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
Saturday, October 30, 2010
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
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
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
Friday, October 15, 2010
Back to D
No sooner i changed to Eb, i disliked it ._. . Well its too tight to play arpeggios on but the thick strings felt easier to play and sounded better.
Well if they bring ernie ball bottom heavy hybrid set that would be ideal for me now, then i can tune to D and still have stiff coiled strings.
So back to D it is. And at first I was wondering why i cudnt play arpeggios like i cud just the other day. I thought maybe the strings gave way already, but that cant possibly be D: . And like after days and days of struggling with it i like accidently held my pick the way i used to when i played it properly. To an angle and a bit behind the tip of my thumb. Most important i don't move my entire palm up and down the strings to make the sweep motion, i kinda twiddle my thumb up and down for that, the twiddling motion also changes the pick angle, much like how a wood carver would make a spherical hole on the wood.Or like the motion one would use to apply crumpy on bread :P
Ive never really seen anyone else play like this, maybe this is a flawed way of going about it. Doesn't matter to me at this stage. It brings out the sound i want from the arpeggio itself, smooth, fluid, clear and actually less scratchy noises the pick makes upon contact with the string. This sound is almost overpowering when i sweep up and down while keeping the pick in a fixed angle.
I know for a fact the scratchy sound is so intense due to the material my pick is made off, well its already bad enough i cant use any other pick to play arpeggios at speed. Its a pain they wouldn't bring dunlop picks that are stiff and pointed like my alice. >.>
Well today I did learn to play arpeggios all over again almost since i had to recall and really understand what i was doing with both hands so i wouldn't forget again. After a few hours of really polishing i played much better than i ever had. It was perfect now. So now heading for the 5 string arpeggios XD
Well if they bring ernie ball bottom heavy hybrid set that would be ideal for me now, then i can tune to D and still have stiff coiled strings.
So back to D it is. And at first I was wondering why i cudnt play arpeggios like i cud just the other day. I thought maybe the strings gave way already, but that cant possibly be D: . And like after days and days of struggling with it i like accidently held my pick the way i used to when i played it properly. To an angle and a bit behind the tip of my thumb. Most important i don't move my entire palm up and down the strings to make the sweep motion, i kinda twiddle my thumb up and down for that, the twiddling motion also changes the pick angle, much like how a wood carver would make a spherical hole on the wood.Or like the motion one would use to apply crumpy on bread :P
Ive never really seen anyone else play like this, maybe this is a flawed way of going about it. Doesn't matter to me at this stage. It brings out the sound i want from the arpeggio itself, smooth, fluid, clear and actually less scratchy noises the pick makes upon contact with the string. This sound is almost overpowering when i sweep up and down while keeping the pick in a fixed angle.
I know for a fact the scratchy sound is so intense due to the material my pick is made off, well its already bad enough i cant use any other pick to play arpeggios at speed. Its a pain they wouldn't bring dunlop picks that are stiff and pointed like my alice. >.>
Well today I did learn to play arpeggios all over again almost since i had to recall and really understand what i was doing with both hands so i wouldn't forget again. After a few hours of really polishing i played much better than i ever had. It was perfect now. So now heading for the 5 string arpeggios XD
Monday, October 11, 2010
Kitty is outta the bag
So like two nights back a friend said please, so i just had to show her..right did warn her about the blah blah nature and well she did appreciate that it did serve its function well, a journal to myself thanks :P
And the day after a friend searched Kinki guitar blog on google and got to this blog anyways O_O. Karma u didn't get me this time :P. So yea its outta the bag, so i told my bestie as well.
so yea cats outta the bag, nothing much to see here anyways, but i took a read of my blog from the bottom to here.
Hmm yes past jin was a total noob at guitar, he thought most ppl are experts and most guitars are fantastic. He wasn't totally wrong, just that he didn't see the stuff i see now.My mindset from then and now are rather different.
My favorite music has also changed over this past year too, children of bodom is still my fav but there are many more now, not just Scandinavian metal x].
As for a summary of my guitar playing so far. Well, been playing acoustic since last year December ish. And electric guitar since august. Not much time really, but I'm not a rookie no more. Obviously my theory is still terrible but i do believe my technique is getting there ^_^.
I used to play gauge 9 strings on e tuning. Now i play Eb tuning with gauge 10 partly because of the lack of availability for gauge 9 but I'm very comfy with this setup. Before my gauge 10 would be D tuning since the tension was too high in higher tunings.
At the very beginning it hurt almost everywhere on the hand and my arm would cramp, right now it just hurts at rather odd lines along my forearm and the palm of my hands. Arpeggios are weird like that i suppose. Also the muscles along the elbows also seems to be strained as well. Well i am new to this so my body has yet to even physically develop enough to keep up with my exercises. It feels like gym all over again really :P
As for the mental side, Ive learned only a few scales and i don't really intend to learn more theory unless need calls for it. Main thing right now is to develop technique and thats being going at a very suitable rate of learning.
The internet has been more or the less the only source of learning for me, youtube vids of players demonstrating their magic and sites made by well wishing ppl who dump all this info freely. Only about a percent or so from real life friends.
Ive gone through lots of picks, strings, amp and effects setups and guitar adjustments and i think I'm finally getting to the near perfect settings for myself. The rest is for me to keep going forward, i still have a way to go.
My other commitments do have a way of totally getting in the way of practices but well that's life for you. Not a kid anymore where u can spend all day doing anything you want.
For everyone reading so far. Its still just me blabbing about guitars right now. But you all are more than welcome to waste your time reading it though :P.
That's it for now, back to practice :3
And the day after a friend searched Kinki guitar blog on google and got to this blog anyways O_O. Karma u didn't get me this time :P. So yea its outta the bag, so i told my bestie as well.
so yea cats outta the bag, nothing much to see here anyways, but i took a read of my blog from the bottom to here.
Hmm yes past jin was a total noob at guitar, he thought most ppl are experts and most guitars are fantastic. He wasn't totally wrong, just that he didn't see the stuff i see now.My mindset from then and now are rather different.
My favorite music has also changed over this past year too, children of bodom is still my fav but there are many more now, not just Scandinavian metal x].
As for a summary of my guitar playing so far. Well, been playing acoustic since last year December ish. And electric guitar since august. Not much time really, but I'm not a rookie no more. Obviously my theory is still terrible but i do believe my technique is getting there ^_^.
I used to play gauge 9 strings on e tuning. Now i play Eb tuning with gauge 10 partly because of the lack of availability for gauge 9 but I'm very comfy with this setup. Before my gauge 10 would be D tuning since the tension was too high in higher tunings.
At the very beginning it hurt almost everywhere on the hand and my arm would cramp, right now it just hurts at rather odd lines along my forearm and the palm of my hands. Arpeggios are weird like that i suppose. Also the muscles along the elbows also seems to be strained as well. Well i am new to this so my body has yet to even physically develop enough to keep up with my exercises. It feels like gym all over again really :P
As for the mental side, Ive learned only a few scales and i don't really intend to learn more theory unless need calls for it. Main thing right now is to develop technique and thats being going at a very suitable rate of learning.
The internet has been more or the less the only source of learning for me, youtube vids of players demonstrating their magic and sites made by well wishing ppl who dump all this info freely. Only about a percent or so from real life friends.
Ive gone through lots of picks, strings, amp and effects setups and guitar adjustments and i think I'm finally getting to the near perfect settings for myself. The rest is for me to keep going forward, i still have a way to go.
My other commitments do have a way of totally getting in the way of practices but well that's life for you. Not a kid anymore where u can spend all day doing anything you want.
For everyone reading so far. Its still just me blabbing about guitars right now. But you all are more than welcome to waste your time reading it though :P.
That's it for now, back to practice :3
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Tuned to near perfection
So i finally got new strings attached after coming back from the gaming exhibition in lanka (fun fun fun xD). I had the action set just high enough for the all the frets to work. It feels great! O_O. And after that nearly week long break from guitar playing (i tore of the old ones so i cud focus on gaming instead of kinki :P ) my hands seems to have gotten even stronger. I had the inclination to tune up to an even tighter Eb tuning on the gauge 10 string set. Yep, they no longer felt hard to budge.
Speaking of strings the music shop didn't have the correct gauges for me to set up my own string set. Sad but kinda expected there is absolutely nothing that is readily available in this country. Not really a prob anymore anyways Ive finally gotten used to the gauge 10 set. Which is a good thing since even the gauge 9 sets are no longer available when i went to buy.
On the note of progress. I can play three string arpeggios to an acceptable proficiency xD. Very very pleased and soon gonna move up to 5 and 6 string sets.. But before that gonna learn harder 3 stringers just to get the feel of it.
The hard thing about arpeggios are that i have to worry about more than just picking and moving my left hand fingers into the right position. At the same time i have to make sure my palm is placed right to mute the strings not being played and make sure not to mute the one being played. Not exactly a picnic at any rate. Luckily the technique has completely blended into my picking technique now. So it doesn't take much thought to execute now. After i had crossed that barrier the sweep motion was the next difficulty. Arpeggios should be treated as chords with each note played individually, and naturally rather fast to get the intended sound out. As such the right hand technique should be the same as when u play a rhythm riff only even more refined.Also sweeping across the thinners strings are actually harder compared to the the coiled strings since the pick has a habit of accidentally getting stuck on a particular string for a split second. That is quite irritating when your playing at least 2 notes or 3 notes per second. You have to adjust the angle and height at which the pick touches the strings to be able to glide smoothly to the next string without yanking the current one. For me I had to record myself and listen to realize that my final hurdle was to equalize my up and down stroke speed. I was going down far too fast and i didn't even figure that was the problem until i took a listen.
So spent yesterday and today slowing down again and really pass each string when going up and down. The results are very pleasing. To me personally it sounds cleaner and more articulate compared to the video that was demonstrating it.
So time to bring on the next challenge really. No songs, just scale runs, up and down left and right runs. Arpeggios and faster riff sequences. These three things are what i will be working on for the next few weeks until i reach a suitable level.
On other things guitar rig is getting under my thumb as well, albeit stubbornly.The main effects setup i use have been tweaked to something that finally sounds pleasing when played for long and I figured out how to use the pitch shifter to get out any tuning i wanted without turning a single peg on the guitar. Very very useful since i like the string tension that kinki has right now. Any more or less would just be annoying. It doesn't sound odd or weird or anything as long as i put the pedal in the right position on the effects rack (it tends to make auto wah wah like sounds when on the top of the chain and odd distortion volume changing when at the very bottom).
I noticed how my instrument has a slight weakness in the third and fourth string. They are not bright or got any attack whatsoever. They sound different and dull in comparison to the other strings on the sides. Ive read that mahogany does have problems with the mid range. However it might just be the really crappy pickups that my guitar has. Its not just me, Ive been told by far better players that my setup has little sensitivity making pull off and hammer ons really hard. Honestly speaking i can make the pull off sounds come without anything plugged, it might be me just used to my setup or they have a point and getting better gear would improve my playing.
I'm not gonna pass judgment on my guitar's apparent mid range weakness until i have a pair of blackouts installed.If the problem persists then its time to move to a maple/mahogany combo guitar. Cant help it mahogany always makes the best distortion sound :P. Also not to mention kinki's bridge has wobbly pivots D:, its god's grace the sustain is as good as it is right now. The bridge needs to go at the soonest opportunity. Who knows maybe that is the reason for the dullness of the thicker strings.
Next thing on my mind. I notice that each person who plays my guitar sounds..different. I don't let anyone change my settings on the amp or guitar rig. But each single person, the way the sound comes from even one single note is different and unique O_O. My brother and older cousin sounds sharper and harsher. Younger cousin sounds smoother but less sustain. My dad plays distortion riffs that like it was clean on a higher volume O_O, so damn smooth. A friend of ours came along (a rather good player) , and he sounded more like he was playing with jabs rather than placing his fingers behind the frets. Kinda cool how everyone sounds unique on the guitar. I guess its part of the charm, how u can sound like yourself on the instrument :D
Enough talk, back to practice
Speaking of strings the music shop didn't have the correct gauges for me to set up my own string set. Sad but kinda expected there is absolutely nothing that is readily available in this country. Not really a prob anymore anyways Ive finally gotten used to the gauge 10 set. Which is a good thing since even the gauge 9 sets are no longer available when i went to buy.
On the note of progress. I can play three string arpeggios to an acceptable proficiency xD. Very very pleased and soon gonna move up to 5 and 6 string sets.. But before that gonna learn harder 3 stringers just to get the feel of it.
The hard thing about arpeggios are that i have to worry about more than just picking and moving my left hand fingers into the right position. At the same time i have to make sure my palm is placed right to mute the strings not being played and make sure not to mute the one being played. Not exactly a picnic at any rate. Luckily the technique has completely blended into my picking technique now. So it doesn't take much thought to execute now. After i had crossed that barrier the sweep motion was the next difficulty. Arpeggios should be treated as chords with each note played individually, and naturally rather fast to get the intended sound out. As such the right hand technique should be the same as when u play a rhythm riff only even more refined.Also sweeping across the thinners strings are actually harder compared to the the coiled strings since the pick has a habit of accidentally getting stuck on a particular string for a split second. That is quite irritating when your playing at least 2 notes or 3 notes per second. You have to adjust the angle and height at which the pick touches the strings to be able to glide smoothly to the next string without yanking the current one. For me I had to record myself and listen to realize that my final hurdle was to equalize my up and down stroke speed. I was going down far too fast and i didn't even figure that was the problem until i took a listen.
So spent yesterday and today slowing down again and really pass each string when going up and down. The results are very pleasing. To me personally it sounds cleaner and more articulate compared to the video that was demonstrating it.
So time to bring on the next challenge really. No songs, just scale runs, up and down left and right runs. Arpeggios and faster riff sequences. These three things are what i will be working on for the next few weeks until i reach a suitable level.
On other things guitar rig is getting under my thumb as well, albeit stubbornly.The main effects setup i use have been tweaked to something that finally sounds pleasing when played for long and I figured out how to use the pitch shifter to get out any tuning i wanted without turning a single peg on the guitar. Very very useful since i like the string tension that kinki has right now. Any more or less would just be annoying. It doesn't sound odd or weird or anything as long as i put the pedal in the right position on the effects rack (it tends to make auto wah wah like sounds when on the top of the chain and odd distortion volume changing when at the very bottom).
I noticed how my instrument has a slight weakness in the third and fourth string. They are not bright or got any attack whatsoever. They sound different and dull in comparison to the other strings on the sides. Ive read that mahogany does have problems with the mid range. However it might just be the really crappy pickups that my guitar has. Its not just me, Ive been told by far better players that my setup has little sensitivity making pull off and hammer ons really hard. Honestly speaking i can make the pull off sounds come without anything plugged, it might be me just used to my setup or they have a point and getting better gear would improve my playing.
I'm not gonna pass judgment on my guitar's apparent mid range weakness until i have a pair of blackouts installed.If the problem persists then its time to move to a maple/mahogany combo guitar. Cant help it mahogany always makes the best distortion sound :P. Also not to mention kinki's bridge has wobbly pivots D:, its god's grace the sustain is as good as it is right now. The bridge needs to go at the soonest opportunity. Who knows maybe that is the reason for the dullness of the thicker strings.
Next thing on my mind. I notice that each person who plays my guitar sounds..different. I don't let anyone change my settings on the amp or guitar rig. But each single person, the way the sound comes from even one single note is different and unique O_O. My brother and older cousin sounds sharper and harsher. Younger cousin sounds smoother but less sustain. My dad plays distortion riffs that like it was clean on a higher volume O_O, so damn smooth. A friend of ours came along (a rather good player) , and he sounded more like he was playing with jabs rather than placing his fingers behind the frets. Kinda cool how everyone sounds unique on the guitar. I guess its part of the charm, how u can sound like yourself on the instrument :D
Enough talk, back to practice
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