discoking, i think you kinda missed my point man.
you sound very uninspired (not saying that as an insult), so you just figure you "might as well become a more well rounded player" by being able to pull off exotic stuff. i mean, if you are not inspired and don't have a clear direction of where you want your playing to take you, it won't matter even if you'll have the biggest skill set in the world. your imagination and creativity need to drive everything else, and not the other way around. that's exactly what makes all those youtube player wankers. it's like trying to paint without knowing what it is you're trying to convey, but you figure you better work hard on your photorealistic painting skills. what matters is telling a story, expressing yourself, being your own man through music. it may seem easier to just buff up on scales and technique, but it's a dead end. focus on becoming excited about what you do, no matter how. the rest will fall into place. #my2cents #justsomethingtothinkabout |
redbreegull, i totally get what you're saying, and i try not to let my own overanalyzing to get the best of me as well.
i've got two things to say to you though: 1. i find that if you'll play straight through a song you are writing, from beginning to end, and just be free with it in real time, you'll have a much easier time understanding how to construct it without becoming too self aware. if you like your own voice that's a big advantage for you. 2. don't come up with ideas and just toss them in the bottomless drawer. when you come up with something, do your absolute best to make it into something, then and there. i've been guilty of doing this myself too, and at least for me, i know that if i have a great idea and i just record it and let it sit there until it gets cold - that's the way it's going to stay, because nothing you try to add later will ever feel right, or be 'good enough'. |
Quote:
Quote:
Plus, learning how to sing seems really daunting. The guitar is a human-made instrument, so learning what you are "supposed" to do is a bit simpler. But with the voice, it seems to be trickier. Quote:
I do agree about the thing about me probably being "uninspired," though. I don't feel like I have clear aspirations or anything that I'm engaged in that I feel proud of. Not just in guitar playing, but in general. I dunno, it seems to me that I'm at the age where my peers have their domains in life and some are doing pretty interesting things, whether it be in music (people I know in bands and shit) or just in general (people who are artists of other sorts, are politically active, I have one friend who's doing research in Germany with underwater lasers or some shit), and I'm just kind of aimlessly wandering around not really doing anything or working toward anything, and feeling to drained to really pursue any of those things I have an interest in. I can't really remember the last time I was just immersed in something that I really wanted to do. It's just shit I feel like I have to do interspersed with doing pointless shit like shuffling between a few websites I browse because I lack the energy to do anything actually fulfilling. |
When I came back from my terrible relationship/kidnapping thing, I got really inspired right away. I had also not been allowed to play guitar for like, 4 years. I found some freedom in it, expressing myself, and I would call it "being my own [person]" - so I do know what teh bolly means. It was all very inspired and whenever someone I know hears it because it comes up or something, they are generally impressed.
But that was after 4+ years of trauma and being unable to express myself at all. It was all the pain but all the wonder at being a free person again. It was finding normalcy, not having to be worried about being assaulted sexually or otherwise. It was finding drugs for the first time, doing stupid young adult things, having a job that paid shit but I liked a lot that I wouldn't be forced to quit arbitrarily just as I was getting comfortable. I think that kind of feeling of freedom and transcendence is really hard to pull off without such an extreme and extended event happening right before it. For example, I had strategies as to how I slept - position of body, of blanket - in an attempt to not draw my bf's attention so he wouldn't come rape me basically. Just being able to lay however I wanted was so amazing! Taking LSD was amazing - being able to have that kind of "control" over my environment, patterns and shit, and really being able to feel it without worrying what would happen in 5 hours or 5 minutes because no one was going to hurt me. And even though it was so abnormal, I still had just ended a 4+ year relationship which does inspire extreme feelings by itself. I've never been able to replicate it but I do have those songs to revisit sometimes. |
Quote:
what i mean by the "being your own man" part, is that if you try and write a song, and continuously doubt and second guess yourself, you're destroying your own inspiration. if you take a song and write it and rewrite it dozens of times and still hate it (god knows i've been guilty of this for a loooong time), you are ultimately just obscuring who you really are, by trying to be like music you like from other artists. the idea is to teach yourself to accept what comes out of you and try to go with it, rather than force it into being everything you ever liked about music. no one song can encapsulate everything about you. just let it be what it is - a picture of you in time. just say what you want to say. hum a melody that comes to mind. fuck around with it. see how it evolves. when you revisit it much later, i think you'll find many times, that it wasn't nearly as bad as you thought. i'm probably still not very clear but anyway. and also, just to clarify - i absolutely don't think knowing your shit or being a great guitar player is for wankers. so if that's where your heart's at, go for it. but keep in mind that so much of what you like about music, is probably mostly very simple chords and songwriting. soma is based on around 5-6 chords. there's an infinite amount of songs with 3-4 chords in them that come to life and become "three dimensional", because what's around it is beautiful. that's what counts. and that's what i mean when i say you need to find your inspiration. you can write amazing songs with the simplest chords and zero guitar histrionics. ok i'll stop. |
Quote:
I've tried in the past to write songs about my personal hangups, but each time, it'd just come off as so trite and cringeworthy, like high school poetry (well, I guess a lot of it literally was high school poetry...), so I'd always scrap it. I guess that has more to do with lyrics than guitar, but I also have a hard time creating lyrics and music that symbiotically work with each other and say the same thing and reinforce each other's meanings, rather than just being arbitrarily paired. If I start with lyrics, it just ends up being bad poetry. If I start with music, I just end up filling it in with nonsense words that rhyme and fit in the bars. I think that I always just end up feeling that my personal woes or whatever just aren't profound enough to not be cringeworthy to write about, and I just feel like I'm being melodramatic and whining when I try to use that stuff in music. I mean, when I hear about the things you went through, I'm like "I had it pretty easy. How can I whine about my life after that?" One of the most trying experiences I've recently had didn't really inspire me to create art from it. It just drained me to the point that I didn't even pick up my guitar for a long time. Even reflecting on it now doesn't give me any retrospective thoughts on it that I could do something with. I just go "ugh that was so shitty." I think for a while, I tried giving up the angst thing and trying to write sort of heady psychedelic lyrics. But that's not me, either. I'm not some cool far-out space shaman guy. I'm a textbook square. I mean, I barely even go to parties or drink or anything, most of my time is spent going to school and playing Lego Marvel Super Heroes these days. Quote:
Quote:
But I do agree about me probably just trying to ape music from other artists. I don't feel I've found my "voice" yet. It's more like, "hey, I like The Cure, I'm gonna write a song that sounds like The Cure. I also like Slowdive, so I'm gonna write a song that sounds like Slowdive." I haven't gotten to the point where I can just write something that sounds like me. At the same time, though, I wonder if that just comes with the territory of being a beginner. Like, if you listen to the early music of various artists, it seems to be more derivative than their later stuff, when they would grow into their own sounds. Corgan in The Marked sounds like he's trying to do the new wave/gothy/post-punk thing. He even dressed goth in those days. Maybe I just have to write some derivative shit before I write some unique shit. Quote:
Much easier said than done, though. Trying to just power through something I don't have my heart in is like trying to push my head through a lightyear of saltwater taffy. Quote:
But in other cases, I could probably create something good out of basic cowboy chords, and I just need to learn to be a better songwriter to make something of it. |
Quote:
But as a writer (like as in pen on paper/hands on keys), all my education and practice says write and then rewrite and rewrite and rewrite and rewrite, and each time you edit you will come closer to something actually meaningful that others might want to read... and in this way, the only question is at what point do you need to let something be done vs. forever keep making it slightly better, because your ideas will never reach a maximum amount of "honing." |
but certainly I like the idea of something coming out the best first because it saves a lot of time. I'm not sure what I think. A paragon of my songwriting: five years ago I came up with this simple little arpeggio thing in A as an intro/outro to a song. I felt it had something naturally good about and kicked it around for half a decade, trying to write the rest of it from time to time. Last summer, the chorus part just came to me when I was in the shower. Like just popped into my head. I picked up the guitar and in an hour had written three choruses. I've been working on it a few times a week since, and have been unable to come up with anything for the verses that feels compelling. I know the chorus parts are good now, but I'm seemingly stuck until something else falls into my lap at a random time.
|
hey teh b0lly, thanks for all the advice btw
do you have any recommendations for getting better at playing with a metronome? I have basically no natural rhythm and I have been aware for a long time that one of my biggest weaknesses is that I can't keep a steady speed when I play and sing. I've tried and tried to play with a metronome but moving focus onto following the sound of the click or the flash of the light actually seems to make the problem worse. Playing with an actual percussionist or a guitarist with better rhythm is not really an issue because I can easily visually follow the beat by following that person's movements. But it almost feels like my brain does not have enough RAM to run the playing guitar and singing programs and the listening/watching a metronome program at the same time. |
I feel like playing an accompainment instrument with out other musicians is uninspiring
Learned more in the last month of playing with other musicians than I did in the last 2 years of playing by myself |
Quote:
it takes some practice but you can do it... One of my bands, we lost our fucking amazing drummer this summer, and we moved into Drum Machine Land (and now apparently we're thinking about getting an electronic/laptop/programmer person to create synthetic beats & manipulations live--being the rockist I am, I am totally afraid of this, going out of my comfort zone, so it's going to be an adventure I'll be diving into!) and it took a while to get used too. After playing with live musicians for nearly 20 years, it was difficult to play to a drum machine, which was theoretically more accurate and predictable than a human drummer. But I just had to "channel the rhythm" a little bit harder and make more effort for my body to exude the rhythm itself (and to fucking crank the drum machine in the PA!). |
Quote:
Other than that, I've never played with other people, because I always feel like I need to be "better" before I'm worthy of playing with another person, so that I don't have to be embarrassed by how shitty I am. But if I had just played with other people, I would probably be better today. Kinda sucks that I turned down some requests to jam in the past, and now that I do wanna jam, I don't really have anyone to do it with. |
Quote:
Quote:
|
I would imagine that the musical collaborator would have to be near enough to you in skill that you can learn new things from them without them just leaving you in their dust. Unless they are just very patient and generous, like a teacher.
Yeah, it sucks to work with people who are so particular, they aren't willing to meet halfway. Like, I have specific ideas for some of the music I want to play, so if I were to form a band, I can imagine being a bit precious about some material, but I'd definitely be open to working on material in addition to stuff that I don't have as much control over. Being collaborative would make a musical project more diverse anyway, and prevent it from sounding like one of those bands where all their songs sound the same. I know there is a guitar/music club at my school that I could probably check out for jam partners and whatnot, but I somehow get the feeling that it's going to be a bunch of guys playing Bruno Mars songs or some shit. |
Quote:
I played with 28if for many years regularly as well and he was a lot better than me for a long time, but he stopped practicing and learning new stuff and eventually I surpassed him and now have far surpassed him. So I guess that's a good lesson on the virtues of regular practice and learning new things outside your comfort zone. And yeah these days I have no idea where to find people to play with. A guy I went to high school with saw a video of me playing on FB and asked me to jam with him. Said he had a bunch of blues songs written and was looking for someone to start something with. Honestly I just felt too weird about seeing this guy I haven't seen in 8 years and then jamming with him. I have too much social and performance anxiety, which I guess is why I have never been in a serious band after high school. |
Quote:
my recommendation would definitely be: 1. to practice playing along to other music either with an acoustic, or with an unplugged electric (or, just play completely dry. no delay, no verb, no nothin' to mask inaccuracy). try to get used to listening and following the "band", and the drums, and to your own playing simultaneously. 2. record yourself playing to a metronome, or a backing track, whatever, and listen closely. i needed to develop an ear for it - your notes need to sound as if the drum, or the click, punches through them, if that makes sense. like your note is getting "wrapped around" the kick or snare. |
Quote:
|
Quote:
Anyway, lack of technical skill should never prevent anyone from writing music. Also all my tunes sound the same. |
I guess there are things I wouldn't do. Like, I'd be pretty unwilling to play pop-punk or kinda jokey novelty stuff or something. And if I wrote something with a particular vision, I'd be hesitant to accept ideas that take it in a different direction.
But, like, I'd play stuff that I don't typically play or listen to if another band member wanted, or play songs they've written that are outside my immediate interests, if it were the sort of thing I can respect without necessarily being super interested in. Like, I don't listen to ska, but if a hypothetical bandmate wrote a good song with ska influence, I don't think I'd be unwilling to play it. I also think I gotta stop letting my lack of skill prevent me from writing music. I always go like, "my songs will suck anyway, so may as well get better first," but that's dumb because songwriting is valuable practice in itself. I'm gonna try to write more. I was in the middle of writing a song yesterday. It's not a song I'm totally in love with, and it's a little derivative of another musician's stuff, but I'm going to try to finish it and record it anyway, or else it'll be another song I'll never finish. The half-finished songs I have so far don't have the problem of sounding the same, but that doesn't mean much when I have so few of them. But so far, out of my favorite ideas that I actually intend to finish eventually, it kind of ranges from shoegaze to riffy/doomy rock to psychedelic rock. I wanna write more quiet acoustic songs, but that requires actual songwriting, like good vocal melodies and lyrics that work with progressions, instead of just rock riffs that you can just sort of mindlessly throw around. |
yeah i find myself more and more into folk/acoustic music as the years go by tbh
many people would say it's boring but i say fuck them |
i want to take this opportunity to mention how much i hate people whose reponse to quiet music is
I'M LUVIN' THIS SOOOOO RELAXING I LOVE HOW YOU CAN CHILL TO THIS MUSIC |
Just to throw out my general advice on getting better
What you do with your strumming hand is about as important as learning exotic scales and with your fretting hand you can get a ton of mileage out of bending strings You can play a guitar solo with 2 notes really |
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
|
Quote:
Quote:
I haven't practiced my right hand chops nearly as much as theory and left hand stuff. Haven't done a lot of sweep picking. Artificial harmonics (I think those are the strumming-hand ones) are easy to just do, but integrating them smoothly into actual music is hard (hard to move the position of the pick in your fingers fluidly). I can't really fingerpick, either. |
I think sometimes you can get so used to the way you yourself sound when you play that you become cynical or jaded about it, but it doesn't necessarily sound boring or rehashed to others. Unfortunately I am very affected by the input of others, but I find that if you can find people who like to listen to you play, even casually, it can help you get out of your own head and appreciate your own playing again.
My style is generally just open chords (although I like songs with lots of chords) and I do a lot of hammer ons, pull offs, and little variations within chord progressions to create melodies within the rhythm if you know what I mean. It's very country folk I guess and pretty simple, and can easily start to sound to me like something no one would want to hear. So for me, playing only in my room by myself with no one around to give me feedback is like my biggest enemy Fingerpicking can get really complicated, but you only need to know the basics to make it sound good (like many aspects of the guitar I guess). I only use my thumb and first two fingers which is like totally bad form or whatever, but it's good enough to play any SP song with fingerpicking for example. |
i love fingerpicking.
i'm one of those guys with really long fingernails on my right hand and zero fingernails on my left hand. it sounds too good to give up on though. much better than nail-less fingers or any pick. nick drake mothafuckaaa. redbreegull, while not incorporating your third finger is perhaps not preferable, you can still make plenty of it. i just found some acoustic bluesy folk singer i love who plays like that and his fingerpicking is decent that way. |
Quote:
|
but also that folky guy who learns to play guitar just well enough to impress people around campfires is super obnoxious and you said something about doing that itt
|
Quote:
so in a way yeah I am the guy with the guitar at the campfire, but not quite in the pejorative way you mean, at least that's not how I see myself. I think that people generally enjoy when I play. Honestly though, I think the omg that guy just took out a guitar what a fucking douche I hate him thing is mostly the "guitarist's gaze," which is another reason I have trouble with other musicians. So many guitarists have this nasty competitive streak... probably anyone who has a guitar and has played long enough knows "that look" that another musician gives you when you take your shit out of the case. I don't truck with that shit cause I have zero interest in competing with anyone else's skills and I am not impressed by technical accuracy. |
just hollarin' that i agree with elph that obnoxious guitar dudes at campfires are obnoxious. it's usually the ones who think they're hot shit though, even though they suck balls.
also, redbreegull i think you just coined "guitarist's gaze"! it's probably what i hate most about the guitar - that so many of its users are snobbish, competitive know it all's, who ironically are usually not even good musicians (even if they can "shred" or play run of the mill blues licks or whatever). |
i'm getting a "post ur musics" vibe in this thread can you guys feel it
|
Quote:
|
Nah it's like when I started and was bad I wanted to show off this new thing I learned
But now I play in a group and don't need to break the thing out on my friends, I don't even mention being a musician |
Plus almost none of the music I like anymore features guitar that would sound good by itself
Abstract noises and funk chords Unless you're goddamn Dylan Idk that I can dig acoustic Hold on guys let me play this Pere Ubu song acoustically gonna impress the ladies lol |
Quote:
My attitude towards covers is usually that it's not compelling to me unless I can add something or do something different than how the song was originally recorded, so I play plenty of songs that were full band or heavier as recorded by the artists... the challenge is in making it sound good with only one instrument. part of what I am most interested in is getting the guitar to emulate more parts of the band than just a guitar playing open chords. Changes to strumming that evoke the drums in a song, or inflections and harmonic changes within chords that create an internal melody like an orchestral part or a second guitar... that's my shit. |
Elliot Smith was pretty cool too
|
yeah I love him, and he's a great example of just how much you can do with just a voice and a guitar. ironically, I prefer his lusher full band stuff though
|
Quote:
|
All times are GMT -4. The time now is 12:05 PM. |
Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.6.8
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Smashing Pumpkins, Alternative Music
& General Discussion Message Board and Forums
www.netphoria.org - Copyright © 1998-2022