so you've spent all week working and or going to school, just waiting for the weekend. You restrung your guitar, set everything the way you like it. Saturday night is the jam session night. You're going to drink beer, get a good buzz, and jam with your buddies and the .... new guy.

the new guy can 10 finger tap steve vai and ten toe tap van halen with his feet at the same time. You've heard his demos online, and you can't wait to get him in the music room with your friends and see and have an epic jam.

So you show up with your beer and your gear. You and them get all set up. Then the new guy shows up. with long hair, spiked color and an ear guage. you think, he's really into it as a lifestyle. thats cool, he's got talent, i've heard it.

so then the drummer warms up and gets it going. and then the bassist puts something simple down to get warmed up and then... wait..

what the Fxxx?

He starts tapping with all 10 fingers and toes. and You and everyone else is like "WHOAAA" then he lucks up and grins and you think.... this is going to be a good night.

so you get it started slwoly again. drummer is keeping it simple, but building up a little and after a while, you've got a pleasant conterpoint harmony thing going with lots of potential. and then

"we weeeoowww weoowww weeeeeeeeoooOOWOOWOWOOWOW"

that guy is ten finger and ten toe taping and now he's using his teeth to work the whammy bar

and you and the guys are about to quit your instruments.

so you build the song back up. the drummer keeping it simple and for a minute, we'l throw some clarinet in the mix, cause, well we have one cause we got it for free, and uh... why let it go to waste?

so youve got a little rock thing going and a few notes from the clarinet and then

"rrroooow rrrwrrwrwrwr rrwwwoooooo"

now he's ten toe, ten finger tapping, teeth whammyinh, and he's got a pringles can around his johnson, and he's using it to slide up and down the strings

and then you ask

"dude what key are you in?"

and he stops and says "uhhh 17 on e.... 15 on the g string.... 12 on the d string"

"no dude, what key are you INNNNN like INNN dude? i can play somethig that matches better if i know what key your in"

"uh 17 on e... 15 on g string....."

you guys watch, perplexed with his tabbing out of his own playing

"well, we'l do an a minor thing to keep it simple until we get warmed up."

back in to the song, starting to sound good and then.... he's starts tapping the same thing but in the viscinity of A on the low e string.

so you tell him to listen to something you guys allready have written up first, and then try to solo over it. so you guys start playing an old, simple riff you've had for ever. and 5 minutes later he nods his head. then he starts tapping all over the place and it's not even similar to what you guys were playing for him to add something to.

this gets more and more common. people that blow you away at an open mic or something, you jam with them with your crew, and the dude can't play with other people at all.

and its not personal you just want to play music with people who can be a part of a whole to make really nice sounding stuff.

Never experienced this but I think I understand....

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I Can't Explain

I've experienced that...I said to one guy, let me hear a G chord...he looks at me all confused, so I said a bar chord on the 3rd fret, 6th string, and he got that. There are many people out there who can play solos...ask them to play chords, riffs, and/or with a band, and their brilliance loses its shine. In order to avoid these kinds of situations, you need to practice with people before playing in front of people. Thats one thing I don't get is bands having people over for practice or jam sessions...I don't know what kind of brilliance and/or debauchery that people think take place at band practices, but the fact of the matter is, band practice at times can be repetitive and boring for the people involved, so you can only imagine what the people watching are thinking. I mean I love football, but unless I know somebody on the team (and even if I did), I am not going to watch a football team run laps, drills, excercises, etc...H*ll yes I'll watch on gameday, but practice is practice. Sometimes at band jams or practice, it may be necessary to do a certain part over and over again until everyone gets it right...

So in order to avoid stuff like this, I find its best to practice in private with new players before performing in public with new players so you all don't look like a bunch of dorks is what I have learned. Practice and jam sessions to me are something that should take place without a large number of non-bandmembers present, because if they see you practice all the time, they might not bother to show up when you have a show somewhere, especially if there is a cover charge, cause they get to see you jam for free all the time....If practicing beforehand is not an option, go over some songs that you might want to do, the bands you're into, or something along those lines, so it won't become a total wankfest...Don't just look for people who dress or look a certain way, the punkest or metalist MF'er might just be the one guy that everyone thinks is square...

One other funny story about this same player, on another occasion (okay, maybe I have brain damage for playing with this guy after the previous incident), I just get done tuning my guitar, we start playing, and someone is out of tune. I look to the bass player and the other guitarist, and say someone is out of tune, but its not me cause I just unplugged from a tuner....Well he had one of these Floyd Rode guitars, and proceeds to tell me that he's not out of tune, cause he tuned up and locked it LAST WEEK! I try to explain to him that guitars can go out of tune, even with locking trems, because of temparture, humidity changes in the wood, strings stretching, etc., so perhaps he may want to check his tuning...Nope, cause he tuned it last week...So instead of arguing about this more, I just tuned to his guitar...Went back for another practice a week later, tuned to his guitar again...and did this for a couple months. He thought that we kept forgetting riffs we came up with the previous week, when the reality was, the fingering for the riffs were the same, but since he hadn't tuned his guitar in several weeks we were just a in a different key pretty much every other week, so it just didn't sound the same....

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RAMA LAMA FA FA FA

Jammin with a clarinet! That's awesome!

I have hosted some popular jam nights, and one thing for sure is that alot of guitarists dont know anything about different styles not mixing with others. I saw a pretty good player who said he has done alot of studio stuff try to play blues and goes into some kind of Eddie van halen thing that was really terrible! It wasnt that he didnt know how to play but he was trying to show off instead of getting in the groove. I would rather be tastefull than look like a stage hog!!!!

I once encountered a bass player who was like this. He hauls a full stack to a basement jam - two full size cabinets (I don't remember now but it must have been a 115 and a 410). So there's his rig standing 6 and a half feet tall and then of course he has to play it on "11". We try to get a jam going but all we hear is an earthquake coming from his direction that overpowers everything - including the drums. And he's all over the place - no groove, no simplicity - he thinks he's Steve Vai on bass. It was just awful.

It's not just limited to guitarists, although I've seen the ones you're talking about. Generally, it's musicians who've practiced really hard to learn only one very complicated and show-boat-y style. They've been doing it for so long they have no idea how to do anything else. So, you've got guitarists two can tap all night but can't play a chord, bassists who can solo all over the place but can't hold a groove, and drummers who think the whole song is one long fill but can't play a straight 4/4 beat.

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The ultimate Rolling Stones experience!
https://www.facebook.com/TheMainStreetExiles

Played with plenty of one trick ponies. It just doesnt impress me anymore. If you dont have a basic understanding of key, you need to stay in your bedroom till you do. Or become a one man band. Key and tempo are the verbal languages of musicians.

A jazz bassist I played with recently, i just told him Ab maj and off he goes. After the first time round you'd have thought he'd been playing the song 20 years. Its an incredibly easy experience when you can just say what you want and the guys know what to do.

Buy the toe tapper a theory book so he atleast knows what notes he's playing. I asked that bassist if I could have a copy of his crib sheet. Its worked wonders for my understanding.

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No no and no

Oh my god yes I hate it so much. I play in a powerpop punk rock outfit. I have jammed with friends that want to throw in metal or hardcore licks and it just sounds terrible.

Or when they want to try to show off instead of keeping the tune, or they have no idea about keeping rhythm or proper phrasing and just go completely off.

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I so know what you mean. I love to play rhythm...I can do the lead stuff...but I really prefer to just lock into the rhythm part and go from there. I love it when you have a great lead who knows how to work with you and you can key off of each other. I just unplug and walk away when the 10 finger tappers start to go off and leave the band hanging....just not worth the time effort or frustration.

Originally posted by Nevin1985

Yeah, please tell me that is just journalistic embellishment and some guy didn't actually do that on open mic night or post a video o_O

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I traded my car in for a microphone.

God damn, you have no idea how many of them you get round here. But we get worse ones, ones who can do it IN KEY using theory.

However players like that get real boring real fast because most of them cannot pace themselves. 1st song, amazing solo, 2nd song pretty good solo, 3rd song alright, 4th song, ok, 5th song, boring, 6th song.....

And it goes on. Its players that push the envelope in the melodies of the actual song, Solos simply add something to it, but solos dont have to be fast which is something people like that struggle with.

Vibe playing is the way forward chaps, you lay down some solid rhythm and your gonna get somewhere.

Forget genres, forget everything you've learnt, you've just got to do what sounds good to you and the people around you.

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"Oh, it's a windy and sunny day
And I can hear the faint sound of distant waves
The past weeks have been going by so fast
It's all the same, the bright sky and shining sun
I have a feeling it's gonna be a fun day"

Not only is it not just guitarists, it's not just musicians. But as musicians that's what we do with our time so they're the people we run into.

It's no different than the person who can sink shots without missing all day from the 3 point zone in basketball but can't dribble or do a simple lay up.

Book smart people that have no common sense outside a classroom.

Know what I mean? For some people it's all about showing off to feel superior to others. They just need that reassurance that they are better than you are. We've probably all run into them but instead of a guitar it's a basketball, or football, or the honor roll or something.

The groove is so much more important than the Yngwie thing.

They're called "wankers". These guys approach playing guitar much like masturbation. It's a purely solo act performed for the benefit and pleasure of only one person, the wanker. There are far too many wankers around and can frequently be found on a Saturday afternoon in the amp room at the music store.

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Just think of how awesome a guitar player you could have been by now if you had only spent the last 10 years practicing instead of obsessing over pickups and roasted maple necks.

"My Theory is" There is no key when playing at warp speed
There just is no time to worry about such things when hitting 1440bpm.

Blue Man Group has the answer, starts about 3:20 into this video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BVRhhH30Yw

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Keep on Truckin, Going full speed ahead down the highway to hades.