What makes you sound unique?

[weepingminotaur]

I'm cautious about muscle-memory, because I know for myself that it has been a sort of mental trap in my playing, but that's me. It's great for developing dexterity, but I find that that's when theory becomes a weight on my playing rather than a jailbreak. Having that dexterity is muy importante, but not if it channelizes my expression. I want to have a good turn of speed, but not if it comes at the cost of musicality.

Coming out of a screw-up, that's something every guitarist should learn no matter their approach to the instrument, because we all screw up, and the song ain't stopping while I wipe my butt.

I'm not nearly a good enough lead player to even have these types of issues, but you know, goals! Maybe one day. My problem is I'm always trying to do too much at any one time and spreading myself in too many different directions. Well, that and my lack of hand speed.

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

I'm not nearly a good enough lead player to even have these types of issues, but you know, goals! Maybe one day. My problem is I'm always trying to do too much at any one time and spreading myself in too many different directions. Well, that and my lack of hand speed.

Get that muscle-memory and hand-speed with practice, but don't forget that it's the brains that makes you, to go back to the OP, unique. Knowing your scales/modes/etc is useful and indeed important, but only in service to getting what's in your head out the speakers

One of the breakthroughs I had in understanding this came one night when I'd only been playing a few years. I had that song from Wang Chung, "Dance Hall Days", stuck in my head, and couldn't get rid of it, so in my walking home I got the idea, yeah, what would I do over this? And improvising in my head. So I started chasing that sort of thing. I didn't imagine the Randy Rhoads or EVH licks I loved so much, I just wanted to go with this annoying earworm. But that night taught me, for myself, that I could imagine licks.

Imagination is key. Learning how to get that imagination into notes is the tricky part. Play songs. Play lots of songs. Don't learn them note for note.. Don't be afraid of not playing the solo right. Play it for yourself and do that with conviction. That's my two cents' worth, worth every penny you've paid for it. Dexterity and fluency matters, but only insofar as you're playing music.

 

[Phantasmagoria]

I'm cautious about muscle-memory, because I know for myself that it has been a sort of mental trap in my playing, but that's me. It's great for developing dexterity, but I find that that's when theory becomes a weight on my playing rather than a jailbreak. Having that dexterity is muy importante, but not if it channelizes my expression. I want to have a good turn of speed, but not if it comes at the cost of musicality.

Coming out of a screw-up, that's something every guitarist should learn no matter their approach to the instrument, because we all screw up, and the song ain't stopping while I wipe my butt.

Well yeah, but then everyone's idea of what constitutes musicality is subjective. I find that my sticking to practicing finger excercises in the past to get my fingers to move ( I don't anymore, all I do now is play) rather than learning scales (ok, I know a couple of the real basic ones) and learning licks & stuff which I've never done, is what makes me almost never play the same thing twice unlike say a dude like Yngwie who tends to rehash scales and stuff that he's done over & over before ( not that I mind personally, I still love his stuff & buy all his albums, but yeah, he mostly just sticks to his own thing) Personally though I love speed & dissonance, I think everything I play is tempered with melody and feel as well (again subjective....you might not think so ). I love bends, vibrato & bluesy stuff as much as I like to shred

Angus Young, Gary Moore & Buddy Guy are as big of an inspiration to me as Yngwie, EVH & Vai..

 

[ehdwuld]

The important thing to remember, I mean the really important thing, is that theory is descriptive, not prescriptive. It is very useful in describing what you've already played, but it should not be used to prescribe what you should play. Knowing theory has helped my playing most when I'm analyzing what another guitarist has done over this or that set of changes.

When I'm playing, I never think "oooh, I need a flat-7 here". I hear a note in my head, understand what scale or shape or form will deliver it, and hope I can tie this stuff together enough to be coherent. Any solo of mine, if improv, will float between keys and modes with no regard to "this is the proper note to play here", because I want to play guitar, not typewrite. Sometimes I want sour, or out-of-key, or evocative of some other mood.

When I was taking theory. The teacher said to the class .

Theory is the rules to composing music

But where you break the rules is what makes it interesting

You cant work outside the box
If you have no concept of the box

 

[Phantasmagoria]

You cant work outside the box
If you have no concept of the box

Why not? You can def work out of the box. I do it all the time. It's not a biggie. That actually makes no sense and it's often repeated as a great "point" to make in favour of learning theory .

Which it's not. It's like saying you can't drive a car unless you know how the engine works.

Your ears will tell you all day long if you're in the box or out of it. They'll take you in and out of the box at will, instantly. Without you having to struggle to recall a thing you crammed into your brain from a book.

 

[Phantasmagoria]

And here's Mateo Mancuso saying pretty much the same thing @ the beginning (2:30) of this video (and he's far from clueless about music theory)

I'm not a zillionth as good as this guy (lol who is?) but honestly ...it's all about 'instinct' for me as well.

 

[GuitarStv]

I'm the only one who consistently plays the music that I want to hear. That's what makes me unique. : P

 

[Mincer]

I'm the only one who consistently plays the music that I want to hear. That's what makes me unique. : P

I think that was a conscious decision for me at some point. I was frustrated with the fact that everything I was hearing at shows and on the radio wasn't really my thing. And I don't like being the guy that just sits there and complains that I didn't like anything without putting my stuff out there.
Thing is...I still hear a lot of stuff I don't like. Which is why I keep writing, recording, and performing.

 

[weepingminotaur]

You cant work outside the box
If you have no concept of the box

Absolutely, and it's true of a lot, not just music. I work in education, and part of my job is to get graduate students I supervise to understand that they need to situate themselves in a discipline and a subfield and a particular scholarly conversation before they plunge into their own research. Otherwise, they end up "inventing" something that has already been invented.

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

Which it's not. It's like saying you can't drive a car unless you know how the engine works.

I think it's closer to saying, "How do you know whether or not you're driving off-road if you don't know where the road is?" You can well be off-road, but that removes intention, for me.

 

[Chistopher]

Which it's not. It's like saying you can't drive a car unless you know how the engine works.

I don't think this is a valid metaphor at all.

"Learning the box to think outside of it" would be like learning all the reasons why surf music sounds like surf music, and then applying those techniques to speed metal. You could also get there by learning the muscle memory and intuition from playing surf and speed metal a lot, but it's faster have a structure to be able to map it out.

Unrelated and fwiw, understanding your vehicle helps you in a slew of conditions. Knowing whether your car is FWD, RWD, or AWD as well as the general weight distribution will make it easier to meaningfully trail brake at speed around a slick corner. Knowing how your drive train works lets you know whether or not you can flat tow without cooking your transmission. Knowing how the limiter on a go-kart works makes it so you can bypass it. Knowing the size of your fuel reserves makes a tank on E less stressful.

 

[Phantasmagoria]

I think it's closer to saying, "How do you know whether or not you're driving off-road if you don't know where the road is?" You can well be off-road, but that removes intention, for me.

Actually It's like using GPS to stay on the road when you can just use your eyes. And use them some more to get off the road at will (and back on again)

 

[Phantasmagoria]

I don't think this is a valid metaphor at all.

"Learning the box to think outside of it" would be like learning all the reasons why surf music sounds like surf music, and then applying those techniques to speed metal. You could also get there by learning the muscle memory and intuition from playing surf and speed metal a lot, but it's faster have a structure to be able to map it out.

Unrelated and fwiw, understanding your vehicle helps you in a slew of conditions. Knowing whether your car is FWD, RWD, or AWD as well as the general weight distribution will make it easier to meaningfully trail brake at speed around a slick corner. Knowing how your drive train works lets you know whether or not you can flat tow without cooking your transmission. Knowing how the limiter on a go-kart works makes it so you can bypass it. Knowing the size of your fuel reserves makes a tank on E less stressful.

Yeah, I get it, but if you're a race car driver, you don't need to be a pit stop mechanic as well. You could be one... sure, but my guess is you'd be a far better race car driver if you stuck to driving your car and actually drove your car (ie. practiced) instead.

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

Actually It's like using GPS to stay on the road when you can just use your eyes. And use them some more to get off the road at will (and back on again)

You're assuming that the goal of learning theory is to standardize one's playing. That's a fatuous assumption and not really accurate. I've already told you how I use theory. If you don't want to use it at all, that's great. But speak to your own intentions, not mine.

 

[Phantasmagoria]

I think that was a conscious decision for me at some point. I was frustrated with the fact that everything I was hearing at shows and on the radio wasn't really my thing. And I don't like being the guy that just sits there and complains that I didn't like anything without putting my stuff out there.
Thing is...I still hear a lot of stuff I don't like. Which is why I keep writing, recording, and performing.

This is what happened to me when I started my porngrind side project as well

 

[Phantasmagoria]

. But speak to your own intentions, not mine.

What I've been doing from the start. It work's great for me. Never tried to foist it on anyone else.

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

I am not concerned about keeping it between the ditches ... I use theory to understand where I've been, not plan where I'm going. I can tell you each key, mode, and scale I use in the following solo, but when I was cutting the track I had only the first eight bars plotted out. Everything after that was improv, and this was two takes -- one before the weird breakdown, one after it. No punch-ins, no nothing like that. I'm not interested in musical perfection, most of the time; it depends on the song. I aim for musical honesty.

https://soundcloud.com/thumpalumpacus%2Fgoing-tharn

But I can tell anyone what I'm doing here in technical terms if they are interested.

 

[Phantasmagoria]

I am not concerned about keeping it between the ditches ... I use theory to understand where I've been, not plan where I'm going. I can tell you each key, mode, and scale I use in the following solo, but when I was cutting the track I had only the first eight bars plotted out. Everything after that was improv, and this was two takes -- one before the weird breakdown, one after it. No punch-ins, no nothing like that. I'm not interested in musical perfection, most of the time; it depends on the song. I aim for musical honesty.

But I can tell anyone what I'm doing here in technical terms if they are interested.

Cool tune & solo's! I like the funky bits too

Mostly people just tell you how badly you suck at playing guitar (cuz you don't care for theory) ..and you'll never hear any of them post a note of their own

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

Cool tune & solo's! I like the funky bits too

Mostly people just tell you how badly you suck at playing guitar (cuz you don't care for theory) ..and you'll never hear any of them post a note of their own

I'm happy to prove my suckage!

 

[Phantasmagoria]

Nothing sucky about it. Pretty much the kinda stuff I'm into ..classic metal licks w a bit of an eastern feel to them..