Biff Mayhem

I need to see video of you practicing in the interest of science.

Asus is also a fun one....play a barre A cowboy chord and add the third fret on the b string. Sweet Emotion baby. That can be moved all over the fretboard too. Then try playing a d/a to an a (A0D4G2b3 to barre A). That can move all over the fretboard too and requires a bit of precision to not slop.

Yes! Dsus. Plus moving that d root chord around gets especially cool when you drop d.

AC/DC. Some appear simple and uncomplicated and the basics are just that because they utilize a lot of cowboy chords. Then when you get into their picking, hand pressure and different techniques, it will challenge you to play it correctly. A lot of guitarists dismiss them as simpletons but if you deep dive, some of that stuff is really hard to play correctly because most people assume they use a lot of gain when they really don't that that presents the challenges. Then there is Dirty Deeds. It is what it is and definitely helps with chord progressions.

One is from Uganda and spent the first 13 years of his life mute (Ironically we can't shut him up now and says he can "only" speak four languages!). Instead of going out to play with the other kids, he went and tinkered with the instruments so he can play the keyboard, guitar and bass that I've seen before but I'll bet there are more. The cellist and our MD were in orchestra/band in HS and just went from there. I don't know that any of them are "formally educated" in the form of Berkeley etc. I think if you have it, you have it. If you don't, then you can do it but not to the level these types can. It's like a MD vs a Brain Surgeon; Both talents but one is a bigger talent.

Lots of them - I think we have five in current rotation. Many of them are multi-instrumentalists. Our MD, who charts out all those songs, at last count can play 18 instruments proficiently. I played with a cellist recently who said she doesn't even review the songs before playing; she just shows up, reads the charts and improvises where she needs to. I'm over here struggling to play a chromatic scale cleanly.

If you ever have a phillips head screw that is stripped, put a rubber band in the slots and try again. Viola!

Nice job!!!!!! Thanks! That juke box was part of my childhood and I hadn’t seen it in over 40 years. I always remembered the pictures.

It’s a picture I took on my own. It currently resides in a very old jukebox along with pictures of Kris Kristofferson, David Cassidy/Susan Day and, oddly enough, Roman Polanski and Nastassja Kinski.

Hey old farts. Help me identify this band.

So here’s a peek behind the curtain: We have iPads on stage with our sheet music in pdf form. The people who read music have significantly less notes (or none at all) I always have a ton of notes because learning four or five new songs in a week is taxing to my adhd brain and it’s a way to keep from noticing moving boom cameras etc. Recently I’ve been putting my iPad close to the ground to alleviate the visual distraction of an iPad on a stand. This requires me to put the chords/notes in large font so my old eyes can read them. Sometimes I’ll write things like Metallica chords for inverted chords (which I first learned with the song Creeping Death), DL which stands for the Def Leppard chord I learned in their song “Let it Go”. Then there’s “Dream On” which means I have to pick a line up and down much in the manner that one would play the rhythm for that song.

It's certainly a good exercise and it may be a test to see if you have the skill. However it is completely unnecessary for the hobby guitarist. In fact, of all the guitarists I know that play professional gigs, not even 1/3rd of them read music. So if he pushes that as a criteria, you need a new teacher.

I found this very entertaining:

Watching that, I felt a slight chill as they walked up the ramp and the field came into view. Sure it was a dump but it was our dump and that video makes me very nostalgic.

That's so cool. You don't have to nail it live but in the studio it's forever! I'm using a Tascam 2488 and can export wav files to a DAW and will probably edit out some things. I took a real quick class on DAW to learn the basics but haven't really gotten into the meat and potatoes and don't know that I have the time/patience for the arts and crafts. Right now I'm concerned with getting all the tracks done and then I'll farm out the mixing etc.

Nice! I just laid down some bass tracks on Saturday. I'm not a bassist and never will claim to be but I'm really happy with the fact that, while most of it was just following the guitars, I ended up writing a pretty interesting piece that sort of followed the guitars but stood out from the rest (think RHCP Californication)

If you don't win the day for this post then the system has failed.

So it's okay if the the cool people (guitarists) come visit the nerds here? Asking for a friend.

I do. I try to keep it between 35 to 45. A couple of those guitars are over 40 years old and I really limit their exposure to other buildings or even out on my back porch.

That’s not even the complete collection. I used to have them scattered around but now my wife has an exact count…..ruht roh.

This is my go-to when I want to play out on the back porch or when it is after 9:30 pm. Other than that, I will play with the amp at a reasonable volume unless no one is home because there is no duplicating moving air.

Accountability check......