General Music Chat

Wegman,

Dont you think a lead guitar player has to have a little arrogance?

I believe confident is a better word. Yes, you have to believe IMO that whenever you play peoples jaws will drop or that you are capable of doing it. Man when it doesn't happen though, what a buzz kill.

Again my approach is to practice practice practice and be able to do it in your sleep.

Whenever I would be out on stage regaurdless if I was playing in front of 100 or 1000 I felt that what I was doing was going to impress. At the very least it wasn't going to suck. When I was playin on the circuit in Chicago for several years I improvised my solos every night. People would come up to me afterward and mention that they had seen me before and that I had changed the solo. I would tell them no, I make a new solo every night.

That always got a raised eyebrow.

I started on an electric, 16 years ago... I learned alot, but the biggest improvement to my playing ability, especially singing and playing at the same time, was when I bought an accoustic and put the electric away for awhile.

I have an acoustic. I play on it sometimes. It is a bit different as far as the finger picking is concerned. But I can play it fairly easily with a pick, not much of a change. I stopped playing my electric for a bit of time I remember, it was months ago though. It does kind of help advance the ability, so maybe I will go try it out later.

Peace out, GuitarAnatomy.

When constructing solos hear it in your mind first. Listen to the solo section you are going to play over and just hear the solo in your mind, or what it is you would like to play...

I have been working on a classical piece...
http://www.acidplanet.com/artist.asp?PID=1059962&t=9232

wegman-- i think i know what you are saying here. but to me, it comes either laying in bed waiting to sleep, or in a state of semi-sleep just before its time to get up. there is no way i could retain or remember a riff or any music i "hear" in my mind. maybe this is something the brain improves on when you are engrossed in playing or writing music? have you, over time, "learned" to remember music thats popped into your head?

i concur-- "simply not enough" is pretty good. very rich in feeling and mood.

guitaranatomy- i was wondering how your writing comes about. i ask you because youve been playing a relatively short time (as I have). ive written stupid, short, angry punk songs (i was "raised" on that style) but they arent the thing you want to have your friends hear, you know, especially when they are married with small kids, and are more in tune to the Wiggles and what have you.
you say you dont know theory-- so how does it flow from your head to paper? how do you know how to step from a chord to another, etc?

great thread-- lots of information.

guitaranatomy- i was wondering how your writing comes about. i ask you because youve been playing a relatively short time (as I have). ive written stupid, short, angry punk songs (i was "raised" on that style) but they arent the thing you want to have your friends hear, you know, especially when they are married with small kids, and are more in tune to the Wiggles and what have you.
you say you dont know theory-- so how does it flow from your head to paper? how do you know how to step from a chord to another, etc?

great thread-- lots of information.

Despite the short period of time I have been playing, which in all truth is only 1 year and 9 months (I just round it to two years), I can write fairly well. I have a very good ear and I can usually pinpoint notes on the guitar. I write off the top of my head at times. Sometimes, like you, I hear something awesome and then forget it. The best bet at that point is to get up right away while you remember it and try to put it down (I have done this before with riffs). I have written many pieces, especially with a Middle Eastern vibe, in different tunings as well. One of my darker riffs was written in Drop B tuning when I was only play for about a year and four months, so five months ago. The other one was written about 3 months ago after listening to a lot of Lacuna Coil stuff.

When I am playing chords I can hear what I want and move onto it. So if I am playing an E5 I can hear in my head that the next set will probably be an A5, and so on and so forth till it is the tune I want it to be. Chords do not boggle me, the fun part about them is finding new ones, either by doing your own research on the fretboard or looking them up. I learned some new Jazz chords recently, wrote a new piece, added in some string mutes and a couple of up and down strumming patterns and got myself a cool sounding little piece going on there. I cannot wait to add a better clean tone to it, or maybe even a drop of chorus.

When I write dark riffs, chords and single notes combined, it is just a flow I get. It is kind of hard to explain, but I figure it out. Sometimes I do what every beginner does, I just pick around till I hear notes I like and then organize them into songs. I have written metal riffs, Middle Eastern riffs, hard rock riffs, jazz riffs, ballad riffs, etc... My newest piece is a ballad, it is finger picked. I combine many different chords for that one, and I am still writing it.

I hope that answers your question.

Peace out, man, GuitarAnatomy.

When constructing solos hear it in your mind first. Listen to the solo section you are going to play over and just hear the solo in your mind, or what it is you would like to play...

I have been working on a classical piece...
http://www.acidplanet.com/artist.asp?PID=1059962&t=9232

wegman-- i think i know what you are saying here. but to me, it comes either laying in bed waiting to sleep, or in a state of semi-sleep just before its time to get up. there is no way i could retain or remember a riff or any music i "hear" in my mind. maybe this is something the brain improves on when you are engrossed in playing or writing music? have you, over time, "learned" to remember music thats popped into your head?.

Gi,

It is the weirdest thing but I hear music playing as if playing on a radio. I can sit and think about a genre and it starts playing. Anytime, anywhere. When I was younger I heard symphonies playing. Now some one may say that I heard the symphony before. No. We never listened to Symphonic music in my house and what I heard playing on cartoons was not what I was hearing in my mind. It had nevever been done before. It used to be so vivid. It's like having and IPOD in your head. I would constantly get yelled at in high school because I would be sitting in class listening to a symphony in my mind and the teacher would be yelling at me. I would then snap out of it from the yelling and be upset because it was gone.

There are a couple problems with this though. The first is If I do not get it down quickly it disappears. The main problem is I can't get it down, period. I don't have the tools at my disposal to get it down quick enough and it fades off back to the muse. I don't hear simple music. I hear complex music, with multiple melody lines and time structures and such. There is no way I can get down what I hear. Alot of things I hear I can't play. I have a classical piece that I have been wanting to put up but I still can't play it like I hear it and close is not good enough. The few tunes I have posted are missing all the other pieces I hear so what you hear is the very very basic rendition of what I really heard.

Sometimes I can go back to piece that I got guitar down on and listen to it and have the other pieces come back but still, I am not good enough to play keyboards, bass, or sing what I hear. The only player who was ever on the same page was the guy playing drums on The March to Victory and Escape.

If I am working with people as I have in the past and they catch on quick we can write it. I can hum them or explain what I am hearing and then they start to get it and it comes together. It has been a long time since this has happend.

As I mentioned a couple times the band this happend in was the one that had the most success and was on to something until our bass player knocked up his girlfriend and quit. The drummer playing on the tunes I mentioned earlier was in that band. Allow me also to say the brief success of the band I am not saying is on account of me, far from. The other guys would bring stuff to the table much in the same way and I would have to play through osmosis.

All my best work is the first take. If I start to think about it or try I just make it worse.

Sorry for the book Gi but you asked.

Geez, so much to cover here...

I thought I was crazy or halfway at least for years, but I've always had this little guitar player in my head that never stops. Sometimes he's dull, boring and repititious, sometimes he does things I can barely play and I have the same problem or similar, I can't get it down on tape or anything before it's gone. I have hell getting to sleep when he won't shut down...

I'm not much of a writer, and can't think up lyrics for some reason, or very rarely anyway, but I do stumble on good riffs or music now and then, like the little acoustic thing in my profile. I write off the top of my head, no paper and if I can think of it quick enough I grab a cheap cassette recorder so maybe I can remember it tomorrow...Once I have something basic I can remember, I start to work in it and gradually mold and improve it. Add a chord here and a stop there, repeat the chorus, whatever seems to make it better. Silhouette of A Daydream took 2 to 3 weeks to work out the basics, then 2 months of minor changes till I was satisfied with it. I'm still looking for improvements 3 years later.

Amps - I agree tubes all the way, but realistically for most people a 30 watter is plenty, and I've seen several Peavey Classic 30 amps in clubs, along with it's big brother the Classic 50. Great amps and the price on the 30 isn't bad either. I've only priced the 50 used, not sure what the cost of a new one is.

As far as the salesguy's comments, yes the solid state amps don't have something I can't quite put my finger on, I played them for years until a friend got me firmly hooked on tubes. Call it mojo, I don't know but tubes have something solid state just can't quite duplicate. What he meant by plugging into the board was using a mic or line signal to a PA system and amplifying that then adding it to the mix. I prefer to mic by far.

Effects, I try to go easy on the effects. If I were limited to only one it would be my trusty Ibanez SD 9 sonic Distortion. I like chorus or flanger, a bit of delay (echo), a good compressor, and an overdrive, and I don't think I could live without my volume pedal, but the one that's indispensable is the distortion pedal. Especially since I've never seen an amp that has a good distortion channel I really like. So I run a dual amp rig, both tubes. One totally clean, one raunch n' roll (Fender Super Reverb) and I use pedals through the clean one (Peavey MX) for distortion and so forth, usually the Fender is when I want straight, cranked up tube amp for leads with just a bit of raunch but not actual distortion.

That's the other thing no solid state amp I've seen will do, cranked tube amp sound. I can't quite describe it, but the first time you play onstage with a straight tube amp cranked to 10 you'll know why. Especially if you're right beside a solid state amp trying to match the same volume level and sound. Nothing else I've ever played will get exactly that sound, although I hear some of the newest digital modeling amps are getting pretty close. Close won't work for me, I don't settle for close, so I'll keep my Fender Champ and Super Reverb in working condition till they perfect it. The Champ is for practice at home, I can crank it to 10 without getting thrown in jail for disturbing the peace. solid state amps start sounding too harsh at about club volume levels. the transistors don't sag and get hot like tubes, or get the smooth harmonic distortion and compression, they clip. And it sounds nasty.

Effects - You have a distortion pedal it seems, my recommendation for a useful next addition would be either chorus or flanger. They're pretty similar, decide what you want out of your guitar and play a few then make up your mind which one would be more useful for the direction you want to take. After that? Delay, overdrive (different from distortion and quite useful), compressor, octaver (those are fun) wah wah, EQ maybe, it depends on what you want to do.

My setup is as follows, in order from guitar to amp

Shure wireless (I never knew what a nuisance it was to step on guitar cables all night)
DOD Compressor that I want to replace with a better one
Dan Electro Rocky Road, works great with a slight modification and makes a decent flanger but not even close to the Leslie simulator it's supposed to be
Marshall Bluesbreaker overdrive
Ibanez SD 9 Sonic Distortion
Schaller Fusschweller volume pedal
A/B Switch to amps.

I also have an Arion SAD 1 analog delay that I've been using (always on) through the effects loop of the Peavey MX but am seriously considering putting it before the compressor so I can use it all the time with both amps.

Makes for a great rig, the Fender is an all tube amp made in 73, the Peavey is a solid state preamp into a tube power amp and I've never heard a cleaner amp, I use it for that reason, plus it's 130 watts, I can set up in any size venue with no problems and it sounds great at lower volume for small places too, I don't even want to crank it up, I've heard that beast on 7 before...and still clean...only amp I know of that can do clean as well is a Hiwatt (David Gilmour and Pete Townshend both use Hiwatts)

Paleopete,

Thanks for the advice. It helps. Where to start, well, as far as I am concerned effects are very nice. But yes, I can see why a tube would be stronger than a solid state at points. I do not know what to do now, it is a bit rough, but I will probably stick with what I was going to buy in the first place. I do not know when I am starting a band, I was hoping 6 months (As I have mentioned numerous times). So, when that time comes I can upgrade the gear, or I find a tube amplifier that is a good price and try and get some kind of pedal board now. I like being able to mess with effects, I guess I am that kind of guitar player. I know some guitarists do not like effects, thinking it covers true tone, but that is only true to me when a player is trying to cover sloppiness. When I use effects it adds flavor to the piece.

You have a nice gear setup there and thanks for explaining that whole soundboard thing with the 30 watt amplifier hookup. That one was a bit confusing to me, not 100%, but yeah. I have a lot to learn, but I am working on it. I like my DS-1 distortion pedal, very strong, could not break the darn thing with a jack hammer. In fact, my First Act has a pretty solid build, I have dropped it many times and it has never broken on me.

I will probably go check out the guitar store again tomorrow, see what I can find. I will take that guys recommendation about trying out every amplifier before picking just one. As odd as it is, he was the technician, but I did not get the feeling he was trying to find a way to make me buy his stuff. In fact, I got just the opposite, he basically told me to go somewhere else. People are hard to read these days. However, I have a nice story to tell, and I am sure every one of you can relate to it:

Every time I would go into a music store over the past year and some months I would get hounded. I check out some guitars and a couple of amps and here comes the commissioned guitar guy, stalking me! Lmao. I got sick of it after a while, but my nature is to be a quiet person, thus I never open my mouth to anyone, plus I know it is their job. But they are annoying! You barely can breathe without them attacking you. Then you feel like you must buy something because they make you so nervous. Makes it so hard to try out the different instruments around the store. Well, I ranted, thanks for reading this part.

Getting back on track though. In response to the hearing music in the head thing, I do that too. There was one time I heard this absolutely brilliant wah-wah solo in my head and there was no way I could put it down on guitar (I was not even half as good as I am now at that time). I was so pissed, I wanted that solo. I hear music in my head a lot too, I write many pieces in my head, but they tend to sometimes be too complex for me to throw onto the guitar now. It is very frustrating, I have done the same with symphony type music, just hear something and wish I could remember it. Really stinks when you lose a riff like that.

Well, anyhow, peace out guys, GuitarAnatomy.

I've had music in my mind for years.
It's neat to go to bed and notice a 3 - 5 note tune in my head, and wake up in the morning with a whole song developed, chords Bass, rhythm, etc, based on the somple tune of the night before . . .
It keeps me awake sometimes, and I miss the REM sleep . . .
I find that 10 minutes of meditation before bed can quell the music, resulting in a better sleep; because then I have a tendency to dream in pictures, instead of in music . . .

Well, I was not sure where to post this, but I figured under my own topic would be best. Check this out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lu7Fkt5JBA

That is a local West Palm Beach band called Drop Z. It is a cover of Pantera's Cemetary Gates. Now in this video they are not as good as when I saw them (Bad night maybe). However, the guitarist to the left with the long black hair is a very good guitarist. I saw them live a couple of months ago, he played the solo to this song note for note when I saw them. I have never seen a guy move that freaking fast damnit. His fingers were very fast and he was very fluid.

Just thought I would share this with everyone.

Peace out guys, GuitarAnatomy.

Glad other people chimed on the music in the head thing.

I was thinking after I posted that "Ok, I have just become the forum nut job"

I can see the thread now "Hey guys did you hear Wegman? He hears music in his head. Better call the cookie truck!"

Glad other people chimed on the music in the head thing.

I was thinking after I posted that "Ok, I have just become the forum nut job"

I can see the thread now "Hey guys did you hear Wegman? He hears music in his head. Better call the cookie truck!"

Lmao. Neh, we will not send you away. Because if we call the asylum they might pick us all up, they may spare Irminsul though due to that new Ak47 he has... I know Battle of Bands was afraid.

Well, I was not sure where to post this, but I figured under my own topic would be best. Check this out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lu7Fkt5JBA

That is a local West Palm Beach band called Drop Z. It is a cover of Pantera's Cemetary Gates. Now in this video they are not as good as when I saw them (Bad night maybe). However, the guitarist to the left with the long black hair is a very good guitarist. I saw them live a couple of months ago, he played the solo to this song note for note when I saw them. I have never seen a guy move that freaking fast damnit. His fingers were very fast and he was very fluid.

Just thought I would share this with everyone.

Peace out guys, GuitarAnatomy.

There is something to be taken into consideration when speed is an issue and that is what is being played. Some scales lend themselves to being played much faster then others. Most of the guys I hear who are fast are playing the riffs that are easy to play fast. Not impressive.

You will notice alot of players are very fast on a couple strings. Usually the E and B. How many do you hear who can play that fast all the way down the scale or on the heavier strings? Another thing. Most fast scales are played well up the neck simply because the frets are smaller and thus lend themselves to faster playing.

So IMO take fast playing with a grain of salt.

Another thing is it is much easier to play pull offs and lagato picking fast then to pick everything.

Finally how many players do you hear that fast on an acoustic? That is what impresses me most of all.

There are only two guys who scare me speed wise. Yes I have heard Yngwie (bore, our should I say one song 10 songs = same song) and Gilbert, and etc, etc.

Those two are:

John Petrucci (Dream Theatre)

Al Dimeola

I'd have to add Eric Johnson. I've listened to Ah Via Musicom hundreds of times and have seen Eric live once, as a guest player, and a couple of live shows on PBS (Austin City Limits) Absolutely incredible, not just for fast guitar but some really tasteful melodic stuff both fast and not so fast, and the use of lots of chords to walk his way up or down with chords, even in the middle of a solo.

Al Dimeola, very impressive also, I read a few years ago that he redid Mediterranean Sundance (acoustic) in the studio till his fingers were bleeding on the keeper track. No idea if it's actually true, but after hearing it a few times it wouldn't surprise me. I'm not too familiar with much else, just a couple of tunes off that album but it's some really good guitar pickin.

Not familiar with Petrucci, only thing I've heard or seen is a video of a Pink Floyd thing I think was the same band.

Acoustic is really good, I practice acoustic all the time simply because it's more difficult to play fast, and I always tried to avoid getting too comfortable with any two or three strings or any spot on the neck. I try fast stuff down on the first 4 frets a lot just because it's harder. listening to David Gilmour got me started trying to jump from the 12th fret back to open, or vice versa, and that helps kill the tendency to stay in a "comfort zone".

I also work a lot on keeping everything, fast or slow, clean as possible. Especially things like open string and fingered combinations, and using two or three string riffs in leads where all three strings have to ring at once. I want all three heard, not just one and the others muffled, or two short notes and one rings out. All three have to keep ringing or the riff just doesn't do the trick.

That was the main idea behind the song in my profile, Silhouette of A Daydream. Lots of dissonants, all using open and fretted strings, and all had to ring out well to get the dissonance to be up front like I wanted it. (Yes the different terms were used intentionally.) And that's open G tuning too, not standard so it's also oddball fingerings, and if I'm the least bit sloppy I muffle notes that should sound out. Lots of hammer ons and pull offs, dissonants, all the sustain I an get out of an acoustic, it adds up to tougher to play than it sounds...That last 5 note ending riff kills me half the time, I think I recorded it 4 times just to get the last 2 notes to both sustain, I'd muffle the 2nd string half the time trying to fret the 3rd string. Still do.

Acoustic rules...

Found this guy on youtube, maybe some of you have heard him. This one is a medley but link over to his version of Bohemian Rhapsody. This dude is awesome.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3avSlilOzAQ&NR=1

Found this guy on youtube, maybe some of you have heard him. This one is a medley but link over to his version of Bohemian Rhapsody. This dude is awesome.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3avSlilOzAQ&NR=1

Wow, that guy is very good on that acoustic. I think it would take me literally about 2 months to learn what he is doing, lol. I bet even after memorizing it I would mess it up, so yeah. Thanks for posting this guy, jw123.

*Thumbs up*

Peace, GuitarAnatomy.