General Review and Comment...
I enjoy listening to people's musical ideas. But I would suggest one thing that most people seem to have difficulty with. NOTE BENDING ! Most people don't seem to pay attention to what note they are bending up to. This results in some rather unpleasant sounds. Practice bending up halfs... wholes... 1 1/2 steps... whatever. BUT PAY ATTENTION ! Don't just bend the string up to.. whatever... it's not the same and can make a big difference in how you sound !
Many musical ideas in the songs uploaded are really good... but are mared up by wrong notes which could be easily avoided. Practice this technique and it will be noticed !
Ok... I'll stop now.
Now go practice !
Many musical ideas in the songs uploaded are really good... but are mared up by wrong notes which could be easily avoided. Practice this technique and it will be noticed !
Ok... I'll stop now.
Now go practice !
Comments
If I see your name pop up in a review of Slither, I'll know I'm not bending the note properly.
I didn't do it cause I didn't want anyone to feel that I was criticising their song... just their technique.
My comment is offered to help people focus on something that they might otherwise overlook.
Bending notes is a skill that guitar players don't often pay attention to. If you've played a fretless instrument you learn to develop your ear in order to assist learning how to slide up to the proper note. A fretted guitar doesn't require as much of this as say a fretless bass or violin.
No offense to anyone, but I haven't heard anyone here on that same caliber of genius. Are you making comparisons to them or simply trying to find an excuse to \"play wrong notes\".
As a I said in the beginning of my post, I really appreciate talent and after 20+ years of playing I think I am able to differentiate between wrong notes and \"wrong notes\"...
I'm simply suggesting that those of us who haven't quite reached the level of Miles, Hendrix, and Vai (though I honestly don't put him quite in the same category as the other two and certainly wouldn't add Malmstien to the list either) should continue to focus on the basics to fine tune our skills so that the listeners will hear the musical ideas cleanly first and maybe then be more open to \"wrong notes\" later on.
It's true that technique doesn't make up for lack of talent. But talent shouldn't be an excuse for lack of technique either.
I offer this suggestion merely in the hopes of trying to add something of value to this forum. Those who do not need it please ignore it.
At least now I feel like I am not alone on an island. Someone else hears what I hear.
Good luck getting the point across. In a member music review on the old board, I mentioned that the bends we off. I got ripped by others on the board that said they couldn't hear what I heard.
It's not a hard thing to improve on. Like everything else it just takes a little bit of practice. Play the note you want to bend to. Then play the note you want to bend up from. Make the bend. Play the target note again and compare. Are they same? Was the bend flat or sharp? Try it again. Do this with half steps, whole steps, 1 1/2 steps, and 2 steps... I don't often bend past 2 steps but if you do then practice those too. Not so hard and well worth the effort.
I like your tips DrMike!
When people are sheltered, they become stuck in mediocrity. It reminds me of the new soccer leagues for kids. Everyone wins, there are no losers. They eventually grow up, and realize that the world isn't really like that. When we were kids, people lost. If you sucked at baseball (soccer wasn't around in the U.S. yet), the winning team let you know about it.
ednrg - One thing I've noticed that really differentiates musicians (or really anyone that does anything) is the ability to take criticism and learn from it... Any criticism can be helpful if you allow yourself to be honest with yourself. It's the \"that was nice\" comments that help us the least.
Now, about phrasing and timing...
ES175 running 12 guage flat wounds...
Believe me, before you bend one of those babies theres a couple of things you need to be aware of...
1) When bending 12 guage flats you've really got to want to bend..
2) Intonation of the bend becomes readily appartent with so much tension on the string while bending...
I pick up my Paul from time to time, which is strung with Ernie Ball 10's..
Vibrato Bar...
Don't even need it on the Paul.
Hell,
With the workout I get bending those 12 guage flats I can easily bend light guage strings on my Paul 5 frets....
To see a guy putting it all together with the bending and the tremelo bar,
Check this cat out... :shock: 8) 8) 8)
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3903761600384436967&q\
Enjoy,
Tal
Just kidding !!
This is an excellent example of someone who is intentionally going for the dissonance. Thanks for posting this one Tal ! This illustrates the point perfectly I think. To get that kind of dissonance he has to be dead on with his bends. Hardly an easy thing to do without practice and learning how to do it right !
While this guy is no Miles Davis (no offense, but then again who is?) he does seem to know what he's doing. I wish the recording weren't so distorted so I could hear it better.
I'm still listening as I write this... Damn... make me want to play guitar !
I love this track, but i'm sure he's snorting sesame street for lunch/brunch...
By the way ...i cain't play like he plays......
I hear you guys...
This cat can play... 8)
Just a couple of tips on bending technique. Firstly I KNOW that I am the worlds laziest bender before I got hammered, but one of the things I used to do was to deliberately tune my guitar 1/8 to 1/4 below natural pitch and then struggle to bring it back to real pitch by bending into everything. The other one was I noticed that when you use tremelo vibrato you would get this horrible note-flat-note-flat type vibrato so I used to practice playing tremelo bar notes sharp to deliberately force the tremelo to go sharp-flat-sharp flat more like a cello or violin player, hmmm maybe I should go back to that.
Oh yeah try listening to Jeff Beck during his Jan Hammer times to hear some really PRECISE string bending.
<EDIT>
Well, erm I, I mean, aherm is it.. erm, err, sheesh, was that.... guys come on help me out here. I just watched that Scott Henderson guy for about the 17th time, I mean come on, he's got to be miming, hasn't he? I mean really who the hell does he think he is raising the bar like that? Did you see the other one? http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1769717090811332474&q=scott+henderson you can't go doing stuff like that, I mean, it's not cricket, so what the hell am I supposed to do now?
That guy is sick ! How dare he !
Finger picking... tremelo bending... jazz licking... m@ther F....r...