How do YOU play guitar ?¿?

octatonic

fretmeister said:

I just go apeshit in E minor.

That must sound interesting when you play Smells Like Teen Spirit.

paul_c2

octatonic said:

fretmeister said:

I just go apeshit in E minor.

That must sound interesting when you play Smells Like Teen Spirit.

I guess its why Capos are enduringly popular, despite the existance of the bar chord.

TTBZ

ChrisMusic said:

Do you play notes, intervals or patterns ?

I thought it would be interesting to gauge how people on here approach playing, how you "see/feel" music and the guitar in particular...

And what do you feel the strengths and weaknesses of each approach are, etc ? (if you have an opinion on it, of course)   ~O)

I have no idea what intervals or patterns are, so notes I guess? I dunno. My original stuff is mostly single string riffs with some power chords thrown in and lead wise I just noodle around in the pentatonic boxes with a few extra fancy notes thrown in where appropriate. I'd love to expand my chord and lead vocabulary to make my playing more interesting and "break out of the box" but I have no idea where to start. Advice?

octatonic

TTBZ said:

ChrisMusic said:

Do you play notes, intervals or patterns ?

I thought it would be interesting to gauge how people on here approach playing, how you "see/feel" music and the guitar in particular...

And what do you feel the strengths and weaknesses of each approach are, etc ? (if you have an opinion on it, of course)   ~O)

I have no idea what intervals or patterns are, so notes I guess? I dunno. My original stuff is mostly single string riffs with some power chords thrown in and lead wise I just noodle around in the pentatonic boxes with a few extra fancy notes thrown in where appropriate. I'd love to expand my chord and lead vocabulary but I have no idea where to start. For instance I don't really know any chords past the basics and I may have learnt the odd mode a while back but I don't know how to apply which mode to the right chords and all that.

That usually describes pattern based playing- it is where most guitarist start.

Plectrum

ChrisMusic said:

Do you play notes, intervals or patterns ?

  I play songs. I find they go down better with the audience than all that other stuff

Drew_TNBD

octatonic said:

interrobang

That's what I do to your mum when I really need some answers.

octatonic

Drew_fx said:

octatonic said:

interrobang

That's what I do to your mum when I really need some answers.

That explains her limping lately..

bingefeller

I think about the chords being played and I know what notes will work over them and what notes will start to sound out.  It's an intuitive process and hard to explain.  It's like, you spend years learning theory and then you just forget about it, but it's still there in your subconscious to guide your playing.  

AustrianJohn

paul_c2 said:

axisus said:

I noodle with the blues scale. That's about it. Non guitarists think I'm amazing, proper guitarists will see the facade.

I think there's a simple test which can be applied: Better than the Captain off of Anderton's Music; not as good as the Captain off of Anderton's Music. All guitarists fit into one or other category.

Not sure about that. Many guitarists (e.g. Chappers) are much better guitarists than the Captain, but I would rather listen to the Captain. All depends what "better" means.

Sassafras

I spent years learning the fretboard, learning alternative chord positions, scales, modes and loads of technical jargon I can't even remember. Do I use it much?
Not for the sort of stuff I enjoy playing.

Alnico

fretmeister said:

I just go apeshit in E minor.

That's an excellent name for either a song or an album !

"Apeshit in E minor".

ArchtopDave

bingefeller said:

I think about the chords being played and I know what notes will work over them and what notes will start to sound out.  It's an intuitive process and hard to explain.  It's like, you spend years learning theory and then you just forget about it, but it's still there in your subconscious to guide your playing.  

I'm much the same. Ok it's notes, but I base things, for a start, on the notes of the chords and the chord extensions. I like to work in some outside notes. I'll utilise scalar ides to some extent, but I may choose to use a Mode rather than the straight underlying scale.

AustrianJohn

To be honest, I spend so much time building guitars that I don't have much time to think about what I'm playing. I think @axisus described what 99% of us do 99% of the time when he said "I noodle with the blues scale".

fretmeister

octatonic said:

fretmeister said:

I just go apeshit in E minor.

That must sound interesting when you play Smells Like Teen Spirit.

I can play it in E Minor.

or just use more fuzz until no one can tell.

bingefeller

Good thread this.  Reminds me of a quote in a Pat Metheny interview:

"At an Italian seminar last year students almost rioted because practically everything I talked about was conceptual - they wanted hardcore information.  But I don't think in terms of substitutions and what scale fits what chord."

I'm pretty sure that Metheny can hear a note or a phrase in his head and then instantly play it on guitar without doing much thinking about it. 

Bucket

octatonic said:

fretmeister said:

I just go apeshit in E minor.

That must sound interesting when you play Smells Like Teen Spirit.

Made me laugh out loud  

@Alnico Bill Hicks beat ya to it - stand-up album with some background music (much better than that sounds) called Rant in E Minor.

I do need to break out of pattern-based playing, I know I can do other approaches but I'm just too lazy.

Alnico

Bucket said:

octatonic said:

fretmeister said:

I just go apeshit in E minor.

That must sound interesting when you play Smells Like Teen Spirit.

Made me laugh out loud  

@Alnico Bill Hicks beat ya to it - stand-up album with some background music (much better than that sounds) called Rant in E Minor.

I do need to break out of pattern-based playing, I know I can do other approaches but I'm just too lazy.

It's actually years since i played any of Bill Hicks' stuff.
Thanks, i'm going to track that down and laugh all over again.
I will look for 'Rant in E minor' too, nice one.

Nikko

Alnico said:

fretmeister said:

I just go apeshit in E minor.

That's an excellent name for either a song or an album !

"Apeshit in E minor".

That would have been Beethovens next symphony.

Brad

bingefeller said:

Good thread this.  Reminds me of a quote in a Pat Metheny interview:

"At an Italian seminar last year students almost rioted because practically everything I talked about was conceptual - they wanted hardcore information.  But I don't think in terms of substitutions and what scale fits what chord."

I'm pretty sure that Metheny can hear a note or a phrase in his head and then instantly play it on guitar without doing much thinking about it. 

Yeah I think he said something like he can hear any note over any given chord, he just 'struggles' to hear a major 7th over a minor 7th chord.

impmann

octatonic said:

impmann said:

Danny1969 said:

I see everything in notes and intervals, being old n all but these days a lot of players don't because they learn from tab and tab teaches you fuck all about music. If you know Mr Brightside or whatever starts on the 17th fret of the A string and then it's 16th fret d string what has that taught you .... nothing! But if you know it's a D then an F# etc then you might notice it's 2 notes of a D major triad. 

These days we have people who can play Malmsteen licks but they don't even know what key they are playing in..... it's musically illiterate and its caused by people more desperate for the youtube views than their want to actually teach something of substance 

Hmmmm - well, I know nothing of music theory (and realistically, I don't give a flying badger's arse about it either). I taught myself to play by listening to music and playing along with it. If someone tells me the root note of the initial chord I can usually work it out from there but I have no idea or nor do I care about the theory behind it.

I'm pre-YouTube generation, although I do use it as a resource if I'm learning a song for a particular gig.

TBH, I get more annoyed by music fascists who seem to think that the only way to play a musical instrument well is to be able to use theory. There's far more to life than learning rules! I wouldn't know a major triad if it got up and bit me, but I'm sure that if I needed to play it I could and I would be able to connect it to my *own* way of playing guitar - which so far has been pretty successful.

Tab is useful for those of us who don't equate squiggles on a stave with the guitar. I can hear the rythmn if I listen to the track - I can copy that easily if I hear it. I just need to work out where the notes are and I'm away. What's so wrong with that? However, that said... I totally agree that a lot of it is bollocks that has been transcribed by a tone-deaf chimpanzee with only a working knowledge of the guitar. Its usually far easier for me to do it by ear.

There are more than 15 ways to skin a goldfish, as someone once said. And none of them are wrong...

Theory is simply an approach to the instrument- it isn't fascism- it facilitates musicians communicating with one another.
It isn't mandatory, but when I've worked with people who are a) ignorant of music theory and b) have an attitude problem about it, then it makes the experience less fulfilling and slows down the creative process.

I've never met any schooled musician who thinks there is only one way to play the instrument.
The more you study the more you realise that there are a multitude of techniques and the smart players learn them patiently and methodically, incorporating new techniques into their playing until they get to be really, really good at it.

Out of curiosity how many albums have you played on?
How much professional work have you done as a guitarist? 

On the 'none of them are wrong' argument.
I'm speaking English to you.
I don't have to- I could mash the keyboard like this:

ihfrhwiufjkreljhioj eiowjjioeeijoeijoijo hdhdhoiehwoifewjoiefjwoiefw

Hey, I've just invented my own unique language.
Does it mean anything?
Probably not.
Will anyone want me to do it for money?
Definitely not.

I'm not against anyone expressing themselves however they want, but there are loads of guitarists who think because they aren't 'technical' that they have some special passport to awesomehood, and that their incredibly narrow breadth of ability somehow equals individualism.
Schooled musicians mostly see them as lazy ignoramuses.

Ok a few things...

Using emotive terms like "ignorant" or "less fulfilling" etc just shows the sort of thing I'm talking about. Ignorant to what? Less fulfilled in what? Does playing guitar make me happy? Yes. Can I play my guitar and entertain an audience? Yes. Do they feel less fulfilled because I do everything by ear? No. Am I ignorant to different musical forms? No, I *listen* to them and if I want to play them, I will pick out the notes/rhythmic patterns on my guitar and then absorb them. Heck, they may even morph into my own interpretation of them... not wrong, not right just my version of them.

How many albums have you played on and how much professional work have you done? I'd like to say NONE to prove your point, but I don't need to justify my hobby/pastime/career in terms of financial success and music is an artform - therefore its not a competition. If you treat it as such then frankly, we're poles apart and you wouldn't understand, so there's no point in continuing. 

Point here is I'm not being preachy about how *you* choose to approach playing guitar - if you want to learn theory then go right ahead... I'll do it by ear, it works for *me*. You seem to be incredibly prescriptive about your approach - do you refuse to listen to music written by people who aren't "schooled musicians"? Is it beneath you? If I played an Emaj chord would it be impossible for you to play along with me because my approach is different?

I've played with guys who have degrees in playing music - sight-readers etc etc and we all seem to get along fine and play in the same "language". I guess it depends on your physical make up as to whether you inately pick up and absorb music, or need to learn it parrot fashion... like I say, no right or wrong. The outcome is important, how you arrive there is irrelevant - for example, do you think the African bush musicians sit there reading theory books? I doubt it somehow, especially as the "language" of theory is a Western construct. I know a lot of Western musicians who really struggle to play their music though... and to sound as great. Likewise something as complex, harmonically challenging, rhythmically unusual and musically difficult as Trout Mask Replica by Captain Beefheart was written by the great man humming and hanging the lid of a piano... the drummer transposed Don's vision onto a piano and then taught the songs to the other members of the band... however the writer hadn't got a clue about musical theory. Its a work of genius, though... There are hundreds of other examples of this. There are also hundreds of examples of great pieces of music written by "schooled musicians". No right. No wrong.

Your final paragraph is one of the most elitist things I've ever read on a musician's website - I don't think I have any such passport and in fact, I'd suggest that the reverse is true.  I would make the point that individualism is something that cannot be taught, though.

Frankly, I'd rather have a "narrow breadth of ability" and do that well, than be narrow minded. "Lazy ignoramuses"  - was that designed to offend? I'm not offended (I'd rather be that than look down my nose at others who don't share my point of view), but it kinda backs up my *opinion*, doesn't it...

Like I say, there *IS* no right or wrong...

Peace, y'all. :-)