MilitantApathist's recent activity
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Comment on Self-taught guitar players: How did you do it? What do you wish you could go back and do differently when you were learning? in ~music
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Comment on My wife is going to a con this weekend and is going to get a meet&greet with Mark Hamill. I have to be at work but I'm freaking out for her. Anyone have any great meet&greet stories? in ~talk
MilitantApathist Link ParentA band I was in actually played a show with Alestorm about 15 years ago. The tour was "Heathenfest" and it was them and a few other Celtic metal bands. After the venue closed we ended up hanging...A band I was in actually played a show with Alestorm about 15 years ago. The tour was "Heathenfest" and it was them and a few other Celtic metal bands.
After the venue closed we ended up hanging out at the bar with the guys from Alestorm and Eluveitie (think they were the headliners). Eluveitie is Swiss and there was a little bit of a language barrier, but they were all super friendly and you could tell everyone was having a good time.
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Comment on What pedals are y'all rockin? in ~music
MilitantApathist LinkI've always been a fan of the standard design, so my pedal board is pretty Boss-heavy. I'll mix up the order every once in a while, but currently the setup is: Boss TU-3 Tuner (basic tuner, can...I've always been a fan of the standard design, so my pedal board is pretty Boss-heavy. I'll mix up the order every once in a while, but currently the setup is:
- Boss TU-3 Tuner (basic tuner, can also be used as a full mute)
- Boss OC-5 Octave (very good polyphonic tracking with options for octave down or up, used to either create a bass line for looping or to mimic a 12 string sound)
- Boss SY-1 Synthesizer (this is a weird one, I don't use it much but it can create some cool organ sounds)
- Friedman BE-OD Deluxe (excellent two channel overdrive pedal with individual tone controls for each channel)
- Boss DS-1 Distortion (basic distortion pedal, I use this with the gain dialed way down for mild crunch)
- Boss CE-5 Chorus (versatile chorus pedal that works well for both clean and overdriven sounds)
- Boss DD-8 Delay (nice sounding delay with tap tempo and a ton of settings, I usually keep it on "warm" for a mellow ambient tone)
- Boss NS-2 Noise Suppressor (cuts out some hum or could be used as a mute, I either keep this one here or directly after the distortion pedal)
- Boss RC-500 Looper (two track looper with a variety of drums, kinda complicated... I've had this thing since it came out and I'm still figuring out how to use all the functions and settings)
- DSM Humboldt Simplifier MK-2 (Not really a pedal, but excellent amp modeler and probably the coolest thing in my chain. Can dial in super accurate Marshall, Fender, and Vox tones with settings for cab sim and speaker configuration. I use this for headphones or to run into a PA, when I'm connecting to my amp, a Mesa Mark-V combo, I cut this one out of the chain)
Pretty much the only thing on my wishlist is a decent isolated power supply, probably the One-Spot Pro CS12. Right now, the whole rig is being powered by a mix of Boss and ancient One-Spot daisy chains, so there's some ground loop hum that the noise gate can't fully remove.
As others have mentioned, it's hard to remember all of the growing pains but I'll try to answer what I can. The most important thing I can suggest is try not to get hung up too much on classifying yourself as beginner, intermediate, or advanced. I've been playing 30+ years and there are some things I can do very well and some things I'm terrible at. The guitar is a very versatile instrument that's used in all kinds of genres, so just play what feels good to you and find your own voice. That said...
*What has helped you in the past?
Tablature combined with playing along to the recordings, repeatedly, one section at a time. When I first started the internet tools we have now weren't available, so I would get tab books and try to match up my playing to the tab and the recording. I'd do that a few bars at a time and repeat until that section sounded right. There were a few times using that method that it just never sounded correct, so in order to move on, I just put the book down and tried to play something that sounded like the recording. I eventually figured out that the books were actually wrong fairly frequently, and trying to learn more by ear improved my playing significantly.
*What helped you get over the "discouraging" first steps of guitar playing and keep at it?
No way around it, getting good takes time, but any progress is huge. It's kind of like learning to type... If you're looking at the keyboard, either your accuracy or your speed will suffer. By the same token, when you get to the point on guitar where you don't really have to think about what you're doing and can just roll on sound, instinct, and muscle memory, it gets way easier to get into a groove and rely on your hands to play what's in your head (or on the sheet music in front of you).
*What were some of the first songs you were able to learn to play all the way through?
First songs (at least rhythm guitar): House of the Rising Sun, Iron Man, Enter Sandman
First solos: Smells Like Teen Spirit, Nothing Else Matters
*How did you learn the notes on the fretboard?
I didn't, and I'm just now starting to pay more attention to music theory. I've always played more to sound and patterns, so I basically just knew the notes of the open strings and the 3rd and 5th frets. Also, the 12th fret is just an octave of the open string and the 7th fret of the next string is that same octave note, so I would just take the info I had memorized and use that to figure out anything else.
*How did you learn to play different chords all around the neck?
Power cords help with that, at least in a limited capacity, since it's easy to memorize the root notes. CAGED is a useful system as well. You'll need to be pretty comfortable with theory and the fretboard to be able to do the different inversions.
*What would you say to your younger self to help encourage them to continue pushing through the sticking points of guitar?
I'd just remind myself that I'm doing this for fun, and I don't need to do it on anyone's timeline but my own. I've for sure played shows where there was a bit of stress trying to get everything tight before the gig, but it should always be enjoyable.
*What was the "key" to getting guitar playing to "click" in your brain?
For me it was a bunch of little clicks that all added up to one big one, and that is that nothing should never be painful or feel impossible. The first one of those was realizing you don't have to press down all that hard on the strings to get a good sound, then it was realizing if you press just behind the fret, you can go even lighter. The next one was realizing that some of the basic things (like barre chords) didn't require stretching... I just needed to change the angle of my wrist a little bit and it was no problem at all. Fast picking? I could never get up to speed, and I'd wear myself out in the process until I stopped trying so hard and just went loose which fixed both problems immediately. The list of stuff like that goes on, but basically every sticking point I ran into was a result of trying to hard to do it wrong and relaxing into a slightly different method always solved the issue.
Anyway, hope that's helpful. If be happy to clarify if I said anything that doesn't make sense.