Into Guitar? Then Download This FREE New Album From Buckethead

mysterioustranger
reply to post by CardiffGiant

 

Your opinion well taken. Another example of a "showy" shredder with amazing dexterity is Michael Anglo Batio.

He plays two guitars (both on one guitar with one neck to the right, another neck to the left) in harmony left and right at the same time, double harmony leads. He then switches them right to left and vice versa..only upside down....and does the same thing. Lots of amazing stuff.

I mention him because he's an incredible speedy schredder with one fretboard...but can do it in two directions with two hands playing 2 different parts in harmony...at the same time, flip them around...and do it that way as well.

Like him or not, with technical proficiency, dexterity, and ambidextrous accuracy...thats talent.

i agree 100%. ive seen him before. thats a good example for me to talk about because i dont like him at all but damn, the guy can do some amazing things. he fits in the category of musicians i would rather watch than listen to.

reply to post by CardiffGiant

scales are the base of the songs.

Tunes are the basis of songs.

Continuing the lesson: let's look a little harder at that altered C major scale you mentioned. Okay, so you can play it over an Fminor chord. Well, what else would you use when playing Cole Porter's 'Ev'ry Time You Say Goodbye' in A minor? Or 'I've Been Loving You Too Long' by Otis Redding in C major? Or 'Don't Look Back in Anger by Oasis, which is also in C major? Or 'Nobody Home' by Pink Floyd? Or ten thousand songs that use the IVmaj-IVmin modulation in the key of C or A minor? It's a hoary old songwriter's trick, that modulation, and every experienced muso is familiar with it.

Next: notice that two of the chords you can make out of those notes are E major and E7. No doubt you're familiar with the bog-standard folk/heavy rock chord progression VI-V-!V-III7 — as used in Deep Purple's 'Soldier of Fortune' and a million other power ballads. Well, what are you going to play over that III7 termination in the key of A minor (that is, the relative minor of C major)? Your four most obvious choices are E, B, D... and G#. Does that look familiar to you?

Do you begin to understand how simple Buckethead's vaunted 'complexity' actually is?

Music is not a form of athletics or gymnastics. It's not a competition to see who can twiddle their fingers faster or do the most complicated stunts. Guitar players who really have some music in them soon put such childish nonsense behind them; if someone is still trying to impress people with their sweep picking and their superfast Mixolydian runs much past the age of 23, you can safely write them off as musicians. The people to pity are the Satrianis and Vais and Malmsteens and Bucketheads of this world, who grew old as human beings without growing up as musicians. Sure, they make a living, they have their fans, but who remembers their tunes even five minutes after they've been played? And who's going to remember them even five years after they're dead?

I wish you luck in your onward quest for your muse, but getting hung up on technique and theory is a hiding to nowhere.

reply to post by CardiffGiant

in your opinion, why do you think he was reguarded as such a good guitarist?

I don't think anyone regards him as a 'good guitarist'. He was the best guitarist for the Ramones.

That said, his playing is punchy, impactful, functional, elegantly minimal, impeccably timed and instantly recognisable.

reply to post by Astyanax


i am not hung up on technique or theory. this entire conversation started for me just wanting people to give players like satch, bucket respect. i just wanted their technique to be recognized.

my favorite player is frank zappa. i think he had the technique and the knowledge of music to compose and play some of the most beautiful music ever heard. not even to mention he could improvise his ass off. i love that.

my favorite types of players are like him. guys that have that knowledge of music and can just take it and drift off.
zappa
anastasio
trucks
duane allman
those are the guys that i dig the most.

i dont know why 'most' guitarists that have the extensive theory knowledge and the techniques tend to lean towards shred. do you know why? i was talking to my wife about that earlier.
someone mentioned batio earlier. he has a degree in music theory and composition and look what he plays.
why is that?

i have to keep saying, as much as i like the guys mentioned earlier, i love jack white, dan aeurbach... love them and their whole sound.

i was listening to hellhound on my trail and little queen of spades a little while ago.

right now i am on a matisyahu kick. not for the guitar obviously.

i love this guy too. super chikan
he's an old blues guy. plays guitars made out of cigar boxes and even a shotgun. i love him

www.youtube.com...

reply to post by CardiffGiant

i am not hung up on technique or theory.

I'd still like to read your response to some of the technical and theory points I made. So I can see just what sort of musician/guitar player I'm dealing with.

i dont know why 'most' guitarists that have the extensive theory knowledge and the techniques tend to lean towards shred.

Do they? I would have said most of them leaned towards jazz.

Astyanax
reply to post by CardiffGiant

 

i am not hung up on technique or theory.

I'd still like to read your response to some of the technical and theory points I made. So I can see just what sort of musician/guitar player I'm dealing with.

i dont know why 'most' guitarists that have the extensive theory knowledge and the techniques tend to lean towards shred.

Do they? I would have said most of them leaned towards jazz.

yeah, youre right about jazz. i love jazz/jazz fusion. when talking about guitar though i tend to block those genres out. the conversation is usually about rock.
i suppose i should have said the rock guitarists like that tend to lean towards shred.

i have not responded to the points you have made because most of it is over my head. i personally do not know a lot of the theory behind it. i have studied it for a long time but between work and family i never got very far.
you want to know the kind of musician?
well, im the kind that can not play very well. i would say i am/was an average player. i say was because in marh i had an accident at work and my ring finger got amputated and my middle finger got ripped up. i cant play anymore. i have lots of pain and nerve damage in my hand and finger tips.

when i was still playing though i made the critical mistake of always trying to play things that were beyond me. i didnt want to play billy joe or joey ramone stuff. i wanted to play frank zappa or alan holdsworth and it didnt happen.
i had a lot of white stripes and tenacious d songs under my belt.
i always knew what i wanted to play but never could apply it.

i want to play though. a friend of mine that worked at the foundry with me has a wood working shop. he's a luthier. has a cnc mill.. the whole deal.

i think i am going to have him make me a nice body for a diddley bow after i figure out what shape i want.
im just now putting it together in my head. what kind of wood i want. i want a cool design for the body.
i can play a diddley bow with my hand messed up.
i know they are usually home made kind of shabby but i want a nice one.
i always see them with single coil pickups. do you think a soap bar would work? i dont see why not.

reply to post by CardiffGiant

Your story makes me sad, but there is hope. Or, at least, inspiration...



Dont give up. If it means enough to you (and our conversation tells me it does), you'll overcome that tragic accident.

i personally do not know a lot of the theory

Well, don't let that be a second handicap. If you have music in you, you don't need an atom of theory to get it out.

If you're not completely unable to pick up a guitar, here are a few things to try.

1. Try to work out the melodies of songs and other pieces of music you like. Not the solo parts, just the tunes. If you've spent most of your musical life practising scales and 'hot licks' this may be surprisingly hard at first, because your brain isn't accustomed to thinking in musical intervals, which is what tunes are made up of. It will get sharper as you go on. And you can help that process along if you

2. Do some conscious interval training — that is, learning to recognise the intervals between notes by ear. Get someone else to play the notes for you on an instrument, or go to a web site like this one. Never mind about learning the names of the intervals (though it helps); just learn the sounds, and where to find the notes on the fingerboard of your axe. You don't need to know that F and G# are a minor third apart; you just need to know how the two notes sound together (or in succession), and where to find them on the fretboard.

i made the critical mistake of always trying to play things that were beyond me.

That's not a 'critical mistake'; that's how you get better. When you first picked up a guitar, everything was beyond you — but you learned, didn't you? We all try to bite off more than we can chew at first. It's not a crime.

So how to overcome the discouragement that came out of that experience? Here's the next tip:

3. Remember the music that means the most to you, and play that. Songs your mother sang to you as she dandled you on your knee. Music that scared you or made you cry when you were in first grade. The theme tunes to TV programmes you loved to watch as a kid. The songs that soundtracked your first date, your first kiss, your first experience of sex. Play those, and you can't help but infuse them with energy and emotion — even if the emotion is bitterness or embarrassment or sarcasm or contempt.

i can play a diddley bow with my hand messed up.

You mentioned Allman and Trucks earlier. Why not learn to play slide guitar instead?

i thought about trying to slide but its not going to be possible right now. my fingers are hypersensative to pain. i could probably put a slide over my index finger but thats it. i dont think that would work.
my middle and ring fingers are permanently messed up.
i can't let fabric touch my fingers most of the time because it hurts. cant stick my left hand in my pocket kind of thing.
it sucks because i love to play.

i figure i can learn to play the diddley bow.

its either the diddley bow or a 13 string pedal steel like robert randolph plays. hahah
i wish

Hey just checking back into the thread been a crazy week. Interesting to see my OP turn into a chat on guitarists. To recap: It was to give a heads-up to let folks know there was a free, LEGAL download of a new release by what I consider to be a noteworthy (pun intended) artist.

Buckethead is a strange one, no "guitar face" while playing, no rockstar poses. He does his performance art in between songs: nun chucks, robot dance, and gory mask puppetry. He has a segment where at some point in every show, he exchanges toys with the audience members.

He releases music on his own website, Buckethead Pikes. He pre-releases autographed "Limited Editions" which are usually bought by his hardcore fans. He has issued a large volume of albums this year, a non-touring year. There is a wide spectrum of genres in his back catalogue, much worth checking out.

I give him credit. Those of you that saw his backyard performance as a teenager take note: He still uses that persona, and it is still providing him with income revenue. How many of us can record music, post it for sale either as a download or physical CD on the internet, and live on that? We all know that music piracy is still going on, and if you're not a major touring artist it's pretty hard for the rest to make a living, much less a profit. All the guitarists listed in this thread are great, every one of them. They all became known in a pre-internet world. I'm very impressed (and not surprised) with the musical knowledge people have here on ATS.

Next time, I'll put up a "Great Guitarists" thread, and hopefully that will be just as informative as what's in this one. Kinda sucks that it had to come out as war in derailed thread.

Hopefully, some of you will actually download the album, LISTEN to it, and check back in here with your opinion. That would be worthwhile reading.