Playing accuretly

The most important thing there is for a guitarist is to play clean and accurate. Most of the time when I hear someone play guitar they are very messy and careless. It is important to keep your cool so to speak and hit the notes correctly and not act like some knob who does nothing with his guitar but try and act cool. An example of a poser guitarist would be the guy from NIN. The guy is useless.

Anyway, take things slow and start off by being able to play first with your voice. I don't care if you hum or jent jent ja jent like I do but it is important that you first know what you are playing. If you can hum it then you can play it. That might sound a little dumb but it most certainly is not. It does not matter where I am or what I am doing. I am usually softly practicing my guitar as I walk around, watch TV, or go to the bathroom. My point is to keep what you want to learn on your mind because when it comes time to sit down and play you will be more prepared.

Most people start with the same crappy song they learn at some crappy music center that is over charging for guitar lessons. "Smoke on the water". LAME

I have to say that I think that sets beginning standards to low. All that song has is a bunch of power cords and not much else. If you like that kind of garbage then fine but if you don't then start with at least something cooler like Iron Man. The first song that I learned how to play was Crazy Train. This is a great song to get a person started. It makes use of all your fingers and is a great exercise. I am not talking about the entire song for beginners. I am talking about the part that goes Da Da Nay Da Nay Da Nay Nah Nay Nay Nay Nah Nay Nay Nay Nah.
That probably made no sense at all. Whatever. If you were practicing with your mouth it would so BLAH.

My point is to get away from what everyone else is doing. I have had this situation happen to me so many times. It goes like this.

Your sitting around with a bunch of people and one of your friends goes. "Hey Kent. You should play your guitar. So and so has never heard you play before." So I pick up my guitar and play something really kick ass like "Revolution is my name" by Pantera and after playing this incredibly intricate song this schmuck has the bone head question of, "Can you play smoke on the water?" I mean really. Give me a break. I just shredded a Pantera song and your wondering if I can play smoke on the water. That is just stupid. I usually proceed to tell the individual that of course I could but will not do so because it is against my proper guitar upbringing.

I kid you not. This type of scenario happens all the time. My point is that every wannabe guitarist who has no clue only knows the stupid smoke on the water nonsense because that is the norm. If you want to be typical than that is fine by me but have some common sense and be a musician with something more unique than the next guy okay. PLEASE. There are too many copies of really crappy musicians out there and we don't need any more of them so do us all a favor.

Back to my original point. Play clean and accurate and if your starting out pick a song that is not to hard or to typical. There are plenty of songs to choose from that don't require an expert to show you how to play. Use your ears as well as your hands. Listen to the notes that you are producing. If you find yourself really flubbing things up then slow down. Speed will come later and much faster if you understand that you need to move slow in the beginning. There is no rush.

A great rhythm to get your up and down picking going is the song "A New Level" by Pantera off of the "Vulgar Display of Power" album. It starts out with some easy slow progression and then switches to a really powerful low end rhythm that will keep a beginner busy for a while. Not to mention that it sounds very cool once you accomplish it correctly. Take that song and practice it all the time. It will help improve your picking style greatly. Experiment with it and branch it off into something of your own. Do not ever forget to do that. The best things that you will ever play in this world are the things that you have created yourself. Other peoples material can only be copied. Your very own material has your very guitar essence within it. That is so very important to develop.

Guitar Tunings

This is my main guitar. It is a Westone Spectrum LX. I have had it since the 80's and boy do I love this guitar. It has really taken a beating yet it just keeps on going for me. Not many people know about these guitars. I have played a few different brands of guitar but the fast action and great pick up quality is the best on my Westone. I really do love it. Here are the specs for those of you who really want to know.

Solid Maple body, Hard Maple neck, Rosewood fingerboard with graphite nut
25.5 inch scale, 22 frets.
Pickups - two Magnaflux II UBC (Neck and bridge) and one Magnaflux IV (Mid)
Master volume control (Push/pull for coil tap), two tone controls (Push/pull for mid pickup on/off and bridge pickup phase reverse)
Bendmaster FT trem with FT string lock

My floating bridge went to hell eventually but I am not much of a whammy bar user in the first place. I only use whammy when I make recordings to add some effects, drops, or screams.

I understand that many people love to play guitar. I started playing back when I was wearing Pac-Man pajamas in the early 80's. That means that I have about 27 or so yrs. playing experience. I have learned over the yrs. that a lot of people when learning to play seem to gravitate to the soloing and don't spend enough time on rhythm guitar. This blog will be about mostly rhythm guitar. I prefer very low heavy tones when I am playing but when I get the 80's feel back inside I always return to the higher tunings. A regularly tuned guitar is usually from low string to high

E - A - D - G - B - E

bands like Metallica and White Lion for example use this tuning most the time. Another tuning type would be.

D# - G# - C# - F# - A# - D#

This is the same tuning only one note lower on each string. An example would be guitarists like Randy Rhoads, George Lynch, or Yngwie Malmsteen.

The # symbol means sharp. So C# means one note higher than C. Or one could say Db. The symbol b means flat. So Db means one note lower than D. I will stick to C#. All the notes in sequance are as follows.

E - F - F# - G - G# - A - A# - B - C - C# - D - D# - E

When you tune differently you also get a difference in pinch harmonics or more or less bend on a string. Now those two tunings or for a more 80's style music but that does not mean you cannot use them to this day of course.

The tunings that I use most of the time are much lower. I use

D - G - C - F - A - D

My favorite band, which is Prong, uses this type of tuning a lot. I, as well as Prong for example, also like to drop the low string down to C.

C - G - C - F - A - D

Which is referred to as Drop D tuning. It can apply to any standard tuning you use.

Standard
E - A - D - G - B - E

Drop D
D - A - D - G - B - E

Another tuning I use a lot is the lowest my guitar can handle. It is

C# - F# - B - E - G# - C#.

Any lower than that and my guitar strings are too loose and it sounds terrible. One way to be able to go lower and have a thicker song is to have a thicker string. The strings that I use are Ernie Ball Super Slinky. The gauge that I use are

.09
.11
.16
.24
.32
.42

You can go as thin as .08 or as thick as, well I don't know. .56 or something. If you want to go thicker than that you might as well play the bass.

There are of course many different types of tunings. Each with its own unique sound and feel. Most of the heavy music of today is always in the lower tunings. It gives a thicker heavy tone naturally. However it is not against the rules to tune higher and still play heavy. Metallica, for example, usually tunes standard E. They use to be a pretty heavy band. As for nowadays who really cares because Metallica sucks but they will suffice for my example.

Having a good tuner is a very effective way to tune differently. I don't care how well of a trained ear a person might have. It is still difficult to tune accurately form one type to the next. The best way would be to have a guitar for each type of tuning style but we all know that most of us are not made of money. It would certainly be nice to have all the guitars needed though wouldn't it?

Anyway, play around with tunings. If you are trying to learn a song and it doesn't seem to be coming out correctly then maybe you are not tuned the way you should be. I usually listen for the lowest note and then I determine weather it is standard or dropped D. I am not going to get into how you go about doing that. The purpose of this post is simply to get you to think about the different types of tunings. An experienced guitarist would already know but someone who is not to far in there quest will greatly benefit form this.