A few suggestions, if picking accuracy is what you are after try the following:
#1. Alternate pick ALWAYS. Do not reset. While there are times when a reset may be more efficient feeling, it is better to always alternate unless you are going for a specific effect.
#2. Alternate which stroke you start the piece on. Do it starting with the normal down stroke. Once you have the piece down, do it again but this time start with an UP stroke.
#3. Check out thislink. Or this one. It turns out that pick angle matters. A lot.
Great links Slee. I’m always looking for articles like these. They bring up some great points. I’ve been told technique is the foundation of playing. Bad habits in technique will eventually bite you on the ass.
suggestion 2 would be tough. Because you’re fighting against your own muscle memory. The hand knows how to play the piece and you’re saying “No, do it this way instead”. I can see how that would improve picking accuracy by challenging yourself like that.
You are welcome. And yes, #2 is hard. But it is very good practice. If you get your picking so that you always alternate and can start on either an up or down stroke, you won’t have to think about it in the future, your hand will just do it. And when your hands just do it, well, good things tend to happen.
In the “unbridled (and largely unjustified) ego” department…
I’m going to be looking for a new band or project within the next couple of months. (Not quitting the band, but moving out of state.) That being the case, and since I go crazy if I go too long without making music with other humans, I spent some time over the weekend sprucing up my Bandmix profile.
Because I plan to look for guitar-only positions after three years of being the main singer and songwriter, I also put together an “audition reel” of sorts out of past studio recordings, highlighting some lead guitar work and some grooves that I wrote and played:
There’s slow, groovy stuff as well as frantic, speedy stuff on there. The playing is what it is: I like how I play, but I’m realistic about my strengths and limitations, and Steve Vai I ain’t.
What I was really happy about, though, is some of the tone. The Salt Lake Spitfires stuff in particular is just a great hard rock lead guitar sound, IMHO, as sleazy and grimy as that band itself was. (I left in 2012 after the lead singer ODed.)
You included some good licks on your audition vid OneCentStamp. You won’t be idle for long.
How is compensation handled in local bands? Would they pay a new guy so much a night? Give him a percentage of what the band got paid? Do they get paid for band rehearsals?
My last band was in college. Very informal. Some friends and I jammed together whenever we found the time. Somebody asked us to play at a party. That lead to another party. We did birthdays, frat parties, and some parking lots. Never got paid much. Sometimes it was just enough money for food and a couple cases of beer. Other times there was more and we split it up. We were only together for a couple semesters. Two guys graduated and that ended the band.
As far as compensation goes, there’s very little. Keep in mind that I play exclusively in bands that perform original material only (maybe a cover or two per set just for fun, but 90% originals), and that I usually end up playing in the punk/post-punk, dive bar and underground venue scene.
My bands usually get a cut of the door, of the bar, or some combination of the two, but there’s no guaranteed fee, and I can’t remember one of my bands netting more than about $250 for a night’s work. Usually it’s more like $50 to split three ways, and two drinks apiece.
Any band I’ve been in splits the show money evenly between all members. In the case of a new guy joining an established band, he probably wouldn’t get a cut of merchandise produced, or music recorded, before he joined. The idea of getting paid to rehearse isn’t even on the radar in the scene I play in.
The big money for local bands in any town I’ve lived in is playing covers. There’s a group of four guys here in SLC, really talented players, that have a standing Friday/Saturday gig at a local club. Friday nights they’re “The Spazmatics” and they play a several-hour revue of 80s new wave and pop songs, dressed like nerds from an 80s movie. Saturday nights they’re “Metal Gods” and it’s all hair metal, all night, dressed and bewigged like extras from Wayne’s World. They pack the house, people sing along to every song, and I am pretty sure they pull down a ton of money. That would be fun for me for about three weekends before I wanted to kill myself. Ultimately, I guess I’d rather play my own music for 30 people than play Police, U2, and Poison covers for 300.
Love the YouTube sampler - I agree, you sound great. Finding a good set of bandmates who understand what they want to do and how to get it done is a great thing - best of luck with it.
OneCentStamp, you’re totally a shredder. Don’t sell yourself short.
In regard to the money situation in bands: IME it’s about 50/50 either split it evenly or put in a band fund. I personally prefer the band fund, because you can finance recording/pressing/stickers/T-shirts through it. When there’s no band fund, the persons who bankrolled the merch get paid back first.
Not much has changed then since my college days. Money was never the reason for joining a band. Certainly not fame. The guys that I played with just wanted/needed to make music and play in front of people that might enjoy it.
I never wrote a song. I know it has to be very cool to get the chance to perform an original song to a crowd. Much more rewarding than playing covers.
I want to experience playing in a band again or at least jam with other musicians. Its why I push myself to practice daily. I’ll join bandmix in the next couple years. Reach out and see if I can find a keyboard player and bass player interested in jamming. I have to get used to playing with other musicians again before taking the next step. A lot depends on how my vocal training continues to progress. My best shot would be as a vocalist and not solely as a guitar player.
I appreciate that so much, seriously. When I listen to my own improvisation (and the songs in that comp video span over a decade, from 2000-2013) what I mostly hear is a small bag of tricks repeated over and over again. Some favorite patterns in minor pentatonic (with a few passing tones I stole from Carlos Santana), melodic minor, harmonic minor (which I always feel I overuse) and a little bit of major pentatonic, beaten to death. :rolleyes:
So for you guys to hear it for the first time and say it’s good actually means a lot. Hooray for nice people with fresh ears! (Thanks.)
In that case, I’ll also add that I also really like your playing, and I actually loved the solo on GBTK (Good Bye Tony Kornheiser?) - like every phrase lands on the perfect note.
Listening to the whole Ms Googoomuck collection right now. You should definitely keep doing that music thing.
Thank you for saying so! That solo probably sounds more composed and thought-out because we’d been playing it live for a year before we recorded it, so I’d had a long while to refine things. GBTK stands for “Give Back The Kids.” No, not some kind of rebellious youth anthem, but a set of lyrics that Spitball’s vocalist wrote about the nasty divorce his sister was going through at the time. But “Good Bye Tony Kornheiser” might be better - now I’m picturing Michael Wilbon screeching the YEEEEEEEEOW!!! right before that breakdown.
(Speaking of what things stand for, it just occurs to me now that y’all know where my user name comes from: it was a band I played in from about 2001-2003.)
Joanne, AKA Ms. Googoomuck, is a friend who is a longtime chronicler of the local band scene here, especially the D-Beat, crust punk, and other extra grimy subgenres. Her YouTube channel is full of great stuff.
Enjoy. I think the guitar is selling for $90,000. I haven’t played one, but have played some other mid-20’s 000’s, like a '28 000-28 - same guitar, less bling. Wonderful.
“In My Life” is probably my favorite song of all the ones John Lennon wrote. Lyrically it’s incredible, and musically…well, to me one mark of a truly great song is that it can stand up to, and shine through, very different arrangements. I consider that test passed with flying colors here.
Fingerstyle acoustic guitar is like a language I can understand but not speak. It just requires such a different skill set than the one I’ve cultivated, which is fine, until a Laurence Juber (or John Williams, Leo Kottke, Paco De Lucia, etc. etc.) video makes me briefly question my life choices.
It’s hard to see fine detail in a 720x480 YouTube video, even during the brief moments where Laurence holds the guitar closer, but as far as I can see, that guitar is unbelievably cherry for an instrument that old. Holy hell. :eek:
Yep, I love In My Life. I have others I love as well, but yeah, structurally it has good bones. Juber’s arrangement evokes the lyrics preexisting in our brains really well.
As I have discussed here, I have been transitioning to fingerstyle. I can’t tell you how much it feels like coming home. Just picking up a guitar and gripping the strings and playing through some bass+partial-chord rhythm groove, and then try to add a top-line fill with that extra finger and you somehow pull it off. That’s a good thing. Also, when I go back to using a pick, my flow is really improved. The two complement one another.
Yeah, in top shape - there was a thread over on the UMGF Vintage Corner about how great it was. Now, please note: if this was a later, prewar 000-45 - one with14-frets clear of the body, not 12 like this 1928 example* - a guitar in that condition would likely be $500,000. 45-grade Martin OM’s and Dreadnaughts up to '44 or so are THE most pricey old guitars - more than sunburst '58-'60 Les Pauls.
*please note that 12-fretters (i.e., with only 12 frets clear of the body) are staging a comeback, as are smaller bodied guitars. If you play a 12-fret small body, the repositioned bridge is more in the top’s sweet spot and you get a richer tone - the small body sounds bigger. It’s a wonderful thing - my favorite guitars are small-body 12-fretters.
