Is my guitar solo self indulgent and cheesy?

[xrleroyx]

Does mom know your up so early? Let's hear your {censored}.

 

 

Before you call a 21 year old a child, you should really reflect on your useage of the English language.

 

Your is not the same as you're.

 

I was also up so late studying for a jazz playing test. Look for my thread coming up soon if you'd like to hear me play. I'm recording pretty soon.

 

Frankly, I just don't understand your need to be so blunt to someone who's just asking around. Couldn't you say something more like "you need to develop it more", or even give him some advice?

 

I'll be just as blunt as you were to Honey:

Your playing style that I heard in your tracks is mundane. You sound like every other middle-aged blues rocker who never got his chance back in the day. Now, there's nothing wrong with that, but when you decide to sound like an elitist {censored} about it, that's when people are going to start having problems with you.

[gdsmithtx]

There's this concept called "tact"; you might want to investigate it. It allows you to give an honest opinion without being a {censored}ing assbag. Of course, if assbaggery is what you're going for, then bravo!

 

And by the way, I thought the solo sounded good; tasteful, melodic and nicely retro.

 

If I had to offer some constructive criticism, it would be that at a couple of bits (like around 0:20 and 0:58) the notes seem slightly 'off' rhythmically; not wrong per se, just not quite as right as they could be, y'know? Maybe fewer notes and a little more space in those areas would make it flow better.

 

 

 

Hey, the kid asked if it sounded self indulgent and cheesey. I gave my opinion instead of licking his ass. Kruger and Dunning proposed that, for a given skill, incompetent people will: tend to overestimate their own level of skill; fail to recognize genuine skill in others; fail to recognize the extremity of their inadequacy; recognize and acknowledge their own previous lack of skill, if they can be trained to substantially improve.

 

[xrleroyx]

 

Oh I got my chance and excelled. I've played around the globe with legendary players. I love blues but I play many styles including jazz.....played with Wynton before you were born. Did the Tonight show with Buddy around the same time so please spare me your sympathy. I've played several thousand gigs and am still on top of my game. I'm not an elitist {censored} and can be very encouraging. You kids are too coddled. Man up mother{censored}ers. it's a cruel biz. Be prepared. Please let Honey speak for himself. Looking forward to hearing you play XRLER. You better be real {censored}ing good...........Just kidding you have a great life..........Kid

 

 

I guess I might've gotten you wrong. Maybe what I heard isn't a good example of what you play. Do you have any jazz clips you'd like to share? I'm always down to hear some jazz. Also, don't pretend to know me or my background. I'm not prepared to discuss where I come from on a guitar forum - to a condescending curmudgeon - on a thread that's not about me in the slightest.

 

And don't hold your breath, I've still got a lot to learn about the guitar. But it seems even though I'm a mere child in your eyes, a fledgling infant, I can at least admit my shortcomings.

 

About the solo, I thought the runs themselves were cool, I'm not familiar with the song however. I didn't like the "chords" in the solo.

[valued customer]

Oh I got my chance and excelled. I've played around the globe with legendary players. I love blues but I play many styles including jazz.....played with Wynton before you were born. Did the Tonight show with Buddy around the same time so please spare me your sympathy. I've played several thousand gigs and am still on top of my game. I'm not an elitist {censored} and can be very encouraging. You kids are too coddled. Man up mother{censored}ers. it's a cruel biz. Be prepared. Please let Honey speak for himself. Looking forward to hearing you play XRLER. You better be real {censored}ing good...........Just kidding you have a great life..........Kid

[stomias]

Sorry to have started this {censored}storm...... my apologies to all offended.......ciao

[honeyiscool]

 

Oh I got my chance and excelled. I've played around the globe with legendary players. I love blues but I play many styles including jazz.....played with Wynton before you were born. Did the Tonight show with Buddy around the same time so please spare me your sympathy. I've played several thousand gigs and am still on top of my game. I'm not an elitist {censored} and can be very encouraging. You kids are too coddled. Man up mother{censored}ers. it's a cruel biz. Be prepared. Please let Honey speak for himself. Looking forward to hearing you play XRLER. You better be real {censored}ing good...........Just kidding you have a great life..........Kid

I would have spoken up if, in the past several posts you made, you had even the smidgen of a productive critique. I don't expect to be kissed on the ass when I post something. There have been a lot of interesting suggestions on this thread. I'm actually going to take all of it in stride... as in, I'm confident that a lot of people do like where I was going with it, and so it's something that I don't have to completely abandon.

 

I do care what listeners think, if they care to voice their opinions in a productive way. Yesterday, I was listening to some recording I made five years ago and I was shocked at how horrible it was, because I remember digging it back then. I'm only capable of hearing as much as my current skills allow. I realize that anything I do now, I'm going to hate in five years, as far the technical aspects of my playing and all that. At the same time, I'm glad that five years ago, I still had some people willing to give me some real advice (go easy on the distortion, get a bass, etc.) instead of telling me how much it sucked, because everywhere, there are baby steps I can take. What about your attitude is going to help those you consider amateurs want to become better? Just telling people to learn to play, get better, etc., that's not constructive and it's just a good reason to ignore what you're saying. I'm going to keep playing and practicing no matter what.

 

I do take issue with your suggestion that I don't know how to improvise, though. I'm mostly limited by my guitar skills so in the context of a solo, there are so many things in my head that don't come out when I'm playing guitar, but I have gone into a piano gig knowing about three songs I wanted to play and still kept playing for like an hour, and that's probably the purest form of improvisation. But what's even the point of discussing improvisation? This is a written solo that I'm going to rehearse over and over again. I will likely make a few changes based on some of the feedback from this thread, but I'm pretty much going to keep refining and rehearsing it. Surely you understand writing a solo that you practice so that you roughly have a roadmap of where to go, and since this is the outro to a pop song and not a solo in the middle of a jazz piece, I roughly want it to hit certain levels of interest at certain times, and I have exactly five repeats of four chords each to make it happen. It's a pretty tight script; I'll be doing variations on the solo to keep me interested but half the time I'll be following the script, as I tend to do with most of my solos for this band. So if you want to help me, don't talk about improvising. Talk about how specific things I can do to better write this solo. If you want to just be a dick, then keep on with what you're doing.

[dcooper830]

Oh I got my chance and excelled. I've played around the globe with legendary players. I love blues but I play many styles including jazz.....played with Wynton before you were born. Did the Tonight show with Buddy around the same time so please spare me your sympathy.

 

 

Wow you really have to post some clips of your playing.

[xrleroyx]

 

I don't mind sounding too mundane or tame, and this is a 50 year old song I'm playing here, but I wonder why you mention blues. I rarely use pentatonic forms in leads and I find them really awkward high on the fretboard, so I tend to go up and down on the various major and minor scales that I learned on piano and have tried to learn on guitar, using a lot of chromatics and grace notes for variety. It's nothing unusual, but it's hardly bluesy . I hear far more shadows of Mozart and Vivaldi than B. B. King and Stevie, not that I'm comparing my ability to any of these people, just the kind of things I'm trying to accomplish. I also take issue with anyone calling me elitist. I'm full of myself, OK, so maybe I fit the one definition, but I feel like the general connotation of the word is the idea that being elite makes you superior. That, I could not be further away from. Anybody who knows me knows that I always challenge elitist attitudes around me and I always embrace the idea that there are many ways to be worthwhile in this world, and that none is superior than another. Just being a good parent and raising a great family is just as much of an accomplishment as being a great musician, and I hate people who downplay things that everyone has the capability for in favor of things only a few can do, but I digress. I mean, dude, my favorite sounding guitar is a Daisy Rock. So you can call me tiny, effeminate, nerdy, looks like a 14 year old, full of himself, overly obsessed with pop culture and image, has an opinion about everything, these things are accurate. Elitist? Not accurate.

 

 

That was a response to an attack that stomias made on me, not directed at you. Seems he deleted his post.

 

I liked your runs in the solo, I didn't like the chords you employed in it though. I think it had good direction though. I'm not too familiar with the original song though.

[xrleroyx]

 

So you can call me tiny, effeminate, nerdy, looks like a 14 year old, full of himself, overly obsessed with pop culture and image, has an opinion about everything, these things are accurate. Elitist? Not accurate.

 

 

Besides, I'm a whiny, pot-smoking, whiskey drinking jazz-fusion guitarist that fronts an indie rock band who went from singing on Carnegie Hall stage to not even being able to book a gig. We're all a little weird.

[axegrinder]

Honey you have a great attitude and knowing you are relatively new at the instrument compared to your extensive musical background, well just keep it up.

The xrlerox quote you responded to above was actually intended for stomias I think. I thought xrlerox had kinder words somewhere in the {censored}storm.

As for stomias I recalled his claims of playing with all the greats. Says he grew up playing in Chicago's South Side. I have no reason to doubt his claims, but one question comes to mind; what motivates somebody who has accomplished so much to act so insecure? The cruel words said nothing constructive and seemed to ignore the question that was asked...is the solo too long?

Then there are the many in-depth critiques...wow. I think it would help if people understood the type of gig you would perform these songs. I thought your band played indie music in maybe small clubs or coffee houses. In such settings, nobody expects the greatness you aspire too, and you certainly appear headed that way. Keep going.

[PrawnHeed]

I liked it. I think it could be improved with more rhythmic variation - it is all a bit one dimensional in that respect.

[straycat113]

Totally dug it nothing at all wrong going on here and really nice melodic playing. The only thing I could add is that maybe instead of just ending it there you could kill the music right after the first re-entry of the drums and have the vocalist get the audience to join in to sing a chorus.

[honeyiscool]

 

That was a response to an attack that stomias made on me, not directed at you. Seems he deleted his post. I liked your runs in the solo, I didn't like the chords you employed in it though. I think it had good direction though. I'm not too familiar with the original song though.

 

Oh, OK. Thanks. I was confused.

 

I'm sure you've heard the song.

 

[video=youtube;8-0upHlWfQ4]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-0upHlWfQ4

[valued customer]

honeyiscool, your patience is exemplary, as are your typing skills. the passage above where you talk about hating (now) something that you were really chuffed about years ago is right on. i think of one's apprenticeship in music as a gradual process of actually learning how to hear yourself and what you're doing as other listeners do. its really all about the ears, and the stuff between 'em.

 

i've been working on a book ( for the past several years) with the objective of helping songwriters catalyze that gradual process. essentially, trying to establish some aesthetic principles that one can possess and exercise consciously, to help make their songs "work." (pop songs, i don't know enough to be of use about any other kind.) tough to make any generalizations that are ALWAYS true, but if one was simply doing an abstract analysis of the data, i'd suggest you'd see certain patterns begin to emerge (if you took songs from the top 40, top album hits, etc.) the kind of stuff dylan, lennon, etc. absorbed through their skin, from their years in the trenches.

 

one of the (draft) chapters is titled: "half as long? easiset path to twice as good..." and i mention in there the pronounced tendency of beginning songwriters to write songs, passages, lyrics, that are rather longer than they need to be. this also happens with lyrics, and with fiction writers... i think this happens because the earlier you are in the cycle you describe above, the less confidence you have in yourself, and unfortunately, this often translates into a lack of confidence in your listener or reader. the riff ends up being repeated, the line, the joke tries to explain itself etc.

 

i mention this particular chapter heading because i think that it's apropos for what you shared. even in sharing it you betrayed your own knowledge of its potential weakness. does it make sense if i tell you that the whole passage seemed to be implicitly asking the question you posed in your header?

 

if you're up for an experiment ( you seem to be the sort that likes a challenge) ...try to make a solo that says:

 

..here, this is the {censored}.

 

i'll bet you it's twice as good.

 

...as this reply would be had i made IT half as long!

[honeyiscool]

valued customer: Yeah, it is really funny to me to think of what I thought was pretty good five years ago. The thing is, I'm pretty good at critique of other people's work and I still like the same bands as five years ago, meaning I was listening to the same examples of music I considered good and compared myself with. I can blame the lack of gear, good microphones, speakers, and amps, and that's maybe 20% of it, but that's not it. The biggest thing that's changed in five years is me and my skills, and that's what made me think that what I think sounds like {censored} today was good five years ago. I know that if you gave me Nady mics, a Roland Cube 15, iPod earbuds, I could still sound a lot better than before.

 

What's weird is everything I notice today that was wrong, somehow they all escaped me five years ago. I think the issue might be that when you're really working hard at something, you slowly get accustomed to it that you no longer hear what sucks about it. That sort of explains how the day after, so much of what I worked on would sound worse. A good piece of work should sound better the next day. When your skills start progressing to the point where they get closer to where they need to be, your ears also improve.

 

I also think there's a flipside to this, that sometimes as you get better, you notice the good things you did back then that you completely missed the first time around. I was listening to some recordings three years ago, when I had progressed considerably, and I actually thought I had a superior tone and a better vibe than the way I play the songs now. I think as my skills get somewhat better, I tend to start using amp settings that show off my skills a little more, you know, turning down the gain, turning up the treble, having more picking dynamics, and sometimes, that's actually detrimental to a song, and the way I played it before is more real and authentic, and then I have to try to go back to that, or go another route altogether.

 

I think I will try to actually write a self indulgent solo, see what that's like. Maybe somewhere in the middle is more like what I want. It's true what a few people pointed out in this thread. I am afraid of leading, a bit. As the pianist, I never led anything. Even playing a concerto, you're still playing with the orchestra, you're rarely taking charge. I've been doing lead guitar for less than a year now, and all these loud sounds, all these pauses, all these sixteenths, they're really scary. I like the attention but the responsibility is really something. Half the time, I could stop playing and the song keeps going, so anything I do has to have a positive impact (even if it's doubling the rhythm for that section) or I might not be playing at all. This is why I never started guitar wanting to be lead guitar but why I find it so fun now.

 

Then there are the many in-depth critiques...wow. I think it would help if people understood the type of gig you would perform these songs. I thought your band played indie music in maybe small clubs or coffee houses. In such settings, nobody expects the greatness you aspire too, and you certainly appear headed that way. Keep going.

Thanks! Yeah, we're pretty much an indie pop band, but without the synths or the Farfisa or the glock or whatever cute instrument those bands usually have. Hell, we don't even use acoustic guitars or ukes, and we don't want to play half limp the whole night like a Death Cab. We're still writing and rehearsing and we'll probably start playing in a couple of months. Honestly, though, it's San Diego and I don't have big dreams of becoming discovered or anything. I'm sure we will get a bit of audience because the two girls in the band are socially well-connected and charismatic, and because I think we appeal to an older crowd that actually appreciates music more than the iPod generation. As much as I'm in that generation, I think too many of us are too poor to spend money to support lesser bands and, more importantly, too entitled when it comes to music and we just expect bands to pop up out of nowhere and be perfect. Few people my age seem to actually appreciate the growing pains, time, money, and work that goes into making music and just tend to retreat to something we downloaded and now listen to on crappy cell phone speakers. It cheapens music because that's what music is now, cheap. But that's another point altogether.

 

I guess what I'm saying is, if we ever get famous, it won't be because we become local heroes in town or because people in a bar setting will get what we're trying to do. Live gigs are important because they will push us to get tighter and better at playing, singing, and writing, but they are sort of all they are to me, cheap thrills and a way to achieve progress. That way, when we do record, we'll sound that much better, and we'll be able to make a recording that sounds authentic and intimate yet well rehearsed to the point that mistakes are charming and not distracting, and if people like it, cool. If not, we did our best. It's funny because that's how I'm preparing our demo recordings, with fake drums, overdubs, and modeling amps, that's really not how I want it to be when we actually sit down to record one day. I want it to be all of us in a room, punching in, and delivering full band takes, a human performance with errors and mistakes, bleeding mics, all of that.

 

Because seriously, who does that anymore?

[TheBlueStrat]

It sounds good, but I think it drags on for 30-40 seconds too long, but otherwise IMO pretty good. What drumming program were you using by the way?

[chqtarzan]

I like it a lot!

[honeyiscool]

 

It sounds good, but I think it drags on for 30-40 seconds too long, but otherwise IMO pretty good. What drumming program were you using by the way?

 

 

Addictive Drums. It's my favorite by far.

[my.02]

There were a few spots that sounded a bit stiff, but I liked it. I applaud your ability to handle the "criticism" with class. It would be too easy to respond with equal hatred and lack of consideration. I will probably never post any recordings on this forum. I am perfectly capable of telling myself how awful I am.

[rog951]

It sounds like you're planning to use it as an outro, in which case the length is probably okay. If you were using it as a solo before the last verse/chorus, then I'd say maybe trim it back a few bars to be safe.

 

As far as content goes, I liked it. It was simple, melodic and generally served the song. I think some guitar players have a hard time appreciating that kind of solo - they expect you to shred or do something bombastic and attention-getting. Sometimes being tasteful is the way to go. Doing crazy sweep picking or tapping on a song like that would probably sound out of place at best, or maybe even just plain dumb.