The Guitar Guild

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You ready? You look ready.
So like, how bad is playing bad? Because of late I’ve just taken to picking it up and scratching out garbage: 2-5 mins of this awfulness after work and I’m a new person.

Totally different from focused practice where I’m repeating certain things over and over with full attention, but is this type of “practice” necessarily bad? Part of me says yes, but the other part says who cares if I enjoy it.

Also, how often do y’all tune? Do you tune before every practice session or do you just pick it up and go and if it doesn’t sound awful ya run with it? Because I opt for the latter. Tune maybe once or twice a week and chips fall where they may.




That elusive hide-and-seek cow is at it again
I'll tune a string or two as needed to sound right with the rest. I rarely use a tuner unless I want to record something or learn a song from a CD or whatever.



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So like, how bad is playing bad? Because of late I’ve just taken to picking it up and scratching out garbage: 2-5 mins of this awfulness after work and I’m a new person.

Totally different from focused practice where I’m repeating certain things over and over with full attention, but is this type of “practice” necessarily bad? Part of me says yes, but the other part says who cares if I enjoy it.

Also, how often do y’all tune? Do you tune before every practice session or do you just pick it up and go and if it doesn’t sound awful ya run with it? Because I opt for the latter. Tune maybe once or twice a week and chips fall where they may.


First off, you have to tune that thing.


If you want advice from an old headbanger, a good way to warm up is to work your way up the neck and then down the neck. Start with an F on the low E string with your first finger (index), then F# with your second finger (middle), then G with third finger, and G# with your pinky. Change to the A string and do the same thing. A#, B, C, C#, then keep repeating that until you finish the high E string. Slide a half step (one fret up, and then work backwards. A, G#, G, F#. Once you get up to the last fret, do the same thing but sliding down a half step until you're right where you started.



The other thing to work on is picking. Do that exercise with down strokes only, then alternate down, up, down, up. If you are a real glutton for punishment, try up strokes only.



a metronome will seem like your worst enemy, but there's no hurry so keep it as slow as you need to.



The idea is to get your fingers (yes, your pinky, too!) working together and in shape.



Scales, bending, and sweep picking will be tomorrow's lesson.



You ready? You look ready.
The idea is to get your fingers (yes, your pinky, too!) working together and in shape.
Aye, I keep neglecting that bony bastard.

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"This is that human freedom, which all boast that they possess, and which consists solely in the fact, that men are conscious of their own desire, but are ignorant of the causes whereby that desire has been determined." -Baruch Spinoza



Sorry if I'm rude but I'm right
The little cable inside my guitar broke and plugging the guitar into an amp produces no sound. I've been forced to play black metal acoustically!

Came up with a boring riff to practice string-skipping tremolo picking with.

https://voca.ro/15tyCj8fYXk2
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Look, I'm not judging you - after all, I'm posting here myself, but maybe, just maybe, if you spent less time here and more time watching films, maybe, and I stress, maybe your taste would be of some value. Just a thought, ya know.



Registered User
Aye, I keep neglecting that bony bastard.


Playing guitar requires some serious digital and mental dexterity, so at the beginning it's just about getting in shape.
There seem to be a lot of guitarists here, and I know that if they were given a left-handed guitar (assuming they play right handed) they would sound exactly like you. Everything would be weird, even though they know all the chords, scales, and theory. It's just getting your brain and fingers to do what you know they need to do.



Sorry if I'm rude but I'm right
I know that if they were given a left-handed guitar (assuming they play right handed) they would sound exactly like you.
You can always cheat with tapping, which would be the easiest thing to do on a left-handed guitar (I GUESS!!!)

EDIT: I just took my guitar and tried playing it left-handed (upside-down). I TAKE THAT BACK!!!



That elusive hide-and-seek cow is at it again
I'm left-handed, but learned how to play right-handed. The ex was also left-handed, and had a lefty acoustic. That was trippy to strum, but pretty cool. Flip it to the left, and slowly try to imagine a mirror image of the right hand to reflect that in the left hand chord shapes. it was such a strange experience. Kinda that trick you can do when writing. Like, try to write your name with your off hand and it's crap. BUT, put a pen in both hands and write at the same time, you off hand will produce a reasonable mirror image of what you write with your primary hand. Just, it's literally reversed. Do that in your head, with the other guitar (imagine your primary hand shaping a chord and your off hand will, though quite clumsily, mirror it). SO WEIRD!! A few open chords was about all I had patience for. No way could I run a scale or play a song. My other hand could barely hold the pick.
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"My Dionne Warwick understanding of your dream indicates that you are ambivalent on how you want life to eventually screw you." - Joel

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"I just can't get pass sticking a finger up a dog's butt." - John Dumbear



That elusive hide-and-seek cow is at it again
I use my fingers more than a pick. I started with a pick because that seemed default. The music at the time that I covered more or less required it. At some point I started trying to write music and noticed that I was pretty minimal in the chord structures I used. I might only use 3 strings on a single chord, so a full strum wouldn't work and I couldn't single-pick each string else it would sound very different. So I dropped the pick and learned to pluck the 2-4 strings I'd use in a single chord that I wanted to play.

Keep in mind that by the time I was seriously getting into guitar, it was to get away from music theory. So when I say "chord," I really mean a random pluck of a few strings that sounded good together. I had no idea what chord root those notes belonged to. I didn't care. But yeah, plucking the strings is where I evolved, for those reasons.

Later, I got nimble enough to finger "pluck" running rhythms. The only thing I can think of to reference as an example is Seasons, by Chris Cornell. When I play that, I'm using thumb, index, and middle fingers. I believe the recording was with a pick but I'm not that good with a pick. For that type of playing, I regret that I never really practiced with a pick. Still, that was intentional going back to deliberately avoiding theory (scales, technique, the math of it all). Also, I don't use my nails as I think most people do. I bite my nails so there's nothing there really to use! Instead, I use the fatty tissue of the side of my thumb and the sort of very edge of where my finger prints are on the other fingers. I have little projection and the sound is a bit muffled for it, but I prefer that so I'm good with it.



“Sugar is the most important thing in my life…”
So how many of ya'll here play fingerstyle?

And then, more importantly, how did you progress to that style?
I always played some sort of finger-picking. I learned early on that I could fancy up the limitations of my left hand by trying to dance around with my right.

First thing I remember was Em-C-G, plucking the top and bottom strings at the same time, letting them ring and then going back through picking those chords.



That elusive hide-and-seek cow is at it again
I've been composing again in this lockdown. Had a thirst for creativity. Tried to do some film score sounding stuff. What you guys think?

https://voca.ro/19kQF0S45bZk

https://voca.ro/1gTDjgtXwNuh

They're unfinished but I enjoy the process.
Great stuff!
Mind me asking what virtual instruments or software you're using there? That second sounds like it belongs right smack in the middle somewhere of Moneyball. Great movie, great soundtrack.

If you haven't seen them, both McClane and Re93animator have running threads on their individual music projects. I have a one-off thread from back in June where I posted a competition entry for a tv clip if interested too. Spoiler alert: I didn't win anything

If you have more, I'd love to here it.



Great stuff!
Mind me asking what virtual instruments or software you're using there? That second sounds like it belongs right smack in the middle somewhere of Moneyball. Great movie, great soundtrack.

If you haven't seen them, both McClane and Re93animator have running threads on their individual music projects. I have a one-off thread from back in June where I posted a competition entry for a tv clip if interested too. Spoiler alert: I didn't win anything

If you have more, I'd love to here it.
Thanks very much! I'll post some more when it's a finished article. May make an EP or even an album. I'm using the DAW software called Reaper. Then on top of that I have vocals with reverb on, an Epiphone casino guitar with reverb. A Fender Telecaster for lead twiddly bits. Some E-Bow in there perhaps. For Piano, I use a Plugin called Labs made by Spitfire. Very useful if you can get your hands on it.



You ready? You look ready.
So here's a couple more guitar questions for ya'll: at what point did you upgrade and why?

Obviously sound improvements start appearing in higher priced guitars but at what point did you feel the cost outweighed the benefits? Are there any other benefits to a higher priced guitar besides how it sounds? I've read about solid wood and how you have to be mindful of humidity/etc.

I have come into a little money (paying off outstanding debt first), but I was thinking of trading up. My teacher has said numerous times that my Alvarez AD30 is the last guitar I'd ever need to buy and, even tho I don't know a lot, I tend to agree with him. I'm not going to be performing sold out shows or playing for hours on end, so the enjoyment per $ is pretty square on given my skill level, desired style of playing, and amount of time I have to commit to it all. I can see myself owning just this one guitar the rest of my life but was curious on some other opinions.

I'm not concerned or interested in upgrading my electric. Maybe I'll upgrade the parts one day, but I can't see any reason why I'd need to buy anything better. But happy to hear opinions on that front, as well.

Thanks very much! I'll post some more when it's a finished article. May make an EP or even an album. I'm using the DAW software called Reaper. Then on top of that I have vocals with reverb on, an Epiphone casino guitar with reverb. A Fender Telecaster for lead twiddly bits. Some E-Bow in there perhaps. For Piano, I use a Plugin called Labs made by Spitfire. Very useful if you can get your hands on it.
Reaper is super powerful but for the life of me I couldn't wrap my head around the workflow. I still primarily use GarageBand for iOS. It might be limited in what it can do, but I honestly think limitations are a good thing and challenge you to be more creative. I also use Waveform Pro by Tracktion, but I rarely use my computer to make stuff. I really need to get on that because I have quite a bit of money tied up in VSTs collecting digital dust.

But dude, both those samples you posted are amazing! They definitely sound cinematic.




But dude, both those samples you posted are amazing! They definitely sound cinematic.
Thank alot! There's no need to upgrade for the sake of it. Only if you feel stale or unfulfilled by a current instrument.



That elusive hide-and-seek cow is at it again
Yeah, I used my dad's acoustic from like 9th grade to... well, today. I've only upgraded when I needed (mostly wanted) some specific feature or whatever. I had an electric guitar my dad gave me at some point in high school. That was early 90s. I didn't buy another guitar until around 2004 I think. And that was just because the guitar I had was the lowest model at the time, was at least a decade old, and I couldn't keep it in tune. So I bought the Gibson SG Special Faded because it looked cool and I thought that's what Kim Thayil of Soundgarden played (it wasn't btw. That was a Guild S-100. I just saw the "horns" and assumed). But it was also the best one I could afford at the time at around 400 US. I don't think I got another electric for another decade after that and it wasn't for an 'upgrade' as it was a vanity thing. I just wanted the guitar. It was used and I thought it was a decent price.

The first acoustic I bought was an acoustic/electric hybrid (Epiphone EJ) because I only had that 40ish year old acoustic of my dad's still kicking around. I got the hybrid because the pickups in it were the only ones that actually sounded acoustic rather than that weird nylon string-sounding effect most mid-range hybrids have/had. It was a cost to sound balance. I wanted a Taylor KOA wood but woah boy was that way past MY price range. Next tier down was a Takamine EF508 but though it was considerably cheaper than the Taylor, it too was out of my range. The EJ wasn't the look I wanted (or THE sound I was looking for), but the pickups sounded good for the price range I could afford.

So what, a decade gap between buys? The other guitars I listed near the start of this thread were mostly all just because I "wanted" the specific guitar and I now how the means to afford them. It's not for a specific "sound" as it's more to fill a collection space. I did pick up the used Takamine acoustic this past summer/fall because of its sound. That was another trade off as I really wanted the sound of an old Martin D- model. Can't afford that still, but I found that Takamine had cloned several Martins of the day and the build/sound quality was great. That's really the only guitar in my collection that I bought specifically for its sound. I would consider that an upgrade to my dad's old acoustic. That said, they both have similar sound qualities given their age I believe. So much so, in fact, that I'm looking for that old guitar on ebay randomly as I'd expect it would be maybe 100 bucks if anyone posted it. I mean, it sounds pretty good and is a generic no-name.

I seriously doubt you're going to notice sound improvements at this stage. To be honest, I'm totally fine with only ever playing my 2004 SG Special (cheaper model for not having a finish) for the rest of my life. It feels great, sounds great, and does its job. I mean the sound is going through effects anyway so wtf does it matter? You might notice differences between a guitar with single coils or humbucker pickups, but that's not "quality" as it is a sound/style preference. At a point, at this level of play, it's like comparing a Civic to a Sentra. They do mostly the same thing, just in different colors. Or to use the the single coil to humbucker example, maybe the comparison is more like a pick-up truck vs a sedan. Neither are necessarily an upgrade to the other as they are just options of function (or sound, in this case). Your guitar has both a neck and a bridge pickup. You're probably going to get the most sound variety with that setup moving the selector between either pickup, than you would from a new guitar negating most needs for another guitar for a while. IMO.