Glacies
March 14th, 2012, 10:05 AM
Last weekend, I played with the band again and I noticed something that really surprised me.
And I'll get into that in a minute.
When I first picked up guitar, I wanted to play some soulful blues. Those guitar solos really spoke to me and I loved to hear and feel the emotion of a crying guitar. However, I learned that it was very difficult to put emotion into playing when I was still learning. Especially THAT type of emotion. That type of emotion for me is literally expressing my feelings through the guitar, and I consider that more advanced and I struggled with trying it.
So, when I found rock (easy rock that is), I found fun. Fun is easy, it kept me interested and it was "digestible". I've already shared with you guys my theory on how useful powerchords are and how I think they're overlooked. Powerchords have me the ability to identify and finger barre chords and as a result I can work on some of my real favorite music which is reggae rock like Sublime. Wait a sec, I told you I loved moody blues.
I like listening to moody blues but I don't listen to it. My ipod is filled with well, everything I guess, but bands like Sublime, 311, Dirty Heads, Slightly Stoopid get the most air time and are most musically inspiring to me. And I think because I can really get into that music, listen to it so much that I am able understand what is going on in it. And you know what? Reggae is blues! I guess rock is too, but just saying.
So I started singing and playing, picked up an acoustic and man is it a special form of awesome to sit down and make pure music and sing and play a whole song.
Armed with my newfound ability to sing and play, I took my awesome repertoire to the band thinking I was going to be a rock star! Singing and playing and having fun. Nope. I had really bad chemistry with the reggae songs with these guys. I mean the drummer can keep a beat really well and knows the perfect flair ups to do at the right time, the bass player knows how to play as well, but we could not make music. This is one of the very few times I realized our energy is totally wrong.
I'm a nuclear engineer. Energy is an engineering unit for me. When I was a kid, I grew up over a recording studio and seeing the "characters" come in and out of the place essentially made me judge ALL musicians as drugged out weirdo hippies. And for a lack of a better way of describing it, the trauma (don't really want to use that word) that I experienced as a kid without a firm explanation or understanding made me essentially reject music until I was an adult. I can go further into it but hopefully you understand. The point that I'm trying to make here is I did in fact grew up without music and forced myself into such an analytical mindset that I don't do "energy" very well.
But it's REAL! I learned this from day 1 with the band! And to clarify my band is us getting together, drinking beer and screwing around. We're all full time engineers. We don't have any illusions of gigging. We are all interested in different types of music but will work on anything someone is interested in. And it's just me, a bass player and a drummer. And these guys are great. They're way better than me with their instruments. But we just couldn't make music. It was bizarre to me - it's so easy for me to make that music by myself... when you have to link with other people, that's just a totally new thing. We couldn't connect on those songs at all. And it's not like anyone was doing anything wrong.
So, in this same band meeting, Bass and Drums decided they wanted to play a Police song, "Next to You" I think it was called. I've never heard this song before so I was anxious, but I listened, worked it out by ear on power chords (couldn't freakin believe it) and made it the whole way through the song and we did a great job. We might record it on our next get-together.
And this brings me to my next point. In the recorded version they played for me, it sounds like the guitarist busts out a slide for the solo. I didn't have a slide and am not particularly interested in slide at this point in my playing, so I basically improvved on the minor pent scale in double stops and I made music. That is to say, my solo was musical which is something that is very important to me. The solo should reflect the mood of the song and it should flow. I managed to pull this off in a song I've never heard before, but this song is a high energy song so I instinctively wanted to burn up the fretboard. I'm not particularly capable of burning up the fretboard, I'm not a fast player so in these situations I've been able to make things work for me.
I guess the point I'm trying to make here is that you don't have to shred to make a great a solo. It's just knowing what notes to play and how to play them. The more I try and the more I really pay attention to others' solos, the more I get it and the easier it becomes. Nothing physical either, it's mental.
Anyway, the TL;DR version:
Music is cool, I learned a song by ear, You don't have to be able to shred to solo well.
I feel weird sharing this stuff with you guys, you are all such awesome musicians, but you haven't laughed me out of here yet, so here! :P
Oh, my pedal worked awesomely well too, I've never been able to switch music styles so easily before...
And I'll get into that in a minute.
When I first picked up guitar, I wanted to play some soulful blues. Those guitar solos really spoke to me and I loved to hear and feel the emotion of a crying guitar. However, I learned that it was very difficult to put emotion into playing when I was still learning. Especially THAT type of emotion. That type of emotion for me is literally expressing my feelings through the guitar, and I consider that more advanced and I struggled with trying it.
So, when I found rock (easy rock that is), I found fun. Fun is easy, it kept me interested and it was "digestible". I've already shared with you guys my theory on how useful powerchords are and how I think they're overlooked. Powerchords have me the ability to identify and finger barre chords and as a result I can work on some of my real favorite music which is reggae rock like Sublime. Wait a sec, I told you I loved moody blues.
I like listening to moody blues but I don't listen to it. My ipod is filled with well, everything I guess, but bands like Sublime, 311, Dirty Heads, Slightly Stoopid get the most air time and are most musically inspiring to me. And I think because I can really get into that music, listen to it so much that I am able understand what is going on in it. And you know what? Reggae is blues! I guess rock is too, but just saying.
So I started singing and playing, picked up an acoustic and man is it a special form of awesome to sit down and make pure music and sing and play a whole song.
Armed with my newfound ability to sing and play, I took my awesome repertoire to the band thinking I was going to be a rock star! Singing and playing and having fun. Nope. I had really bad chemistry with the reggae songs with these guys. I mean the drummer can keep a beat really well and knows the perfect flair ups to do at the right time, the bass player knows how to play as well, but we could not make music. This is one of the very few times I realized our energy is totally wrong.
I'm a nuclear engineer. Energy is an engineering unit for me. When I was a kid, I grew up over a recording studio and seeing the "characters" come in and out of the place essentially made me judge ALL musicians as drugged out weirdo hippies. And for a lack of a better way of describing it, the trauma (don't really want to use that word) that I experienced as a kid without a firm explanation or understanding made me essentially reject music until I was an adult. I can go further into it but hopefully you understand. The point that I'm trying to make here is I did in fact grew up without music and forced myself into such an analytical mindset that I don't do "energy" very well.
But it's REAL! I learned this from day 1 with the band! And to clarify my band is us getting together, drinking beer and screwing around. We're all full time engineers. We don't have any illusions of gigging. We are all interested in different types of music but will work on anything someone is interested in. And it's just me, a bass player and a drummer. And these guys are great. They're way better than me with their instruments. But we just couldn't make music. It was bizarre to me - it's so easy for me to make that music by myself... when you have to link with other people, that's just a totally new thing. We couldn't connect on those songs at all. And it's not like anyone was doing anything wrong.
So, in this same band meeting, Bass and Drums decided they wanted to play a Police song, "Next to You" I think it was called. I've never heard this song before so I was anxious, but I listened, worked it out by ear on power chords (couldn't freakin believe it) and made it the whole way through the song and we did a great job. We might record it on our next get-together.
And this brings me to my next point. In the recorded version they played for me, it sounds like the guitarist busts out a slide for the solo. I didn't have a slide and am not particularly interested in slide at this point in my playing, so I basically improvved on the minor pent scale in double stops and I made music. That is to say, my solo was musical which is something that is very important to me. The solo should reflect the mood of the song and it should flow. I managed to pull this off in a song I've never heard before, but this song is a high energy song so I instinctively wanted to burn up the fretboard. I'm not particularly capable of burning up the fretboard, I'm not a fast player so in these situations I've been able to make things work for me.
I guess the point I'm trying to make here is that you don't have to shred to make a great a solo. It's just knowing what notes to play and how to play them. The more I try and the more I really pay attention to others' solos, the more I get it and the easier it becomes. Nothing physical either, it's mental.
Anyway, the TL;DR version:
Music is cool, I learned a song by ear, You don't have to be able to shred to solo well.
I feel weird sharing this stuff with you guys, you are all such awesome musicians, but you haven't laughed me out of here yet, so here! :P
Oh, my pedal worked awesomely well too, I've never been able to switch music styles so easily before...