Guitar thread

[Sky]

Reminds me a little of a charango. My favorite non-famous musician is a charango player named Conrado Garcia, I can't quickly dig up any of his solo stuff, he's sorta-famous as a composer, plays in the renfaire band Cantiga. Mind blowing technique, effortless.

Here's an example of charango: http://youtube.com/watch?v=MMPZqXxYF0g

[Sky]

Got thinking about gear. Kinda want an o/d pedal to pair with my little fender cab, not metal distortion, just a little dirty tone to moisten things up a bit. Researching wah pedals, too. Found this guy: http://www.fulltone.com/stpframe.html who seems to have a decent offering of both. The  FullDrive-2 MOFSET and the Clyde Deluxe Wah. Yum.

[climbjtree]

So here's the hollow-body Ibanez I just bought. It sounds amazing. Sorry for the poor quality image. It's a phone picture.

[Engels]

That looks awsome.

[climbjtree]

The cool part is that it sounds better than it looks. I need a better amp; an old Marshall or something would be great.

[stray]

Grats! Good choice.

[Abagadro]

Even though I always found hollow bodies a bit too bulky, that is a gorgeous guitar. 

[stray]

Well, they're pretty light...so kind of offsets the bulkiness in some respect. Err..maybe.

My only problem with them is that they're seriously noisy and prone to feedback. Used to have a pretty nice one, but I couldn't take it anymore (it's tolerable though if the environment's right).

[edit] No marshall! Go for a Fender Twin (or a deluxe reverb)...get a tubescreamer...then sound like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBm79O-IwXg

Take off tubescreamer, sound like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGg3_T_FcOQ 

[Sky]

More like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YA3lTf-lh6E 

But I am very tempted to get the overdrive pedal I linked earlier to get some drive into things without blowing my amp up. At least now I don't have to worry about getting evicted, just blowing out my eardrums.

[stray]

Dude, young Brian Setzer pwns Old Brian Setzer, I'm sorry. 


Yes, he's an even better musician now -- but the young version, well...that's possibly one of the only guys I'd have sex with (ahem...True Romance reference).

The dude is just the embodiment of cool though, either way.

Black Rebel M C is a cool band though... A little one tricked, but don't even deny that guitar sound. It's killer.

[edit] Hilarious comment on youtube:

"coreect me if im wrong, but is he playing a Gretsch White Falcon?

such a good guitar to have while your drummer uses garbage cans :D?"

[NiX]

Bah, I've been off and on trying to learn guitar from a book. This is not working out for me. I'm more of a visual learner and this book is atrocious for teaching considering the guy tends to drift off in the middle of important stuff. Suggestions for maybe videos or some other method of learning?

[Raph]

I learned by getting the sheet music for one of my favorite albums, and some more that was of songs I knew well, and just pounding on it till I could play the chords.

[stray]

I never learned well from books (at first) either, Nix. Don't feel bad.

Best way to go about it (imo) is to talk to people who play themselves, and trade some licks (or rather, steal some). A little here and there.

Or start out simple. Screw 6 string chords for now. Screw blues riffs. Screw single note walks. Seriously, fuck that shit. It's lame and self indulgent on the teacher/book's part. Fuck it up it's pretentious ass. 

Ahem. Anyways... That stuff will happen in time. Just learn how to form a power chord for now. Then play the most boneheaded punk songs -- they're the easiest, and melodic enough where you can feel cool that you're making music. This is what matters.

Don't go through what I did -- the guy who taught me was some sadistic hippy who 1) made me learn to tune my own guitar by ear (a shitty $10 non-tunable hand-me-down at that) and 2) made me learn Pipeline and 3) made me learn righthanded when I was left!

On the flipside, I taught a friend who was a late bloomer how to play Die Die My Darling, and he became very fun and competent enough to play with in 6 months time.

[Sky]

Grow a bunch of pot plants with a couple friends. Make your friends buy instruments. Form a band. Try to learn how to play in between getting laid and high.

Well, that worked for me.

If you're visual, try looking on amazon for DVDs from an artist you like and would like to sound like. Shoot for someone simple at first, don't go straight for a virtuoso or you'll just get frustrated. Also hit up youtube, there's lots of cool instructional stuff there.

I disagree with Stray on 6-string chords, blues, and single note lines. Remember, this is a guy who likes young Brian Setzer better than old Brian Setzer because he's gay for him. Learning your open position chords and the basic barre chords is TOUGH, but essential to becoming a good guitarist. Learning to play guitar is TOUGH. There are years of work before you'll be any good. If you stick with it, you'll eventually regret any shortcuts you take. The 5 major open chords CAGED set up everything else you'll ever learn on guitar.

What's the important stuff you're wanting to work on right now? That could help us guide you.

[NiX]

Right now I'm just trying to get simple stuff down. Power chords and basic transitioning between notes. My goal for the next month or so is to be able to play simple shit like some of those Green Day songs with all them fancy power chords

[Sky]

Get a Green Day songbook :) Can you read tab? It's easy and will help out alot.

http://www.amazon.com/Green-Day-Dookie-Authentic-Guitar-Tab/dp/0897244826

Play along versions are cool. They include two tracks for each song, one with guitar and one without, so you can play along with the bass and drums. Not original recording, it's done over guitar hero-style, but they're usually pretty good.

http://www.amazon.com/Green-Along-Guitar-Ultimate-Play-Along/dp/0739044273

[NiX]

I'll have to go stop in to a Chapter or something and see if I can find a copy of that. Or some other band who has a fascination with power chords.

[stray]

Sky! Of course, all of the main chords are important -- I just think it's something that should come later. Gotta walk, don't run (another great early song I learned btw  ).

Both of us have been playing for almost 20 years or more, and sometimes it's hard to forget how easy those things come to us now. Learning a G or a C or a barre (not to mention transitioning between them) is just a fat old bitch when you start out --- and it makes the student emphasize finger/physical dexterity more than, well.... Music. They get frustrated. I'd rather help people get to the roots of it.

I disagree about learning the guitar being tough. Playing is easy -- so many dickwads can do it, as we all know. Mastering is the hard part.

As for young Brian Setzer --- Stray Cat Strut is basically the direction he's gone to ever since, even if simplified. Not an easy song to play either (besides the base line). His solos are already in the jazzy spot at that stage. I wouldn't use that as an example for my liking for visceral songs...


Anyways.. Sorry, that was a mouthful. I just love the subject, of course. 

[Sky]

Learning guitar is tough. You can have fun and learn power chord songs, but you should also learn to play properly. I did both, I took some classical guitar classes and learned fingerpicking and proper chords and all these years later I am so glad I got that early foundation, because it makes a lot of things easier now. Of course, I blew off a lot of the lessons on fingerpicking and though I'm very good at playing without a pick, I totally suck at learning structured fingerpicking because I took so many shortcuts over the years.

If you just want to be a hack and do power chords, don't ask me for advice. 

[stray]

Heh, well I'm not exactly in the same school, but as I said, I learned through surf songs. Not classical, but hard enough.

I don't think it means you're a hack though if you start out powerchording. Look at the Clash -- started out as a straight up punk band, and then became one of the most creative bands of their time on all sonic fronts (not just guitars). And there are many others like that...

Not to mention that being able to just concentrate on a simple chord emphasize the by far most important thing -- rhythm. I know people who can do some complicated fingerings, but still have sketchiness on rhythm -- and they simply can't just "rock out".

And look at Malcolm Young, for example. We all know Angus is the shit and all that -- but it was Malcolm that wrote most of the riffs and was the core of that band. And the dude barely knows anything except like 2 chords (I'm kidding, of course...but y'know what I'm saying...the guy is basic). I'd rather listen to him than the billion wankers out there running complicated scales, but simply can't make anyone dance.

[edit] This is an age old argument, I guess. In "classical" music terms, it was the war between the virtuosic and the romantic take on music. Big derail though, blah blah blah.

You and I probably shouldn't be in much disagreement though. There's a middle ground, and we're probably both there. We like a lot of the same shit at least. 

[NiX]

You two are like guitar lovers.

[Sky]

What we both agree on is the only wrong way to play guitar is to not play guitar. Git practicin', Nixel! 

[Oz]

I have a small collection of really, really shitty guitars.  With 2 exceptions.  A nice wood bodied resonator and a brand new Ibanez ART100 i just got for father's day.  I'm glad to say i've been playing every single day since i got the new guitar (even if only for like 30min while i play a couple songs and screw around with scales).  I just have to make sure i pick it up every day...otherwise next thing i know its been a month or two and i havn't done shit.

[Sky]

I like having a few different guitars, it changes up the way I play and each style bolsters the others. Lately I've been playing the cheap Alvarez acoustic at the new house, so when I get a chance to plug in the SG, I can bend the shit out of stuff, with my fingerpicking maybe being a little too aggressive. But my leads end up better because I've been playing so much old delta-style blues and classical that I'm thinking more about chord shapes than linear lines. Then I go back to the acoustic and start all over again, trying to incorporate linear lines into chord movements.

[Oz]

i agree with having lots of guitars (tried unsuccessfully to explain why to my wife and mother recently).
So far i've got

Hohner Acoustic (shitty)
Epi SG (super shitty, keep it in drop D b/c the G tuner is blown)
squire bass (just got for $20...shitty)

Rogue biscuit cone resonator (beautiful, awesome in open G for playing a little Son House, hurts my ears if i use a pick so i stick to fingers/slide)
Ibanez ART100 (nice little LP knockoff)

I'd love a semi-hollow body to round out my collection (maybe a gretsh)  but that will have to wait till i can stock up on gift certificates from Bday/xmas/etc.  This was my first father's day this year and it was kinda cool.  Like a bonus Bday etc.

[climbjtree]

I say that all of you need to add ukuleles to your collections.

[stray]

I've probably had about 30-40 guitars. A few basses, and some other shit. I just never seem to hold on to anything. I have some weird "world" instruments that I have no clue how to play. I've had my Jazzmaster for awhile now too, I guess. It's my own custom wired frankenstein Jap/US model (soon to be even more gutted). No one else is gonna have it.

[Selby]

I guess I am the odd one out who doesn't see a need for many guitars.  I've survived on one and only recently acquired another.  But then I am cheap cheap cheap when it comes to my instruments ($60 for the win!).

But yes, the only true wrong way to practice is not practice at all.  My guitar instructor said that the fundamentals are very important, but unless you plan on taking it to that high level or playing certain types of music professionally, it probably won't hurt to be sloppy if you can tolerate having to unlearn bad habits later on.  He had been playing for 8 years when his instructor in college told him his technique was poor and he had to essentially re-learn how to play if he wanted to get better, but he said the changes in his style and how much better of an artist on the guitar he was because of it was almost unreal and made the pain worth it.  Honestly, I think I learned more about how technique and fundamentals of music work from an artist point of view than I ever learned how to actually play songs when I took lessons from him, which now I appreciate even more than I did then.

My hardest part originally learning was finding songs I wanted to play.  They were either extremely difficult (which is frustrating) or extremely simple (which is boring).  It was hard to find a good balance.  Now I am almost on a song-a-day regimen where I figure I'll pick up a song and learn to play it for an hour or so and usually find myself not sucking too bad.  When I don't feel like learning a new one, I run through all of the old ones I've recently picked up.  Most of the stuff isn't that hard, the most difficult recently has been Zoot Alures or Fear Of The Dark, but last night was Don't Fear The Reaper and it was actually loads of fun.  It's nice to not suck too badly anymore.  Once I got over that hump, guitar life has been good.

[stray]

I'm lazy... Don't have the fire of my youth anymore.  I remember the old days, rewinding and playing and rewinding tapes, trying to learn shit. It rarely happens now. When I do learn songs, I can always get the basic structure, but when it comes to the more wankier parts, I just approximate and improvise. And if I can't do that, then fuck it. I have my own [lame] songs to play. 

Just being realistic, I guess! Besides my laziness in replicating wanky solos, there are also those simple riffs that the great guitar gods have done, but I can't seem to make come out right --- For example: Over the Mountain. I mean, I know the notes. Easy song. But that sound Randy makes after "Take me across the sky!!!"

That shit ain't gonna come out of my fingers, sorry.

[Sky]

  RR, one of the first guys I remember as a kid going "Holy shit that's a guitarist!" I used to wail that song on the tennis racket in front of the mirror :) My Moby Dick is SRV's version of Little Wing. I've been chasing that for a few years on and off (so maybe not totally monomaniacal). Lately I've just taken the chord structure and jammed over it. My fiancee thinks it's great but I want to play the full SRV version before I move onto playing my own. Same with my favorite song to play, the one I knew I was finally over the hump and getting better: Since I've Been Loving You by Zep. I learned it note for note before I started jamming it. The linked version is from the DVD and I actually play it closer to that version because it shows how loose Pagey actually played it live. I fuckin' love that song.

Now I'm working on singing it while playing, as part of my whole learning to sing while playing thing. It's almost like starting over again, at first it just seems like it will never happen. But it gets a bit easier as long as the guitar parts aren't too complex. And once you get started, it kinda changes the way you approach a song, because I'm more likely to be singing along as I learn the chord changes and filling in the fiddly bits after.

Looking at some different versions, this one shows the importance of the rhythm section. Bonham made that song every bit as much as Page and Plant, and the bass and keyboard on that version can't touch Jonesy alone on keyboards. Also stumbled across this great vocal by Corrine Bailey Rae

[Oz]

I say that all of you need to add ukuleles to your collections.

Actually i was just listing my guitars.

I also have 1 ukulele (from Hawaii, gift from a friend)
1 Banjo (gift for wife, she never plays it so i started trying to learn it)
and 20+ harmonicas...

I guess i'm an instrument junkie (that's not even counting my wife's amazingly nice viola).
Maybe i'm making up for being a late starter.  Never had lessons.  my parents asked me if i wanted to learn something as a kid, so being the little shit i was i said "hell no."  I've regretted that for a long time now.  But its ok, Once my daughter gets older the question will not be IF she wants to learn but rather "What instrument do you want to learn."
For being 11.9 months (her birthday is next weekend) old she's got decent rhythm and a good love of music.

[stray]

SRV's Little Wing. Definitely another one, Sky.

I hate to admit it, I had a "SRV" hate phase, maybe just because his name is dropped so, so much, but Little Wing seriously outfuckingdoes Hendrix. That's all there is to it.

Nowadays, I think that Stevie Ray is a god. I listen to that live version of "Texas Flood and just go "Whoa! There's a dude that accomplished something on earth. Fuck."

[Sky]

It's hard to put aside the ignorance SRV has caused among younger blues fans. You go see a guy like BB or Buddy Guy and they start telling stories about the old blues guys, and everyone starts yelling "STEVIE!". Buddy Guy got wicked pissed at one show, saying SRV was great, but you gotta learn about what went before, same as SRV. Most of SRV's great stuff is built on what came before. I got into blues hardcore mostly listening to SRV one summer, but I had been listening to Muddy for years before that, so I kinda got into the SRV hate phase for a long time. Now I can enjoy it all. I just try to turn the kids onto Albert, Buddy, Otis, T-Bone, Freddie, Sam, Matt (with Memphis Slim and Willie Dixon), Hound Dog, Earl, Johnny, Rory, Peter (and Danny, I'm on a huge Mac bender lately, love their live stuff), Lightnin', Luther, Son, uhh etc :)

[climbjtree]

I'd say SRV's Little Wing is amazing, but half of what makes Hendrix's so good is his vocals, in my opinion.

Also, are y'all familiar with the hang drum? I am completely hooked on this thing. Looks like I'll be taking a trip to Switzerland, I guess. Super hard to get one of these things.

[Oz]

favorite blues vocalist:  Robert Johnson
favorite slide: Son House
Favorite harp: Big Walter "Shakey" Horton (not to be confused with that Little Walter hack...imho)

as you can see i dig the rural blues more than the city incarnation (i like the stuff after too, but the old shit just feels...i dunno...right)

edit: on a sad note i was totally stoked about moving to Memphis "Home of the Blues" but i'm finding very little blues here.  Its almost all rap that is shitty and tourist blues on beale.

edit2: some spelling.