I've just noticed the final episode of Play it again with Bill Oddie is on this evening, for those interested

Sorry if this has already been posted but I've only just found out

I don't think I'll be watching this one. A) I don't like Bill Oddie and B) I hate the electric guitar, so I don't think it would be a good idea for me to watch it! Plus I have my german oral tomorrow. Arrgh!

Thanks for saying. Yes, I've just looked it up: 19.00 on BBC1. Normally I'd be working, so perhaps Bank Holidays aren't so bad!

I hope there is an odd Goodie song thrown in. There were some gems!

I watched the episode last night. The only other one I saw was Robert Winston learning the sax, which I thoroughly enjoyed - however, I didn't really enjoy last night. I found that Bill Oddie was typical of the worst type of adult learner (not typical of the adult learner - but of the WORST type, before anyone gets at me!) - the person who 'just wants to play - but isn't interested in actually learning the instrument'.

He began to wind me up half way through, and by the time he decided to 'sack' his teacher I skipped through the rest on fast forward.

Pity.

Think the best one of the series was Diane Abbott's, followed very closely by Robert Winston's.

A very enjoyable series, let's hope the BBC commission a second series for next year.

I really agree with Bing's comments - Bill Oddie annoyed me no end, I felt upset for the poor woman who was trying to teach him, he just wouldn't listen to her. I don't understand how anyone can be so arrogant. He was a beginner, and she had been playing the guitar for 30 years! I also thought his comments about the Royal Academy of Music were ridiculous, and very ironic that he was making these comments when he had studied at Cambridge

Don't shoot me because I am not an electric guitar (or any guitar) player. But isn't that slightly the point of electric guitar. Obviously you can have lessons but for a large proportion of players it's a teach-it-to-yourself-then-play-with-some-mates kind of instrument. Your own feel for the type of music you are trying to produce together with your own creativity are more important than technique lessons.

I don't disagree with you, however, the point of the programme was to learn rapidly, for a set performance. I felt that he wasted the opportunity that he was given - regular lessons with an excellent teacher for a short period of time.

It was his veneer of arrogance that wound me up - including his rather silly comments about the RAM. If he was so busy with work, and didn't want to have lessons, why did he agree to be in the programme? He could have just strummed away in private - which was obviously what he wanted to do.

That's why I was disappointed with the programme.

What a philistine!




Wikipedia:

A person called a Philistine is said to despise or undervalue art, beauty, intellectual content, and/or spiritual values. Philistines are also said to favor forms of art that have a cheap and easy appeal.

I agree about the Bill Oddie comments - I don't think he came across very well at all. It struck me that the two people who 'sacked' their teachers were polar opposites in terms of learning style and that maybe Bill would have got on very well with the teaching approach of Frank Skinner's first banjo teacher. Equally I think Frank would have found the structure that Bill's teacher was trying to impose extremely valuable.

I've watched all the programmes and the two I've enjoyed most were Frank Skinner and Diane Abbott. Although I'm a sax player I was a little disappointed with the Robert Winston programme - he didn't really seem to have a passion for playing the sax (and I believe he's now switched to clarinet). The one I felt a bit cheated by was the Aled Jones programme. OK, so pop/rock drumming is a very different thing to classical singing, but even so Aled Jones is a music college graduate and that background has to make a difference whatever instrument you're learning. I think that showed in his final performance which, to my ears, was the most professional of the six.

Yes, I guess I do agree with that. Afterall if he wanted to teach himself electric guitar in his bedroom he could have done that without the TV program - so why hasn't he before. He could also perhaps have persuaded his daughter to let him go on stage with her band.

Does rather smack of a publicity stunt by the two of them with her getting all the BBC's clout involved in inviting a high powered audience and having prime time TV audience opportunity.

well, I didn't watch it, but really wanted to - now you've made me feel glad that I didn't watch it!!!

with the negative comments. This was the worse programme of the series.

I didn't see the Aled Jones one, but agree with that on the basis of the ones I saw.

I wasn't very comfortable with the idea of the Seriously High Profile performance at the end of six months. I hope Robert Winston will find a local orchestra or band at the right level to join and get regular social music-making. It was very interesting to see how the various teachers worked, and I thought Diane Abbott's in particular was a real star, exactly right for the situation.

I missed the programme and now I'm itching to know what Bill Oddie said about the RAM. Can someone tell me please enlighten me?

I forget exactly, but it was basically that it being the Royal Academy of Music, he was only happy with the "music" bit of that. He was a bit snotty about the "royal" and the "academy", as others have said, having studied at a prestigious university I felt that was a bit stupid.

I agree with the negative comments, sadly. I didn't necessarily agree with his teacher's presumption that "the early stuff isn't/can't be fun" but besides that she quite clearly knew her stuff and was very patient with him, trying to give him a good solid foundation, and it seemed like he genuinely couldn't hear that what he was doing wasn't sounding good - or that the people he found who "they taught themselves, so can I!" obviously listened to the sound they were making and knew what was and wasn't good, whereas Oddie seemed to assume that it was ok as long as he didn't sound that bad.

I did feel he wasted the opportunity he was given, and the whole programme was slightly disappointing.

I think it was even more stupid that this, if my memory is correct. I think he said he couldn't relate to any of the words in the phrase "Royal Academy of Music", except perhaps the word "of". He then said what his problem was with each word.

How utterly puerile. You'd expect somebody who is supposed to be intelligent to be able to see the bigger picture.

Your memory of it is probably clearer than mine, skyers...

Bah. What a shame to end the series on that note after it sounds like the other episodes were great.

I really really enjoyed this episode. I thought it was a great example of how not to teach an adult (or even any) learner. Finding out why and how he wanted to play would have been a good start, rather than teaching a relatively random series of chords because that was how the teacher was taught. Priceless!

That's not how I remember the first lesson. I thought she identified a song that he really wanted to play (was it Knocking on heaven's door? - I didn't know it so may have got the title wrong) and taught him a chord sequence to support it.

That's what I thought too, and weren't the chords he started with (CAGED) chosen because they were open chords on guitar (don't know not a guitarist) rather than a random series?

Of course the program was heavily edited too, so although we didn't see the initial discussions about why and what he wanted to play with the teacher it doesn't mean they didn't happen. As viewers we saw those bits in various sequences at the beginning of the programme as Oddie was introduced. It may well have been decided that showing those conversations with the teacher would only duplicate what we had already seen.

I wonder how much, if any, Oddie's attitude to his teacher was influenced by the fact that she didn't fit the stereotype of the typical electric guitar rock hero.

I thought also that she was trying to get him playing stuff that he wanted to play - Knockin' On Heaven's Door was his suggestion if I remember rightly... she asked him specifically for suggestions and picked up on one that she thus knew he liked, and knew from her own experience was suitable.

I also distinctly remember Oddie saying he didn't like the sound he was producing for that song, and she demonstrated that with the same good technique and ringing chords, she could twiddle a knob and produce the sound he was looking for, whereas he seemed convinced that the way to do it was his way, ie not stopping the chords properly which gave a similar but very ugly sound. & even after that he decided in his wisdom that she was wrong.

(I did also think it was a bit dumb, though not BO's fault as it wasn't necessarily something he would've automatically known, that no one thought to get him a basic acoustic to practise on while he was working... surely a whole lot better, for practising chords and just staying familiar with the feel of the instrument, than just not playing for days at a time.)

Of course, it is impossible to know exactly what went on considering we saw an hour's footage of a 6 month experiment.

Thank you sarah-flute and skylark. Bill Oddie's comments re the RAM must have been a bit of a clanger as his teacher, Bridget Mermikides, completed a masters there.

No, the chord sequence for Knockin' on Heavn's Door was different: it included an Am7 as I recall. When I started guitar (years ago) I began with chords which could be used for a number of songs: G, C and D7, and progressed to adding others as needed. It got us singing and playing straight away (even if it was Grand Old Duke of York!).

Re Bill Oddie on Play it Again.
Most of the comments have already been made and I agree with most of them.
Oddie gives the impression that he hates everybody, but wants everyone else to love him.
The CAGED lesson that Oddie received was not exactly correct. Although these are open chords on a guitar,
the CAGED system is actually for remembering the other positions on the fretboard for these five chords. Basically by just remembering the word CAGED. It works well if you're familiar with barre chords up the fretboard. Not relevant to Oddie!!! Anyway he behaved exactly the way I thought he would - i.e. an arrogant little man with a bad attitude - his daughter was barely any better either!!