Sometime soon, I will ask for some advice on how to do this. I still have to put down my pick … finger-pick for a while…then grab it again without losing the rhythm 
My teacher taught me a bunch of blues & boogie woogie rhythms that are a lot more pleasing to play (to me at least) than Ode to Joy and Minuet in G. I still use them for warm ups when I practice.
When I get a chance, I’ll try to track one down.
kevlaw, I’d love to see/hear some of those if you can find them.
Right now I’m working on teaching myself to play Steve Earle’s South Nashville Blues. I’m trying to work up to the hybrid picking that Wordman talks about (and I’ve got the Susie Q lick he posted a while ago bookmarked), but I’m not quite there yet.
Heh - I hear you. I start with that lick to warm up and muff it regularly. Keeps me honest 
I picked up a guitar for the first time last summer. I’m still happy to just play anything that I recognize.
Nothing to add except to say that I recently got back into playing after buying a left-handed Hagstrom Deluxe-F this summer.
After years of not playing much (due to either being too busy with the kids, or having cheap guitars that were un-fun to play) I finally decided that I wanted to get a decent guitar, and make time to play at least a few hours a week,. After a few weeks of playing regularly, I feel like I did when I was 15 and “discovered” the power chord.
And I love my Hagstrom - while it was only around $450, it is by far the most playable guitar I’ve ever had. The neck is super-fast, the action is great - the only beef I have is the electronics, since it’s a bit buzzy. But I can always get it re-wired. And I’m using a Zoom G1n multi-effects pedal for a practice amp - after years of playing through crappy practice amps, I never realized what a bit of reverb and some decent amp modelling could do for my confidence. 
Plus I can line in to my PC and play along to iTunes.
Damn, I love the guitar. . .
Very cool looking!
Yeah, well. . . the lefty only comes in the black sparkle finish, which looks less like a flashy LP goldtop copy and more like a cheesy Formica countertop.
But it sounds frickin’ awesome, which is what counts.
This pretty much sums up where I’m at, a year after getting an electric guitar, and 9 months after starting lessons. About a month or two ago, something clicked, and things are coming to me more easily. I’m still not good, but I definitely can see the progress.
I concur with Runs With Scissors – taking actual lessons with a real person helps tremendously, far more than trying to learn from a book or video. The feedback, for me, is what helps the most.
As to what I’m playing, for the past month or so, I’ve been working on three songs:
“Ah! Leah!”, by Donnie Iris
“Would I Lie To You?”, by Eurythmics
“Holy Diver”, by Dio
Well, that was educational. Apparently even the $500 guitars aren’t smooth down the necks. I’ll save a bit.
So I got a metronome and a 1 watt amp so I can practice electrically. I’m going to keep working on this.
Lordie I haven’t thought of that song in ages, but I remember the riff. And the tone - interesting tone with a bit of sizzle on it.
[guitar geek moment]
Wasn’t he playing a Daphne Blue vintage Strat on the cover of that album? Is that why you got one? That was you, right?
[/guitar geek moment]
We speculated that my strat might have been Daphne Blue - but it’s actually Surf Green. I got it because it’s what they had.
“Would I Lie To You?”, by Eurythmics sounds interesting. I might give that a shot.
Got it.
Would I Lie to You is an interesting song from a guitar standpoint simply because of how you have to have a feel for the electric guitar. The initial chord - something like a D7sus4 played in barre form - is just a cool arpeggio; pick each of the middle four strings and life is good - let them ring out. But the main riff is a power chord thing - sure, it’s just A G A - D A - G C G (or something like that - I am going off memory here) - but you have both strum assertively to establish that rhythm, while also muting the strings with the fat of your picking hand to get that chunking, hard rock sound going. The trick is to really just focus on the lowest two strings of the chord - i.e., the “power chord” version of the chord, with enough overdrive in the tone to fill out the sound. THEN - when it comes to the verses you have to get into funk mode - I know the chord to hit, but don’t know how to describe it - but the point is you have to move to funk-strum mode - a real free hand where you spank the higher strings with a clean tone up the neck.
So it’s a variety of techniques - deceptively harder than you might think…
It’s amazing what five minutes with a flat file will do to stop crude metal edges from cutting your hand open. Now, I’m a little dubious about my high E. Apparently, holding the first fret down gives me an E#, according to my tuner.
… I’m gonna restring the whole thing, see if that fixes things any. I’ve noticed the B-string I just put in is much easier to deal with than that E-string. The E-string is about the tension of a cheese-cutter.
It sounds like you need to set your intonation (the distance between the bridge saddle and the nut) for all the strings when you restring it. On all the strings, one at a time, check the fretted note at the 12th fret with the 12th fret harmonic. If the fretted note is sharp compared to the harmonic, move the saddle back a bit - towards the rear end of the guitar. If the fretted note is flat compared to the harmonic, move the saddle toward the nut. On most strat type guitars, each bridge saddle is adjusted by a corresponding small philips head screw on the backside of the bridge…
Anyway, I’m happy where I’m at guitar-wise - both playing and owning. I’m mostly concentrating on getting Ghost Town Guitars, my luthier business, off the ground. So most of the time, I’m building guitars, not playing them…
Whut’s a 12th fret harmonic?
Place your finger lightly over the string right at the 12th fret. As you pick the string, move your finger away from the string. If done correctly, you should hear a chimey tone that is the same note as the open string. Basically, what you’re doing is cutting the scale length of the string in half by placing your finger at the 12th fret. Then by plucking the string and and removing your finger, your dampening some of the harmonic overtones of the open string. A more detailed description of natural guitar harmonics can be found here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guitar_harmonics
And more intonation setup info:
I’ve started yet another quest to not suck at flatpicking after playing mostly fingerstyle for the last 20 years or so (:eek:). I’m an enthusiast, not a performer (although I did write and play a song for my friends’ wedding somewhere in the '90s).
I’ve been working through a couple of books - Linear Expressions by Pat Martino and the ‘GIT Guitar Accelerator’, which is a prep book I permanently borrowed from my first guitar mentor. The Pat Martino book is way above me in terms of theory and philosophy but I committed the patterns in the first section (horizontal phase) to memory, set up some grooves on my sequencer and hey, it sounds cool. I don’t play the patterns by rote to the music, but break them up into little pieces, change the rhythm around, whatever sounds good. It’s a good basis for soloing, which was exactly what I was looking for. Now my task is to play it in 12 keys.
The GIT (Guitar Institute of Technology) book is basically ‘this is what you should be proficient at before you start GIT’. I like it because of it’s simple explanations and practical exercises. Despite all the stuff I’ve played over the years, alternate tunings, etc. I’m still pretty ignorant of basic chord structures.
When I’m not working out of those books I like to figure out songs, most recently ‘The Nobleman’s Wedding’ which is a traditional arranged by the (I think) defunct Celtic group Whirligig. No tabs existed so I had to figure it out all by my lonesome. It’s also mostly piano, but it converted to guitar pretty easily. I love figuring out songs. Once you can zero in on a couple of chords you’re on your way. I’ve also recently been working on ‘Won’dring Aloud’ by Tull and ‘Into White’ by Cat Stevens. My great sin is figuring out songs then forgetting about them, as opposed to maintaining a repertoire, like I did when I first got into fingerstyle in a big way.
Barre chords - I played with the guitar mentor I borrowed the GIT book from from junior high through college (except I played drums). I guess he’d started at an early age because he can make his ring finger bend backward at the 1st knuckle so he perfectly frets the 2nd 3rd and 4th strings but doesn’t touch the 1st string. I can’t play like that and not touch the first string. My lot in life.
I’m curious to know: has anybody here ever witnessed a guitar duel? If so, was it any good?
My friend and I were wondering about them, and if it is at all a fair comparison to rap battles, which are essentially never worth listening to, we figured that most guitar duels would end badly, but we still wonder, and I’ve gotta hear it from someone who knows.
Great idea for a thread; gj.
E, I was gonna suggest you take a look at the Pignose amps. I have 2 and they both sound great: the original, and the 20.
For your guitar, I suggest that you look at something other than a Strat. You already have a Strat, right? Branch out and try something new. I’d point you to Schecter Guitars for reasonably priced guitars with outstanding craftsmanship. I have a C-1 and not only is it a great looking guitar, it’s fun as hell to play, and it didn’t cost me 3 months pay.
[del]I’d also suggest you take a look at[/del] I was going to suggest you look at the Hohner G3T, but I see they’ve been discontinued. I got mine for about $400 and it came with a gig bag (a soft case). Plays great, sounds terrific, and is small and light enough to take on a plane without any fuss. Check it out: I found one on ebay still being bid on, and the price is currently only $102. So if you’re patient and look, you should be able to find one of these for something under the original retail price, maybe.
Songs: I’m working on about 8 songs atm, since I hope to have Logic Pro in a couple of weeks. I’m not really working on any covers; I rarely care to do more than figure out the basic riffs of a song, then play it My Way™.