I’ve been trying to keep to my normal blogging schedule lately. Typically, Wednesdays I take a break from Fretterverse and work on my other blog.
But I came across something that annoyed me so deeply, we’re talking on a visceral level, that I couldn’t just let it go for even one more day.
Yes, my fellow Fretheads, I’ve now seen it all. I’ve been to the end of the rainbow. I’ve reached the end of the Internets. No t-shirt, no pot of gold, nothing. I never thought we, as the human race, would become so desperate that we require a product so fundamentally jarring, but alas I guess we’ve finally “gone there.”
I’m throwing out a yellow flag, handing the guitar world its World Cup red card. (You disappoint me, Germany!) I’ve almost officially thrown in the towel and called it a day.
How could we let it come to this? How could we, as a civilized society, allow this travesty to occur?
Man, I sure can be melodramatic when I want to, can’t I? Okay, so the world’s not coming to an end and I’m not stockpiling canned goods and D-cell batteries just yet, but I was serious about the being annoyed part.
(taken from www.powerchordtrainer.com)
The product I’m talking about is called the Power Chord Trainer. It’s a plastic device that you attach to your index and ring fingers to help “train” your fingers to play power chords. The website for this product claims the following:
- Builds finger strength
- Achieves correct finger spacing
- Helps build muscle memory
- Increases finger stretch
All of these things might be true, so on the surface this may seem like a good thing, especially for beginning guitarists. So what’s the problem?
In reality, my problem is not with the product itself. In fact, I think from a marketing perspective the Power Chord Trainer is absolutely brilliant! I’m surprised someone didn’t think of this much sooner.
No, my problem is really a case of why this product is brilliant. The Power Chord Trainer is brilliant because we (and I’m specifically speaking as an American at the moment, though I’m sure this applies to just about every country) have gotten to the point where we’re so overprotective and politically-correct that we can’t even let someone struggle to learn to play guitar of all things. We’ve thrown hard work, discipline, and rewarding solid effort off the roof of the Empire State Building, wiped our hands clean, and now walk around trying to convince ourselves that everyone needs to be good at everything they try to do.
Does anyone under the age of 14 remember the game Kill the Man With the Ball? One of the greatest games ever invented, now all but extinct because parents and school administrators don’t want to send a message to those of less athletic ability that they might possibly suck at something.
We live in a society today that has stopped using the color red on school papers to correct mistakes, as if the colors blue or green are going to make students less wrong. We’ve become a society that now forgoes the letter “F” to tell a student that they failed and replaced it with an “E” to encourage them to try harder. We now reward failure and downplay success. Nowadays, everyone gets a trophy. Bonus points get awarded for no reason whatsoever.
A close second on the infuriating scale
Enough is enough! Seriously, this has to stop. We’re turning into a country of wimps that actually have less confidence in themselves because they’ve never been allowed to fail or been told they aren’t good enough. We’re raising generations of kids that have never had scraped knees or fallen off their bikes. Children today have no idea how to handle adversity because we’ve wrapped them in adamantium blankets.
When you are first learning to play guitar, you can’t cheat. If you want to build strength in your fingers, play your f#*&%ing guitar! There is no magic pill; no special formula. Sit down with your axe and practice – a lot. Play the damn thing until your fingers hurt so much that you can’t play for a week. Then put some blister glue on your fingers and play some more. Most of the time this will be a non-issue because you will love playing guitar so much that you won’t stop. But, no product or training aid is going to effectively substitute putting in the dirt time and working your ass off to get good at something. You may still fail, but at least you failed for the right reasons. You put in the work and still didn’t succeed. That’s okay; you tried. Maybe another instrument will suit you better…
Why is the Power Chord Trainer such a great yet infuriating product? Because whether they knew it or not, parents/consumers will probably run out and buy tons of these for their kids because, God forbid, if their child tries to learn to play guitar without all of the supposed tricks and shortcuts (read: the right way) they might have to admit that they aren’t good at something. How world-ending it must be for you to see your child not get A+ rewards all the time for mediocre effort. *gag*
For the record, I don’t begrudge the Power Chord Trainer folks at all. But it does bug the hell out of me that we’ve gotten to the point where a product like this will probably sell well.
Loading ...
Josh brings the heat! I saw this thing a couple days ago and my first thought was, “Is this for real?” Our American attitude of entitlement at it’s finest. “I deserve to be good at this.” As much as I admire brilliant marketing, it does make me sad because it inevitably points out the sad realities of our culture.
Brett McQueen recently posted: 2010 Guitar Blog Awards
It’s really sad, Brett. Think about the death of the keyboard player since the software synth and midi input technology came about, and then think about how we as guitar players may fall victim. Bums me out.
I couldn’t agree more, and would just like to add
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6wOt2iXdc4
Carlin. Love it!
Great article, it had to be American non the less. I totally agree, people want to learn to play an instrument by playing guitar hero. It’s like those people who want to get a tattoo but use numbing creams, so freaking wannabe; If you want something pay the price for it.
But look on the bright side. People using this thing will never be successful or achieve anything, first, because to feel satisfied you must somehow struggle and second, they will eventually need to face reality and do a power chord without this piece of plastic, then they’ll realize they suck.
Big fan of the blog by the way
Thanks, Adrian. I appreciate you stopping by and commenting. And thank you for the kind words about the blog. If there is a bright side to it, I guess you found the only one. It just makes me wonder if there are going to be enough do-it-yourself guitar players in 20 years, or if they’ll just get a chip in their head to make instant Yngwie.
Then again, if they had a chip to make you able to read, write, and speak languages, I’d run right out and get one.
It seems that my comment didn’t make it… So I post it again, sorry if it’s in double copies!
I’ve spotted this gadget too, and made a blog post about it! At first I had the same reaction as you did. Then I gave it a thought, and well I still don’t think it is that useful but I don’t think it should be ruled out.
I mean that to make it through the guitar learning process it requires patience, playing, work, discouragement, and then more work, more playing and more passion. In that process avoiding some discouragement steps, or trying to go faster couldn’t be that harmful though I still agree that playing is the only way to make it through. And in the end a gizmo will never ever replace the will to make it!
Still as a Muzicosphere reader told me… They are attacking one of the last punk elements of guitars. Playing power chords is supposed to be playing punk, playing free, playing mean, playing absolutely not perfectly. So I guess we could say why would one play perfect power chords??
And by the way… The honor of Americans is safe! The inventors are Brits.
Sarssipius recently posted: Muzicosphere in the 2010 Guitar Blogs Awards
I see what you’re saying to a point, Sarssipius, but I just don’t think it’s good in any way. If you can’t learn to play a barre chord or power chord in two weeks, give up. Seriously. Just accept that guitar isn’t for you and move onto something else.
+1 for Carlin, although I think this “political correctness gone mad” schtick gets exaggerated. I can only speak from a UK perspective, but here at least kids do still play out on the street and fail exams and get beaten at football and rejected by their objects of desire and so on. The claim that they don’t forms a key part of a tiresome right-wing whinge we have here about how things just aren’t like they used to be.
I suspect that our equivalent of “Kill The Man With The Ball” is “British Bulldogs”, which dispenses with the ball but not the mass hand-to-hand combat:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4plm75VDrs
Still being played, and evidently still fun because of the perceived risk of permanent injury. Maybe things are crazier about this in the US, though.
On-topic, I’m a big fan of short cuts that actually work — music isn’t a sport and it isn’t possible to “cheat” at it. But the “power chord trainer” looks positively harmful to me. You can’t possibly learn to stretch by having a plastic thing hold your fingers like that. You have to use the muscles in order to develop them, otherwise it’s like doing the bench press with a fork-lift truck. If I caught a student with one of these I’d probably confiscate it.
Rich, it might be exaggerated in the UK (if so, you’re lucky) but here it’s a real epidemic. I’m very glad to hear that kids still play outside and stuff like that; here you really, honestly don’t see it much. At least not in the Northeast US where I am.
P.S. British Bulldog looks like a lot of fun, but there is no way in hell U.S. schools would allow that to take place.
The power chord helper looks retarded. I can’t really even see how it would actually help more than just getting in the way.
I don’t think the gripmaster is really deserving of scorn though. They’re helpful because they exercise the muscles in your hand in a different way than playing does (at least if you stick with the “hard” one). I view it like cross training. If you’re running long distance competitively, you don’t train by *just* running long distance, you also mix in sprint and hill work and weight lifting. Using something like a gripmaster and getting the muscles in your hand stronger than they would be from just playing guitar (which really requires very little strength) also helps prevent tendonitis. Not to mention that you can take a gripmaster with you and keep strengthening your hands when it’s not really possible to be playing guitar (on the subway, a long airplane ride, idly while you are reading, etc).
Personally, I’d *rather* just play guitar than work on hand strength because using a gripmaster is tedious and boring, but I put in the effort to make my hands stronger because I know it pays off in the long run.
Anders, your long distance running argument is a pretty good one, but in the case of playing guitar I think the stronger your fingers are the worse it can actually be for you. You should only use the necessary amount of strength to fret a string; anything more than that is unnecessary.
But you and I both agree about just playing guitar being the best solution!
@Josh: To a beginner I’d say that if he doesn’t learn power chords in two weeks then he has to stick with it, and learn ‘em in a month or two!
Obviously people have to be true to themselves, and recognize when they have to give up! Not my role to tell them (it’s easy as I am not a teacher)! In any case I agree with you on the fact that if someone really needs a piece of plastic device to learn power chords, then maybe he has to seriously consider an alterntive instrument! There are plenty of ways to do music, and guitar is just one among the others.
Yet sometimes these kind of tricks have some justification… I’m thinking about the little story I related in the blog post about a man who attached 2 of his fingers to re-learn guitar after seeing Django Reinhardt… I’m also thinking about a dude like Tony Iommi who would have been a total loss if it wasn’t for a piece of plastic! Okay, I admit this a borderline example
Sarssipius recently posted: Muzicosphere in the 2010 Guitar Blogs Awards
Yeah, I think if anything those examples prove my point more than anything. They didn’t use any tricks or devices to relearn guitar; they just put a lot of practice and made it work.
Who knows…
Josh — I’m sorry to hear it. British Bulldog *was* fun, even for a nerdy kid like me who always got creamed
Rich recently posted: About Me
Well, to be fair, back in my day (a long time ago) we had Assball, Kill the Man, Dodgeball, and Kickball, so we weren’t without our stress relievers.
haha Josh… You’re totally right my examples sound more like arguments to prove your point! Damn you’re good!!
Sarssipius recently posted: Muzicosphere in the 2010 Guitar Blogs Awards
haha! Don’t sweat it, man. It’s all good. I totally appreciate you taking the time to read and discuss my crazy ramblings.
Wow, something weird just occurred to me.. I think where I live we have this process the other way around. I recall now that 5 years ago (I’m 17) I was in some stupid summer camp (I wouldn’t call it a summer camp because there was no forest and there was nothing campy about it), in the ending ceremony everyone got a medal! I hated it then, I realize why just now. They actually invented a category for people who didn’t do anything.
But now I hear from my little brother that they actually do something in those trips, and I also see that in their everyday life – I sometimes get to watch them play football (actually soccer) , they’re really aggressive and sometimes violent. That’s weird, and even worrying for myself, who grew on much softer activities..
Good to hear you guys are experiencing the reverse. I feel sorry for the kids 20 years from now.
Wow, popular post this one Josh! It seems that in order to use the powerchordomatic-izer you need to stay within the first five frets or so in order for it to function at it’s “mathematically correct” spacing. I’m guessing the powerchordomatic-izer MINI will be out soon to help serve those players who want to play power chords higher up the neck!
We’ve already got the FretLight guitar dumbing down the learning process, and the new auto-tuning FretKing guitars, but this one takes the biscuit.
Neal recently posted: Newbie Series Part2 – Beginner Guitar List
hahaha, that’s great Neal. Maybe you can put the big one on your index and ring fingers, and then a smaller one on your middle and pinky fingers. That would definitely be the way to do it!
Wow. As co-inventor of the Power Chord Trainer, I never dreamt that it would raise such passions! And I do know where you’re coming from. When I was a kid I climbed trees, played British Buldog, explored the woods alone… and learnt guitar without a guitar case, tuner, stand, video lessons or the Internet.
But allow me, if you will, to explain how Power Chord Trainer came about and how we see it. “We” is me and my friend Kelvin. We’ve both played guitar for decades; Kelvin used to be a gigging guitarist and became a professional guitar teacher some 12 years ago. For 12 years he has helped budding guitarists of all ages to learn the guitar and struggle through all the various stages. A typical 10-14 year old starts of on open chords (as we all did) and gets frustrated… we all forget how damned difficult it is when your fingers aren’t used to those strange shapes! Now your average kid didn’t take up guitar to play folk songs – they want to play rock, metal, pop or punk. So, as a start, at an early stage in their learning, Kelvin teaches Power Chords and they love it! But when you’re not used to stretching your fingers it IS difficult. Kelvin used to put a matchbox between their fingers to demonstrate the separation needed, but that’s obviously no good as you move up the fretboard. So, the Power Chord Trainer concept was born. Not from a marketing company, but from the back-yard studio of a guitar teacher. We took it from an idea to a concept to many prototypes, to a design, to a product, which is what we launched less than a week ago. And it works! Not for experienced guitarists like us, but for absolute beginners struggling through their first weeks and months. My hope it that helps kids to enjoy playing guitar before they give up due to boredom and frustration, cos I love the guitar and I’d rather they were playing the real thing than playing Guitar Hero.
I’ve already written more than I intended, so I’ll leave you with one final thought… many (yes I know, not all) kids learn to ride a bike with training wheels fitted; it give confidence and helps them through the early stages. Taking the wheels off and riding unaided is a big moment, they discard the training wheels and ride unaided for the rest of their lives. That, my friends, is the intention of the Power Chord Trainer.
Best wishes
Paul
PS: Neal – PCT works all up the fretboard to about fret 12. It is not fixed spacing, it is flexible.
PPS: People seems to think that you need to be putting a lot of muscle effort into PCT. It is actually quite flexible and ‘encourages’ your fingers to adopt the correct spacing, it doesn’t force them.
Paul, thank you for taking the time to write such a great response. As I mentioned in my post, it’s not your product that bugs me so much as what the product implies – to me. We have a really big problem here in the States with parents over-protecting their children and being so scared of having their kids fail that they practically don’t let them do anything. I suspect your product will sell very well (I sincerely hope it does and you guys make a ton of cash), but my fear is that it will sell for the wrong reasons.
Good luck with the product!
Is buying a tuner over a tuning fork the same thing?
No.
Hi Josh,
I liked what you had to say about this product. I have a real problem with these sort of “quick-fix” solutions – not so much because of the money they take from people, which ultimately isn’t a lot. Rather it’s just the waste of time that they represent. Even if this thing worked to help work on your hands, it does nothing for your ear, or your sense of rhythm, or your creativity, or your ability to communicate with other people musically. Which is ultimately where the REAL challenge in music lies.
I ended up having a great deal to say about this sort of gimmick myself, and it ended up being way too long to include as a comment here, so I wrote it all as a post on my blog, linking back to your post of course
Thanks for the excellent read btw, have been lurking on your blog for a while
James
Jim E James recently posted: The latest quick fix solution
Thanks, Jim. I appreciate the kind words and the plug. Just remember, though, I’m not angry at the product so much as what it represents. It’s a semantic difference, perhaps, but an important one.
Nice blog, btw…
Hi guys, tried loading this blog through Google RSS reader and got a strange error message, any ideas what could be the issue?
Did you try to use http://fretterverse.com/feed/ ?
Nevermind, works now!
I just want to give another perspective. I have been playing guitar for over 25 years. Never professionally, just for my own entertainment and enjoyment. However, 4 years ago I suffered an Aortic dissection. The same medical event that killed John Ritter, Lucille Ball, Conway Twitty just to name a few. It has an 85% mortality rate.
Needless to say, I survived mine but during the several surgeries I had to place stints, grafts and a metal valve, the Ulner nerve in my left hand was destroyed. This has left me with a very week left hand. My little and ring fingers are numb and I have very little muscle control over either.
For two years I couldn’t even bear to pick up any guitar. I knew my playing days were gone. Then about a year ago I got out an old acoustic just to see how I did playing. I was able to pick out some old songs and chords on the first through third strings, but to stretch any further was impossible. I became extremely frustrated. Then I found that in playing the heck out of those 3 strings I was getting some dexterity back, some strength. I was beginning to get chords clean over to 5th string. Albeit, with a lot of fret buzz and dead strings on my first few attempts.
Anyway, back to the item at hand. I can see why guitarists would see this Power Chord Trainer as an abomination to all that is holy, but I see it more as a crutch. Something to help people like me. I plan on getting one since it may be the ONLY thing that will ever get me playing power chords again.
Anyway, that’s my perspective and believe me, I respect and understand yours. I just hope that there are more aids out there to help people like me to once again enjoy what I used to love.
A very interesting perspective, Carwin. Thanks for sharing. I truly hope you will be able to play the way you want again. Good luck!
Hello to all that may read this, my name is Kelvin Pratt and I am the Inventor of the “power chord trainer “ and I have composed this letter in response to the many comments good and bad about my product…
I am going to keep this as short as I can, I don’t want to be accused of verbal diarrhoea of which I am in no doubt will again be a victim of even more unfounded drivel! more sarcasm below!!! To help those who are unsure about the sarcasm the comment will be followed by an abbreviation scm (sarcasm)
1 I am a teacher of the guitar for 16 years and have played for some 40 years
2 in this time I have seen many people struggle with hand position, and for those comments about what happened to good old fashioned practice I suggest you wash your shirts by the river with a rock, oh and by the way, walk to work, and if your reading this you’re looking at a computer… get it? (scm)
3 I had the same problems years ago when I taught myself and should I have known of a quick fix I would have taken it. These days the pace of life is much faster and we all want to get somewhere quickly! No? Why have we got planes?
4 I used a matchbox to form the distance between my 3rd and 1st finger to play the fantastic sound of a power chord! Remember I was 10 years old! Moving the power chord up the neck was now the problem!!! The matchbox has no flexibility
5 Back to 2006 or there about!!! After searching the internet and found nothing that could overcome this problem I produced the power chord trainer that does flex!! And I stress should only be used until the pupil / beginner can play the power chords correctly (I put that bit in for those who will and have said “it gets in the way“… by the way that has been said by some people and I’m sorry to say a guitar teacher. Perhaps he didn’t want his students to get good to quickly? You never know (scm).). PCT is a cheap item and if you don’t need it anymore after a day a week or a month then pass it on to another learner!! It’s to help you learn early on, not forever!
6 I would like to point out that at this stage after many trial and errors in the prototype, Paul my partner in this venture came up with the final design and I thank him for that. He has a much more stable mind for problem solving than I! I see a problem take out my brain leave the runway at break neck speed and then after take-off spend hours and hours with springs toothpicks hammers glue and anything I think will fix the problem tell Paul about what I’m trying to do 20 minutes later and he has the answer
7 (you take a gamble on a small fortune) some comments I have read have implied that the PCT could make a lot of money!! I say to these people, try it yourself… invent something, patent it, buy the tooling, and then try to sell it!!!! I would suggest this would be an education to those who think this is a quick Buck! By the way I am writing this at dinner time in a school I am teaching guitar at, sorry to disappoint those who think Paul and I are sipping Champagne on a yacht somewhere in the Caribbean (scm)
8 I have also read that the PCT may cause injury my advice there would be to be very careful when driving or being driven in a Car I’ve heard those things may even bloody kill you !! yep (scm)
9 Sorry for the sarcasm (no I’m not) but isn’t it as bad as saying we are treating our beginners with kid gloves?????
10 Finally the reason for me producing the power chord trainer was to help people play an instrument that has been my passion and soul mate for nearly as long as I can remember
There is one final thing I would like to add!! this is not my only invention as my first invention was the Space Trainer and that is a device for helping beginners play their first / primary chords I produced this because I have seen many beginners unable to arch their hands correctly so in the beginning I used a pencil or my finger (“don’t use your finger Mr teacher this may be deemed as child abuse” – YEA RIGHT!!!) on the underside of the neck to enable them to feel how the arch should be made! Again only to be used until the player can do this themselves (remember bicycle stabilizers). I have also heard some studious deep thinking musical geniuses say as they did about the power chord trainer “it will get in the way“ for the love of God it’s what it is supposed to do
Now I’ve used God in my last sarcastic remark no doubt I will burn in hell for that comment! Oh well Shit happens even if you’re trying to help people “Jesus Christ” err yea Jesus Christ! Bloody hell yea they crucified that poor guy! I bet you guessed that one yep sarcasm
I guess I am now open for more of your comments / criticisms’ about this my first product!!!!!!!! YOu can see both of them at http://guitar-gizmo.com or search on eBay.
Well there are many forums and an email address for power chord / space trainer for you all to have a good old rant at me and quite frankly I welcome all of them as I must say this has been one of my most enjoyable dinner times stuck in a scruffy primary Essex school in the UK that I have had for many years so I thank you all for inadvertently entertaining me and I hope that some of you have also been amused reading my responses (from the heart that bit). No I’m a lying bastard, it was sarcasm
Looking forward to your comments!!
Kelvin Pratt – inventor or the Space and Power Chord trainers (and proud of it!)
OH and I forgot to say I have another 4 ideas in the pipeline and if I go ahead and produce them it should keep us all writing crap on the net rather than playing our guitars !!! Oooohhh nearly forgot …………………. ——>> (scm!)
Kelvin, inventor of PCT recently posted: Power Chord Trainer for rock guitar
Thank you for chiming in, Kelvin. I can see that you are very passionate about your product. Though you make some good points about product development and things of that nature, I guess I’m just very old-fashioned and think that hard work should persevere. But keep going!