RI Guitar Club

[FourthBase]

Thanks, Elvis!

Yeah, I kind of already know what scales are, what they mean, mostly.
I like the patterns that emerge. Like, the 2nd, 4th, and 6th of the F major = G minor.
I like playing around with structure, turning a root or V minor, using flat III's.
My favorite thing is the "Dollars and Cents" root major/minor alternating.

Also, I love the "Lay, Lady, Lay" zig-zag "Z" pattern...
E form major, drop fret, A form minor, drop fret, E form major, drop fret, A form minor.
Simple, sublime!

I have a decent mental grasp of the relationships, I guess.
I'm just too lazy to rote-memorize the frets and notes, ugh.

Had this book once, great little guide to songwriting with a guitar...
Can't remember the...wait, this:

http://www.amazon.com/How-Write-Songs-G ... 0879306114

I just have to do the drills. Sigh.

Give me a half-minute or less and I'll stumble my way to finding a melody.
Meaning, I have a non-abstract sense of what frets = what intervals per key.
No image in my head, but (find root, next, next, not that, that, next, etc...and) "Ode to Joy"!
I just can't solo for shit. Well, a little. But, very, very simply. By instinct.
Was hoping for some light-bulb trick, mnemonic thing. Magic, lol.
Alas, it'll just require practice, concentration. Yawn, lmao.
But, that's fun, too! (Right?)

[Elvis]

FB, sounds like you have a good handle on it.

I just have to do the drills. Sigh.

Yeah it comes down that... "Drill, baby, drill!"

I love guitar chat. I'm trying to be the teacher here, but I'm learning, picking up ideas, from you, too!

[Mask]

This video, and probably others from this guy's youtube channel, helped me understand the kind of stuff Elvis talks about regarding scales and chords.
If anyone's curious about that kind of things.

[Mythic Time]

Elvis sent me over here from the guitar solo thread. Nice bunch of folks here.

My first guitar cost $7.00 and came in a cardboard box. I got it right after I saw the Beatles on Ed Sullivan. Wasn't long before my pre-manic mind decided it was gonna be a 12-string. Drilling new holes in the head piece destroyed it, but my parents liked that I had a "hobby" and bought me a Twin Reverb and a hybrid Strat body/Tele neck guitar. In 1970 I got my first gig playing lead guitar for a trio named ZigZag in a bar next to a skating rink in Phoenix. I essentially learned how to play lead on that little stage, and matured into one of the "go-to" pickers in town, eventually playing with many session players and low-end super-trios. Played for a living between 1970 and 1990.

I have always been an electric guitar player - 45 years now. 20 years ago I had become so unstable I couldn't play in a band anymore, so my friend gave me a little piece of software called MacDrums. Basic drum machine, so I had to glam it all up recording with multiple cassette decks (always rising in pitch through each iteration, you know). In reality starting to compose my own music was an act of extreme desperation, and turned out to have been the saving grace between multiple psychotic episodes and suicidal thinking.

I got clean in 2000, and began the long ride back into composing and playing, with the surprising clarity and focus only abstinence can bring - I'd done all my stoned playing. I had a simple agenda for all my compositions - set up some ambient funk, and leave spaces for solos. I'm an ear-trained picker, and although I went to college for music theory, I promptly forgot it when I got back on stage.

Currently I still have a Mexican Strat that survived the Cosmic Episode of 2011, and I'm using a DigiTech RP50 feeding Garageband. I wired the Strat for three volumes and zero tones, because I have never used a tone control on any guitar I've ever played.

I love the composing process, letting the song tell me what it wants to sound like, and physically dragging this and that into new formations I could never have come up with consciously. Then the song teaches me what the guitar is supposed to be, always within the comfort zone of ambient blues.

I eventually found Chuck Wild, and his Liquid Mind project, and was blown away into the "slow - zero beat" genre'.

Liquid Mind: http://youtu.be/gXYu7k-O4iw

Here's my first piece leaning into this genre'.

https://mythictime.bandcamp.com/track/dimensions

Here's the rest of my stuff on Bandcamp. All free, no ads...

https://mythictime.bandcamp.com/album/inside-out

Nice hanging with y'all.

[82_28]

If you're a friend of Elvis, you are a friend of mine! Nice to have you chillin' about.

[82_28]

Good shit, Mythic! Reminds me of all the shit I used to write essays with back in the day. I would put John Serrie on over and over. I'm sure you've heard of him. Anyways this is great, if you haven't. I would just write and write to this shit. Haven't listened to it in years until you came along. . .

Space music, B!

[justdrew]

well, this is what my new instrument looks like...


anyone have any recommendations for relatively easy-to-learn songs suitable for solo vocal/guitar performance?

[Elvis]

Really cool guitar, drew!

How about:

"Ghost Riders in the Sky"

"Happy Together" (The Turtles)

"I'm Tired" (Savoy Brown)

"On Broadway"

"Secret Agent Man"


(P.S. weekly jam Sunday afternoons at my house. )

[dada]

Been writing a lot of songs this year, with lyrics. Every once in a while I do an instrumental piece. And sometimes I play along with video game music. I always had trouble doing that when I was younger, but now it seems to be coming easier. So I guess somethings can improve over time.

Here's a few of those little video game music with guitar pieces; one from Gradius 3, one from Rygar and one from Terranigma. The Terranigma one is sweet, very soft and pretty. Never played the game, but the music captured me one night.

[BrandonD]

DUDE, that Rygar song! I loved every song from that game when I was a kid, but especially that one. I would stay on the underground level longer than I needed to just so I could hear the song longer.

[Sounder]

I want to thank Wombat for inviting us all to join the guitar club. I made a commitment to play at least at some music every day a few years ago, but never said anything because I was not sure it would take.

I did play poorly when younger but gave it up for reading while the kids were being raised. My first stage experience was for a Rock against Racism show when I had only played base for two weeks. It was a real fun time so I was hooked and played base for a few years with some fine fractured folk.

I’m from Kalamazoo and got a factory second Blue Ridge Gibson for about 100.00 around 1973. It’s a great guitar which has never been properly appreciated (or played decently) and I hope to change that. I also got a Larravee parlor guitar and my wife was playing for a half hour while I fixed dinner a few days ago. We have friends that we get together with to play bluegrass tunes and I think (hope) my wife is finding she would like to do more than tap her foot. She has a very good strum action and knows enough chords to at least get things going.

Now I’m mostly playing an Eastman 505 mandolin that was purchased a few months ago. My teacher is a pro who is trying to teach me how to play around chord shapes. He is an incredible player on both guitar and mandolin.

Thanks again Wombat, and everyone else in the club also.

[Perelandra]

Best thread ever.

[Elvis]

I just got an electric twelve-string, having a blast with it. I've been wanting one for ever since I sold my old 6/12 doubleneck some years ago.

Also, late last year I got an electric baritone guitar -- a slightly different animal -- and I love it. Doing some 'spaghetti western' and other stuff with it.

[Wombaticus Rex]

Poignant to check in, I haven't had a guitar in probably two years. Recently picked one up and I could only remember some Ali Farka Toure and one of Kottke's easier songs. I'm going to have to re-learn Pachelbel from scratch...Oltremare...all those Celtic arrangements...ugh.

Also, my tone was just garbage - no fine control. I can't tell if it's a matter of muscle memory or just the complexity of the instrument, but last time I picked up a bass I still remembered everything. I guess the difference is I never toured as a guitar player.

I'm thinking I'll start over and buy a Jackson or Ibanez or BC Rich and focus on metal for awhile.

[Iamwhomiam]

I'm still dreamin' of jus holding once again an Electric Johnny Smith!