Thread: Musicians Central

Nice work Sigg... I love me some guitar. I'm learning how to play a, but still struggling a little. Do you play any Flamenco/classical style?

-E.

Here's a little trifle I recorded with my neighbor who plays drums. First, he played a beat, then I recorded tracks over it, then he recorded a new drum track. Just goofing around, really.

http://76.12.0.196/useless_jam.mp3

Originally Posted by L.C.Mills

Nice work Sigg... I love me some guitar. I'm learning how to play a, but still struggling a little. Do you play any Flamenco/classical style?

-E.

Thanks. I don't play flamenco (i have neither the acoustic guitar or the finger nails for it). I play some neo classical style guitar sometimes, nothing too intense though. I actually have a song that i sort of jam to that is neo classical. maybe ill get around to recording that one...

the struggle is what makes the music fun. music is probably the one and only thing in my life that i have continued to practice and love since i was a kid.

although i do know how it is when you are starting out on a new instrument, it can get frustrating and not be so much fun. just keep at it and little by little you'll be able to play stuff that sounds good to you. it can be a little off putting when you want to play hendrix but all you can play is mary had a little lamb, ive been there on several instruments. guitar is the only one i play regularly though.

right now i think it's my gear that limits me, i only have my 1 guitar and now i have no amp, no speakers (just headphones), only the one digital effects thing, no bass guitar, no acoustic guitar, nobody to jam with...

if you really want to improve quickly, start hanging out with people who are much better than you. or if you have the money, pay for lessons



nice song joe, best guitar playing ive heard from you yet!

Thanks for the advice Sigg.

I have been practicing on and off for maybe 6 months now. I don't practice intensely, but I did for the first week, and in a couple of days I was running through the blues scale with relative ease. I mostly just play scales, picking out lead melodies and such. It's what I'm most comfortable with, since my piano/music theory knowledge is easily translatable to the fret board. Haven't practiced many chords yet, I hate repetition, so getting my fingers to move where they need to quickly in chord transitions is still beyond me.

Ah well, it is fun... more of a hobby since all of my music is done digitally... but I plan to try to make some acoustic songs once my playing is better.

-E.

Good stuff, Sigg. Nimble fingers You too, Joe...I like that track lots. LC, it takes time to groove the muscle memory. I hate doing scales but spend an hour or so a day forming chords or at least playing along with the radio, which is how I practice. I do scales on the bass though.
You can do flamenco with a flatpick or fingerpicks, though you have to work to make it sound right. I have a nylon-string and have done that a time or two. Here's a site with some free lessons.

Here's Chrome Dive Bar, a new piece I'm working on. The lyric (not yet recorded) has to do with a rock player who can't get a steady gig so he's playing country in a backwoods gin mill.
Got some groovy chickin-pickin going on and some violin by a friend of mine.

Originally Posted by moderan

Here's Chrome Dive Bar, a new piece I'm working on. The lyric (not yet recorded) has to do with a rock player who can't get a steady gig so he's playing country in a backwoods gin mill.
Got some groovy chickin-pickin going on and some violin by a friend of mine.

nice track you got going there, i can definitely picture a country singer over top of it.

really nice quality recording/production too, much better than anything i can do with my current set up.

Thanks, Sigg...sounds great, yes? My new mixer-bought it not long before we moved and didn't have occasion to use it. It's an Alesis Multimix 8, with USB connection:


It doesn't hurt that my studio has almost no furniture in it right now. That's an Ibanez superstrat standing in for a telecaster on that track. The drums were assembled using a program called Beatcraft.
I'm thinking my friend Bill would sound good doing the lead vocal. My voice ain't country enough.

Originally Posted by moderan

Thanks, Sigg...sounds great, yes? My new mixer-bought it not long before we moved and didn't have occasion to use it. It's an Alesis Multimix 8, with USB connection:


It doesn't hurt that my studio has almost no furniture in it right now. That's an Ibanez superstrat standing in for a telecaster on that track. The drums were assembled using a program called Beatcraft.
I'm thinking my friend Bill would sound good doing the lead vocal. My voice ain't country enough.

when i was still living in california i had all kinds of equipment... i guess i still own it, i just dont have access to it right now. I had a nice mixer (mine is a behringer though), half a dozen decent instrument mics, a nice condenser mic for vocals, all the cables and mic stands i could need, nice sound setup with flat EQ speakers to make mixing/editing more accurate, all of my effects pedals, my vintage tube amp, midi keyboard....

now all i have to work with is a cheap multi effects processor, my m-audio mobile pre, and a pair of headphones.

Yah, it'd be expensive to cart all that stuff across the Atlantic. I guess you're doing some contract work since you've mentioned time limit...hopefully one day you can play with your toys again.
I have all of those fun things, including a vintage (1964-5) National amp.


It's hard to mix accurately with just a pair of cans. I did it for a long time while assembling the parts for my studio.

yeah i miss all of the equipment but at the same time, it has forced me to focus almost entirely on my technical ability and the notes that i play rather than the tone and effects.

effects i can live with out but i really miss the analog tone of a nice tube amp... or an acoustic guitar.

ah well, when i return to the US i will be able to do all that, in the mean time i have been improving my speed and control of playing, i can play stuff now that i most definitely could not play 6 months ago.


Have you ever written a song that you couldnt play? i seem to always have at least 1 song that ive written parts for that i simply dont have the technical ability to play just yet. it's really awesome when i finally am able to play it tho

Absolutely. I write a lot of my tunes with Band in a Box and sometimes the chording is just too far out there for me. I have a Dean DeLeo (Stone Temple Pilots) jones as a songwriter, shoehorning a lot of jazzy chords into my pieces and the fingering throws me sometimes. There are times when I can't work out a suitable scale to play over the changes.
You're probably a better lead player than I am...I'm not awful but my concentration is on songwriting and I prefer rhythm and bass to lead. Speed is ok and I can shred if need be but that isn't what I'm about.

Originally Posted by moderan

Absolutely. I write a lot of my tunes with Band in a Box and sometimes the chording is just too far out there for me. I have a Dean DeLeo (Stone Temple Pilots) jones as a songwriter, shoehorning a lot of jazzy chords into my pieces and the fingering throws me sometimes. There are times when I can't work out a suitable scale to play over the changes.
You're probably a better lead player than I am...I'm not awful but my concentration is on songwriting and I prefer rhythm and bass to lead. Speed is ok and I can shred if need be but that isn't what I'm about.

chords are really one of my weakest points, i have had a lot of music theory training so intellectually i understand the theory behind building chords and such but i just never spend the time to learn new ones on the guitar.

when it comes to actual songwriting i try to mix rhythm and lead together, it's more fun when you play mostly by yourself.

as for speed, i like to play fast sometimes, but also being able to accurately play very fast gives you a lot more control and ability to improvise better at slower speeds. it's not just about technical ability but also how you think, if you can keep up with yourself when you play very fast bits, then when you jam at slower speeds you have all the control in the world. of course shredding can be a lot of fun too

i tend to put more of a focus on how the notes are played rather than just something like playing fast. in that regard i really love jeff beck's playing, he can take a regular lick and turn it into something really cool just by the little things techniques he uses when he plays the notes.

tone is also a huge thing for me, unfortunately all i have is the digital tones that my multi effects processor can make which drives me nuts, especially on long held out notes.

people keep telling me that solid state technology has come such a long way that you can hardly tell the difference anymore... but i think it's BS, i can still tell a huge difference between tubes and solid state. i mean if you are putting a bunch of effects and distortion on it then maybe not, but the clean tone simply can not be beat on tubes. when i was in college, i would not play my amp for months at a time because it was up at my parents house. but when i went home to visit id go play and i would literally get misty eyed at the difference between the digital crap i had been using at college and the vintage tubes.

anyway, for now i have to make up for the lack of tone/quality with the playing itself

Tone is gigantic. It's why I have so many axes and amps and stompboxes. I have exactly zero formal training...what I do have is 35+ years of playing and 20 or so years of playing live. All of that was playing rhythm instruments, so chording and comping are natural for me.
I did break down last year and get a little Line 6-I'm an analog tone freak but that's a nice-sounding amp. The fx are just ok-it's the amp that has sweet tone. The SG and the Ibanastrat love it, the hollowbody says "no thank you". I have a little Washburn amp that I use most of the time cuz the speaker's so teeny that it breaks up like a tube amp does.
All of the clean tones on the country tune were done with those two amps and an Ibanez Tube Screamer.
I spend most of my time playing my Ovation. Nothing like playing acoustic to sharpen one's skills-there's no way to hide. If I feel I need practice badly, I have an old Washburn that fights back when you fret chords.
Agreed about Beck, btw. Another guy I like because he just personalizes the notes so well is Robin Trower. Far more than a Hendrix clone, that guy.

well my formal training sort of ended 4 years ago or so. I started playing music on the Trumpet way back in elementary school and played in the school band up into highschool when i picked up the guitar, i took lessons on the guitar until i went to college and while in college took 2 music theory course as well as number of other music history type classes.

im not an expert in music theory by any means but i know enough to understand what im doing when i play something. it especially helps when writing lead parts in harmony with each other.

although i have always played melodies or leads on all the instruments, i played lead guitar in the band i was in for a few years as well. at some point i realized that my rhythm was horribly lacking so the last few years ive been practicing a lot with just playing as rhythmicly(sp?) as possible instead of the fast sort of out of time playing.

practicing with a drum loop or metronome helps a lot for me, going out of time can be cool in some places but if it's all you do then it gets old reaaallly fast.

i like the tubescreamer, it's fun to use on SRV type stuff where you want a little crunch added to your clean tone to give it some edge, but not like full on metal distortion. i have the tubescreamer turbo tho,



that pedal, my delay pedal and my wah pedal are the 3 i used the most