Any musicians?

Hey there im spamming lol. Buuut anyone play instruments. Classic or digital.

I play guitar and actually a few months ago baught a guitar and amp. I sold my stuff when i left sa.

My jackson dinky and blackstar limited edition candy skull. I have a vox wah but im not happy with it. I think ill get a kirk hammet cry baby.

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Bass player here…used to play in a jazz band when I was in school (and could still read music,doubt i still can with speed at this point). Haven’t really kept up that level of playing since varsity so mostly just dick around from time to time…
I usually play for a couple minutes before realising i cant really play the fast stuff i used to be able to play, and then my wrists/fingers get sore and i feel old and i go do something else :smiley:

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That is a very nice dinky dude! I used to have a white dinky with a reverse headstock but I traded it for a Line 6 Spider amp.

I guess I can call myself a musician now that we’ve released an EP and made money from it. :stuck_out_tongue: I’m in a two man home studio project with a friend of mine, I write all the music and play guitar and he plays bass and does vocals. He also does all the mixing and mastering and drum programming. I’ve shared it elsewhere on MEW but you can check us out on bandcamp at https://soulsdarkness.bandcamp.com/ .

If you’re interested you can check out my guitar playthrough here (also a lyric video on the channel):

Here are my two babies:

The electric is an Ibanez RGR321EX and the acoustic is a Washburn D10CE

Ever since we released our EP in July I’ve been in a bit of a slump guitar wise. I did record some new tracks for the second EP but I haven’t worked on them in almost a month. I still jam a few times a week but I feel like I don’t have any motivation/inspiration to write new music. I just experiment with new tunings and jam along to Guitar Pro. At the moment I’m really into C# standard tuning as well as Drop B. For our EP I used Standard D and Drop C.

I also recently (about a month ago now) got myself an electronic drum kit which I’m really enjoying:

It will be a long while before I’m comfortable with the drums though, for now I’m just copying what I see on free youtube lessons and trying to jam along to songs using the songsterr app on my phone. I do make a point of it to practice everyday though, even if it’s just for 15 min.

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I just dabble a bit now and then on Rocksmith.

So nope, not a musician. Not even really a guitarist.

If you’re lacking in inspiration and like messing around with tunings, try setting up open C or D. It just changes the layout you’re playing in enough that it opens up new ideas. I ended up with a couple of songs that I then transcribed back to drop D, and still works very well.

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Awesome, I’ll definitely give it spin. I’ve never tried an open tuning. Don’t even know what it does differently. I play mostly power chords, can I still do so with open tuning?

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Have a look at Mark Tremonti’s work, he does a lot in modified open D - DADGAD, sometimes called open D5. Power chords on your 5th and 6th strings stays the same as drop D, but your higher strings are different, it changes everything on your scales and fuller chords. It does require that you think a bit about your chord shapes as you play, and I find that this is what unlocks the creativity.

Power chord A:
D-----
A-----
G-----
D–7–
A–7–
D–7–
or
D-----
A-----
G–2–
D–2–
A–0–
D-----
Full power chord in drop D:
E-----
B–8–
G–7–
D–5–
A–5–
D–5–
In Open D5:
D–5–
A–5–
G–5–
D–5–
A–5–
D–5–

A Major chord (A, E, and C#)
D–7–
A–7–
G–6–
D–7–
A–7–
D–7–
A Minor chord (A, E, C)
D–7–
A–7–
G–5–
D–7–
A–7–
D–7–
This is off the top of my head, so smarter inversions are probably available.

Then proper Open D is DADF#AD plays a major chord if you just barre straight across:

A Major:
D–7–
A–7–
F#–7–
D–7–
A–7–
D–7–
A Minor:
D–7–
A–7–
F#–6–
D–7–
A–7–
D–7–

Check out the chord shapes here: Open D Tuning Chart Plus Pdf

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Yeah that looks like Greek to me. Haha. I’ve been playing guitar for a long time but I must hang my head in shame. I know almost zero chords. Like no jokes. I know C, A, G, E, D, F, Am, Dm and Em (I can’t even remember them all sometimes, use a page to look at) and I play them with the same position regardless of my tuning. I don’t even use them when writing music or jamming. I started learning them like a year or two ago and I just play them as Arpeggios and then strum the chord as a way to warm up. I am a complete noob when it comes to chords. I know nothing about music theory. Key, chords, scales, etc. all of that is like Greek to me. I’ve always just played what sounded good to me. I wouldn’t be able to tell you a single key or scale or chord (progression) I use in my music.

Here’s an example of what one my songs look like (I have no idea what anything I’m using is called):

This is in drop C

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Laughs in bass. I can play all the notes!
I always made sure to rub it in the face of the guitar ppl in our church band (when i was still a good boy and still played in our one) whenever theres a song with Eb (or maybe Fb). Apparently they just can’t play those chords. Its like dude, how do all 3 of you not know how to play all the notes on your instrument? :smiley: :smiley: :smiley:

So they would literally sit those songs out…

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image

I mean…
Step 1) Learn the major barre chord shape.
2) Learn the minor barre chord shape.
3) Move those up and down the neck.
4) There is no 4. You’ve completed the steps.

@Wlad: No shame in playing by ear and letting what you hear guide you. I like understanding the music theory so that when my ear fails me I can “calculate” some options to play, but that’s only my approach.
I’m happy to chat about theory if you want, but I’m bad at teaching it to people - I tend to barrel ahead at a million miles an hour while the poor listener is left behind :smiley: I’ll tell you one thing, though, for a guy claiming to not know almost no chords, you sure use a lot of them! :smiley:

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Haha. Yeah man I’m sure I use all forms of chords or scales in my music, I just have no idea. I am 100% self taught, haven’t a single lesson in my life. I basically started guitar when I saw a friend of mine playing. I then bought myself a nylon string and he showed me what a power chord is and from there I just moved my fingers around, inverting the chord etc. I got guitar pro (3 at that point) and just started to try and play along to songs I like and tab out my own stuff. Would love to learn some basic theory but it hurts my head.

maybe its different on an acoustic or something, i dunno… i never understood it, but as a bassist that generally only has to play 1 note and not care if its Eb7 or w/e (only in jazz did i have to worry about it), i also didnt really have much to say beside - well then go learn it…but they never did.

But that’s the bit that baffles me… you learn the barre chord and move it up and down to suit. So an F barre chord would be 133211. Need to play a G#? Move it up 3 frets → 466544. Need to play Bb? 688766.

Your guess as good as mine…It baffled the crap outta me…i just know theres 2 songs (that have e flat 7 and b flat 7) that was bass and drums/vocals only because all the guitarists just simply couldnt play that chord. and i would laugh at them…but noone seemed to mind/care otherwise :stuck_out_tongue:

it should also be said, these are afrikaans older gents that are “set in their ways”… so in all honesty they probably frowned on barre chords :smiley: