You and your craft;

[Snake-Pit]

• Your instument
• Your vocal chords/vocals

Where are you, as a ..?

It's no secret, I like to play guitar; I am a guitarist.

It is fun. Guitar and running, natural high right there. - Get a lil' great fornication going then go play on a Gibson VOS Les Paul Standard hooked in to this Orange Stack down @ Macari's and - You're on to a winner.

I must say, I do enjoy tone, and feel.

That said; recently I've noticed something very cool that's happening/I've been doing, lingering?

1999 - now (I first picked up a guitar in 1999) 'haven't put 'em down since', and I'm starting to linger.

It's cool...

(It sounds really cool)!

I also really do dance around with the guitar now and kick out my legs too, I've noticed.

So that's cool.

 

Where would you say you are with your ..?

Edited March 17, 2016 by Snake-Pit

[Len Cnut]

When does one become a guitar player?  I mean i have a guitar, i can play chords, bar chords, i can do some (admittedly very little though) of that scale shit.  I cant tune a guitar by ear though, the theory aspect makes little to no sense to me, i can't really get my head around like...whatchamacallit, keys and that, like a song is in a certain key etc and there ain't a lot of songs i can play at the moment that i wouldn't need to have a quick refresh on...am i a guitar player?  I think I'm just some muppet who owns a guitar.  I can probably play Ramones songs if u sat me down and i watched some fucker doing it and just copied him but i could no way hold it together in a band setting, not without months of practise.  I think you're a guitar player when you can hear a song and then play it or play a version thereof just by ear. 

[Towelie]

3 hours ago, Len B'stard said:

When does one become a guitar player?  I mean i have a guitar, i can play chords, bar chords, i can do some (admittedly very little though) of that scale shit.  I cant tune a guitar by ear though, the theory aspect makes little to no sense to me, i can't really get my head around like...whatchamacallit, keys and that, like a song is in a certain key etc and there ain't a lot of songs i can play at the moment that i wouldn't need to have a quick refresh on...am i a guitar player?  I think I'm just some muppet who owns a guitar.  I can probably play Ramones songs if u sat me down and i watched some fucker doing it and just copied him but i could no way hold it together in a band setting, not without months of practise.  I think you're a guitar player when you can hear a song and then play it or play a version thereof just by ear. 

Yeah, it's a tough one. I've played for around 11 years and even now have moments where I feel like a complete fraud when I tell people I'm a guitarist. I guess you can only really say it with a straight face when you're making a living from it.

In terms of ability etc, I think the biggest thing any guitar player should aspire to is the ability to be taken out of your comfort zone, and be able to hold your own in a jamming session. The ability to improvise without sounding like you're a hack, and in terms of lead work, I guess it's about building a large enough arsenal of licks so that you can make an appropriate musical judgement call, knowing when to just add a few tasty licks and when to really give it some (although you're always gonna get some wanker trying to bust some Eddie Van Halen tapping shit over a Beatles cover).

Aside from that, being able to play a wide range of styles helps. Of course, most guitarists have their niche, but every self-respecting guitarist should be able to know how to punk something up, how to do a bit of funky rhythm playing and how to do some blues licks and turnarounds.

[Len Cnut]

Agreed although not necessarily with the getting paid bit.

[SoundOfAGun]

So are we talking about where we are in our progress with our chosen instruments? If so, it is a little weird for me; I have played guitar on and off for twenty years, but mainly at the same time as singing in a band, so I have always been a rhythm player. This means that I have never really had the guitarist inferiority complex as my time has always been split between the two tasks.

Since about 2013, I have only really been working on songs and put them together on my own. I normally have an idea how the whole "band" will sound when I come up with a melody or riff and I write songs based on this. I use a midi drum synth, so all I do there is arrange and edit patterns, as far as the other stuff goes:

Guitar: 7/10 Happy with my rhythm and lead rhythm playing, struggle to make solos sound good. I think I am too locked in to the rhythm section sometimes

Bass: 5/10 I would give myself this score as I am completely average at the instrument! I can put down a bass line, but nothing special

Vocals: 7.5/10 Getting better with age I think. I used to tire my voice out in my twenties as I was singing from my throat too much, I take better care of my voice now and warm up before recording.

Don't take my word for it, have a listen to some of my demos, I am in the (very long) process of getting an album together:

 

[Slosh13]

Nice stories, chaps. I admire anyone who can play.

 

I've been playing for 3 and half years.

My friend has been playing for over 20 years but had stopped playing for a bit. Anyway, one day he brought his strat to work for another chap. One look at that thing and I got hooked. The other guy eventually gave up - I DIDN'T.

I sucked for two years. I had no clue about chords or anything when I must picked it up, but now I ain't too bad. The 'other' guys in my office thought I was shit, they didn't understand that it TAKES TIME to learn this like any other craft. Plus I was getting used to playing in front of other people. My friend gave me a few lessons, but I wanted to figure it out on my own - that's where the fun and drama is - and the frustration.

I bought my mate's SG for 40 quid. It had a broken neck but it was playable and I wanted to make sure I was in it for the long haul.

Six months later I bought a Epiphone LP. Didn't get along with it. Sold it.

A year later I bought a Yamaha strat. Started getting a lot better with this one.

A year later I bought a Gibson LP Studio Trad. GREAT guitar, took a big leap in my playing.

And then 8 months later I bought the Slash Vermillion. Awesome guitar, the best I've played. Just amazing. Can't imagine selling this. 

 

So my mate and I have done a few jams, and then he starts talking about doing a mini gig! OH SHIT. My heart was in my mouth. I agreed to it. 

We did three rehearsals -- and one of those was the night before the mini gig where we actually clicked! Here's me who has never played before in public and I had chosen Sweet Child Of Mine has one of the songs!!! My friend was nervous about singing it - it's a tough one, very tough. I had a couple of sleepless nights... but I always wanted to play in front of an audience.

So the evening comes. Few people in the bar, most I know, and I actually feel excited about it. I can't wait to play - strange, eh? But then I've been practising a lot so I am confidant of my own playing. I know a few people were expecting me to fail - it's human nature to be jealous. I understood that.

 

We played:

Eye of the Tiger.  Improvised solo by me.

Man Who Sold The World.

Nightcall from the movie Drive. Improvised solo by me.

Sweet Child of Mine - no main solo. The song is too long and the fast bit of the solo is too fast for me to play at this stage.

I nailed it. It was exhilarating. A friend of mine gave me the best compliment: "Dude, you have been practising!".  He heard me two years prior, so he knows the leap I made. 

 

A few takeaways from my gig experience:

If a joker like me can do it, so can you! Remember, everyone in the audience wants to be you! Let that empower you!

My friend played rhythm electro-accoustic. I played lead electric . This combo really helped with the sound. 

Choose the right songs for your audience so they can get involved.

Play rhythm guitar around vol 6 - 7, when it comes to lead parts, take it to 11.

If you make mistakes, don't sweat it. It's only a song. 

Practice!!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 27, 2016 by Slosh13

[JeanGenie]

I used to be a professional guitarist. I studied Jazz guitar. Moneywise that wasnt my best decision. I can tell you though I never thought of myself as a monster player or exceptionally good guitarist. Things are never as good as you think. I realised what a high technical level I had when I stopped playing for a year and picked up the guitar again. If I had to give advice to other people it would be 'practice every day. Its better to do a little bit every day rather than once a week for three hours.'

[Jabberwocky]

I don't really know how to describe what I do and I've been doing it since 1992. To me, as far as my guitar playing goes, if I can make a cool sound with it then that's all that matters. I've never studied it and never will. I'll play it with 6 strings, 4 strings, out of professional standard tunings, unplugged just miked up to a 15 dollar Radio Shack mic, run through some software filters and pedals, etc (ya get the point)

Vocally is the same thing. I can't sing that great but I can scream in tune. I know how to harmonize with some noise rock stuff.

I've messed around keyboards that have samplers. I love to make soundscapes. And to me a razorblade cutting through magnetic tape is just as legit as a quote unquote professional artist.

I've self-released alot of solo stuff (under my real name as well as under aliases) and with bands of varying genres.

On top of that I'm also a filmmaker. It's on the low budget scale but I like it and get the results I want.

All I can say is that I've done pretty good (in my eyes...err ears) with what I've got available.

Here's the stuff I've been doing recently

 

Edited April 6, 2016 by Jabberwocky

[Len Cnut]

8 hours ago, Jabberwocky said:

I don't really know how to describe what I do and I've been doing it since 1992. To me, as far as my guitar playing goes, if I can make a cool sound with it then that's all that matters. I've never studied it and never will. I'll play it with 6 strings, 4 strings, out of professional standard tunings, unplugged just miked up to a 15 dollar Radio Shack mic, run through some software filters and pedals, etc (ya get the point)

Vocally is the same thing. I can't sing that great but I can scream in tune. I know how to harmonize with some noise rock stuff.

I've messed around keyboards that have samplers. I love to make soundscapes. And to me a razorblade cutting through magnetic tape is just as legit as a quote unquote professional artist.

I've self-released alot of solo stuff (under my real name as well as under aliases) and with bands of varying genres.

On top of that I'm also a filmmaker. It's on the low budget scale but I like it and get the results I want.

All I can say is that I've done pretty good (in my eyes...err ears) with what I've got available.

Here's the stuff I've been doing recently

 

We should've grown up on the same street or something, i think i woulda got on with you!

[Jabberwocky]

15 hours ago, Len B'stard said:

We should've grown up on the same street or something, i think i woulda got on with you!

More than likely we would have

I grew up in the boonies of Virginia so there wasn't that much of difference of music I heard. It wasn't until high school that I became friends with a guy who moved to VA from The Bronx. He's the one who really got me into punk (his fave was The Misfits) but also a whole bunch of other music like no wave, industrial, shoegaze, stoner rock. Everything except metal, which neither of us liked anyways. And when your living in a rural town it was either country or metal. And this was during the times where metalheads and punkers didn't co-exist. I will say that the only positive about metal was the girls all tried to look like Kelly Bundy and that is never a bad thing.

Edited April 7, 2016 by Jabberwocky

[Len Cnut]

11 hours ago, Jabberwocky said:

More than likely we would have

I grew up in the boonies of Virginia so there wasn't that much of difference of music I heard. It wasn't until high school that I became friends with a guy who moved to VA from The Bronx. He's the one who really got me into punk (his fave was The Misfits) but also a whole bunch of other music like no wave, industrial, shoegaze, stoner rock. Everything except metal, which neither of us liked anyways. And when your living in a rural town it was either country or metal. And this was during the times where metalheads and punkers didn't co-exist. I will say that the only positive about metal was the girls all tried to look like Kelly Bundy and that is never a bad thing.

I grew up in a very very unmusical family and not having a lot of money growing up i kinda caught things in weird ways.  Was nowhere near rural, live just outside London actually but a very small town, metal was never really respected or rated in England in any kind of broad sense.  I got into punk through buying an album for 99p, a cassette that said best of punk, i literally just bought it cuz i thought punk was a weird name, up until then punk was like the bad guy in Death Wish movies to me, first song was Anarchy in the UK, remember hearing it thinking WHAT the fuck is that?!?  He can't sing to save his life but it sounds great!   Prior to that it was just Guns n Roses n Nirvana for me but like...didn't have MTV or internet or exposure to anything that kinda gave u the lowdown on the ideologies behind music, just listened to whatever when it sounded good so it's not like i had this clear idea of what punk was about, other than just being kinda abrasive.  Just liked the sound of it, same with Nirvana, i didn't have any idea of what alternative music was or what it all meant or even what Kurt was singing about, it was just like a cassette someone taped for me, i couldn't even understand what he was singing, it just sounded great!

[Snake-Pit]

I took to playing in Dropped C again today..

I had forgotten what key to play songs from the Toxicity album by System Of A Down in...

Worked out real quick that it wasn't Dropped C# but Dropped C (all thanks to a tuner in my Korg AX3000G multi effect)... and...

I took to one song like water, and found the song I knew, I had to relearn, so I did, and that was cool.

Playing Toxicity the track, was like a done deal, Chop Suey!, the first song I learned, I actually had to relearn that real quick Aerials too - but yeah, am in Dropped C again on my modded 1960s Framus.. (That guitar looking so cool, I do get my kicks down tuning it for sounds that were contemporary to when I was growing up) - so I do give that guittar a tougher gauge guitar string to cope, Ernie Ball Power Slinky 11-48 oppose to the Ernie Ball Regular Slinky 10-46 set on my 1996 Gibson Custom Shop Les Paul Standard. I also had Power Slinkys on this cheap guitar I had modded with a floating Original Floyd Rose tremolo and lock-nut to match and Grover tuners too, to dive bomb basically. I'm 29.

Edited April 13, 2016 by Snake-Pit

[moreblack]

After 2 decades I've reached that point many players reach much sooner, where you can't just be satisfied playing with pentatonics and blues/rock. Kinda loosely starting to search for different scales and modes to spice up my lead playing. 
Fortunatly there's no shortage of tutorials for this stuff online