what happened to the last guitar and bassist thread?
Edit: ok, everyone, list your top 15 or 20 favourite guitarists of all time.
can someone recommend some exercises for building picking speed?.. but not scalple picking, i hate that.
I don’t know how active SRK’s guitarists are, but might as well try for a response.
I’m a beginner and I’m trying to play a really simple pattern: 5, 7 on A, 9 on D, 5, 7 on A, 7 on D, irrelevant part afterwords.
I have an odd playing style of never using my pinky (don’t ask, don’t question, just run with it), so I’ll be on first position 5 and go over to play the 9 with my ring finger.
After playing the 9, when I pull my hand back to go back to 5, when I’m taking my finger off of the 9 it’s making a noise almost like I played an open note on the G string. It’s pretty loud, and I don’t want it to do that, I just want a clean 9. Somebody I know told me it’s my string action being to high…or too low? I don’t remember which, but I think it’s just something I must be doing wrong…but I’m lost on what it could be. Am I pulling my hand back too fast or something?
According to Michael Angelo (hair band guy, not painter guy), the fastest you can tremolo pick–in other words, pick one note up, down, up, down, up, down as quickly as you can–is the fastest that you’ll ever be able to pick. It’s what your muscles are naturally capable of handling. The trick, then, isn’t to become able to pick faster, but to get your fretting hand to sync up accurately at higher tempos within the ceiling that you’ve established.
I know that sounds like splitting hairs, but it’s a fairly important distinction. Many aspiring shredders have driven themselves to frustration by focusing on making their picking muscles faster, which is actually quite difficult to do–nigh impossible.
On the bright side, most of us can tremolo pick pretty quickly. Imagine being able to play lines of single notes at that speed.
One exercise I remember from John Petrucci’s Rock Discipline video is to put together groups of six notes, based on scales. For example a group of six notes based on the A minor scale might be the 5, 7, and 8 frets on the A string and the 5, 7, and 9 frets on the D string. Practice picking up and down this group of notes over and over again with a smooth, fluid continuity. Don’t go any faster than you’re able to do along to a metronome, and stick to strict economy picking. Only raise the tempo on the metronome once you’ve got it nailed.
Find another group of notes within the scale that overlaps with the first group, maybe a little further up the neck. Say, 7, 9, and 10 on the D string and 7, 9, and 10 on the G string. Do the same exercise here–pick from the bottom to the top and down again, over and over again, until you have it smooth, fluid, and accurate to the metronome.
Once you have both of the overlapping groups down to a science by themselves, try using slurs and position shifts to put them together in different ways. Once again, stick to the metronome and only raise the tempo when you’ve got it accurate and are ready to push the speed. You should soon have a similarly accurate pattern with a larger group of notes.
By repeating this exercise in different permutations with different groups of notes, you should be able to develop accurate economy-picked lines that are interconnected and get larger and larger as you work on it.
You can do this all over the neck and in any key–develop simple little six-note scalar “modules” and find ways to mix and match them. If you do it enough, you’ll be able to develop long lines fairly casually in improvisation situations. Not only will this help you develop accuracy in a variety of keys and positions, but it will also develop your soloing capabilities in a jam.
If you ever wondered how Petrucci comes up with those insanely long lines of single notes in his solos, this is pretty much the basic method.
I’ve been thinking of getting back into bass. used to play in punk bands in high school, very badly.
I thought this was obvious.
thats easy for Batio to say, he’s ambidextrous. Come to think of it that is a better question.
I’ve been using the chromatic scale to sync my picking hand with my fretting hand and i’m alot faster than i used to be but it doesnt really help with being fast at scaling (between strings). I’m starting to use basic scales to improve my speed and thats helped a lot more.
Guthrie Govan also suggests that bigginers use the A minor scale to improve syncing both hands, i’ll try that tonight.
For some reason I’m finding it easier to hybrid pick.
learned this last week.
[media=youtube]siJlPtWkmzw[/media]
i can feel your communal jealousy.
Hell yeah this thread is back. A couple weeks ago, I had to pawn my crappy guitar and amp to make the move back home. BUT yesterday I decided to max what I had left on my credit card(woohoo! to being in debt) and replace my shitty setup with a less shittier setup. I bought a Rolland Cube amp and Schecter Omen Solo 6 guitar which is a lot better than my LP junior. Though later on, I plan on swapping the pickups, pots, and switch when I actually start progressing. I got back into playing a few years ago with the mindset of wanting to play 70’s rock, but now I’m itching to learn some neo classical shit and be a lot more technically skillful than being baked off my ass strumming a few power chords and a couple scales.
I just started learning how to play the guitar couple days ago and my finger really hurts. It even hurts to type as I’m typing this right now. I’m playing the acoustic right now.
Right now I’m just learning the chords and chord progression from youtube videos (justinguitar and guitarjamz are couple examples)and looked at songs tab online.
Do you guys have any tips for beginners and where to go? And what did you guys learn first when starting out? And how important is it to learn the theory?
I do have some music knowledge like how to read notes and count beats.
As posted, I’m far far from any one that’s a shredder, but I think from what I over heard and read including my own experience; take some lessons or have someone that knows their shit to catch some early signs of bad habits that you might have.
I tried to teach myself for a few months before enrolling in lessons, which I ended up taking for three years. My progression with a teacher was much, much faster than my progression on my own.
If you’re starting with chords and progressions, it sounds to me like you’re on the right track for where you’re at.
I learned a few basic theory-type things early on–mainly scales–but I didn’t get hardcore into theory much later on. It’s a cool thing, being able to see how different things (e.g. chord progressions and scales/modes) tie together. It’s not something that’s absolutely necessary, but it’s very useful in writing and improvising. The difference between having a handful of tools and the whole box.
Thanks for the tip guys, I don’t think I’ll be enrolling into lessons anytime soon since I’m busy with school and work. I’m 24 and I wish I took guitar and music in general seriously when I was younger. It would be nice to have couple friends and just jamming your favorite tunes.
I’ll eventually get into theory, like what you said, if I do get to the writing/improvising stage 
Because I’m confused on what makes chords their name? Example, why is it called a C chord? I know in piano the notes are C E G. But for the guitar, its completely different. The note C sounds different for both guitar and piano.
So after mastering chords and progressions, should I just start looking up tabs online and just play them? Eventually I want to be good enough so I can tune the guitar by ear.
EDIT: Well, later down the road if you got some free time opened up, maybe think about seeing someone. I actually had a few months of lessons a couple years ago and it helped me more then I thought it would of.
A C chord is a chord in which each note somehow relates to/revolves around the C note in the harmony. That’s about as clear as I can make it.
I think there’s a certain amount of chord-naming that you have to take on faith. A simple C5 chord could also be considered a G chord with a suspended 4th. But your ear will (hopefully) use the harmonic context clues to tell you which note (the C or the G) is the most “important” of the chord.
It’s the same thing with keys. C major and A minor have the same notes in them, but your ears will judge the emotional quality of the note relationships and tell you which one it is. Technically, there’s no difference, but there’s an abstract aspect to it that happens in your brain, rather than on the paper.
Couldn’t hurt. In fact, one thing that helped me with chords was to find songs that used the chords I wanted to learn. AC/DC was my go-to band for open position chords, and Black Sabbath for moveable chords.
Any frusterated guitar pl-…I mean bassists like myself here? ahah
I’ll be getting a bass guitar soon, as a late birthday/Christmas present (for last year and this year lol)
Any recommendations for a decent one? I’ve been playing acoustic and electric guitar for a few years on and off, so I’m not going to get some cheapass “kiddy’s first bass” shit, but obviously I don’t need a top of the line model.
I was thinking about the Fender precision; good choice, bad choice, neutral choice, none of the above?
I got one of Rondo’s bass starter packs recently, just for my own amusement. It’s actually pretty good quality, much better than what you’d find in the Big Two’s starter packs.
For a P-Bass, you’re going to end up paying a lot for the famous name. That might be fine with you, but for a first instrument, you might consider less famous (but no less credible) alternatives.
Those SX basses from Rondo are godlike. I have on myself. I love it dearly. I am a P bass enthusiast myself. I have a 78 P-bass with a basslines quarter pounder pick up on the neck and a geddy lee jazz bass pick up on the bridge. I was lucky. Bought the body off some dude on craigslist for 500 bucks flat. I threw a Warmoth neck on it. It’s my babyyyy.
I’m a guitarist, not the best, but I play. Been playing for about 3 and a halfish years. Play mostly metal, a bit of jazz here and there and occasional just strumming around on some chords. To put my technical skill into perspective, I’m not the greatest, I can’t exactly play any Psycroptic or Animals as Leaders yet, I can do a little Decapitated, probably the pinnacle of my ability, I can do the “generic” stuff without a whole lot of hassle.
A lot of my playing is still grinding out on technique, even after all this time my left hand doesn’t quite get in line when I want to go faster, especially picking, I can sweep pick at moderate 180ish BPM, but only a few arpeggios. Still suck quite a lot at pull-offs, I find them to be the single hardest basic technique to get down, I can do hammer-ons, rolling legato, tapping fine, but pull-off runs and especially while string skipping just elude me.
Currently my beast is my RG2228 and I don’t exactly see that changing until I can afford customs every few months like some people.
(I assume everyone here is a gear whore?) I can’t stop constantly wanting SOMETHING, even with my tubes, noise supressor, boost, beast guitar and BOTH HM-2 pedals I still must… have… more. Right now I wouldn’t mind a tremolo pedal for some little effects and superior drummer 2.0 so I can start really tracking some stuff…
@Sexperienced: Well there is nothing to it but grinding it out. Picking speed is a bit of a false name as I;m sure you can pick decently fast, it’s just the coordination that needs work and it takes ages. For exercise, really anything, 1-2-3-4 on every string, 1-3-2-4 etc. What matter is that you try different patterns and just really get the independence, I’m still working on that as well.
A couple that I do are:
| ----------------------------------- | --------------------------------- |
|---|---|
| ----------------------------------- | --------------------------------- |
| ------------1-2-3-4------------- | ------------2-4----------------- |
| -----------------------1-2-3-4– | -----2–4----------------------- |
| -1-2-3-4------------------------ | –1—3–1-3------------------ |
etc.
@ Hawk: Sounds like you are pulling off to the G, try to lift the finger straight out from the fretboard cleanly instead of pulling away.
I’m itching for a delay, chorus, patch cables, and a bigger board. lol. I haven’t bought anything new ever since I started school this year, been focusing on studies mostly with Marvel and guitar whenever I have the time.
I play mostly rock and jazz with blues licks thrown into my solos here and there. my phrasing is still ass and the most technical thing I’m capable of is speed picking sextuplets at ~120ish BPM lol. need to clean up my play which is for now mostly based on the modes of the Gmaj scale. I love me some Phrygian personally, sounds great and melodic when played both slow and rhythmically or for doing fast runs. whenever I practice I only have time to work on my speed picking but recently I’ve been trying to incorporate more legato, but mostly just pull-offs to make some of my licks sound more fluid. not quite into tapping yet as I can’t seem to wrap my head around “your index/middle finger is for reaching notes that are far away” hahaha. I can do some Eruption-esque shit but as for making tapping licks and incorporating them into solos I have a loooooooooongggg way to go. I also suck at sweep picking so pretty much my highest level of technical wankery is just scalar runs LOL.
also for people getting into guitar/bass: your execution on stick will also improve because learning an instrument causes your hands to sync up. real talk. I couldn’t even do FADC Ultra before I started seriously playing and now there’s only a handful of difficult combos I can’t pull off in Marvel.