I generally don't choose a number of notes, I just play things, and then when I find something that I could work with, sometimes I change note durations or add/remove notes until it sounds right. There's a lot going on mentally, but it's hard to explain beyond just jamming and playing with whatever comes out.



Glad to help. Those are among the best known+easiest songs of the bands you mentioned, so that's the logical place to start.

@Apteronotus and Zodijackyl

Thanks dudes, seems jamming is the answer. I'll keep on doing that and something good should (hopefully) come out of it.

Writing something in a different time signature is hard. You have to approach it in a different way. I'm not very good with this but if you can do it more power to you. I do like 3/4 a lot and I feel more music should use it.

Was in the mood to play some intense fast stuff so played along to Sepultura's ''Troops of Doom''. My right hand...it hurts.

Anyway, does anyone have an idea how to develop a better ear? I've noticed that I'm slowly hearing things better but I'm curious if I could increase it rapidly.

I just recently started playing guitar and I'm having trouble trying to use reaper to record. I got a 3.5mm / 1/8in jack that I connect my amp to my computer. However, I don't know how to get Reaper to recognize it and record. Whenever I search I only see instructions on how to use MIDI.

If you can help, please PM me as I often forget to check back here. I get PM emails instantly though.

Inherited a Jackson Dinky with a Floyd Rose installed. Currently waiting for new locking nuts and string saddle inserts in the mail. I think string changing on this is going to be a bitch....

Harder than with a non-floating bridge, but by no means a bitch (unless it's somehow completely different from my Ibanez licensed).

Get a TremSetter! That will spare you of a lot of headaches. My Jackson RR1 is from 1997 and the past 3-4 years the weather here has been really hard on it. I have to adjust the neck almost every change of season. I can only imagine what I'd have to do if I didn't have a TremSetter installed. Probably tune the damn thing every time I pick it up.

Despite having a licensed FR, my Ibanez doesn't go out of tune in normal conditions. I'm too lazy to adjust the neck all the time, but I have to fix the intonation about twice a year.

It's worst during the summer, and the last three summers we have had "tropical heat" here in Stockholm. The humidity is bending the neck of the guitar even though it's stored in its gigbag in my closet. Really, nice to get to rehearsal and see it's bent and having to spend 20 minutes to set it up.

Intonation is just as good as it ever was.

One gets used to it....

Always tougher than a non-floating bridge.

hi, well i hope this is the right thread to put this question, well anyway i want to improve my rhythm guitar playing and also some shred stuff, mainly i play thrash metal, so i want to know which songs or exercise can help me with that
thanks in advance

Hey so I'm just wondering:

How much theory should be required to be respected as a guitarist? I've played for 2 years, and can keep up with most bands that I play along to as far as skill goes. I write a lot of music, and people(drummers that I've shown) say that I'm an amazing songwriter, but I am completely self taught and don't know any chords, scales, or any of the technical terms for theory. The other day I started taking guitar lessons officially, and my teacher wouldn't let me play in lower tunings, and treated me like a complete newbie because I don't simply play random chords and call them songs. Is it truly important that I get this "official" training? Because right now it seems somewhat pointless since I already am proficient in both songwriting, rhythm, and motor skills. Thoughts?

Oh, and for some musical background, I have played violin for 7 years already, so I think in notes rather than frets, another conflict I'm having with my new teacher.

It depends on what you think is important. I reckon you already know how to read notes since you play violin? I wouldn't say there's too much difference in terms of scales and music theory. The only difference might be that there are chords involved in guitar.

Does your teacher know how to read sheet music?

Getting a teacher is only useful when it comes to correcting bad habits like having a shitty speed picking or sweeping technique (once you teach yourself bad technique, it's hard to shake off later on) Apart from that, there's nothing wrong with the self-taught route. There are plenty of sites you can learn scales on.

I'm not sure if he knows how to read notes... I know sheet music half-way, as in, I understand the fundamentals of sheet music and everything, but it's hard for me to make out what exact note it's telling me to play, but I still can figure it out after a little bit.
The teacher teaches drums as well, and I'm thinking that since I can teach the theory for the simple guitar stuff to myself, I'll get more out of taking drum lessons from him since I've always wanted to drum, and I don't own a kit to teach myself on. I figure that I don't want to have to be a newbie again for guitar, but I'm willing to start from scratch on an instrument that I don't already know.
Thanks for the input!

Just bought an LTD F-series guitar, and while I'm searching/saving up for an amp and other necessities, I'm getting the basics down on the guitar. Any tips for a beginner. I'm starting to learn scales and chords, but where should I go after that? Also, are Line 6 amps good? My friend has one and says it's good, but I want to get some other views on it.

A very basic tip: don't ignore your right hand (or left, if you are a lefty). You'll get a lot of mileage from learning great picking technique. Work that pick, and that wrist. Play tricky rhythms, and even funky strumming. You'll thank me later

Learn songs you like that don't sound difficult with tabs, then eventually try some harder stuff by ear.

This. Learn a bunch of basic Iron Maiden or Iced Earth songs and play those triplet/gallop/chugging riffs again and again and again until its effortless for you to make each chug/gallop/triplet completely audible and clear, at any given speed. You either learn this early, or skip it first and come back to it painfully, like I am now :@

Picking is one thing I really need to work on, I'm pretty off on it. I'll look at some tabs and start working on getting them down. Might get some lessons if I can find them.

Good that you know this early. I always thought mine was fine til my new band pointed it out, and it's a bigger pain in the ass to work on it now than it would have been a year ago. Those bands I mentioned are awesome to get your right hand technique down. Work on picking clarity, and also on playing muted and unmuted notes in a riff, you can use any generic, At The Gates ripoff riff to practice this.

Okay, here's a question about picking.

What's the scoop on anchoring? (Specifically, in my case, holding my pinky down on the pick-up for stability while I pick.) It really helps me tremolo pick fast and even, but I hear that it is a bad habit. Is this so? I'm trying to practice without anchoring, but my goodness it's difficult. My 16th notes have gone from about 170 to 120 =/.

Thanks.

Why would you do that?

Why is it a bad habit? I mean, people use very individual and unorthodox ways to play. Just look at Marty Friedman's picking hand!

It's only a bad habit by "classical standards" and even then only enforced by dickhead teachers.
I say anchor away!

As far as I am concerned outcome is the only reason for technique. If nothing else suffers from it sound-wise, then play in a way that makes you comfortable and gets you the sound you want. If you are using a ton of force to hold your hand in position with just your pinky that could be a problem but I doubt that is the case.

Anybody else have weird difficulties/inconsistencies with their playing? For example, I have a lot of trouble doing descending diminished sweeps, but I can do the ascending ones just fine. The picking motion Is the same for both so it's strange.

I can't really alternate pick. I use downpicking for almost everything except for triplets and of course 32nd notes.
It feels like I'm cheating if I play alternate picking when I play fast rhythm.

That's silly. But you must be quite the downpicker (or in a doom metal band) if downpicking is all you do.

Nah, it's just a habit I guess. My bassplayer who is a also the guitarist in http://www.myspace.com/talionthrash
is even worse! He downpicks absolutely everything except triplets and tremolo riffs.

And for the record, I don't play slow stuff.

You can check out most my stuff (except for Hostile Reaction, where I never recorded anything) here: http://www.phidion.st

As long as you get no problems with your arm. For me alternate picking (or economy picking) came from necessity. We had very long rehearsals at first, and I also practiced at home quite a bit.

No problems. I do make exceptions when it actually feels more natural to alternate pick. I've been doing this, playing in bands since 1998 so it's nothing that gives me any trouble.

Forgot to mention that the reason I started downpicking everything was because I read that both Scott Ian and Jason Hetfield downpicked most of their rhythm guitars, so it sounded logical to do that just to fatten up your tone.

I'm having a few problems with palm-muting. I always thought I had it down but my vocalist(an ex-guitar player) keeps insisting it can be MUCH better. It's not that I am completely unable to palm-mute but it just doesn't sound "heavy" enough, for lack of a more suitable term. I imagined I wasn't hitting the strings hard enough but apparently that isn't the problem. Any tips on how to rectify this?

Experiment with different hand placements. Also, palm muting a single string can only sound so heavy. Try doing it with power chords or tritone chords.

It also depends on the amount of distortion you can get from your amp and the level of output of your pickups. E-standard can only sound so heavy, too. The really heavy-sounding palm mutes in metal and metalcore are at least as low as drop-C. That said it's not desirable to downtune just to optimise the heaviness of chugs. I picked C-standard for a multitude of reasons.

There are positives and negatives with tuning to low, using to much gain, etc. If you're playing with a second guitarist, you will find that you don't need to use as much gain as when you're playing alone.

Try different things. Eventually you will find the ultimate palm mute chug sound!

Just got my guitar back in working order. Newby here.
Wondering what are some things I should start doing ASAP. From reading the earlier posts I see that learning how to pick well is important but was wondering what else.

Also, good metal songs to start learning?

Learn how to use your pinky and work up its strenght.

My first songs were Metallica - Orion, Agalloch - The Lodge and Black Sabbath - A National Acrobat (the first couple of riffs). Worked for me quite well. I recommend finding songs that implement some more unorthodox chords than merely the basic minors, majors and 7s. It's more important to learn barré chords than open chords, and though you should know how to play the basic open chords, don't stop there. Many, many chords (even basic ones like Bm) can only really be played with barré. I second pinky strength.

I have smallish hands, so I learned to use pinky where most guitarists use ring finger (even basic 5ths). When playing rhythm, good use of pinky is very important. Like here, sliding the pinky a bit can really make simple rhythm guitar sound a lot more exciting:
E
B 7 7 7 7 9 9 9 9
G
D 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7
A 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5
E

The nut on my Epiphone G400 broke the other day. I saw this as an opportunity to upgrade because I'm getting sick of that thing. My price limit is very low, around the 400-500$ range.
I play in a post rock, depressive rock, black metal style and I've always loved the look of Gibsons.
This is my first choice:
http://www.rondomusic.com/al3100tribalgreen.html

I've heard good things about Jackson high end guitars but I haven't heard if their low end have a similar price to quality ratio, are they any good?

Lastly I've heard that if you can't get a fantastic guitar, you might as well keep the one you have. Do you think I should just repair my Epiphone?

Any suggestions would be most welcome.