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Post subject: Re: I'm a terrible lead guitarist
Posted: Sun Apr 05, 2015 4:56 pm
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I'm having a lot of trouble lately transfering stuff like pics and things, my puters gone crazy.
Anyway try this and do it in G. It's a minor pentatonic done in boxes up the neck in 5 positions.
Learn all 5, it will take time and then link them all together. The easiest way is to go up and then back down 2 strings at a time, like 1st and 2nd and then 3rd and 4th if you know what I mean and eventually all the strings linked in the 5 boxes but then break out of the boxes blending notes up and down the neck. You're command of the fretboard will improve enormously, you then of course play it in different scales which is the same shapes starting from the appropriate position. It will expand your soloing ability but takes time.
Ok if you can understand all that right click on this link and click ( open in tab) and maybe you'll get there. :D
[img]JoeCefalu_pentatonicscales.pdf (file://OWNER-PC/Users/Owner/Documents/J ... scales.pdf)
[/img]

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Post subject: Re: I'm a terrible lead guitarist
Posted: Sun Apr 05, 2015 7:50 pm
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Most guitarists are generally their own harshest critics and often hear -or think they're hearing-something that their audience doesn't.I have played gigs or played lead breaks that I thought were rubbish but have been told the exact opposite,but I honestly could find faults and thought that there was room for improvement.The audience can be suspected of praising you because they feel they have too etc. but all the bands that I've ever played with were quick to point out blunders etc. that others in the groups had made.On the other hand I have seen guys who strutted around like they were the ones who taught Jeff Beck everything he knows-they tend not to last long in groups because of their attitude but usually because they were $@!&#* guitarists.We should all try not to be overly hard on ourselves,granted a little bit of self critiquing is helpful but if you are too hard on yourself,that can lead to total discouragement.Listen closely to what friends and other musicians say-they are usually up front and honest if they are good friends or musicians.The main thing is to enjoy what you're playing because if it ever comes to a point where playing is a real downer for you,it's time to put the guitar in the closet-at least until you can pick yourself back up again.

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Post subject: Re: I'm a terrible lead guitarist
Posted: Sun Apr 05, 2015 8:34 pm
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Up until fairly recently, I had not actually listened to myself playing. I have heard myself, but was thinking more about trying to get it right instead of enjoying the sounds, thinking that I couldn't play very well, trying harder and not enjoying as much. It was only upon hearing a surreptitious recording of myself that I realized that I could sound decent at times. At first I couldn't believe that the good sounds that I was hearing, were actually me playing, it had to be someone else. :o I use the word surreptitious because when I realize that someone is listening or watching, I sometimes get a little nervous and my playing suffers. Also, when I record myself, such as YouTube videos, I am still not relaxed enough to play my best because I am thinking that someone else will listen and harshly criticize my playing. :lol: That has been changing lately, and when I am really relaxed (sometimes a beer or shot, or something else to take the edge off) I can play much better.

I guess that the key is just to relax, not try so hard, and just have fun, realizing that most people can't play at all, so by comparison, you're great.

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Post subject: Re: I'm a terrible lead guitarist
Posted: Sun Apr 05, 2015 9:18 pm
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Post subject: Re: I'm a terrible lead guitarist

me too. I started playing a Telecaster bass guitar after my Telecaster went MIA in late 1968. Other than 2 or 3 semesters in a string ensemble during the late 70's I have been a terrible lead guitarist. If you won't play lead guitar and you can, yeah you're pretty terrible. Like having a falcon but never taking him out of the house to hunt. Tossing small prey to it on it's perch is wasting time. Play more and you will get better, everyone does. IMHO YMMV (to quote My Favorite Martian :D )

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Post subject: Re: I'm a terrible lead guitarist
Posted: Sun Apr 05, 2015 10:37 pm
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Rhumba wrote:
I'm having a lot of trouble lately transfering stuff like pics and things, my puters gone crazy.
Anyway try this and do it in G. It's a minor pentatonic done in boxes up the neck in 5 positions.
Learn all 5, it will take time and then link them all together. The easiest way is to go up and then back down 2 strings at a time, like 1st and 2nd and then 3rd and 4th if you know what I mean and eventually all the strings linked in the 5 boxes but then break out of the boxes blending notes up and down the neck. You're command of the fretboard will improve enormously, you then of course play it in different scales which is the same shapes starting from the appropriate position. It will expand your soloing ability but takes time.
Ok if you can understand all that right click on this link and click ( open in tab) and maybe you'll get there. :D
[img]JoeCefalu_pentatonicscales.pdf (file://OWNER-PC/Users/Owner/Documents/J ... scales.pdf)
[/img]


Hi Rhumba. I just Googled this: JoeCefalu_pentatonicscales, and found the information. Good stuff. Hope you are doing well. Cheers. Glenn


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Post subject: Re: I'm a terrible lead guitarist
Posted: Sun Apr 05, 2015 11:47 pm
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GTG wrote:
Rhumba wrote:
I'm having a lot of trouble lately transfering stuff like pics and things, my puters gone crazy.
Anyway try this and do it in G. It's a minor pentatonic done in boxes up the neck in 5 positions.
Learn all 5, it will take time and then link them all together. The easiest way is to go up and then back down 2 strings at a time, like 1st and 2nd and then 3rd and 4th if you know what I mean and eventually all the strings linked in the 5 boxes but then break out of the boxes blending notes up and down the neck. You're command of the fretboard will improve enormously, you then of course play it in different scales which is the same shapes starting from the appropriate position. It will expand your soloing ability but takes time.
Ok if you can understand all that right click on this link and click ( open in tab) and maybe you'll get there. :D
[img]JoeCefalu_pentatonicscales.pdf (file://OWNER-PC/Users/Owner/Documents/J ... scales.pdf)
[/img]


Hi Rhumba. I just Googled this: JoeCefalu_pentatonicscales, and found the information. Good stuff. Hope you are doing well. Cheers. Glenn


Hi Glenn, hope you're doing well. It was 1.30 this morning when I posted that last one and it occured to me later that there is a youtube demo of it that explains it a lot better than I tried to do. It's difficult to explain without actually seeing it but brilliant for improving your guitar technique. My pc's not playing right so I can't post a link.
So if you go on youtube and type in..Joe Cefalu Hopscotch.. it will take you there and click on part 1 but you will need the diagrams that I gave before and print it out so you have copies.
Part 2 deals with soloing in one place, for that purpose I think he uses the A position but without actually moving frets he changes keys so you can improvise solo's in any key but you need to know those block shapes 1-5 with practice and perseverence it all starts to make sense and very helpful.

On another topic I'm home alone now. My father died a couple of years back and my mothers gone into a care home. If you remember I was caring for them both but with my dad passing away, my mother's dementia got worse and it was a very difficult for me to deal with alone. So she is much better off now in the home but I visit often to make sure she's ok.

Like I said earlier I hope everything is ok with you and you're family and I'll speak to you again soon.
All the best pal.
Rhumba

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Post subject: Re: I'm a terrible lead guitarist
Posted: Mon Apr 06, 2015 5:44 am
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mhowell wrote:
lomitus, thanks for the commentary - yes, I read the whole thing.

Others mentioned practicing, changing things around, etc. Good advice but I think ya'll missed one of my key points which is that my playing has regressed. I used to enjoy my lead playing and thought it was decent - I never thought my playing was great. I have some recordings I did just two or three years ago that sounded OK to me.

But recently everything I play comes out sounding bad - really bad. And I don't know why. The licks are there, the style is still pretty much my style but it just sounds aweful.

I can't find my mp3s from a few years ago but if I do I'll post something for comparison. I might post some of the crap anyway. It's embarrassingly bad but it might help to get feedback.

Cheers,



Just a few more thoughts here for your consideration and amusement :-)


As guitslinger there said, "Most guitarists are generally their own harshest critics". I would add that this doesn't apply to musicians exclusively...as a digital artist and photographer, I really do beat myself up sometimes. Another idiosyncrasy of my personality is that while I don't really believe in "perfection", I always strive for it...I often have a hard time backing away from my work, be it art or music, and simply saying to myself "it's good enough"...I always see or hear every last flaw and I'm always trying to find ways to improve. What's more is that the further I progress (be it music or art)...the better I get...the harder I tend to be on myself. I believe it was Norman Rockwell who once said, "great art is never finished, simply abandoned".

Now I will say that personally I find that listening to myself while playing and listening to myself on a recording afterwards...two very different things for me. I've had many a night where I think my playing sounds pretty decent...then I listen to the recording the next day and sit here and cringe! LOL! That said however, I've also had nights where I thought my playing was just -bad- and then listened the tracks the next day (next week, next month...) and realized it was actually pretty decent.

Dealing with our own perception of ourselves, particularly when compared with our expectations of ourselves, can be a tricky thing. I suspect that we all like to believe we have a solid sense of "self awareness" when it comes to our skills and abilities but equally I think the truth is that a great many of us also have a hard time "objectively stepping outside ourselves" as well.

As such, my advice would be to "seek a second opinion" (I can't seem to bring Youtube up at the moment to offer mine on the piece you posted). As an artist in general, I think the singular greatest thing an artist can do to improve their work is to seek out brutally honest critiques of their work. With my graphics and photography work for example, when I post such work for review, I will tell people straight away that I'm NOT looking for "it's great" or "it sucks"...either is fine, but tell me -WHY- you think it's great or -WHY- is sucks...what did I do right and what could I have done better? I don't go looking for a simple ego-stroking, I want DETAILS so that I can improve. Self evaluation is fine, but very simply our own perceptions of ourselves can often be skewed.


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Post subject: Re: I'm a terrible lead guitarist
Posted: Mon Apr 06, 2015 8:21 am
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To this discussion I would add this...

Put the guitar down.. ( No ! don't euthanize it ) just go away from it.

(1) Think in melodic terms, all songs have melody, regardless of how commercially redundant they were designed to be ( not much creativity in a homogeneous package. :? )

(2) Venture into other forms of music, preferably those that are foreign to your comfort zones.
13th century Von Biggen comes to mind. Classical string players such as Mutter, Bell, Sonnenberg, Kennedy. Venture into rhythms from around the globe, not necessarily on a string instrument.

(3) I often find that listening to Cello players such as Rostropovich opens up ideas of rhythm in EAD strings.
The point is to give your mind a breath of fresh thoughts outside of the box.

(4) I disagree with the opinion that Malmsteen just plays rapid notes. His music is much more complicated than that. One it is based on distinct musical periods. Baroque, Classical as well as composers from different eras. Paganini and Bach. Both are often squeezed into the same time period, but are actually separated by close to a century.
JSB (1685-1750) died at the age of 65, 32 years before the birth of Nicolo Paganini ( 1782-1840 ).
Bach's compositions used contrapuntal and were directed in the religious musical structure of his employers. ( he was at times a musical indentured servant :cry: )
Paganini on the other hand was very much a modern composer who would be equally at home in the 21st century. Prolific, virtuoso on the violin, he was also as adept on the chitarra. Very much an improvisationalist, his talents gained him ( rather unfairly ) great notoriety. So much so that the ignorantly superstitious critics and public alike believed that such mastery of an instrument must possess devilish origins. Paginini relished the attention and often played it to the hilt. Perhaps too much so. His final passing reflects a rather somber and ignominious end to a great musician. He was left to rest for 3 weeks or more before burial. In Nice, which if anyone knows southern France in the summer, is not a good place for decaying matter.. :shock:

My point here was not so much recounting history but rather to suggest other musical doors... On the Malsteem note :wink: it is more about total musical phrasing and passages rather than a succession of rapidly cascading notes. ( the same could be accused of Al Di'Meola )

Cheers :wink:

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Post subject: Re: I'm a terrible lead guitarist
Posted: Mon Apr 06, 2015 8:31 am
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I'm a terrible guitarist, period.

However, I've learned a few things that sound decent-to-good and have developed my own style, so I can say I'm a decent Stylist...and Stylists are always cooler than Musicians. :roll: (note sarcasm font)

I like to paraphrase Hound Dog Taylor..."When I die, people will say, 'He couldn't play worth &^%$, but it sure sounded good!"
:lol:

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Post subject: Re: I'm a terrible lead guitarist
Posted: Mon Apr 06, 2015 12:21 pm
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Talking about playing different styles of music other than rock/blues/jazz etc. I went through a period in the early 90's when everything had become stale and I needed to do something that challenged my imagination.
So I got a job working for a Library music publisher and linked my strat to synth modules and composed short pieces for tv, radio, any kind of programing really and they were recorded and distributed worldwide, so I picked up some royalties which was nice.
I think I've posted these once before but I'll try again now with my dodgy pc. This is purely for different ideas that people have been suggesting, I'm a rock/blues man again now.
I'll post this first before I attempt a forum landing because I don't want to lose everything after all my one finger keyboard work. :lol:

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Post subject: Re: I'm a terrible lead guitarist
Posted: Mon Apr 06, 2015 1:38 pm
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53magnatone wrote:
To this discussion I would add this...

Venture into other forms of music, preferably those that are foreign to your comfort zones.
13th century Von Biggen comes to mind.


While I have to disagree with you about Yngwie (despite his classical influence and his speed, I find his playing very flat, lifeless and uninspiring), if you mean Hildegard Von Bingen...yea...she was incredible. In addition to her musical compositions, she also had a great interest in science and medicine and at one point even created her own alphabet...pretty amazing stuff for a woman of that time period. I got turned on to her work in a Music Appreciation class back in college and I'm still really blown away by how lovely her music is.

If that's who you were referring to however, for the sheer sake of accuracy, she was 12th century, not 13th...she was born "around" 1098 and died September 17, 1179, with many of her musical compositions created in the mid to late 12th century (Ordo Virtutum is believed to be written around 1151 with Columba Aspexit is dated between 1175 and 1179).

In any case, for music that's considered as "monophonic melodies", her work is really incredible and well worth a bit of study for most musicians...considering this woman lived over 800 years ago, her music has an almost "epic soundtrack" quality to it. One could have easily seen it used in portions of productions such as Lord of the Rings, etc..

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Post subject: Re: I'm a terrible lead guitarist
Posted: Mon Apr 06, 2015 2:03 pm
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Yes Hildegard Von Bingen was to whom I was referring. Thank You for correcting I was going on memory as to the century. I have only one CD recording of her music. " Canticles of Ecstasy ". Music being performed by Sequentia. It's on BMG i once had a subscription which allowed me to find difficult works in european recordings. Also the Benedictine Monbks of Santo Domingo is in the same vein.
Before any misleading assumption is made, I enjoy these musical works based on their musical gifts, not the religious overtones which they are very much immersed from.

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Post subject: Re: I'm a terrible lead guitarist
Posted: Mon Apr 06, 2015 5:01 pm
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53magnatone wrote:

Before any misleading assumption is made, I enjoy these musical works based on their musical gifts, not the religious overtones which they are very much immersed from.


Ditto! As a Pagan, I don't really care much for Christian beliefs at all, however as an artist and musician, I can appreciate much of the work that is associated with such beliefs.

BTW...at the risk of hijacking this thread further, since we're on the topic here, if you haven't already, check out Morten Lauridsen's "O Magnum Mysterium". For one of my homework assignments I had been researching another version of O Magnum Mysterium when I ran into the Lauridsen version. A seriously beautiful piece of music to say the least.


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Post subject: Re: I'm a terrible lead guitarist
Posted: Mon Apr 06, 2015 5:47 pm
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53magnatone wrote:
Before any misleading assumption is made, I enjoy these musical works based on their musical gifts, not the religious overtones which they are very much immersed from.

I'm of that mindset with regard to Richard Wagner's 'Ring Cycle", likely my favorite operatic and classical work combined. It's apolitical and I leave his politics out of it. Unlike his "Parsifal'' which I choose to ignore completely.

'

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Post subject: Re: I'm a terrible lead guitarist
Posted: Mon Apr 06, 2015 6:00 pm
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Up until I was 11, Rock and Roll had really no place in my home. It was strictly classical. Thought at the time that was cruel but in hindsight, I am thankful to have been immersed in a far ranging variety of music.
Yes I was also part of a choir but was never that comfortable in being a singer. Takes more of an extrovert personality versus introvert. There are exceptions, but becoming Michael DeBarres was never one of my aspirations... :lol:

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