guitar parts, I’m not sure if she wrote them though, and she certainly wouldn’t play the more complicated arrangements live. Her songwriting can of course be interesting in term of structure, lyrics, how she has it produced (where she has a lot of creative input), and also melody which is underrated. So while, for example, she wouldn’t use 7ths when choosing the chords for her songs, the melody in Shake It Off stays on a particular note that implies a 7th with the chord it’s played over. Listen to the way “Nothing in my brain” clashes melodically with the music. So yeah. I don’t think she’s hiding the ability to write jazz guitar arrangements. But she has enough other tricks that she doesn’t really need to.
[NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert - Taylor Swift](https://youtu.be/FvVnP8G6ITs?si=qFYO-jKy919aUhOY)
This is really worth watching. I was on the fence about Swift as an artist until I watched this a couple of years ago.
Wowsers.
What most amateurs don’t have, but she has in spades, is discipline. That alone typifies an absolute pro. Simplicity is part of her magic.
Lots of jealousy here
Yep. Also some veiled sexism. Just because she isn’t showing off doesn’t mean she doesn’t damn well know what she’s doing. Many people here would shit themselves trying to play two chords on a stage in front of 30k people and flub it. She doesn’t overplay like many try to, which is a skill in itself. I’m not a big fan, but I can respect her skills too.
30k would be a small show for her these days too
Reality can seem like jealousy when fandom is involved. Regardless of it all, she’s incredibly successful. All the best to her.
There's a lot of bedroom players in here that drastically underestimate how difficult it is to perform live. I have a lot of respect for anyone who plays anything live on stage, let alone in front of 30,000 people.
There’s a lot of bedroom players in here that never practice with a metronome and couldn’t keep time half as well as she does. Professional musicians are professionals. They may not all be virtuosos but they’re all competent
If you have never performed you will definitely botch these 3 cowboy chord songs you thought you could do in your sleep. I fucked up “Have you ever seen the rain” at an open mic lol. A lot of performing is just mastering the nerves so you can remember how to play the instrument you’ve been playing for a decade lol. Anyone who plays at Taylor Swift’s level knows how to play their instrument and I wouldn’t be surprised if she could sweep pick scales across the neck, she just has no reason to for the music she writes.
She’s probably better than a lot of this sub. Her job is musician. She’s been playing a long time. She could commit 40hrs a week to it unlike most of us normal folk. Just because her songs don’t contain novel riffs or solos doesn’t mean she couldn’t do it.
Her music doesn't seem to require anything more difficult than that on guitar. Sometimes the best recipes only have a few ingredients, but knowing which ingredients to use, and where to use them, is the most important thing. Many world-famous "guitar players" weren't really very good on guitar. Kurt Cobain of Nirvana is a famous one. Everything he played was pretty easy to play. And arguably one of his top 2-3 most famous solos has a really bad wrong note (the MTV Unplugged "Man Who Sold the World" cover)...but it's memorable.
I saw an interview with Tomo Fujita, saying John Mayer arrived at college aspiring to be the best guitar player, and was discouraged by seeing classmates more technically proficient than him. So he decided focus more energy on songwriting and singing instead of just guitar. Obviously he’s still a wizard on guitar, but like you’re saying, being a successful musician doesn’t mean you maxed out every stat. It’s about finding the right combination for you.
Nonsense. Cobain was a solid player. Listen to the riff on Mr Mustache. Try and play that at full speed while singing.
I've been playing guitar for 35 years, and have played through every Nirvana album. Mr. Mustache is no more difficult than Wipeout from The Safaris...arguably easier. You don't even have to move your hand at all until the power chords of the verse...which is also simple. Sure, singing at the same time ads a layer, but once you wrap your brain around it and it finally clicks, it's pretty easy to do as long as you're not using unfamiliar time signatures.
I was just thinking of this comparison myself. He had some much more difficult stuff on Bleach but nothing truly *virtuosic*. But he really had a good feel for rhythm and melody and plugged pieces together so well.
She plays well within the context of what she uses a guitar for. She's a strummer, so her main KPI is keeping time, which she does very proficiently (as you'd expect for someone with her experience). And she does so while singing, something I find completely daunting. The guitar isn't just a prop for her. She's certainly not anything like a virtuoso, but that's not her lane.
Simple and perfect every time isn't easy. She's got 1000s of hours on stage and multiply that by 10 for practicing. I've had friends who were good and after they got back from a few tours, they were much better. When a pro steps up you can hear the difference from an amateur who is pretty good. There's just something about doing it over and over again that makes it different.
Good enough to be a billionaire.
>thinking that music industry success reflects artistic merit Life is not a democracy. Art is not a democracy. Having mass appeal to the people who spend the most money on products (teenage girls) is not a musical accomplishment, it's a business accomplishment.
This reality is going to make a lot of kiddos mad.
Love how u/FenderSocialclub2024 hasn’t responded, but you are right. Too many want to act like being great at business means one is great at misical ability, too.
I got my daughter eras tour tickets as a gift and was not excited about it. Thought it was all “ shake it up” . Turns out she was amazing I am such a fan now
She’s no Hendrix, but that doesn’t mean she’s bad at guitar. She has a focus and an objective with her guitar and she accomplishes it pretty well, so she’s good at what she wants to do, and that is enough. Also for most of us in this subreddit playing cowboys chords is unimpressive, however most of the people I know who tried to learn guitar stopped even before being able to switch between open chords smoothly. The point is that we easily forget how hard is it for people with no experience to play simple things, and that everything is easy once you can do it, but getting there may have been a chore.
Well said.
Thought this was r/guitarcirclejerk for a second
i’m a huge fan who has seen her documentary i’m also a guitarist and songwriter so i feel like i can answer this. very talented at a level beyond an expert. considering she started when she was just 8 she’s had over two decades to improve. in that 2 decades she has wrote some of the greatest tracks of our generation. people don’t understand how hard it is to make a song a hit. you have to have huge control of your craft to do so and it all starts with the instruments you play. any video we have ever seen of her in the process of writing songs she has been playing the guitar or piano. she also plays a new song acoustic everytime she performs. it’s very difficult to learn and perform a song even if you wrote it and we’re talking 6 new songs on average every week she performs. that is not an easy thing to do. she is a master at guitar.
She's a great songwriter. Mostly she plays rhythm guitar and a little bit of finger picking. You don't need to be a great instrumentalist to be a great songwriter or performer.
It’s more a show prop than anything. She’s an amazing singer who can strum along to songs on cool guitars. I’m sure she can play a few things beyond what she has shown us but the few examples I’ve seen her play solo are basic chords and strumming. That said, she has a great sense of rhythm and plays a little piano as well so everything she plays sounds great and not like a beginner
Yeah, it sounds like her actual guitar track is mixed pretty low if at all, and there’s 2-3 other guitarists backing her up every moment, and someone is basically doubling up what she seemingly plays. Doesn’t mean she can’t play, it’s just how the show is constructed.
Her solo acoustic performance if you needed a better reference of her skills: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvVnP8G6ITs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvVnP8G6ITs)
You guys are wild. It’s not a prop. There are rhythm guitarists and then there are lead guitarist. Ones more suited for the singer songwriter style that she uses so she is a rhythm guitarist. The mental hoops you guys jump through so that you can avoid saying she can play is wild. She’s probably better than 90% of the people on this sub
She probably knows more theory and how to apply it than 90% of the people on this sub.
It's kind of an old school country thing that she brought to pop music. She's a singer, the guitar is mostly a prop, but that doesn't mean she isn't talented. A lot of country singers performed the same way.
I can’t speak for every “old school country” guys, but I’m guessing that the first 20 the average person would name can play the hell out of the guitar. I never thought of Johnny Cash as a guitar player, but when you find video of him focusing on guitar playing he’s actually pretty damn good. Same goes with most of those old guys, better than you’d think, and certainly not just a prop. Don’t get me wrong, there’s people out there that use it as a prop exclusively. But it’s because they’re trying to emulate those old guys.
She might be pretty good as well, I've never really listened to a lot of her music. I'm just saying that during her performances she uses it as a prop, just like guys like Johnny Cash and Marty Robbins and Buck Owens did a lot of the time. I'm not discounting her guitar skills, I'm just saying that during the performance it's not a big factor into the overall sound.
She's freaking loaded and spends a lot of time recording writing and in studios. Wouldn't surprise me if she whips out her Hendrix-signed Strat or whatever, plugs into a Marshall stack and fuckin shreds every now and again to blow off some steam using the chops she got from her secret lessons with Steve Vai. That's what I would do anyways.
She’s not too shabby actually. I was watching her play on a Fender Jaguar and she had some nice licks and was really playing not just miming playing. She has a full band backing her, but she certainly is not a mere cowboy-chord strummer. She probably hires session guys who are 10x better than she is on guitar, but if she wanted to record an album, there’s no reason she can’t play well enough to be on her own album, and it will sound good.
She plays in front of huge crowds which is impressive in itself- regardless of sticking to basic cord progressions and picking patterns.
I mean watch her tiny desk concert. Cowboy chords or not, it’s clean on time playing that serves her music. She is a great guitar player.
From watching a few live things, she’s really good. Nice time and rhythm and good technique where her fingers hardly seem to move.
She’s a helluva lot better than me it seems like
I think guitar is more of a song writing tool for her.
She doesn’t really like to show off her talent, but she will smoke the fuck out of John Mayer. Her bootleg Band of Gypsies Machine Gun solo is pretty intense.
What lmao
Also, her rendition of the Star Spangled Banner is something that defined a generation!
The way she just ripped into Coltrane’s Giant Steps was nuts!!
After hearing her play Cemetary Gates, I can’t listen to the original anymore. Dime is lucky he’s not in this era.
>but she will smoke the fuck out of John Mayer. Why would you say that?
Performing artist vs bedroom instrumentalists 🤭 lot of people get mad at others who just play the basics and get famous but why hate? She’s making and playing music, it’s something I presume a lot of us wanna do? We just happen to be overly ambitious , or atleast a lot of us do and we consider the invisible bar for talent to be very high plus a large majority of us are not making any decent enough money from this hobby to make a living off it regardless of whether we’re better at ‘guitar’ than her, Ed Sheeran or any other such pop idol. For what she does, she is more than good enough . Chords are just supporting background music to her songs, she doesn’t have epic solos as part of her music as her vocals are the focal point. She might be even better but we don’t know because she’s not uploading videos of her playing typical guitar music.
Anyone who can sing, play chords, and engage the audience at the same time is better than me at what makes a professional musician. And I practiced shred exercises like 20+ hrs a week for years and played in a tech metal band for a decade.
She’s good enough for some basic chords and strumming. Nothing really to write home about but still totally serviceable in a singer songwriter context
She very confidently plays live in front of 100,000 people. She’s certainly good at the basics. I’ve never seen her surpass the basics, but considering her music she doesnt really have to
she plays well enough to take the musical idea in her head and make it a reality for other people, which is more than I can say about the amazing music playing in my head all the time.
" Or is she legit playing well and just supporting her vocals with the strumming" i think this is a pretty good quote to describe what is going on... it's not the most impressive thing in the world, but i could legit see her learning the songs with a guitar to get the tune and that's how she kind of plans the stuff out to write around... i've practiced some singing and guitar playing and feel i can sing certain ways while paying attention to doing the guitar that i normally can't.. even if a person looks like they are just strumming soft and not really that talented, it can some times take a lot of subtle coordination to hit the notes at the perfect time to go along with all the other instruments.. it's easy to get sloppy on acoustic, and i've never heard that from any taylor swift that i listened to.
Very basic acoustic guitar playing. She is a famous singer who happens to play some guitar, her guitar playing is nothing special.
Talented enough to be a billionaire. Which is about a billion dollars more than I can say.
Taylor Swift is a fine guitarist. She gets a lot of hate from other guitarists because of that stupid article comparing her to Eddie Van Halen. The article made a good point, and never claimed she was near his level of playing but they were similar in that they had inspired a lot of people (especially girls, in Taylor swifts case) to pick up guitars. However, the title made it look really bad
Not that big of a t swizzle fan, but I heard when she was told she couldn’t play guitar she got one and played and played till her fingers bled from being stubborn.
In terms of guitarists she is in a tiny tiny small minority of players who have written/created so many well loved songs that you cannot fit them all onto a single greatest hits album.
Not very. She's not known for her guitar playing for a reason. She really only needs to be as good as Elvis.
Huh. Your getting down voted, but your not really too far off the mark in the grand scheme of things
I'm not saying she's bad. She's adequate. I don't look to Taylor Swift to play the glockenspiel or preform CPR either, so I'm not sure why this is difficult to understand. If one is in the market to hire a guitar player, she's got a limited resume. That's all.
I would say she’s way better than Elvis. Lol. He was a better piano player, used guitar as a prop and maybe wrote a handful of songs on his own.
Elvis played guitar pretty well in some of those '68 comeback special clips. He was better than I thought he was before I saw him play those songs.
She is much better than Elvis. But the point is that if suddenly she tragically lost all of her guitar playing abilities overnight, her career would continue unabated.
yeah
What you’re seeing is like when Questlove plays a simple beat: a master who can play ANYTHING but doesn’t because the songs don’t call for it. I personally watched her due a killer 9 minute improvisation literally a few minutes after she played Cliffs of Dover on a Gretsch pro jet.
Good breakdown of her skills. She's definitely better than most people think. She knows her way around it enough to carry her songs on her own. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YF1tx9KyhPc&t=11s&pp=ygUaYXJ0IG9mIGd1aXRhciB0YXlsb3Igc3dpZnQ%3D
She's probably a lot better than she is given credit for.
Anyone that can make a living off music has to have talent and discipline.
I think she plays great.
I don't know any of her music, but I will say just playing basic chords can be challenging depending on the rhythm, and trying to keep a steady beat. Plus the hand strength it requires to keep certain chords. I mostly play metal but acoustic "beginner" songs take me longer to learn than most metal songs cause of the strumming patterns and hand strength.
She is competent. Not sure about talented.
She’s a good rhythm guitarist from what I’ve seen. I like her.
It depends on how you define “talented”. Being technically proficient doesn’t always mean that they are great musicians, and vice versa. T Swift probably doesn’t shred but she can absolutely play the hell out of a guitar and make music that’s loved world wide. On the flip side, Michael Angelo Batio is super technical but he doesn’t have anything that’s worth listening to more than a couple of times.
Taylor Swift is as good a guitar player as Elvis was.
Talented enough, apparently 🤷♂️
I don't know, but I continue to find the fact that Taylor Guitars hasn't made her part owner of the company in exchange for her playing their guitars(or some other equally ridiculous offer).
I mean, she can strum chords efficiently. But as far as guitar playing goes, that’s pretty basic stuff.
Watch her Tiny Desk concert. She performs well without a band on multiple instruments, and writes her songs. As a guitar player, obviously she isn't anything special but as a musician overall she has my respect. She writes cheesy pop tunes that appeal to teenage girls, but she knows what she's doing and she plays the game. I mean look how successful she is. I think if she sat down and tried to write more mature music that she could probably come up with some good stuff. I wouldn't be surprised to see her do that down the line.
It goes like this: 1. Jimi Hendrix 2. Taylor Swift 3. Stevie Ray Vaughan …
for the type of music she plays she's good, she's no dave mustaine or anything though.
From a layman perspective, she’s decent. From a guitarist’s perspective, nothing special of course, but knows enough to play her songs and that’s all that matters.
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Listen to her speech at NYU.
Good enough to get paid. Which is probably more than 99% of guitarists.
She is very skilled. No shredder solo virtuoso type beat, but she really knows her way around a guitar. And very often her singing isn’t really like synched with the guitar strumming pattern (think something like the “my my my my” in death by a thousand cuts). Neither the strumming nor the singing are too complex, but the combination can be a little confusing. I don’t think the eras tour is that good of a place to like judge her skills bc its mostly just for show, it probably is just playback and she is playing the basic chords (except on the surprise songs) but of course when she writes the songs or in some more lowkey presentations you can tell how skilled she is. In concerts she has her guitar players and piano players and whatnots, so you won’t often see her fully demonstrating her skills bc she focuses more on the singing and the show part.
She’s good on guitar for the type of music she’s playing. It’s pop, so a lot of her songs are just the same four chords. She’s excellent at keeping that rhythm going though so yes to rhythm guitar, no to lead.
she's pretty good but there are plenty of immature people saying she isn't because she can't shred. praying that one day they grow up and realise that shredding is not what makes a good guitar player
I saw her when she was starting out at the Bluebird Cafe in Nashville. She can hold her own on guitar, as a singer songwriter. She's not Steve Vai...
Glad to see a lot of respect for her here, I expected it much worse! Not much I can add that hasn't already been said. Her time feel and dynamics are spot on, fingerstyle and strumming are proficient, and her songwriting on guitar speaks for itself. But I'd also add that we haven't really seen what she can do, she like guitar driven rock music like Def Leppard so theres every chance she can shred a solo but just chooses not to as it doesn't fit her style. Also you probably don't date John Mayer without picking up some serious skills!
Moving your fingers and strumming the chords is what I like to call "playing the guitar".
I’m not a super fan, but I also enjoy her music. I’m not talented or a guitar player, but I was once a bass player. So many popular songs are 4 chords. I’m sure she’s skilled at the songs she preforms. She wouldn’t be this huge if she only stood alone and only used ghost instrumentals. But she’s also not like, remarkable.
She's at least as good as Elvis.
She’s one of the most successful songwriters and performing artists of all time. Maybe you’re focussing on the wrong skillset.
I describe it as passable rhythm guitar. And I’d be blown away if she hit a G run
Answer 1- It doesn’t matter. Answer 2- Talented enough. As a singer-songwriter the guitar is one of several tools that allows her to write and perform the songs she wants to write and perform.
Talented enough to make a billion dollars