What are you currently trying to learn musically?

[lerber3]

1 hour ago, Idunno said:

Got wind?

Ever day I start out playing ‘long notes’... but the problem is that if you can’t play fast (I can’t), then you can’t finish the phtase before you run out of wind.

I’m getting wind, bu5 my fingers need to go faster.

[Red Ant]

59 minutes ago, lerber3 said:

Yeah... it’s pretty discouraging listening to musicians who grew up playing the instrument.  I can kinda wail on the solo to ‘Careless Whisper’... the good player really know how to hit the best notes (high C#... no fingers!) at the most important places.  I’ll settle for not sucking too badly : )

Don't be discouraged... be inspired! I was serious about immersing yourself in those two..  literally everything you need to know about alto is in there! And you'll be amazed how much you will absorb just by osmosis, things will start to appear in your ears and at your fingertips, and you'll go "whoa, where'd THAT come from?!?" 

[AJ6stringsting]

Learning keyboard parts of Rick Wakeman , Jon Lord and Keith Emerson .... Transposing them to guitar, triads, chord inversions and solo pieces are great " Finger Puzzles" for guitarists.

[onelife]

2 hours ago, Red Ant said:

I've been trying to get the clav intro to this for what has too be 20 years... and i STILL don't have it quite right  Max Middleton is a tricky mofo!!!

 

In the mid '70s I was enamoured by that album ("Wired") and George Benson's "Weekend In L.A." - then I met Ed Bickert.

I'm still trying to get a handle on what I learned from those experiences.

I'm in three bands right now so I'm learning a bunch of covers and a few originals in an effort to earn a living as a guitarist.

I'm also working on learning to use the new Allen and Heath SQ6 after spending last year with the Midas M32.

 

 

 

[Red Ant]

34 minutes ago, AJ6stringsting said:

Learning keyboard parts of Rick Wakeman , Jon Lord and Keith Emerson .... Transposing them to guitar, triads, chord inversions and solo pieces are great " Finger Puzzles" for guitarists.

So basically lots of 3ds and 5ths, with the occasional 4th?

[Opposite Day]

3 hours ago, Red Ant said:

I've been trying to get the clav intro to this for what has too be 20 years... and i STILL don't have it quite right  Max Middleton is a tricky mofo!!!

 

Ha! Too funny. I just adapted the main groove to a Stanley Jordan style two handed thing. It's halting and sucky and I can't tap for {censored} with my right hand, but it's a work in progress.

[Opposite Day]

8 hours ago, Danocoustic said:

Trying to overcome the effects of the strokes that partially paralyzed the left side of my body and get back to what I could do 10 years ago.

Making some small progress.

 

7 hours ago, arcadesonfire said:

Also just had first choir rehearsal of the fall last night. I hadn't sung for two months. WHEWEEE, I lost all my chops. Gotta do a lot of scales and arps before next rehearsal.

 

6 hours ago, Red Ant said:

I have just become physically able to play guitar after over 2 years away from the instrument. I feel your pain.

For those working on their chops, I just came across this today. I've done a lot of similar exercises but this looks like like a really effective one!

 

[wasgtrjones]

currently - 

working on my singing voice.  I've only just recently been able to get comfortable with actually singing out loud.  it's gonna be a long road, but I also remember torturing whoever could hear with my first efforts and moving through the cowboy chords and playing "Bad Moon Risin" for 3 months when I first picked-up a guitar.  Thankfully, there are things I hear in my voice (sometimes) that I like.

rockabillies - swingy stuff... playing through the changes... I'm in a bit of a pentatonic rut sometimes, and playing rockabilly, swing blues, and even western swing is helping me to break out of that.  Not any specific songs yet, but working through lessons and tutorials.  

tightening-up the songs in the bands setlist.  specifically intros, signature licks (my achilles heel) - repetition to just drill 'em in, so they're played confidently...

recording.  One of the ways I plan to work on my singing voice is to get a buncha backing tracks together, and sing in the car.  I haven't really done a lot of searching, but assume that most of the stuff I'm interested in singing is so old and obscure that I'll have to record it myself (and then mix a version without the vocal track) - which is also just excellent practice in and of itself.

[Hoot Owl]

Same thing I've been doing for the last thirty years: originals. Covers boar the crap out of me. So does theory.

I find I'm playing less and less these days, spending too much time on the internet.

[Hoot Owl]

10 hours ago, Opposite Day said:

 

 

For those working on their chops, I just came across this today. I've done a lot of similar exercises but this looks like like a really effective one!

 

That's like what I do to warm up - chromatic scale - first position up and down the strings, second position up and down the strings, third position..., etc., all the way up and down the neck.

[wallywanker]

13 hours ago, Red Ant said:

Max Middleton is a tricky mofo!!!

yes!  way under rated, or, at least under appreciated, imomo (in my old man's opinion ;))...

[gp2112]

I am a self-taught bedroom player with no music background or training. You guys talking about phrasing, eighths, and all that other stuff just flies over my head at about 10,000 feet. 

Because I am so stunted I can play a good number of songs but I cannot, for the life of me, do lead very well, if at all. 

So...What I am doing is concentrating on learning how to get through scales with some semblance of competence. For years I never understood the Root Notes and could not grasp what I read or others told me. When I would watch another do a lead riff I would wonder how they could go from one part of the fretboard to the other and make it sound so natural. 

Last week, while driving home, I thought of something: "Maybe the root notes are the locations you can go to and get a different sound but one that will not clash with the sound you are trying to achieve...?" 

Later, I grabbed my guitar and started going through the "A" blues scale. I then tried to prove or disprove my thought from earlier in the day and it seemed to work, so I am building on that. I may have it wrong but it seems to be working for me. My GF said the noodling I was doing sounded pretty good. 

The problem with music is it is so much like math and I have always had difficulties grasping math in the manner in which it is taught. I have always had to do "Stupid Math" work-arounds to get where I need to be. It worked very well for me as a medic and having to do drug dosage problems. 

Perhaps I need to develop work-arounds for being able to grasp guitar playing too.

[wallywanker]

1 hour ago, gp2112 said:

The problem with music is it is so much like math

yup, music is aural math - it's just more fun, expressive, and emotive than regular math .  and yes, i do know mathematicians who think math is `beautiful' because it explains `why everything is the way it is'...but hey, you know mathematicians...they're just plain kooky ;)...

[Chordite]

Sitting at the Yamaha listening to Philip Aaberg and wondering how it is possible to play in such a way that you might hypnotise yourself and never come back.

(This is not embeddable so you will have to click it)

https://youtu.be/KLQz08L8Z0A

[Red Ant]

53 minutes ago, wallywanker said:

yup, music is aural math - it's just more fun, expressive, and emotive than regular math .  and yes, i do know mathematicians who think math is `beautiful' because it explains `why everything is the way it is'...but hey, you know mathematicians...they're just plain kooky ;)...

The similarity of the beauty of music and math resides in two concepts - symmetry and elegance. Both music and math contain them, but that's where the comparison stops. While math attempts to describe and codify the "outer world", music exists to express our "inner" world - ultimately, music is an emotional language.

[SteinbergerHack]

28 minutes ago, Red Ant said:

 music exists to express our "inner" world - ultimately, music is an emotional language.

Yeah, I would normally agree with you.  However, I played in a theater pit for a production of "Newsies" about a year ago.  This experience cured me of any belief that music is an emotional language.  The score might have been more honestly transcribed had the note symbols been printed as "$" signs.

[sirfun]

I am on a quest for a note that sounds like a mosquito drunk on the blood of a seasick crocodile !! )

[ohmygod]

Now I want to 

 

[nedezero1]

On 9/6/2019 at 10:27 AM, gp2112 said:

I am a self-taught bedroom player with no music background or training. You guys talking about phrasing, eighths, and all that other stuff just flies over my head at about 10,000 feet. 

Because I am so stunted I can play a good number of songs but I cannot, for the life of me, do lead very well, if at all. 

So...What I am doing is concentrating on learning how to get through scales with some semblance of competence. For years I never understood the Root Notes and could not grasp what I read or others told me. When I would watch another do a lead riff I would wonder how they could go from one part of the fretboard to the other and make it sound so natural. 

Last week, while driving home, I thought of something: "Maybe the root notes are the locations you can go to and get a different sound but one that will not clash with the sound you are trying to achieve...?" 

Later, I grabbed my guitar and started going through the "A" blues scale. I then tried to prove or disprove my thought from earlier in the day and it seemed to work, so I am building on that. I may have it wrong but it seems to be working for me. My GF said the noodling I was doing sounded pretty good. 

The problem with music is it is so much like math and I have always had difficulties grasping math in the manner in which it is taught. I have always had to do "Stupid Math" work-arounds to get where I need to be. It worked very well for me as a medic and having to do drug dosage problems. 

Perhaps I need to develop work-arounds for being able to grasp guitar playing too.

Ditto for me

[Zig al-din]

On 9/6/2019 at 11:03 AM, Red Ant said:

The similarity of the beauty of music and math resides in two concepts - symmetry and elegance. Both music and math contain them, but that's where the comparison stops. While math attempts to describe and codify the "outer world", music exists to express our "inner" world - ultimately, music is an emotional language.

I like this but I don't entirely agree that music only expresses the inner world.

I think it also corresponds with the outer world to the degree that the outer world can be seen or experienced as  "spiritual" (a word I now strongly dislike because of what the New Agers and Californians have done with it.) IOW I take a loosely Pythagorean view of music's correspondence to outer reality / realities. I don't think it's purely inner and emotional. I think it does resonate with cosmic reality and experience in a way that we can no longer talk about in the modern world  (because we are rationalistic.)

[onelife]

On 9/6/2019 at 8:27 AM, gp2112 said:

...

The problem with music is it is so much like math and I have always had difficulties grasping math in the manner in which it is taught. I have always had to do "Stupid Math" work-arounds to get where I need to be. It worked very well for me as a medic and having to do drug dosage problems. 

Perhaps I need to develop work-arounds for being able to grasp guitar playing too.

I first heard Larry Carlton in the early '70s with The Crusaders.

I had been playing the electric guitar for several years and it was mostly heavy blues like Cream, Hendrix and Zeppelin. I was also listening to Randy Bachman, who was a student of the great Lenney Breau. Bachman was bringing elements of jazz into songs by the rock bands The Guess Who and Bachman Turner Overdrive. I liked the sounds of some of the chords and the way Bachman's Leads 'fit' over those chords.

When I heard Carlton, I thought "that guy knows everything about the guitar but he just closes his eyes and plays." That was my inspiration for learning the 'math.'

 

I had taken a music history/theory class in high school and was also learning to play piano. I began to apply the theory to the guitar and because I had difficulty copying guitar solos off the records I started making up my own solos that 'fit' based on the bits of theory that I had learned. I was into Guitar Player Magazine (when it was about playing the guitar) and reading columns by Tommy Tedesco, Howard Roberts and Larry Coryell. My dad, who played guitar, was intrigued and amused by what Tommy Tedesco was writing and one day he came home with Tedesco's book "For Guitar Players Only."

"For Guitar Players Only" is a great book (I highly recommend it) full of stories about his studio days and very practical ways to learn the guitar and read music. One thing that really helped me, and I pass this on to all of my students, was his approach to learning the fingerboard. Pick one note and play it everywhere you can find it on every string. The open strings and the 12th fret are easy ones to find. Most rock guitarists know the names of the notes on the sixth and fifth strings so there are already reference points. The note D, for example, is always two frets lower than the note E. Once you find a note, the next time you look for it it will still be in the same place. Do that for all twelve notes, rinse and repeat several times and you'll be well on your way. As you learn more notes they become reference points for other notes. For example, B is always one fret lower than C and two frets higher than A.

 

Something I picked up from watching Kieth Richards was playing simple triads on the second, third and forth strings. Take the open A chord, for example, and just pluck the afore mentioned three strings. The root note is on the third string. The note E on the third string is on the 9th fret. Putting you finger on the three strings at the 9th fret gives you an E Major chord.

If you play a C Major 'cowboy chord' the root note is on the second string. If you only play the second, third and fourth strings it is a simple grip and can be moved up and down the neck. The note A on the second string is on the 10th fret.

If you play the F Major cowboy chord and only focus on the three strings the root note will be on the fourth string. The note B on the fourth string is on the 9th fret. 

Putting this all together you can easily play E, A, and B triads with a minimal amount of movement. These grips are easy to move up and down the fingerboard (transpose) and they also give you an opportunity to expand the comfortable pentatonic scale by showing you where the 'in between' notes are and how to target notes, when you are playing lead, that are in the chords as the chords are changing.

 

After learning these and other similar concepts I began to get closer to my goal of just closing my eyes and playing the guitar.

 

As Anton mentioned earlier " the beauty of music and math resides in two concepts - symmetry and elegance."  It is my belief that learning the names of the notes on the guitar using the Tommy Tedesco method, and learning the simple Kieth Richards style triads can give the player a bigger vocabulary and help answer gp2112's query "When I would watch another do a lead riff I would wonder how they could go from one part of the fretboard to the other and make it sound so natural."  

Symmetry and Elegance.

 

 

[Zeopold]

I'm striving to raise my game...

 

 

Open

[willhaven]

8 hours ago, Zeopold said:

I'm striving to raise my game...

 

 

Open

That G is way too complicated. Gotta do that lazy-assed Rock G. Grab the low E with your thumb, and mute the A string with it, too. Index finger does the high E.

You gotta takes as many shortcuts as possible in life. This is one of them.

[Zeopold]

2 hours ago, willhaven said:

That G is way too complicated. Gotta do that lazy-assed Rock G. Grab the low E with your thumb, and mute the A string with it, too. Index finger does the high E.

You gotta takes as many shortcuts as possible in life. This is one of them.

I like to play G as 355033: thumb, ring, pinky, open, index x2, so the root note can drone around the changes as you move the shape up and down the fret board. 

[gismo recording]

33 minutes ago, Zeopold said:

I like to play G as 355033: thumb, ring, pinky, open, index x2, so the root note can drone around the changes as you move the shape up and down the fret board. 

Playing a G that way omits the 3rd

Edit. Unless you have a keyboard player in the band providing the 3rd.