Hey Dave!

[shotglass]

I remember you talking about playing guitar...wanted to ask you a few questions...

Can you pretty much figure out how to play a song by listening to it, or do you need the sheet music? How long does it take you to get proficient with a new song?

[Dave]

Shotty...depends on the song and how difficult is is to play...some music and even some bands come very easy to me and some are very tough for me.

I have learned some parts by ear but it is hard to learn the whole song....I can pick up riffs easily...sometimes I find out later I wasn't playing it correctly but it sounded the same.

I can't read music, I use tablature a lot...again, some tab is very easy to pick up and some not.

For me....I need to really like a song to have enough patience to learn it...and as I get older my patience (and the time I have) get less and less.

There are some good magazines that come out monthly like Guitar One but I have found that in the last few years the songs they print in tab (usually 4 or 5 a month) are not songs that I really feel like spending the time learning.....they print books in tab as well...ots of variety, usually a whole cd in a book...some are genre based.....some are based on the era.

If you have a Guitar Center in the area, they have quite a few books....I also picked a book at Barnes and Noble for about $25 that was over 1000 pages and included music from Jewel to Metallica....all kinds of stuff.

[Dave]

Shotty, here is a good tab site

http://www.guitartabs.cc/

[Pistol Pete]

I'm in the same boat as Dave on this one. I can't read a note. But tell me what key it's in and I'll play to it if it's a jam. It's all "by ear" to me. It took me a couple of months to learn "My Generation" and "Tommy". Stones tunes are fairly easy as are ZZ Top's. Allman Brothers can be fun, too. But, I really have to want to play a song that someone else wrote and performed. I don't do Beatles songs because only they could make them sound like Beatles songs. Most of the tunes I do, I, and my deceased partner made up long ago. Some, I've made up recently. If you can't feel it, it ain't gonna happen.

Crank it up and bite that bitch in the ass! ;)

[shotglass]

Can't read music? Are you self-taught, or did you simply forget after finding tabs? :p

I'm the opposite, I prefer sheet music to tabs, it's just easier for me to read it. My toy is drums, not guitar, though. Gave that up many years ago. :what: Shoulda stuck with it, but not noisy enough I guess...

Anyway, I was just curious about some of the stuff I try to learn. Usually I pick things up pretty quick, but other things I have a bad time with. Double bass pedal is one of those things...:nolike: I keep winding up doing bass flams instead of rolls...maybe it's just one of those practice things...

If you have a Guitar Center in the area

Yeah, there's two of them here, but I prefer the tiny little shop that I grew up near, they still have the best pricing I can find, they even beat the internet and they'll deal with ya. :thumbsup: They've got everything GC has, but it's crammed a lot closer together. :laugh:

[Ether_Elemental]

my little bro plays some guitar but mostly drums. but he's use this program called Tab-It (http://www.tabit.net/). not sure if he used it just because he thought it was fun making MIDI's, or if it actually did help him. Either way i thought it might help ya guys out.

[Pistol Pete]

my little bro plays some guitar but mostly drums. but he's use this program called Tab-It (http://www.tabit.net/). not sure if he used it just because he thought it was fun making MIDI's, or if it actually did help him. Either way i thought it might help ya guys out.

Thanks, but I have been winging it for 32 years. I learned the same time my buddy Ron learned. We taught each other by experimenting, and his friend next door would show us some things once and a while. We went from $20 guitars to Les Pauls. We learned Open 'E' playing, which let us play delta blues with slides. It also let us roam around cords you can't get otherwise.

The guy I play with now tries to tell me technical stuff about octaves and 6ths and diminished 5ths and all that. I know what they are, I just don't think about them while playing. All I think about is where I want to go when I want to go there. I love hitting a crisp stinging sustain during a turn-around, or rolling around on lower notes and then climbing back up as the song builds to a climax. I love taking the rhythm into a progressive jazz/rock flavor and putting harmonic dynamics with unspoken words made of notes into it. He can't play anything unless his mind is filled with the math and mechanics of music. That's sad to not be able to let your soul take you on a trip and just enjoy the ride. I miss Ron.

[shotglass]

I know what ya mean, Pete. The heart is where all the best music comes from, not the book.

[Ether_Elemental]

Thats how i feel music should be done, with your soul, to just let it flow into the instrument. thats the kinda music that makes the listener not only hear it, but really FEEL it. i guess it just sucks that i can't play. perhaps my soul valves just ain't compatible with geeetars. :what:

[Pistol Pete]

Weps, I really would like to be able to read music. It would make some things a lot easier. But, the last time I bothered to read it I was in the 8th Grade. I wanted to play the violin and concert piano when I was a kid. I never did either one and I'm sorry for not persuing it. So, now I have my guitars and imagination to bide my time. I also wanted to be an Egyptologist but, that's another story for another time.

[Dave]

After 20 years of drooling over them, I have decided that I am going to buy a Les Paul...probably a studio or a classic...not sure yet.

[shotglass]

How much is that going to run ya?

[Dave]

How much is that going to run ya?


Around $1,300 depending if I can get them to throw in a case with it

I checked out that Tabit software....pretty cool....now I can write down stuff I have created.