5. Writing Music

I’m in the same boat as IG, I haven’t been blessed with the natural songwriters gene. I wish I could just pick up a pen and pour my soul out in rhyming meaningful metaphors and smilies, but it just doesn’t work for me. I am just not very good at expressing emotion through words. When it comes to writing guitar, I guess I’m an over achiever. I write one thing and spend too much time comparing it to other works instead of just being content with it. In the end I discard it. However, I am getting better with writing (the music portion at least), and I am passionate about it, so here it is at number five.

4. Talking about music.

I love to chat it up about my favorite music. I like talking about songs, riffs, solos, jams, concerts, guitars, history, legends, and rock gods. I can’t get enough of the social aspect of music.

3. Discovering Something New

The great thing about talking about music is it always leads to something new. Most of the great music I have discovered in my life has been by “hey, have you ever heard of” or “if you like that, you’ll love this”. How many of my favorite artists and songs would I not know about if I didn’t love to talk about music? I could have missed out on so many different styles too. Blues, flamenco, metal, could be on the list of genres I might have never gotten into if someone had not recommended some kick ass music.

2. Pure F%*#ing Metal

I love the extreme. I love over the top gore filled horror movies and I love metal music. I’m talking about harmonizing guitar, screaming vocals, pummeling drums, shredding keyboards heavy-metal. It allows me to vicariously live the image of a hard core lifestyle. It is so against my personality, and most people wouldn’t know it was my favorite music by looking at me, but it is.

1. Playing my Guitar!

I picked up the guitar out of the blue when I was 16. I never had a desire to play it until that one day, and then all of a sudden I did. The next day I started playing, and I haven’t stopped since. I love playing all sorts of music on my guitar. I love jamming and teaching and learning. This is a lifestyle I will never give up.

What things are you passionate about in music?

PS, I don’t know why I used that picture above, I just liked it.

Like I said the guitar is a run of the mill Classic Antique complete with ‘57 humbuckers, ’60s slim taper profile, rosewood fingerboard, and antique binding. The Les Paul is no different from others keeping the 3-way pickup toggle switch and volume/tone controls in their standard positions.

Obviously we can’t expect Gibson to be putting out a totally unique Custom each week, but I hope we get to see some more variations from their standard product lineup in the future. Again though, I am all about this finish. I think it’s stunning.

The great thing about getting into a forum early is you can take part in developing it. Cary has a thread right now in the feedback section asking members for category suggestions. I think this shows he is really interested in making it an open community for guitar enthusiasts. I have already signed up and have made my mark on the show us your gear thread. By the way, another good thing about getting on a forum early is you get first dibs on the user names.

The forum is just getting off it’s feet now, going by the quality and popularity of his weblog I’m sure in no time it will be a busy site.

For those of you not in the loop, NAMM used to stand for “National Association of Music Merchants”. These days they have dropped the full name and just go by the acronym. Basically they are a global organization for the musical equipment industry. Each year they hold a trade show that exhibits all the great new music making products from every company. It is not open to the public, you have to be a NAMM member to attend and to be a NAMM member you have to make, buy, and/or sell musical instruments and products. Right now I am just playing a little catch-up, so lets see what I can find about this years show.

On the official NAMM Show website they have a recap of each day including pictures.

Play Guitar Now has a load of great pictures from each day of the show.

Cary at Electric Guitar Review linked to another NAMM 2007 picture gallery at Modern Guitars Magazine that also has a whole bunch of great shots.

Line 6 unveiled the Floor POD Plus basically combining a POD 2.0 with a huge list of premium effects in a portable stomp box floor set.

Gibson announced 11 new guitar models including the digital HD.6X-Pro. Modern Guitars Magazine has all of the details.

Fender showed off the VG Stratocaster, a modeling guitar. It is equipped with a digital pickup, a modeling dial with 37 different models, and a tuning knob that allows you to select from 5 alternate tunings.

Eddie Van Halen and Fender announced a signature EVH Frankenstein replica. The replicas play like a dream but physically feature every nick and mark the original has.

Man, I could probably go all day reading up on all the great stuff to come out of the show… I guess I still have a lot of reading to do.

The new guitar.com is in production. We hope you’ll come back to see what we’ve done, it’s pretty exciting. The new guitar.com will be a place for guitarists to interact musically and socially. We’ve developed Rype, a desktop application that allows musicians to record, edit and produce music. Rype has a social network built around it to allow musicians to collaborate, send each other music files, projects for collaboration, video chat, voice chat and instant message via Skype. Form virtual bands on guitar.com, then launch Rype, produce your songs and post them for sale on iTunes.

So it looks like guitar.com is jumping on the web 2.0 bandwagon and implementing some more social networking aspects. I am excited to see that the new site will be. As of now the forums are still up, so you can swing by there and take a look.

Also in production is a new Guitar One Magazine website, but they are not planning on being up until late March. That is a long time to have your website down if you ask me. I would think you would want to just keep the old one up while you were working on the new one.

What you will need to learn guitar on the Internet

Everyone’s situation is going to be different. Some people may have some musical experience under their belt already. In their case, learning the musical theory behind the guitar might be a good course to take. For someone like myself who didn’t know squat about music before I picked up the guitar, diving straight into learning songs was the best method. Learning songs allowed me to get a taste for music and made me want to learn more. When learning songs I would be required to study new chords and practice them in order to play the song. This is how my playing progressed. Eventually you will want to write music or play with others and you will get into things like scales and keys.

Regardless of whether you have previous knowledge or not you will need some basic personality traits to teach yourself to play guitar.

1. Patience – Learning any instrument requires patience. Because there is both a mental and a physical aspect to playing the guitar practice is essential. It won’t come easy and sometimes there will be things you wont be able to play.
2. Determination – Learning chords, scales, picking techniques, and fingering techniques will take regular practice. Since you will be learning on your own, you will require the determination to teach yourself these skills.
3. Passion – Finally you will need an interest or a passion to play. If you aren’t passionate about playing what is the point of learning at all? Passion can be the number one factor in determining the speed that you learn.

How much of each of those qualities you need depends on what level of playing you wish to achieve. Metal guitar gods like Zakk Wylde and Alexi Laiho have said that they would spend up to 12 hours a day practicing their playing. Their level of playing is a direct result of that determination.

How I learned to play guitar

I would consider myself an experienced guitarist. I have strengths in a lot of areas, but like every other guitarist there is always something new to learn. It didn’t happen over night. However after 8 years I am playing at a level now that I didn’t even know was possible when I started. Here is how I learned to play the guitar.

Learn Songs You Like
When I started playing guitar I wanted to learn to play Nirvana songs. I knew a friend who played guitar already and I had seen him using online tablature to learn songs. Tablature is a form of music notation that is very simple to read. It tells you directly what strings to pluck and what frets to press. That day I went home, picked up the guitar we had and searched the Internet for come as you are tab. I was able to learn how to play the verse of the song pretty well in about half an hour.

That night I went through my musical collection listening to songs trying to find others I could learn. Many sounded too difficult to me. Some I tried to learn and gave up because they were obviously beyond my playing ability on the first day. Although I don’t remember many of the songs now, I know I learned some parts of different Smashing Pumpkins, Nirvana, and Collective Soul tunes. By the end of the week I had a few songs I could show off to my family and friends.

Challenge Yourself to Learn More
Eventually in learning I became aware of chords. Initially I only learned power chords because they were the choice of Kurt Cobain. Power chords are 3 notes that have the same finger formation. All you do is move them to a different location on the guitar to make a different chord. When I began playing some Classic Rock I learned the concept of open chords. These chords all have different finger formations and are usually played near the end of the fretboard. As I would try and learn new songs I would have to study and practice different chords.

Through learning songs from tab files there were a lot of symbols like “/”, “^”, “h”, and “p” that I didnt understand. Searching the Internet for an article on how to read tab files I found that / was slide, ^ was bend, h was hammer-on, and p was pull-off. These guitar playing techniques were all new to me and again I had to search the internet for tutorials on each technique.

A few months into playing guitar I started playing songs with other friends who played guitar. While jamming with my friends they would often improvise in their playing and I wanted to learn to do that. It was confusing to me how people could learn what notes to play so that it would sound in tune with the other guitars. Again I searched the internet for “how to improvise guitar”, “how to solo guitar”, and “how to jam guitar”. Through the articles I read I became aware of the world of scales. I think this is where things really started to make sense for me. I learned a lot of things over the next few months. The basic scale to learn seems to be the pentatonic scale. So I learned that one and was improvising in no time.

The next thing I learned was barre chords. Barre chords are difficult to learn because they usually require all of your fingers to fret them, but once you learn them you arent limited to open chords when you want to play rythm. Barre chords really improved the strength in my fretting hand and allowed me to play with more precision and speed.

At this point I had a bag full of techniques and chords under my belt and I was finding songs were much easier for me to learn. I think I began to plateau at this point and really focused on perfecting the skills I had learned. Eventually I grew tired of playing acoustic guitar and started lusting after electric guitar. My musical tastes had moved from Classic Rock to Thrash and Metal. I was listening to Metallica, Pantera, and Ozzy and I wanted to learn to play Metal.

I started focusing a lot of my attention on my soloing skills. I learned several solos note for note and practiced my speed and precision.

Resources

So enough talk, simply what can you find online to help you play guitar? Probably the first thing you want to find is tabs. Find a song that you like, that in your opinion doesn’t sound too hard musically and search for a guitar tab for it. If you find a tab and you don’t know how to read it, search for “how to read guitar tabs”. Once you get the hang of reading guitar tabs start searching for guitar lessons. Most guitar lessons use tab notation to teach you, so you will need to know how to read them first.

Tablature and Chords
Tablature (or tabs) and Chords are another guitar player’s interpretation of how to play a song. Tablature ranges in detail but will tell you where on the fretboard to put your fingers. Chords tell you the names and the order of the chords in a song. Learning the rhythm or picking pattern is up to the player.

There are millions of tab and chord files online and depending on the popularity of the song may be multiple different versions from different guitar players.

Lessons
Lessons are also easy to find online. Many guitar related sites offer lessons written by site members. Some sites provide video or audio to go along with the lessons. Some just are plain text. Lessons range from beginner to expert. One note, you should never have to pay for lessons online. There is an abundance of free lessons and nothing you pay for will be any better than these.

Offline Resources
Although the Internet is an excellent source for guitar information, sometimes sorting through it all can be difficult. Many online material is written by amateur writers and therefore can be hard to grasp. For that reason, I think it’s a good idea to also look into books and guitar magazines for learning material. Since they are written by professional authors they should be easy to read and not too cryptic. Guitar magazines are also a great source of tabs. Each magazine usually comes with 5 or 6 tabs of recent and classic songs.

What You Won’t Find
The Internet can’t teach you everything. Because playing the guitar is a hands on activity sometimes there will be things that will be difficult to learn from print. There are just some techniques that would be much easier to learn if there was someone to guide you and give you feedback.

Since everyone and anyone can put a guitar lesson on the Internet it is hard sometimes to tell which technique is best or “proper”. Some really bad habits that will be impossible to break can be picked up by teaching yourself. However, some of the best guitarists were self taught and their “bad habits” have become something that amateur guitarists aspire to perfecting.

In Review

The Internet can be a great resource for learning all sorts of new skills, including playing the guitar.

What You Need

• Patience and Determination
• A working guitar to practice on
• An interest and a passion to learn

What the Internet Can Offer

• Tab and Chord files
• Lessons on scales, chords, and techniques
• Lessons on guitar care and maintenance

What the Internet Can’t Offer

• Hands on teaching
• Guarantee of “proper” technique

Links

WholeNote – The Online Guitar Community
Ultimate Guitar.com
Guitar Noise – Online to On Stage
Cyberfret.com – Your source for free online guitar lessons

Please, feel free to comment with your online learning resources.

Fender and Intel have partnered to create a concept of an internet-enabled super guitar. The new revisited Fender Telecaster will incorporate Intel Centrino mobile technology to allow Internet access on the go. The TELECASTER guitar contains a Hewlett Packard TC1100 tablet laptop with 1.25ghz RAM and an Echo Indigo I/O soundcard.

With the new Fender every musician will be able to download music directly on their “super-guitar”, record new ideas on it and email them directly to whoever they want. It is supposed to even incorporate a webcam, so you can stream yourself rocking onstage to the whole Internet world.

The guitar has a full computer in it with the LCD screen in the back of the body. Watch out for those belt buckles, cause that’s right where the display is.

It sounds like an interesting enough idea to me, but I don’t think it is really innovative enough to sell. I am much more interested in the Gibson digital guitar.

Here is a link to the Intel/Fender Telecaster Concept Guitar on Fender’s website.

John Petrucci is one guitarist that until lately I haven’t paid much attention to. I knew of him and of Dream Theatre but had never had much exposure to his music. I recently got my hands on his instructional DVD Rock Discipline and I can’t believe what I have been missing all of these years. The guy is a god.

One of John’s many guitars is his own Ernie Ball Music Man John Petrucci Signature guitar. Petrucci worked very closely with Ernie Ball Guitars to develop a guitar that had a new level of style and practicality. The guitar comes in both 6 and 7 string versions and can be purchased with or without a piezo bridge. The body of the guitar has a sculpted neck joint for better access to the high frets and a contoured top for better picking arm support.

The guitar features a basswood body with a maple neck and rosewood fingerboard. 24 wide high profile frets are lined with custom inlays including a “JP” just above the first fret. All Petrucci Signature models come with Music Man bridges and saddles.

The guitar has a custom John Petrucci Tremolo bridge and Schaller locking tuners. Consistent with the rest of his guitars John Petrucci uses 2 custom DiMarzio humbuckers. The guitar also comes complete with a hard-shell case.

Feature Summary

• Basswood Body/Maple Neck/Rosewood Fingerboard
• Sculpted neck joint/Contoured body
• 24 high-profile frets/Custom Inlays
• John Petrucci Custom Tremolo bridge
• Schaller Locking Tuners
• 2 Custom DiMarzio Humbuckers

The design of the guitar plays on the black pinstripe on white look that the Jackson RR1 Rhoads has, but with a more stylized look. The shark fin points on the body are straighter and slightly curved as opposed to the true edges on the RR.

Like the more expensive Jackson RR models the Alexi ESP is designed with neck-through-body construction for maximum sustain. The body is made of alder and the neck is made with maple with an ebony fingerboard. The 24 XJ frets are decorated with custom saw tooth inlays.

For a $4000 suggested retail guitar I am a little shocked by this: the guitar only has one EMG HZ-4 Pickup in the bridge position and one volume control. For the minimalists it may be great but to me that just seems like a rip. Alexi being another avid tremolo user his guitar has an original Floyd Rose tremolo bridge.

Feature Summary

• Alder Body/Maple Neck/Ebony Fingerboard
• Neck-thru-body construction
• 4 XJ Frets/Saw blade Pearl Inlays
• 1 EMG-HZ H-4 Pickup in the Bridge
• Original Floyd Rose Tremolo

This is probably the least impressive guitar I have looked at this week. It is basically a Jackson RR1 with one less pickup. Besides its rad paint job it doesn’t have much going for it.

That raps up my 7 day look at metal guitars. You can check out all of the previous posts here:

1. Guitar Reviews: March Metal Madness
2. Fender Stratocaster Yngwie Malmsteen Signature Guitar
3. ESP KH-2 Kirk Hammett Signature Guitar
4. ESP Ninja 600 Michael Amott Signature Guitar
5. Gibson Les Paul Zakk Wylde CAMO Signature Guitar
6. Jackson RR1 Randy Rhoads Signature Guitar
7. Dean USA Razorback Tribute Dimebag Darrell Signature Guitar
8. ESP Alexi Laiho Signature Guitar

The body is a 1 piece mahogany back under a carved maple top decorated with gold hardware. For sound it sports the signature EMG ZW (81 neck/85 bridge) active pickups for playing those heavy screaming Black Label Society riffs. I have the ZW set in my Les Paul and I couldn’t imagine another pickup for playing metal. Active is the way to go if you ask me. The sound of the overdrive is unmatched and the sustain is infinite.

The fingerboard is where this guitar differs from Zakk’s original Bullseye. This guitar has a 22 fret unfinished maple fingerboard with pearl inlays. The unfinished neck and fretboard is a little much for me. Personally I’m a heavy finish kind of guy. It could be something that takes getting used to, but at first it just didn’t feel natural. Just like every other Les Paul the guitar includes two volume knobs and two tone knobs. It also has the standard 3-way pickup selector switch.

Feature Summary

• Carved maple top/Solid mahogany back
• Multi-ply white/black binding on top and back
• Gold Hardware
• Nashville TOM bridge/Stopbar tailpiece
• Unfinished 3-piece maple neck
• 22 fret maple fingerboard with a rounded profile
• Pearl inlays
• Metal tulip tuners
• EMG ZW Signature pickups (EMG-81/EMG-85)
• 0.10 gauge strings

If you want to sound like Zakk Wylde, there is no better way than with a Zakk Wylde Signature Les Paul, a Marshall amp, an MXR ZW-44 Wylde Overdrive Pedal, and a Dunlop ZW-45 Zakk Wylde Signature Wah. Now, if you can’t buy all of that, the Les Paul is a great start.

Read the other posts in this series:

1. Guitar Reviews: March Metal Madness
2. Fender Stratocaster Yngwie Malmsteen Signature Guitar
3. ESP KH-2 Kirk Hammett Signature Guitar
4. ESP Ninja 600 Michael Amott Signature Guitar
5. Gibson Les Paul Zakk Wylde CAMO Signature Guitar
6. Jackson RR1 Randy Rhoads Signature Guitar
7. Dean USA Razorback Tribute Dimebag Darrell Signature Guitar
8. ESP Alexi Laiho Signature Guitar