I cant play

well, yes, i cant play chord progressions nor can i improvise to them, this one particular field i seem to be lacking greatly.

So back to learning chord theory, well, in even more detail this time. So yea, back to square one almost, no point of fast shredding if i cant use them in solos.

.11 gauges are a bitch in E tuning.

Apparently i have an angry vibe to my playing when i improvise. so gonna have to work on that too, sigh.

Too tired to write so much, maybe next time. back to more practice.

A new inspiration

Well i just went thru nearly a whole month of nonstop gaming. AKA the MESA gamefest 2011. Literally nonstop day and night practice and matches. Well i asked for it really, i participated in nearly every damned game...but hey, at least we got best clan award and i got two golds personally, so yea, it was worth it!

Sadly though no prize money this year so looks like my dream axe is gonna have to wait some more... ESP finally released a 7 string guitar with a floyd rose...literally the perfect axe for me O_O. Its got everything i want in terms of features. Id have to ask someone to custom design an axe for me to top it O_O. Still no cash so gonna have to wait >.<

Ortho finally gave me his axe to fix. His bluebird :P, a yamaha super strat, bolt on, 24 fret alder body,maple neck and rosewood fingerboard. It also came with a floyd rose so it was a good chance to play arnd with a whammy bar xD. The poor thing had thru quite a beating, but me and dad managed to bring it back into playable condition. the frets were beyond our repairing skills (they had grooves where the strings touched,clearly a noob was playing this axe before me) as that wud require an actual guitar luthier to somehow take off the fretboard or replace the neck as a whole.

Now here is where the important part comes in, see bluebirds fretboard is a lil less round compared to kinki and the floyd rose had a much flatter string height arrangement. I cud literally just sweep my pick across the strings and id be sure it made perfect contact every damn time O_O. It was so damn easy....no wonder those pro players look like they are just moving their hand up and down >.<. So there it was. the reason i cudnt sweep 5 and 6ers that well. It was my guitars flaw.

So i practiced a bit on bluebird, really got the feel of how the arpeggios shud flow. and then applied it to kinki. I tried to keep as little contact from pick and string as possible, it reduces pick attack so it immediately sounded smoother too. usually id hit the strings on the side and my sweeps were more like i was just muscling my way across...yes my arm actually got cramps after a few hours of that :P

Now ive adjusted it so me pick just scraps off from the top of the strings...this was basically how i did 3 string arpeggios before anyways. But i reapplied it when i sweep across the coiled strings. Now i can sweep across 5 and 3s at almost the same speed. Very pleased indeed ^_^. Now what i have to focus on is the pick height as it glides across rather than the force i apply to the pick when i muscled across before (cos diff strings provide diff resistance ). Sometimes i miss the strings but with practice that problem can be fixed ^_^. And i believe the .11 gauges where never meant for me, just too thick, im going back to thinner ones, they offer more ease in picking and sweep and ofcos since they are more flexible u can be more expressive XD.

6 still remains an issue simply becos it makes a THUNK sound when i hit the six as i go up O_O. I am still not exactly sure why it happens but maybe its cos i slam the string too hard when i fret it with my left hand. Or maybe my pick hits it too hard. see .11 gauge is meant for drop tunings but i am using D standard right now so the 6th is a lil loose, maybe that's why. Not sure but some days the sweep sounds like it shud...some days then the prob is i don't know what exactly i did to make it sound good O_O... sigh its in these times i wish i had a good teacher...but i spose only a few ppl here wud find arpeggio shredding appealing in the first place. Its one thing to hear it and think its cool, but totally another to find it so cool u wanna play it and actually pull it off.

But i feel im on the right path, i feel like im just a few steps away from mastering arpeggios O_O. Just a few more weeks... a few more! xD

Oh yea i went back to my old alice pick. But i smoothed the faces of it with sand paper, its normal design is to have a bulge that says alice.. so i shaved them both sides off and make it more like a traditional pick, i smoothed the edges just a lil to remove the jagged edges, the result of my older more unrefined playing. With the sandpapering the pick had a kind of roughness and texture that i kinda dig, looks better and its easier to hold on to now too. The best thing abt this pick is how the tip still remains the same as when i bought it, the dunlop stubby wore of in a matter of weeks. Amazing how some random chinease company makes more rugged picks compared to the world leader of it :P. Well Ultex wud be more resistant but it has a crappy shape so i don't care x].

Now im gonna try focusing more on fast alternate picking some more as i think im always giving my practice time to sweeps (hey i cant help it they sound sick x] ). My palm muting got a bit better lately so i think it shud make my life easier for shreds.

Right then, lot has been said, that's it for now, oh and for all the readers who just happened to be reading this blog besides me, happy new year too ^_^.

.11 gauge

I got a thicker gauge this time upon recommendation from the music shop, these days i like to play COB a lot so i use drop C# tuning and then shift it down to drop C using the pitch shifter in guitar rig. .10 had a super flappy upper string so they said the .11 gauge set wud be better. True that, it sounded more closely to the COB sound. I first tried C tuning but it was still too flappy, so went up to C# and the rest is guitar rig xD.

Since my guitar is full body mahogany it made a pretty beefy and thick sound in this tuning, a bit too much really, had to tone down the bass setting on guitar rig, it still doesn't sound as sharp as i want it to but i guess its the pickups fault at this point, they are rather dull.

With this new gauge, i dunno, it doesn't seem any harder to keep it at C# (basically D# but with the lowest string tuned down to C#) compared to gauge .10. Sure the thin strings are harder to control as i please, and also sounds a lil, i dunno, not ringy i spose is the right word. Also i seem to be making a nintendo sorta sound when i do arpeggios on the higher frets :P, it was making that kinda sound before but now its more so.

But the improvement i get from the thick string sounds pretty much makes up for that really, and since my fingers got tougher it doesn't seem any much harder to play with this level of tension though my fingers do seem to get tired a bit faster.But well i had just installed them anyways so i guess its just a matter of getting used to it.

I do believe i cannot get the sound i want at this tuning without better pickups, its muddy as anything right now.

Also since i just installed a fresh batch i noticed sure the sound is a lot cleaner but guitar rig still makes a slight fuzz sound on the thicker strings.. maybe i didn't do the settings right, maybe i put too much gain, i cant be sure but its kinda annoying for me personally though i spose everyone else wud just shrug it off and say that's how a guitar sounds like :P

Next ive raised the action just a little bit higher than i need to, i noticed at bare minimum the strings makes a very minute buzz sound in all the frets... and it seems harder to palm mute as well, i raised it just a lil bit more and the sound suddenly cleaned up and palm muting got a lil more natural, as in i didn't have to concentrate on how i was doing the muting. I dont feel like going too high cos that makes playing rather uncomfortable, not difficult, just doesn't feel right

I may have mentioned before the guitar pick needs to be suited to the guitar string tension in order to play comfortably. I used my old delrin .4 pick and even when its the flappiest pick i have it was still easy enuf to do arpeggios with this new gauge set. interesting indeed but i still prefer my stubby.

lastly it looks like i may have found the second guitar i was looking to buy. A friend is selling his Jackson Rhoads RR3 for a reasonable price. The specs are good actually.

Pros:
1) its made from alder and got a maple neck so its gonna have a different sound and feel to it than my kinki so wud love to try that out

2) Its got a floyd rose bridge and thats good cos i was looking for a guitar with a tremolo

3) Its got proper pickups by seymour duncan XD

4) its color and shape is like... the word im looking for is in between awesome and awesome :P

Cons:
1) Its not THAT reasonable a price considering its a used guitar

2) As cool as the Rhoads looks its not the most comfy guitar to play with

3) It doesn't have 24 frets for gods sake O_O, this is pretty much a blow in the nards if u wanna play most modern metal

4) Too many controls and awkwardly placed to be honest, I don't really need two volume knobs and a tone knob, i always have the tone at full (hey it maybe a dumb idea for some ppl but i just like the biting sound it makes okay? O_O ), and the pickup switch is placed in between all that D:

5) horrible bolt on joint makes playing the 18 and higher frets really really hard...well it looks like its gonna be hard i haven't played it yet ._.

6) I prefer the ESP LTD V401DX over the RR3 in terms of looks, specs and ofcos im a huge ESP fan, all my fav guitar players use esps and ive heard only good things about even their low end guitars

7) A lot of ppl in Maldives owns jackson brand guitars and thinks they are awesome and blah...really wud prefer to have something different and unique, like my current guitar, ive not seen one person who owns my axe or even a metallic gray colored guitar for that matter :P. Id hate to go up on stage and ppl go ooh he owns a jackson rhoads too!, that's why he sounds so great!...bleh.

But it really just comes down to what it feels and sounds like in my hands, if the fabled compound radius neck that Jackson regards as its trademark is as great as they claim this might just be what im getting as my 6 string trem guitar.

Im not sure though, the playability sure looks horrible but cant tell for sure till i actually play it :P, it wud be pretty hard to beat the comfort of kinki though. Only something like the Roukangas hellcat or ESP M300 could give me more room to reach for the highest frets.

And anyways there are only two more guitars i ever want to buy, one 6 string with trem, the other is a 7 string with a trem, that wud pretty much cover anything i want to play. Kinki is great as non trem guitars are said to sound superior to floating trem guitars but ill only confirm that after i play a trem guitar myself.

As for tunings i think id have all my guitars at D# tuning and drop tune now and then. In D# all i have to do is either pitch shift one half step up or down and that pretty much covers all of the stuff i want to play, the rest can be done on the 7 string which is also going to be at D#.

Guess thats all there is to say at this moment, and here is wishing they wud bring ernie ball hybrid sets already! *waves angry fist*

Dunlop again!

Yep i heard there were some Ultexs in town, went there and i found a pick that i prefer over it. Dunlop stubby 1.0 mm :D. A true successor to my old Alice, less noise and more comfy to grip. Also it is just a lil less rounded so it seems easier to sweep with this pick

Its been at least two weeks since i got this pick along with the dunlop triangle. I bought that one simply becos it looks cool xD.

Now my strings have really worn and are showing the effects of it. Cant play a damn thing without background noise.

Speaking of noise now that i am able to play 6 string arpeggios properly and somewhat at speed, i observed a few things

1) I have a rather odd way of learning new licks or riffs, first id play it till i get the fingering right at slow speed, then immediately attempt to play it fast and struggle for a long time until i play it smoothly and cleanly, and right after that i attempt to play it at hyper speed, and when i eventually do get there i want to learn a more advanced version of it._. Its not really voluntary, this same pattern has been repeating ever since i started playing guitar in the first place.

This is not exactly the best way to learn techniques but its just how i roll *shrugs*

2) Palm muting is even harder with six string arpeggios. I have this problem of raising my right hand up so much when i sweep across the thick strings that i do not maintain contact on the strings with my palm, its just easier for me to sweep if i raise my hand to that position just above the strings, guess its easier to apply more and constant force to the pick, which is crucial to get a smooth sweep >.<. The issue is as my left hand fingers leave the thin strings to go for the thicker ones there is nothing to mute those strings thus make a small hum which is a bitch when i play at higher distortion levels.

3) my thickest string, makes a totally unrelated sound compared to the other strings, i didn't notice this until i realized i was sweeping perfectly and the thick string still makes a 'thunk' sound which sounds almost comical compared to the rest of the strings played. I cant tell for sure if that is the sound that string is supposed to make, or its an issue with my pickups, guitar rig or guitar itself. But i do know that ppl like jeff loomis who do a lot of 6 string stuff have a custom gauge set and the thickest string they use is far far higher a gauge compared to the standard gauge sets sold in shops, for example jeff used .10 on his older 25.5" scale guitars but where the 6th should be a 46 he used a 52 as i remember. Maybe it is to address this thunk sound and ofcos to get a tighter riff sound.

With those things observed i did notice my song learning speed has increased dramatically, before id have trouble just syncing the left and right hand if it was a new song. Now its like, a few days practicing and i can get the song dead on xD. Guess the guitar has stopped being such a new thing to me i spose. Not like ive been sucking in theory so much that i know how phrases are supposed to go without really bothering about what it says on the tabs. But i can hear and imagine the song and what im supposed to play and what does what on the guitar more i spose. Its not like i have reached the "can tab stuff by ear" level just yet O_O, hell i dunno how ppl do that, its amazing in my opinion O_O. But i spose its not THAT hard or its a gift or something...when someone talks nearly anyone can copy the accent simply by listening, guess i am not that in touch with the instrument just yet. Or rather, im not too sharp in the language of the guitar :P

One of my good friends, i showed him no boundaries by Michael Angelo Batio, and just by listening he managed to figure out the tabs real time...though he could not keep up to speed he could definitely tell what exactly Batio was doing, i was pretty much shocked for words O_O. Well i spose there is nothing much else to write here, besides maybe how gamefest is probably gonna suck away whats left of my practice time, commitments are such a bitch. Also, note to self, never keep a string set on for this long...its just bleargh to be blunt >.<

Also one last note, tuned back down to Eb simply becos i have no trouble sweeping in that tuning now and its just so much easier to do vibrato in this tuning XD

Well back to practice, lots to do, so very little time.

Its E standard nao!

Yep, just for the heck of it i tuned all the way up to standard tuning. And i remember very clearly the first time i tuned up to E on gauge 10 strings like two months ago, it was literally incompatible with me back then D:. Just way waaay too tight.

Now, its the best tension i found to play any arpeggios. The strings do not budge but a little and my pick can slide across them with greater ease. Kinda reduces the slight jolts i make to my fingers while sweeping. Less jolts means i can play faster and the sound is smoother and closer to what it should sound as played by a computerized guitar simulator (yes i compete with the machine! )

Its only been a few days but i have no intention of going back to eb tuning. this is clearly more suited to me right now. Apparently John Petrucci uses standard gauge 10 Ernie ball strings for his E tuning guitars as well. Well he is one of the most articulate shredders Ive ever heard so i can see how he gets his sound.

It does limit what kinda music i can play now that its on E standard, most neo classical stuff like malmsteen or galneryus are in eb after all. Well doesn't matter that's what pitch shifters are for, right now all i want is to master guitar technique rather than actually play songs mm.

Next thing, i adjusted the string heights on my bridge individually by grinding off bits of the metal pivot with a scissor. the aim here is to make all the strings rest in a line. Right now its in a curve like the fretboard radius. Not exactly suitable. The strings are comfy for sweeping if the thickest string is highest height and descending in height until the thinnest one is lowest, in a angled line.But for now just adjusted the third thin string. It has already proved to aid my 5 string sweeps. ^_^

And finally today i finally got my hands on a dunlop ultex sharp pick O_O. well it's my cousin's really. Anyhow, its too pointy, Ive gotten too used to playing on a more tear drop shaped pick. Ultex did have better tone as it was less scratchy and felt nicer to the tough and gripped better too. Rhythm playing was better too. I could actually feel the coils on the thick strings O_O. Also alternate picking was slightly better sounding too. The only thing difficult was sweep picking which i rely on the alice picks rounder shape to make contact on the guitar.

It wud seem i need to get the wider ultex pick or syu's signature pick. Only those two seem to be able to properly replace my current one. My current is an Alice brand (its Chinese O_O ) 1 mm pick with a pointy tip and rounder sides. I have to smooth out the edges with sandpaper now and then since notches form very easily O_O. It needs to be replaced but so far non seems better.

Thats it for now back to practice.

All 6 strings

Yeap today i have begun playing 6 string arpeggios. I managed to get the hang of it after like an hour or so of it. Also have tuned the guitar back to Eb, this time its staying that way. I find the thick strings way waaay too loose to play 6 string arpeggios in D. Its necessary.

Not really a prob my fingers have gotten stronger and Eb actually feels better on the picking hand,since i employ a smoother and lighter touch now. Stiff strings are indeed dandy xD.

Speaking of strings it looks like my current set is wearing down finally. Its making odd high frequency noises and i cant hold on to a note without this buzzing getting in the way almost completely. oh well, its been a while anyways. In my electric guitar playing lifetime this would be the third string set id be buying. And already i am playing 6 string arpeggios at moderate speed and shredding the 3s. Cant say im not pleased with these results ^_^.

Im gonna master my current picking style. Its called economy picking. Kinda like a morphing of sweep picking used for arpeggios and alternate picking used for shredding. Economy picking is the one and only right hand picking technique one would ever need to actually learn. Rhythm playing in my opinion is something that comes to someone naturally. Master economy picking and shredding suddenly wont look like its something only a gifted few can hope to do. My picking is not perfect just yet. Sure i do sweep pick when changing strings but not all the time, my picking hand is "impatient" and goes to the right position faster than the left hand and i end up doing a upstroke when i move down a string or vice versa. Well i have a lifetime left to perfect it but right now my speed is improving on a daily basis and that's more than enough for me xD.

On other things found out how jeff loomis and buckethead gets their rather techno like guitar tone in some of their solos. A synthesizer. And guitar rig has a fairly simple yet capable one O_O. Ive only begun tweaking with it but its one fun toy xD

Inconsistency

This is becoming a habit now, one day i can play arpeggios perfectly, the following day i totally screw it up O_O. I traced down this randomness to my picking hand...to go even further the exact way i hold the pick. Depends on how warmed up my hand is and how the pick is held i can either rip thru arpeggios and shreds or keep snagging at notes over and over in a sloppy messy heap of rubbish O_O. Ive played nearly all day, till i figured which position is perfect for me. The way i hold is that the pick is slightly at an angle that points towards the bridge of the guitar. The stiffest area of my thumb tip at the line of pick that hits the string.

Hard to describe in words. really shud put a photo but in no real mood for that :P. Also how i make contact with the string is also vital O_O. I can play the fastest when i tap the string, even when sweep picking.

Have further refined my picking really. Ive gotten even faster than ever before in both alternate picking and sweeping. And just for amusement i put some lubricant on the part of the strings that the pick comes into contact with, in my case its just behind the neck pickup. It actually reduces the scratchy sound and helps to really glide the pick on the strings.

Since ive further lightened my picking style, i needed more sensitivity from my guitar setup. So increased the height of the pickups. Now it makes quite a lot of noise when i play with my yamaha amp. But with guitar rig its still just as smooth and even more responsive to my picking and also legato playing.

Right now im not really sure how long it would take to really get fast picking techniques under my fingers (literally :P ). But its nice to see a steady improvement from day to day even with the occasional retardation >.<. I might as well start 6 strings now, 5 strings I am tearing thru really.

The real fun can begin when i get proper pickups honestly, i have to squeeze my rig and guitar to get the right amount of sensitivity without blowing up the guitar tone. If i upped the gain or overdrive any further the single notes break up O_O.

Oh and also learning chord playing now. Thats the area i lack most in right now, in my rush to gain lead guitar technique ive really neglected that part of guitar playing. So really going back to it. Its a few times easier to play chords now than when i started since my fingers got faster and far more flexible than before. Not to mention overall stamina. I can play all day now without signs of cramping up.

Well that being said, back to practice