Guitarists

[Van D]

Originally Posted by 87xfdriver

I agree with Van D, and- there are a handful of very skilled musicians who were "self taught" but they usually grew up in musical households, and were playing as children, etc. So they're not really "self taught". If anyone is serious about playing any musical instrument well, the services of the best teacher/s you can find are a must, and it is also a life long lesson- you never stop learning. Plus if you avoid bad habits from the start you won't have to spend time unlearning them.
If on the other hand you just want to crank out a few riffs and have a jam, etc. tabs might be the way to go.

Yep, agree.

There's no point learning bad techniques and practices then having to re-learn them 3 months later the right way.

If you get taught, make sure they're a good teacher. After a month or so with my first teacher I was basically teaching him, and paying for it :

[Dark Horse]

Much like reading and writing, if you listen to as much of a variety of styles, it will open your perceptions up and add to the experience - that combined with some quality teaching in your formative years will add value to that. Basic things like your CAGED chords, techniques when playing arpeggio, scales and twelve bar blues does require a little tuition to get going.

If you do go ahead and play reading sheet music, an alternate method of doing a two step process of working out the note and then playing it, is to look at the position of the note and think, ok, this note looks like this, I use this finger, on this fret on this string to achieve this. In doing so, it allows you to relate more to the notes.

Tabs are great and no doubt they are helpful, however they are certainly not the be all and end all of playing. As Austin has mentioned, it's also good to be able to pick things up through ear.

I pretty much started learning in high school, at that stage I had already been playing drums for a couple of years, so I learned from the experiences in that towards guitar as well. Starting off slowly and getting the techniques nailed first. A lot of my closer high school friends were also into playing music in concert, jazz and rock bands so it was quite often we'd have access to the music rooms during lunchtime playing around with a few different styles. It was also not uncommon in those days during concerts to switch roles between drums, bass and lead.

Having a guitar setup with a low action is good for learning. It's all good - ingore the callouses and keep practiciing.

[ILLaViTaR]

Originally Posted by Mickus

Hey all, Im just starting out to play guitar, can just play smoke on the water at the moment, I was wondering if any of the experienced guitar players here can give me any advice and the best way to start learning?

Start learning:

Scales (Major, Minor, Harmonic Minor, melodic minor)
Chords (Triads)
Sight reading sheet music
Modes
7th chords (including Dominants)
Exotic scales.
It goes harder form there on

Just don't star learning out on metal, it's not a really challenging genre like most beginners think. Learn something that's musical and is also harder.

A lot of beginners learn those chromatic 1234 exercises which are far inferior to scales, so don't go down that path.

Hope this helps.

[muppet]

Originally Posted by ILLaViTaR

Start learning:



Just don't star learning out on metal, it's not a really challenging genre like most beginners think. Learn something that's musical and is also harder.



Hope this helps.

Youre playing the wrong sort of metal then , if you dont think it's challenging :
I have been playing for 28 years and I find some of it very challenging.
The only other thing I can think of that would be more of a challenge is some of that weird jazz and some of the things those crazy piano players come up with, some of that stuff defies belief lol.
What do you play if you think metal isnt a challenge?

[ILLaViTaR]

Originally Posted by muppet

Youre playing the wrong sort of metal then , if you dont think it's challenging :
I have been playing for 28 years and I find some of it very challenging.
The only other thing I can think of that would be more of a challenge is some of that weird jazz and some of the things those crazy piano players come up with, some of that stuff defies belief lol.
What do you play if you think metal isnt a challenge?

I play almost everything but I find it incredibly hard to play jazz and country/bluegrass.

Check out Albert Lee's Country Boy on Youtube, it's amazing.

The metal I learn is all the mainstream stuff such as Vai, Petrucci and Paul Gilbert but I got sick of it's blandness and moved on.

[falzoony]

Once you get a bit more skilled I'd just get guitar magazines and practice the exercizes in the back. Thr Paul Gilbert ones in guitar one(i think) are the best but probably still abit challenging.

[muppet]

Originally Posted by ILLaViTaR

I play almost everything but I find it incredibly hard to play jazz and country/bluegrass.

Check out Albert Lee's Country Boy on Youtube, it's amazing.

The metal I learn is all the mainstream stuff such as Vai, Petrucci and Paul Gilbert but I got sick of it's blandness and moved on.

Thats funny , I have never heard vai described as easy before, bland and a bit hard to take in anything but small doses maybe , but never easy.
Some of that jazz is realy hard to get the hang of with all that weird timeing and spastic chords (pretty much the same as metal realy).

[HLC]

Originally Posted by muppet

Some of that jazz is realy hard to get the hang of with all that weird timeing and spastic chords (pretty much the same as metal realy).

i respect jazz muso's a lot more than heavy metal players.

being lucky enough, i played in a jazz band while i started playing heavy metal music. and before that classical, so ive had a wide range of pretty much everything.

i can tell you know, i miss the jazz the most. i love thrashing out at like 320 beats per minute, but in doing so i lost all the coolness in jazz playing cause i stopped practising it all together lol

[ILLaViTaR]

Originally Posted by muppet

Thats funny , I have never heard vai described as easy before, bland and a bit hard to take in anything but small doses maybe , but never easy.
Some of that jazz is realy hard to get the hang of with all that weird timeing and spastic chords (pretty much the same as metal realy).

No way you can compare jazz technicality to metal.

Also Vai's stuff isn't simple but it's not hard either, he also plays more genres besides metal.

Let's compare a metal player to a jazz player.

METAL PLAYER JAZZ PLAYER

Tone: Heavily distorted and masked Clean/Warm unmasked
Strings: Low gauge easy play 8's Insane gauges like 14's
Guitar: Some Ibanez flat neck guitar Hollowbody/electric/acoustic
Setup: Low action for easy play Higher action for a warmer fuller tone

This is the average. Now a metal player does a lot of major things to play like he does and sacrifices tone in the process.

Jazz players play on instruments rawly, hardly have any work done and if there is work done it's to upgrade the tone (or feel if the new parts better).

There is no competition. Also don't forget the metal player sticks around chromotic riffs where as jazz players play ridiculous chord positions that are insane to switch to as fast as they do.

[Van D]

Originally Posted by ILLaViTaR

I play almost everything but I find it incredibly hard to play jazz and country/bluegrass.

Check out Albert Lee's Country Boy on Youtube, it's amazing.

The metal I learn is all the mainstream stuff such as Vai, Petrucci and Paul Gilbert but I got sick of it's blandness and moved on.

How are Vai, Petrucci or Gilbert mainstream?

[bingoTE50]

I wish I started 20 years ago . I only started when I was 40 , got sick of the air guitar , I have been mucking around for a while , I am going to get more serious and try a bit harder .

[ILLaViTaR]

Originally Posted by Van D

How are Vai, Petrucci or Gilbert mainstream?

LOL you serious?? how are they not mainstream???

[rodderz]

Some jazz songs are a bugger to play. I did AMEB to level 4 and ANZCA music exams to level 5 and most songs are jazz standards, some with a different chord each beat and the chords are like your fingers playing twister on the fretboard.

These days I just learn stuff by ear, you know the notes and know where to play them, except for songs in open tunings which throws it all about

[Mickus]

hmmmm Im of getting lessons instead of taking the hard road and self teaching with a think will ultimately fail lol. I just bought a Randall RH100 100w amp head from where i work and it was used briefly as a PA thing and is in mint condition so now i need to find some speakers for it, any ideas?

[muppet]

Originally Posted by ILLaViTaR

No way you can compare jazz technicality to metal.

Also Vai's stuff isn't simple but it's not hard either, he also plays more genres besides metal.

Let's compare a metal player to a jazz player.

METAL PLAYER JAZZ PLAYER

Tone: Heavily distorted and masked Clean/Warm unmasked
Strings: Low gauge easy play 8's Insane gauges like 14's
Guitar: Some Ibanez flat neck guitar Hollowbody/electric/acoustic
Setup: Low action for easy play Higher action for a warmer fuller tone

This is the average. Now a metal player does a lot of major things to play like he does and sacrifices tone in the process.

Jazz players play on instruments rawly, hardly have any work done and if there is work done it's to upgrade the tone (or feel if the new parts better).

There is no competition. Also don't forget the metal player sticks around chromotic riffs where as jazz players play ridiculous chord positions that are insane to switch to as fast as they do.

you're on drugs right?
I respect jazz players for what they do even though it's not my thing . But to say they are better players because they play clean is just plain silly . You do realise that distortion brings its own problems. I dont think that either one is better or worse than the other and they each do things the other cant (or finds hard)
You don't seem to have much of a concept of what metal is if you think Vai is a metal player. You also seem to think that metal players use 8's , lol that's the funniest thing I have heard in a long time I have never seen or heard of anyone that uses 8's.
Tone is an objective thing and what a jazz player thinks is the ultimate tone is not what a metal player thinks is. Same as a blues player thinks they are both mad and his tone is far better than the two of them. And I am pretty shore that if you tried to play jazz on my guitar you would find it as hard as I would to play metal on yours.
Both metal and jazz players use all different scales and modes , so saying that metal players just use one type of scale and jazz players use all of them kind of says to me that you don't really know what you are talking about (in regards to metal players). You say you used to play Vai songs , he plays all scales and all modes and all the ones in between (even though he is not metal lol) so how can you say they stick to one thing.
I have put my myspace link up in an earlier post have you listened to it ?
It is something I put together in about 10 min and was just something that I did to test out my wah pedal. Here it is again just so you don't have to look . You will think it is crap because it isn't jazz but have a listen anyway.
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm...ndid=161824123
I accept you're invitation of a challenge and look forward to hearing you're comeback solo. I mean if there is no competition then you should be able to wipe the floor with me . You know like the karate kid did to Vai in crossroads (accept he was playing blues).
Don't take any this post the wrong way ( It's all said in a light hearted manner) but I really want to hear you play the guitar.Even if you do wipe the floor with me .
And now a joke.
How many guitarists does it take to change a light globe .
100 , one to change the globe and the other 99 to say they could have done it better .

[XR6-VCT-2000]

Hmmm, some interesting comments here , i'll keep mine to myself i think. Anyway , nice joke muppet / and so true ...lol ;)

[my gt]

"ive got blisters on my finigers"

[Van D]

Originally Posted by ILLaViTaR

LOL you serious?? how are they not mainstream???

Umm, if you ask 90% of kids who listen to 'metal' they wouldn't know them. And most think Dream Theatre are gay, lol. Their work is hardly easy though. Care to post a sound clip/video of yourself?

I'd call Hammet etc mainstream metal guitar players.

[muppet]

Originally Posted by XR6-VCT-2000

Hmmm, some interesting comments here , i'll keep mine to myself i think. Anyway , nice joke muppet / and so true ...lol ;)

Oh go on , jump on in the waters fine

[HLC]

Originally Posted by ILLaViTaR

No way you can compare jazz technicality to metal.

Also Vai's stuff isn't simple but it's not hard either, he also plays more genres besides metal.

Let's compare a metal player to a jazz player.

METAL PLAYER JAZZ PLAYER

Tone: Heavily distorted and masked Clean/Warm unmasked
Strings: Low gauge easy play 8's Insane gauges like 14's
Guitar: Some Ibanez flat neck guitar Hollowbody/electric/acoustic
Setup: Low action for easy play Higher action for a warmer fuller tone

This is the average. Now a metal player does a lot of major things to play like he does and sacrifices tone in the process.

Jazz players play on instruments rawly, hardly have any work done and if there is work done it's to upgrade the tone (or feel if the new parts better).

There is no competition. Also don't forget the metal player sticks around chromotic riffs where as jazz players play ridiculous chord positions that are insane to switch to as fast as they do.

stereotype much? go listen to a metal band that incoporates jazz elements to their music. say like Dillinger Escape Plan.

you clearly have no idea.

[HLC]

Originally Posted by muppet

I have put my myspace link up in an earlier post have you listened to it ?
It is something I put together in about 10 min and was just something that I did to test out my wah pedal. Here it is again just so you don't have to look . You will think it is crap because it isn't jazz but have a listen anyway.
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm...ndid=161824123

your solo is very kirk hammet i reckon. maybe its the wah that does it :

[muppet]

Originally Posted by HLC

your solo is very kirk hammet i reckon. maybe its the wah that does it :

Hay I turn the wah of for a bit

[ILLaViTaR]

Originally Posted by muppet

you're on drugs right?
I respect jazz players for what they do even though it's not my thing . But to say they are better players because they play clean is just plain silly . You do realise that distortion brings its own problems. I dont think that either one is better or worse than the other and they each do things the other cant (or finds hard)
You don't seem to have much of a concept of what metal is if you think Vai is a metal player. You also seem to think that metal players use 8's , lol that's the funniest thing I have heard in a long time I have never seen or heard of anyone that uses 8's.
Tone is an objective thing and what a jazz player thinks is the ultimate tone is not what a metal player thinks is. Same as a blues player thinks they are both mad and his tone is far better than the two of them. And I am pretty shore that if you tried to play jazz on my guitar you would find it as hard as I would to play metal on yours.
Both metal and jazz players use all different scales and modes , so saying that metal players just use one type of scale and jazz players use all of them kind of says to me that you don't really know what you are talking about (in regards to metal players). You say you used to play Vai songs , he plays all scales and all modes and all the ones in between (even though he is not metal lol) so how can you say they stick to one thing.
I have put my myspace link up in an earlier post have you listened to it ?
It is something I put together in about 10 min and was just something that I did to test out my wah pedal. Here it is again just so you don't have to look . You will think it is crap because it isn't jazz but have a listen anyway.
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm...ndid=161824123
I accept you're invitation of a challenge and look forward to hearing you're comeback solo. I mean if there is no competition then you should be able to wipe the floor with me . You know like the karate kid did to Vai in crossroads (accept he was playing blues).
Don't take any this post the wrong way ( It's all said in a light hearted manner) but I really want to hear you play the guitar.Even if you do wipe the floor with me .
And now a joke.
How many guitarists does it take to change a light globe .
100 , one to change the globe and the other 99 to say they could have done it better .

Haha yeah I've heard that light bulb joke before.

My string gauge was referring to Malmsteen who uses 8's and Vai and Satch use a similiar gauge.

Yeah regarding modes Jazz players play in modes of the hungarian, super locrian etc. Most metal guitarists stay around major scale modes and minor scale modes (I'm talking other than natural minor because that is a mode itself). A lot of those exotic scales and modes are a lot harder to play than the standard modes that generally don't go further than a 3 fret stretch to the next degree (taking all strings into account of course).

Btw I am curious of your setup? (Mainly Guitar and amp).

I'll try to record but all I got is an onboard sound card (changes latency and goes out of time lol) and audacity with a $5 (yes $5) headset, I hope you take this into account when I get a chance to record this. It should sound semi decent, I'll record with my strat and JCM 900.

[ILLaViTaR]

Originally Posted by Van D

Umm, if you ask 90% of kids who listen to 'metal' they wouldn't know them. And most think Dream Theatre are gay, lol. Their work is hardly easy though. Care to post a sound clip/video of yourself?

I'd call Hammet etc mainstream metal guitar players.

Lol I can't believe how false your proposed "facts" are.

Vai, Satch, Malmsteen, Dimebag and Petrucci are like the best known metal players out there.

Then you get those other metal heads into doom and death that like Slayer, Candlemass, Kreator, Lamb of god and so on.

All my friends like the doom/thrash/death stuff and I find them the most biased out of them all.

[ILLaViTaR]

Originally Posted by HLC

stereotype much? go listen to a metal band that incoporates jazz elements to their music. say like Dillinger Escape Plan.

you clearly have no idea.

Since when were we talking about Metal bands that incorporated jazz???

Last time I checked I was talking about metal?

I have given statistics justifying my opinion, and you haven't given anything?

(btw I'm trying to have a healthy debate and not trying to get personal here).

[Van D]

Originally Posted by ILLaViTaR

Lol I can't believe how false your proposed "facts" are.

Vai, Satch, Malmsteen, Dimebag and Petrucci are like the best known metal players out there.

Then you get those other metal heads into doom and death that like Slayer, Candlemass, Kreator, Lamb of god and so on.

All my friends like the doom/thrash/death stuff and I find them the most biased out of them all.

The 'fact' was sarcasm, duh.

I'm sorry, but satch and dimebag aren't even in the same category, so if you're going to throw those names in together, why can't HLC mention jazz metal? There's about 500 (watch out, it's that sarcasm again) different genres of metal, why single out one?

[muppet]

Originally Posted by ILLaViTaR

Haha yeah I've heard that light bulb joke before.

My string gauge was referring to Malmsteen who uses 8's and Vai and Satch use a similiar gauge.

Yeah regarding modes Jazz players play in modes of the hungarian, super locrian etc. Most metal guitarists stay around major scale modes and minor scale modes (I'm talking other than natural minor because that is a mode itself). A lot of those exotic scales and modes are a lot harder to play than the standard modes that generally don't go further than a 3 fret stretch to the next degree (taking all strings into account of course).

Btw I am curious of your setup? (Mainly Guitar and amp).

I'll try to record but all I got is an onboard sound card (changes latency and goes out of time lol) and audacity with a $5 (yes $5) headset, I hope you take this into account when I get a chance to record this. It should sound semi decent, I'll record with my strat and JCM 900.

Ah you will love my setup , it's something a jazz player would run a mile from
Ok here we go
guitars , Jackson (jap) dkmgff with emg's and a home made(by me) flying V with an old 80's Jackson pickup and a 59 les paul neck pickup. Both guitars have floyd rose trems.
For an amp I run a rack setup with an ADA mp1 preamp with a 3 tube mod done to it (by me). In case you dont know what that is it's an all tube midi programmable pre amp that you can get to distort like all hell (made in the early 90's). That goes into a rane midi programmable 14 band graphic. Then into a Marshall 50x50 , 9005 valve amp(you could fry an egg on the top of this thing it gets that hot). Then into a Peavy 5150 4x12 cab. I put this rack setup together for about $1200 and it is perfect for the music I play(no good for jazz though lol).
All I have is an on board sound card I just plug an sm 57 copy I have into the mic input and use guitar tracks 2 to record with. There are heaps of multi track recorders that you can download for free that will do the job. I have no real latency problems all you have to do is set the buffer size to the min that the programme will let you. So are you tring to tell me that you wont be able to get your'e ultimate tone down for me to hear ( sorry couldn't hep myself).

I watched that Albert Lee thing you mentioned and he is a very talented player indeed. But I didn't realy hear anything that was overly amazing , it was very good playing none the less and something to aspire to for all country finger pickers. I could never play like that , not because it would be beyond me but because I would not spend the time learning to play like that because it dosen't intrest me to want to play like that. I'm a metal head , thats what I love so thats what I have spent my life learning how to play. Same as Albert has spent his life learning how to play what he loves. I am pretty shore that he would have a bit of trouble knocking out a metal solo just the same as a metal guitarist would tring to do a country fingerpicking solo. I dosen't mean one style is better or worse than the other it just means they are different and each require different skills. Have you noticed that in all my posts I have not once said that I think one style is better than the other. Thats because that joke I told is true and most guitar players are a bit up themselvs and think what they do is better than what everyone else does. I dont think I am better than anyone else , I dont need to be. All I need to be is happy doing what I do and enjoying playing with other like minded musoes.
The only reason I replied to your'e post is that one thing that really annoys me is when someone tries to put down another style of playing just so they can feel better about what they do. Just feel good about the music you have chosen to do and who cares what everyone else is up to as long as you are doing what you love. Its bad for guitar playing in general when we all put each other down.
You haven't told me what you thought of my playing yet. Not that it worries me if you thought it was good or not , but because it's allways good to hear a non metal heads perspective on things , good or bad. And remember I was just mucking around

[ILLaViTaR]

Originally Posted by Van D

The 'fact' was sarcasm, duh.

I'm sorry, but satch and dimebag aren't even in the same category, so if you're going to throw those names in together, why can't HLC mention jazz metal? There's about 500 (watch out, it's that sarcasm again) different genres of metal, why single out one?

They all contain shred and a heavy tone.

Which is why it's still metal.

[HLC]

Originally Posted by ILLaViTaR

Haha yeah I've heard that light bulb joke before.

My string gauge was referring to Malmsteen who uses 8's and Vai and Satch use a similiar gauge.

Yeah regarding modes Jazz players play in modes of the hungarian, super locrian etc. Most metal guitarists stay around major scale modes and minor scale modes (I'm talking other than natural minor because that is a mode itself). A lot of those exotic scales and modes are a lot harder to play than the standard modes that generally don't go further than a 3 fret stretch to the next degree (taking all strings into account of course).

again with the stereotypes. what about Marty Friedman's soloing when he was in megadeth. he always used exotic scales. so much for metal just using boring minor scales.

[Krakey]

the way i started out was to get a highly skilled and expirenced guitarist who can teach you the basic fundamentals of guitar and can help you get your fine motor skills developing properly for the way you want to play. Once you have the basic ideas on how to play you can start to teach yourself with TAB's or sheet music if you know how to read music. Once you get the hang of it the sky is the limit.