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Post by FreeRider on Apr 12, 2012 12:54:04 GMT -5
that should be fun...that's at Jammin' Java. It's a nice little club. Pretty small, though, IIRC, unless they renovated it. Don't think I can make it, so give us a review..
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Post by FreeRider on Apr 12, 2012 12:50:29 GMT -5
awesome! I'm loving the guitar talk in this thread.... anarkissed, yeah, you're right; I kind of like my tone and sound to vary too, as it all depends on the song. A nice, clean Strat type sound fits in nicely for certain songs, etc...I haven't looked at amps in quite awhile but others have told me the same thing you mentioned, they've got this modeling or amp simulation stuff going on. Funny, I was just listening to And the Cradle will Rock! He's playing a Wurlitzer keyboard thru a guitar amp on that song....love that flanged or phased sound too. GtrPlyr, oh yeah, Neil's tone....my god, people have been trying to get his tones forever! There was a Guitar Player magazine interview with him and he says a lot of it hinges upon a Gibson Firebird pickup that was very microphonic and hot, he took it and plugged it right into his les Paul. And he's got a Fender Deluxe reverb that has an anomaly with the distortion channel that he likes. At 9, its fully saturated with distortion but if he moves a little towards 10, it clears up and isn't so overloaded. He has a device called the Whizzer that sits on top of the amp and will move the dial setting with a foot switch to whatever Neil wants it set to! This guy has REALLY worked on his sound and tone...! He said he's even got some old reverb unit that has springs in it. @jer, good points about tone/sound...depends on studio or playing live. I have a Tascam 8 track studio and it has some of those effects/sound program built into it...some of the pre-set distortion effects are okay and they're fun to play around with if you plug right into the board and go direct. but still, nothing like playing thru an amp!
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Post by FreeRider on Apr 11, 2012 13:36:19 GMT -5
Tone:
do you like your set up and your tone? Is it elusive? What would your ideal sound be like?
I like the sounds I can get but it's not necessarily what I want. It's hard to craft a sound when you don't have gear to tweak it as much....I certainly don't have the money or time to re-bias a guitar amp and experiment with different tubes!
I've always loved that powerful tone that Townshend got from his SG and Marshall set up. I like Eddie Van Halen's tone, that "brown sound", distortion. Hendrix's Strat tone. And I gotta say I marvel at Neil Young's tone....warm tube sounds. Although I've read where some solid state amps are pretty decent enough these days to get you that warm tone/sound.
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Post by FreeRider on Apr 10, 2012 14:56:24 GMT -5
Hey everybody, very interesting thread and great responses..... I can't say enough about the greatness of the great blues pioneers- Robert Johnson, Elmore James, Buddy Guy, John Lee Hooker, Hubert Sumlin. Who am I forgetting? You know, I once read a Clapton interview and he said when he got his hands on those old Robert Johnson records, it was too painful for him to listen to at first. I was so curious that I went out and got them too....it was just hard to listen to because they weren't some clean recordings, these were 1930's recordings, real scratchy sounding, one microphone used to record in Johnson's hotel room. But once I got past the sound quality, I got what Clapton was saying. Johnson had this real mournful sound in his voice, when he moaned, it just sounded so forlorn and desperate. But it's interesting to hear his original guitar riffs and then hear how guys like Clapton "modernized" the riffs when done on the electric guitar.
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Post by FreeRider on Apr 10, 2012 14:34:10 GMT -5
Nice to see this isn't only a fan site but a site for music lovers. My question for all of you is what made you interested in playing? Usually to impress a girl is what you hear about the most. Paul should check this thread out, looks like he has enough musicians here to put together his band. Everyone here knows Paul's material better than the average hired gun he could get. Good idea for a thread freerider! Yes, definitely the impressing the girls thing. OK, that was a joke! It's another way of getting enjoyment from the song. Who hasn't started singing along to a favorite song that's playing on the radio? I like your idea of Paul giving some of his fans a chance to audition for him. There's probably a few people on MWT that would be good enough. I wouldn't, but I can fetch stuff like a trained retriever and make a mean cup of coffee! Yeah, he needs me there. Ummm, I don't think I'd be in the pool of candidates to audition for him! I don't call myself a musician nor am I really a guitarist. I'm a hobbyist or enthusiast at best! I could help change guitar strings, if that helps.... I'm a Zevon fan too. What a great piece of music history you have there FreeRider. Thanks, Squaw...but like I said, after you have it, and you play on it, you kind of forget who owned it and who played it, the reverence fades away. It just becomes another really nice guitar. But what makes it personal, though, is that the guitar strap came with the Steinberger and you can see where the leather cracked and split where the button hole is, and Warren just used electrical or duct tape to keep it intact!
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Post by FreeRider on Apr 9, 2012 16:18:50 GMT -5
Yeah, I think the pedal steel would add lots of cool coloration to songs---those volume swells and that lilting voice it has. KRK'S---nice! Here's a photo of Zevon and his Steinberger: warrenzevon.org/37.htmlZevon is one of my faves too---guy could write a lyric and paint incredible stories inside your head with the music.
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Post by FreeRider on Apr 9, 2012 9:26:11 GMT -5
Nice to see this isn't only a fan site but a site for music lovers. My question for all of you is what made you interested in playing? Usually to impress a girl is what you hear about the most. Paul should check this thread out, looks like he has enough musicians here to put together his band. Everyone here knows Paul's material better than the average hired gun he could get. Good idea for a thread freerider! Thanks, batfink....for me, no, not to impress a girl. Since I took woodwind lessons as a kid and then played in the symphonic band and jazz ensemble in school, I had an interest in music to begin with....I didn't really develop a deep academic interest in it, though! I was never one to stay home and practice scales and all that crap. I think hearing some of the Mississippi delta blues fancy finger picking on an acoustic caught my attention and I thought it was so cool, I wanted to learn how to play the guitar. And then there's also the pleasure of just making sounds and as a way to express yourself, or duplicate the feeling you get from hearing a favorite song. Music is/was a catharsis for me, to get certain feelings out that maybe you can't really express in any other way.
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Post by FreeRider on Apr 9, 2012 9:10:59 GMT -5
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Post by FreeRider on Apr 9, 2012 9:02:49 GMT -5
I'm almost ashamed to admit this but the only guitar I’ve ever owned cost me thirty bucks, case included! I bought it from an ad in the newspaper. No name, nylon string with the sweetest, most mellow sound you’d ever hear. I’ve had people who owned very expensive guitars borrow it because of its crisp, pure notes. I have a traditional mountain dulcimer by Doty with the Dolly Parton signature butterfly pattern he designed. That set me back around $400 about 20 years ago. I’ve never owned any other equipment. Wait, throw in a twenty dollar M Hohner G key harmonica and that’s it! Try not to evny me guys! Squaw, there's something to be said for simplicity! What matters the most is if you're happy with the sound of your gear and if you're happy with how it enables you to express yourself! Quality over quantity, you know? Like Paul said at one point, "It's just wood and wires."
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Post by FreeRider on Apr 8, 2012 22:15:40 GMT -5
GtrPlyr, pretty cool stuff!!! Your photos indicate you're living up to your screen name! Do you play the pedal steel much? I was tempted to pick up a used one awhile back and I was interested in seeing how I would do with a banjo, since I feel comfortable finger picking. Although, I do have to say, for some reason, I can't do forward rolls as well as doing backward finger roll, I think, ie, thumb, index and middle as opposed to thumb, middle and index....it always felt more "natural" to do thumb, middle, index. Are those Rockit studio monitors you have there? @jer, how about those Matchless? I haven't had a chance to play thru one---there are no retailers that carry them in my area. In fact, I screwed up when Jordan Zevon offered to get me an amp a cost! He used to work there and vouched for those amps.....but I had just threw down a big bid to get his dad's Steinberger guitar as mentioned in a previous post above. I've heard of Reverend....one of the guitar players in Fu Manchu (stoner rock band from Southern Cal) uses them. They look good and they sound good. has anyone heard of Agile guitars? Co-worker of mine bought one on the recommendation of his guitar luthier guy---Korean company but the craftsmanship makes you think you're damn near playing a Les Paul. AND it costs substantially less. You could almost buy a Gibson decal and just paste it on the headstock and you'd think you were playing the real deal. I played it and it had good action, sturdy, and there was nothing wrong with it. He bought it because his luthier and repair guy said today's Les Paul's are really about the branding.....he feels they gone downhill in quality control. Maybe, I dunno....
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Post by FreeRider on Apr 8, 2012 13:47:32 GMT -5
Really enjoying this thread...Had been hoping for a little more discussion of what kind of instruments you played, amps, effects, so forth....Really just making noise, but if you put enough phase and feedback in there, it sounds kinda cool... Well, my first electric was a Fender Strat that I "borrowed" from my older brother, ha ha....and over the years, I picked up some cheap acoustic guitars--cheap Yamaha folk guitar,etc...but at some point, I wanted a really nice tone and depth out of an acoustic and finally spent some big bucks (even though it was on "sale" ) for a Martin. I also bought a used and beat up Les Paul custom just for the pickups. There's no real value left in it---it's like a 1971 or '72, but the guy who had it cannabilized it and did his own custom stuff on it, but for some reason, left the pick ups intact. He was a Neil Young fan too and he installed a Bigsby tremelo on it but it was a poor fit and job....so, no vintage value to the guitar. Third electric guitar is a Steinberger that was owned by Warren Zevon; I got it an auction on the Zevon fan board. His son Jordan (really cool guy) held the blind auction and man, I dished out big bucks with my bid. I really didn't think I'd win, I just submitted an arbitrary dollar amount and went to bed. Next morning, Jordan Zevon emailed me over night and told me I was the highest bidder. It's a nice axe----after awhile, you get over the fact that Warren Zevon once played it, used, etc, and it just becomes a guitar. Jordan said he was happy that I played because he didn't like the idea that his dad's guitar would be put behind glass like a museum piece or something. It's got great EMG pick ups in it....two are humbuckers and one is single coil and it's got a great blend of sounding like a Strat but with some extra punch. I had been using a cheap Yamaha practice amp but after college I was finally able to scrounge some money together and actually pay for a okay amp: a Carvin 30 watt re-issue. Classic tube sound. It's way more amp than I need....I can't turn the damn thing past 1.5 on the master volume as the tiny crapbox I live in starts to crumble, windows vibrate, etc...neighbors get pissed. ;D First pedal effect I got was a cheap MXR micro-flanger. Couldn't afford to get the full MXR 90 or whatever it was. That was fun to use. And then I got a Boss distortion pedal---don't use it much anymore, but I've got it. The tone controls had too much of that metal kind of sound---a little too harsh, brittle. I wanted something a little warmer. And now, the industry has these amp simulators and all....
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Post by FreeRider on Apr 8, 2012 13:32:48 GMT -5
Hey everybody, very interesting thread and great responses.... Neil Young has always been a major influence. As FreeRider pointed out, there's a simplicity about his work and yet Neil has a tone and a lyric style that is all his- a simplicity that defies imitation. Agreed---there's nothing flashy or fast about his playing, but he's got a way with saying more with less AND his solos seem to fit the context of the song or something. And his great tone and vibrato with the Bigsby tremelo bar really makes his signature guitar sound. You and me both....I don't have enough time to slog thru song books or instruction DVD's, etc...and so I'm learning and picking up at a slow pace too and then just having fun practicing or playing what I do know.
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Post by FreeRider on Apr 8, 2012 10:11:46 GMT -5
Thanks Grplyr, I'll have to try doing that harmonic using a pick instead of the back of my index finger nail! I think I also read where Eddie Van Halen said he figured out how to do those harmonics by seeing a Hendrix documentary and EVH said he saw where Hendrix kept his pick or something.
But as far as fretboard knowledge, when you solo, do you know where to go up and down the fretboard and where to start off, etc? I still haven't gotten to that point where I can move effortlessy through the "box" patterns on the fretboard and know where I am and how to play in tune....it's usually me just trying to find the root note of the chord and starting from there. And that's just for flat picking---I can't even figure out how Mark Knopfler or a Lindsay Buckingham finger pick their solos as if it were flat picking!
But in other words, the lessons or music theory really didn't help as much as the do-it-yourself approach by looking at tabs? Interesting---maybe I should start going through more song books and stuff and learning more chords, etc...
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Post by FreeRider on Apr 7, 2012 21:40:21 GMT -5
Yes, FreeRider, my family is pretty much music obsessed. Two of my brothers play the guitar with better skill than many of the ones making a living doing it. As for me, I’m so far behind them that I don’t consider myself a guitarist. I can do your basic acoustic playing and a little picking. I’m a five finger picker in the classical style. And I love Tangled Up In Blue! It’s a fun one to play. Squaw, that's awesome....did your brothers take formal lessons? Did anyone like your uncles or parents teach them? How did you learn? I pretty much learned in a vacuum. Apart from a few other people showing me a few things, like a basic finger picking pattern (but not how to finger pick) and a pentatonic scale, it was just me in my room, listening to records and trying to imitate what I heard. didn't get me very far!
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Post by FreeRider on Apr 7, 2012 21:37:28 GMT -5
definitely some good guitarists there who've had impact....but yeah, like you, I can't cite any of them as influences on my own playing either! They're all just too good for me to even figure out their songs unless I have tablature or something.
I've always loved the way Billy Gibbons can get those harmonic squeals....anybody have a special technique for making them? I kind of use my index finger nail, not a pick, and I kind of hit the string with both the back of my nail and a little bit of flesh to get that harmonic. I don't know how anyone else produces them; anyone care to share how they do it?
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Post by FreeRider on Apr 7, 2012 15:48:40 GMT -5
oh yeah, Neil Young has always said he loved Bert Jansch....it's always interesting to find out who influenced OUR own guitar influences. It makes for an interesting family tree or branch line....
Roy Buchanan lived in my area, in the DC metro area and I never got to see him perform. I think Eva Cassidy also took a few guitar lessons from him. Buchanan could play anything....another guitarist who had such versatility was Clarence"Gatemouth" Brown but he wasn't as proficent as Buchanan.
Gtrplyr,
cool that you dig some jazz too. do you still tune into your local jazz station, if you still have one? I don't listen much to jazz radio anymore, but I'll still pull out some old albums now and then (yes, I still have a turn table hooked up, but the belt drive is definitely going!). I think I've got some real early Davis, playing with Dizzy Gillespie , I think, but not the 70's stuff like the famed Bitches Brew. I think my older brother had some Herbie Hancock but I didn't get into him as much. Coltrane was hard to get into! The dissonant stuff was really hard to acquire a taste for.
But really though---I wish I had taken some lessons and really learned the fretboard when I was younger. Or at least learned more about the music theory. If I had done so, I might be able to understand jazz a lot more---it seems like it's a real intellectual kind of music too, trained musicians or those knowledgeable about music theory will know what a quartet or some ensemble are doing. I read downbeat magazine once and those cats are talking about how they were communicating with each other, weaving in and out with their solos, off of some music structure....man, it was beyond me!
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Post by FreeRider on Apr 7, 2012 11:53:23 GMT -5
I'll start off with influences. Who influenced your guitar playing? Have you been able to get out of the copy cat mode? Influences. Hmm. My Appalachian upbringing and family origin dictated that one was not considered to be playing unless the mother Maybelle Carter style picking was implemented. So, that was all I needed to know! Then I saw Willie Nelson. He’s probably the most underrated guitarist out there.... Very cool!!! I was always knocked out by guys like Roy Clark (who never had learned formally and could play fiddle, guitar, banjo...). Sounds like you had a great music tradition in your family? Did your family play? yeah, I never could quite get the hang of Travis picking or figure out what/how the heck Chet Atkins did what he did with the finger style.... I'm actually curious about the Spanish style guitar, flamenco.....I dont' know how those stylists pick like they do either. They use more than just thumb, index finger and middle finger, I think. Nah, you don't say!! An obvious Dylan fan? "Tangled Up In Blue" is still one of my top 3 fave Dylan tunes.....all the others change depending on my mood. But "Blue" is always there.
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Post by FreeRider on Apr 7, 2012 11:44:46 GMT -5
My major influences were from mid-70's glam and metal: Ritchie Blackmore, Mick Ronson, Mick Ralphs, and Ariel Bender (Luther Grosvenor) from Mott the Hoople (and Spooky Tooth)...I later became a big fan of Hendrix and Jimmy Page, and spent a lot of time listening to and trying to figure out what they were doing, but, frankly, they were somewhat more intimidating than inspiring...I tried pretty hard to play like The Edge and Peter Buck, but I never really did quite get it...I put some effort into the playing-along-with-a-record-trying-to-recreate-solos-note-for-note method, but not nearly enough.... Oh yeah, by far guys like Hendrix, Page, Beck were intimidating! As much as the garage band ethos has its charms, I really wish I had some lessons and knew the fretboard a lot better. Someone showed me the pentatonic scale in high school and that was cool, but I never could figure out how to go up and down the fretboard properly. I relied on my previous, albeit small, music knowledge. I can read music, but not very well (and only in the treble clef), and I can't "sight read" at all. Anyway, it was always more easy to play simply, to try and go for sounds rather than a flurry of notes.....that's where I get the inspiration from Neil Young. Wow, nice pick ups! I really grew tired of the Strat's single coil but I didn't want to swap out pickups, I wanted the guitar to basically stay as close to factory original as possible. I later got a Les Paul that had been torn up, cannabilized, it's got no real value, but it did have your classic 1970's era humbuckers! So I basically paid for the pick ups.
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Post by FreeRider on Apr 6, 2012 15:36:57 GMT -5
Ahh, very interesting roots, there GtrPlyr....
funny, I think most kids started off on a crappy guitar. I started off as well on some horrible acoustic guitar of my parents where the bridge was too high and the strings were not at a good height either. When I was around 14 or 15, I borrowed my older brother's acoustic, which HE borrowed from his college buddy, a typical Yamaha acoustic and really tried to learn how to do the fancy delta blues finger picking style. I still don't do it properly, that alternating bass line with your thumb. I kind of taught myself, so it's a weird approximation of that delta finger picking or Travis picking style. It's really based on a lot of finger rolls, was how I got started.....I have no idea how guys like Leo Kottke or Mark Knopfler developed their technique and all.
And then, when in college, my brother bought a Fender Strat off of a buddy of ours. Since my brother was too tied up with work, he let me borrow the guitar and that was my first electric.
I have to say, though, that I didn't really think much about guitarists of the day growing up. My musical training started off with clarinet and later saxaphone (tenor) in the school band and jazz ensemble. I was kind of into the sax and jazz for awhile growing up---big band stuff, and be bop and Charlie Parker, Phil Woods, Wayne Shorter and Weather Report, Cannonball Adderly, etc... . I was kind of a weird kid! it's funny to think that I used to listen to jazz a lot back then (along with the other pop rock stuff on radio) but I had no idea of the musical complexity behind it because I hadn't taken any music theory classes or anything to really understand jazz, I was still in junior high school, and really playing jazz solos by ear more than having an idea of what I was doing.
It wasn't until I borrowed some records from my older cousin that I was floored by Jorma and Hot Tuna....it was a different way of playing guitar than I had ever heard anyone do. Guy's playing acoustic and electric blues and rock and roll tunes, sometimes he's flat picking, sometimes he's finger picking. But I was really intrigued by how cool the acoustic blues finger style sounded to me.
I remember getting a copy of "Who's Next" and those power chords took me down a different path and I loved the sound and power of those songs. AND they weren't too difficult to figure out how to play. Neil Young's "Harvest" and "Live Rust" and "Decade" made me want to learn both acoustic and electric just like Jorma and Hot Tuna did (and I excelled at neither!). And John Hammond Jr, had me trippin' again on the Mississippi delta acoustic blues stuff too when I picked up one of his albums.
And Pat Metheny was a jazz guitarist I saw on PBS and I was knocked out by his sound and melodic type of jazz that I thought was really accessible. I really dug his acoustic work as much as his electric stuff and I loved his guitar sound----he was the first jazz guitar guy I heard using some sort of a chorus and delay on it.
I suppose I didn't get into those shredders as much because there was no way I could play any of it! It got to be too frustrating, trying to play Cream's "Cross Roads" let alone all those metal guys who have so much fluidity and speed, other guys with prog rock fusion styles, like Jeff Beck, Adrian Belew, etc....
That's good you don't sound like your heroes....I can still hear Neil Young and on occasion, Westerberg, on my own songs. I write and record some stuff and then I think, "did I steal that from someone??!!" I dunno! Maybe...yikes!
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Post by FreeRider on Apr 6, 2012 10:07:06 GMT -5
I thought maybe to generate more conversations, I'd start this thread for generic discussions about gear, playing, influences, music theory, tips, etc, for those of who play.
I'll start off with influences. Who influenced your guitar playing? Have you been able to get out of the copy cat mode?
My biggest influences on my playing have been Jorma Kaukonen (for the finger picking style), Pete Townshend (power chords), Neil Young (simplicity), and Pat Metheny (for melodicism). But it was Jorma that made me want to pick up the guitar and figure out how to play in that acoustic blues, Delta style, followed by the power chords and sound of Townshend and the Who. And then, learning to jam to Neil Young's simple chord changes to songs like "Down By the River"....
Sadly, I'm not so sure if I've gotten out of the copy cat mode, I still haven't found my voice. At least, I don't think I have. I'm still in the garage, don't know my scales, don't know enough music theory, to improve my playing.
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