General Music Chat

I have never heard that song, at least I do not remember hearing it. So I need to take a look at that, but pieces can be complex that is for sure. I always get creeped out that I am going to blow it when I get into a band and first get on stage. Just screw up the entire piece. So yeah. Last night I just memorized the whole "Take Five" Jazz piece on guitar. I did what you were saying, where you play the piece over and over till your fingers memorize it. But I still got to get the rhythm values down.

If you've never heard "Roundabout," by Yes, then you're in for a pleasant surprise . . .

I must admit this song is not my taste (Listening to it now). However, I can hear the complexity in the music. I am listening to the live version, and he did all these harmonics in the beginning, interchanging them with a series of regular notes. It is a very complex sounding piece, and since I do not exactly feel it, I am not going to try it. I do not fair well with pieces I do not feel too well. Everyone has their own taste I guess, but it is fascinating to learn about different types of music. I am glad I checked it out, I find the more I can learn as a beginning guitarist, the better.

Peace out man, GuitarAnatomy.

Guitaranatomy,

Since you are just starting out one piece of advice I would give you is get a metronome or use some kind of click to play to. Lately Ive been going back to the basics and playing to a drum machine. These days you have it so easy, you can go online and get 10-20 tabs of almost any song. When I started and some of the other guys on here, we had to take tape machines, slow them to half speed to make out the music. It was important to play with other people then so you could pick up their licks. There werent any shortcuts and there were very few songs that had music available to read.

The group Yes has some different guitar parts, King Crimson would be another, outright guitar players with a different slant on things I would recomend almost any Jeff Beck. I would like to see some tabs on Becks music.

Good Luck, being able to fit in the groove is so important and its hard to get that sitting in a room by yourself. Like I said play with somesort of timing device. I think for someone starting that that would help a lot.

JW,

I have not used a metronome before. But I play along with every single piece I learn on guitar. For instance, Metallica's songs "Fade to Black," "One," "And Justice for All," "Master of Puppets," "Bleeding Me," and "The Memory Remains." I play along with all of those songs and then any other song from other bands I learn afterwards. I am very big on correct timing with pieces, it is just, like I said, not easy to get it down without practice.

I have never really looked into Beck's stuff, but I should. I stick more so to Clapton, Page, Harrison, etc... But yeah, thanks for all the advice, you guys do not know how appreciative I am that you guys help me out with this stuff. You guys are very experienced and since I am a beginner (Or close to intermediate), I need all of the help I can get. So yeah, thanks all of you for the help. *Thumbs up*

Dont take this wrong, I can sit around all day with the radio on and shred to almost any genre of music. But to me its like Karyoake.

Get a timing device and play the rythyms and the solos by yourself. You will be a better player down the road. If you have a recording device record what you are doing and listen back. Your ears wont lie.

For me, I get real sloppy playing along with songs. Thats just me. Heck Im sloppy on a good day.

Another thing will be to get with some other people and play in front of people. One gig is worth 100 practice sessions. One gig and you will know what you need to work on

No I do not take it wrong man. Thanks for that advice, I will do so. Look, I am the apprentice here, so any advice I am given I will follow. I have no one I can gig with, but I will get the metronome.

Peace out, GuitarAnatomy.

Instead of a metronome, may I recommend a cheap-o keyboard?
They all have various drums built into them.
Get one that plugs into the wall. You can get them probably from anywhere, starting from $15 . . .

Well, the keyboard may be more economical for more than one reason. I have been wanting to learn to play piano, so I have been thinking about buying a keyboard, a cheap one. The built in drums might help, I am not sure. I will have to either just get a metronome and a keyboard, or just think on it and decide. Thanks for the advice man.

Peace out, GuitarAnatomy.

By the way, RhythmMan_BluesRockFolk, I took a look at the tablature for "Classical Gas" by Mason Williams, that is definitely for an advanced guitarist. I could play it I think with tons of practice. I have seen pieces similar to that structure, like Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata." I am going to try this piece out now, "Classical Gas," I will let you know how it goes.

Reading whats been posted some seem to be focused on a particular song or songs...i'll take it a step farther and go with style, technique and tempo as examples.
Playing a song that is relatively easy in fingering can be challenging in keeping your sound even across the board, no volume spikes, all strokes clean and resonating evenly etc.
The uptempo million notes per measure actually increases the margin of erorr as you can use dead notes, clicks, bumps, fingerslides or any other mistake as part of the overall technique.
The casual listener thinks it's awesome for me to just pat my fretting fingers on the strings while picking my ass with the other hand...well, not really...but you can use "perceived sound" to fill the voids in the shredding type styles.

I have come to realize that some of the slower tunes can be a pain in the neck. For instance, not now, but when I first would play Nothing Else Matters by Metallica, I messed up because I would hit the low E string too hard with my thumb, or I would strike any open string too hard for that matter. I finally developed two types of finger picking styles from playing that song. The first one is just to use my chosen fingers which I am comfortable playing with. The second was an accident, I never wanted to use my fingers directly in the beginning, so I learned how to use my fingers and the pick at once. *Shrug*

On the other note, I am going to work harder on my finger picking so it smoothes out. I worked with a metronome yesterday on my electric guitar, there was one online that I found. So we will see how that goes.

Thanks for the advice guys.

Peace out, GuitarAnatomy.

I used to do a Led Zeppelin tribute band called Coda. The song "Black Dog" was a bitch, pun intended!

Good on ya Guitar...learning accidentally is cool for the most part; but then again, hearing someone describe what you found by accident is a little humbling.
I like to use "slap bass" to describe "perceived sound" to someone. A lot of the "slap" technique is fooling the listener into thinking they heard something that didn't actually happen (well it happened, but not what they think happened) if that makes any sense?
Using the percussive technique, the listener hears all kinds of stuff; that in reality all your doing is "patting" the strings...filling space.

Cheating? perhaps...if done right at the right time, no one knows but you and another player of course.

Guitar,

I have been reading your posts and I wanted to mention something that concerns me. You want to learn by doing things correctly first. IMO their is nothing that is "accidental". It' simply a variation of technique.

I can't stress enough that you first learn to do things properly. I have seen this come back to bite many a player. One of the ones I see is poor picking technique. The player should pick from the wrist and the thumb and index finger should not move yet I see tons of guys picking with their thumb and index finger and not the wrist. This is a very bad habit. Their is also a proper way to finger pick. Classical study teaches this. I recommend you at least get familiar with it first.

Some one might say Eddie Van Halen does unorthodox things on guitar. To the contrary. What he did was take his extensive piano studies and adapt it to guitar. Alot of his technique is borrowed from classical study.

I read an interview with him one time and he said he doesn't know what he is doing on guitar and that is why he developed the style he did. I think he was being funny. He knew exactly what he was doing, if by accident and it goes back to his extensive classical piano training.

So, first learn and abide by the rules. Then once you have them down break them or alter them if you like.

Maybe I am wrong but I have never seen a master guitarist who didn't have excellent technique.