Don't be too harsh! Mah music!

[Reformed]

I have been an addicted DAOC player for a number of years. Last 3 yrs or so I have attempted to kick the habit though as I was out of control with playing this game and boozing at the same time. It was literally ruining me. I have always gone overboard. Moderation wasn't a word in my vocabulary. Anyways during the last 2-3 yrs I have taken up the guitar - finger picking blue style. I liked this style as I figured this was the 'root' of blues and I loved the old scratchy type blue songs. I combined this style with a kind of Jimi Hendrix approach where I memorized the blues patterns on the guitar (not at all hard to do). This enabled me to create my own music to suit any mood. Now though I am playing stuff that is downright weird - at least I think it is. I want to head for guitar forums and post stuff on there soon but hell I don't want to be ridiculed by strangers. I might as well get ridiculed here first. So what do you think of this style of guitar playing? I have lots of songs that I am going to record but you should be able to see how my playing is from these 2 songs. One is a slow ballad kind of thing which was inspired by a broken relationship. The other - well I heard some riff or other on the radio and created a song around it. It is a work in progress and is going - or was going - to be the background music for a Thid film (stretched to a 10 min guitar solo). So any guitarists amongst you. What is your opinion? By the way I am using a cheap catalogue guitar with very high action. I figure if I can play it I should be able to play anything.

4 min ballad.

7 min background Thid film music.

Activate the movies (video recordings to show style) by waiting for the timer to get to zero on the bottom of the screen.

I would have posted this in a music section but it seems to be missing from Freddys now. Progress sure is cruel at times.

 

[Huntingtons]

wb thugs, show dorimor who is the king of thid!

 

[Mojo]

Spooky, i gave up daoc 2 years ago in favor of the Guitar. Now i sit on my arse get pissed and play guitar rather than the comp.

 

[Reformed]

wb thugs, show dorimor who is the king of thid!

He is welcome to the title. Not got the heart to upset people anymore. What started out as a bit of fun ending up biting me in the butt big time. Ended up being pissed so often and not knowing what the hell I had been posting on these forums it wasn't funny anymore. Funny thing I think people like me don't think they have a drink problem - I still don't. But if I start on whisky I 'lose' it big time and this lunatic takes control of my body so I am trying to keep well away from the stuff - or any hard liquor now. In my mind though - and I bet lots of others - I was the King (proved it over and over). Good enough for me really and I can joke about it now. You know what started me on the hard stuff come to think of it - reading novels about authors. How cool it was to drink whisky whilst writing. Did a bit of it myself so decided to go the whole hog and get the booze down me as well. Big mistake. So there you go budding authors you have been warned!

links are broken

Yeah - just noticed now. Crap site really for hosting. Probably come back online shortly. I will be able to host them myself as from tomorrow as I am going to make a site for myself.

 

[Chronictank]

links are broken

 

[Reformed]

Ok I have my new website up and running now so these music links should work now.

My music

They should just stream inside my site.

Don't be too harsh though as the guitar I am playing is very difficult to control with very high action. I wore my first guitar out and the frets are all shot now. Tons more songs to go up on the site and lots of proper blues. Will re-record them soon.

You can see me looking for patterns and experimenting with the Thid song. The other song just needs to be played a lot smoother - I think- and the beginning isn't right for sure. Oh well . Practise makes perfect. Hope anyways.

 

[Jeremiah]

Thats not actually too bad at all But man... Get yourself a less dodgy guitar!

 

[Shimynor]

Sounds quite nice mate, I play guitar too, electric mostly, but recently I have picked up my acoustic more. Lol, must be great to prefer fingerpicking on an acoustic.
1. You don't have to worry about losing your pick
2. You don't have to worry about dropping your pick inside the guitar.
3. You don't have to set your amp perfectly

Good luck with it all mate!

 

[Reformed]

Thats not actually too bad at all But man... Get yourself a less dodgy guitar!

Cheers. For finger picking blues you suppose to use them guitars with holes in them - not sure what they are called - oh yeah - resonator guitars. Will see what is about and how much they are. Maybe get an amp as well to get that fat rich sound I hear on blues records.

1. You don't have to worry about losing your pick
2. You don't have to worry about dropping your pick inside the guitar.
3. You don't have to set your amp perfectly

Lose picks? I have 4 on my fingers. Or one on my thumb and 3 on my fingers. I tried to play without but the strings on this guitar are like cheese cutters. I can't get any sound out of it at all without picks and my fingers would end up a bloody mess in no time.

I put an entry on a Blues Forum last night. Shit myself with the thought of what they would say about my playing. Played it a little cagey and asked for advice whilst showing them my playing with regard to guitar tone. They were very helpful. The Forum is where the 'real blues' players are and lots of them are full time professional musicians. Wish to hell I could play the stuff they are playing.

Redid the songs on my site so they are already a bit sweeter and now I am putting up the songs that I use to learn technique. I am putting the original song up and then my playing whilst listening to it through my headphones. Real good way to see any development and also to see where I am going wrong.

Thanks for comments.

 

[Reformed]

Oh mama (am talking like a blues player now too . Is this sweet or wot?

Home Hooch.

You know wot is next? You guessed it - singing.

'There was a young lady from Bridgend
Went out with a guy who was considered a leg-end - I mean legend
R U Famous darling boy? - but you are so so coy
But u sure can wield a mighty fine guitar - oh mama!'

Hey now that ain't bad for an opener for a new song eh?

 

[Kinag]

Must say you've seemed to have changed over the past year

Nice way of playing, love the finger picking as I'm using that myself

 

[Reformed]

Must say you've seemed to have changed over the past year

Nice way of playing, love the finger picking as I'm using that myself

Well I suppose I have . Sober now and less uptight about things. Still gotta hell offa drive to achieve something or other and I am channelling it into my guitar playing instead of DAOC. Less confrontational for sure.

I only just worked out how to get that sound from my playing. Am going to try and get some sort of pickup and effects peddle so I can play like it all the time instead of having to alter the original stuff with software.

You play? Got any recordings going?

I am off now to put a music streamer on the first page of my site so my favourite song of the moment plays on first load. Well I am going to try it anyways.

 

[Ezteq]

good shit dude, really bluesy and slightly edgy too, i actually like the way you dont sould 100% comfortable with the guitare it makes it sound old and raw.


how long have you been playing and have you taught yourself?

 

[Reformed]

good shit dude, really bluesy and slightly edgy too, i actually like the way you dont sould 100% comfortable with the guitare it makes it sound old and raw.

how long have you been playing and have you taught yourself?

Cheers. Nearly got the sound and technique I have been looking for .

I took up the guitar less than 3 years ago when I realized that I had to break my addiction to this game. Frightened me when I considered how much time and effort I was putting into the game and would have nothing to show for it at the end of the day. I once had an electric lead guitar. Couldn't and wouldn't play anything on it bar for Hendrix stuff. I wanted to be able improvise just like he did. End product of this was I was awful but I did find out how he did it - or at least partly. I memorized the blues pattern on the guitar. I suppose all blues players do this though I am not so sure about that because it really belongs to the lead guitar method. Anyways I loved the old blues and really that is where a lot of music has come from - dah roots. I thought to see whether I could learn fingerpicking blues and then combine it with my Hendrix approach to playing. Well I seem to have done it now. I can play blue songs that I am learning but I can also make up anything I want. I just uploaded this song to my host and you can see what I mean. I just get an idea in my head and I can make up a complete song in notime now. I can transfer my feelings to the guitar instead of having to learn any musical notes now. Check this song out (video). Just a song made up out of nothing really. No real feeling in there but it shows how I can make stuff up for sure:

Untitled song
(12MB wmv video file - 2x click for full screen or right click for menu)

I seem to be improving rapidly now and who knows I might even try and busk or something one day. It is getting to be quite exciting .

 

[Ezteq]

really good matey, again its got that roughness to it that makes it really enjoyable, its not like when your listening to a well practiced well known piece of music and you know whats coming so you only half listen.

i play like that on my banjo, just do chords and rolls and stuff and before i know it ive been there for an hour just seeing where i go, its really nice keep it up

 

[Healer McHeal]

recently been learning guitar meself aswell, but i play electric, nice fender but i need one that plays better dry play, but ah well. You sound pretty good, tho its not my kind of music i didnt feel like instantly turning it off, im more of a metal person tho , anyway, your better then me so i cant moan

 

[Reformed]

really good matey, again its got that roughness to it that makes it really enjoyable, its not like when your listening to a well practiced well known piece of music and you know whats coming so you only half listen.

i play like that on my banjo, just do chords and rolls and stuff and before i know it ive been there for an hour just seeing where i go, its really nice keep it up

If you have any music in video form or just songs you have recorded well I can host them for you. I have a pretty neat media player on my site which will automatically assign the correct player to any piece of music or video. All I have to do is upload to the directory. Great way to keep track of your improvement I find is to make periodic recordings of a song. You can even have you own directory which can be setup in minutes. Pretty good host I have too at the moment with unlimited bandwidth.

recently been learning guitar meself aswell, but i play electric, nice fender but i need one that plays better dry play, but ah well. You sound pretty good, tho its not my kind of music i didnt feel like instantly turning it off, im more of a metal person tho , anyway, your better then me so i cant moan

Tis a great pastime and one you can use when you are getting on a bit without feeling like maybe you should have outgrown it. All I use is a cheap catalogue guitar with pretty awful action. But the payoff is stronger fingers. Wish I had taken up the guitar a long time ago. I would deff be pretty good by now. Still I was a bit lost few years ago wondering what to do with my life as I always seem to need a goal of some sort. To become a really good guitarist is top of the agenda now so I am glad I found something to become occupied with. I tried the lead guitar myself but it wasn't for me somehow. I like to be able to just sit out in the sun on a nice evening in summer and play quietly. My age . Oh well each to their own. Hope you master it pretty quickly.

 

[Reformed]

You can't beat a bit of self promotion . Hope the mods don't dislike it. Anyways I am putting together recordings (still a bit rough) of my playing and putting them in a player. Dead simple to install this player into a webpage if you have one but if not you can just load up this page.

Player

You simple hit the arrow keys to load the songs.

The player above is a 'slim' version. There is a much more elaborate one though that I will install soon as I worked out how. It will show pictures etc and can also show different musicians directories. So, should you have any recordings you want added to it then drop me a line.

I will endeavour to create a neat popup player that can be reduced to the taskbar so surfing can be carried out whilst listening to the demonic fingerings . You can with the one above infact.

Code for installing the player into a webpage:

Just put this into it:

<object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000"
codebase="http://fpdownload.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=7,0,0,0"
width="700" height="15" >
<param name="allowScriptAccess" value="sameDomain"/>
<param name="movie" value="http://mark-jones.me.uk/onlinemusic/player/slim/xspf_player_slim.swf?playlist_url=http://mark-jones.me.uk/onlinemusic/player/slim/playlist.xspf&repeat_playlist=true"/>
<param name="quality" value="high"/>
<param name="bgcolor" value="#E6E6E6"/>
<embed src="http://mark-jones.me.uk/onlinemusic/player/slim/xspf_player_slim.swf?playlist_url=http://mark-jones.me.uk/onlinemusic/player/slim/playlist.xspf&repeat_playlist=true" 
quality="high" bgcolor="#E6E6E6" name="xspf_player" allowscriptaccess="sameDomain"
type="application/x-shockwave-flash"
pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer"
align="center" height="15" width="700"> </embed>
</object>

The player will be kept upto date and plenty more songs added very soon. Lots . The player will auto-update. All fun at the end of the day and will keep me practising hard.

 

[Keitan]

.....................................................................................................................................................................................No thanks................ i cant even be arsed to dl it .......

 

[Vladamir]

.....................................................................................................................................................................................No thanks................ i cant even be arsed to dl it .......

Noones making you, at least he's being creative.

 

[Keitan]

Noones making you, at least he's being creative.

Thats supposed to mean ? How the fuck do you know that im not being creative ??? please FO i can beat box over 80 tunes + play drums ...

So please before you say that think..

 

[scarloc]

lol beat box, go you.

 

[Sharaft]

the day i can play the guitar.. pigs fly.. i dont wanna learn it, i dont wanna play it, and i DEF dont wanna make madonna pregnant

 

[Vladamir]

Thats supposed to mean ? How the fuck do you know that im not being creative ??? please FO i can beat box over 80 tunes + play drums ...

So please before you say that think..

Walk the walk then

 

[Succi]

Not bad , drop d is getting you stuck in a rut though. Break away from it as the droning of the open d gets old very fast and actually detracts from any improvisation/progression on top of it

 

[Reformed]

5 song int player now .

Dah play list:

Bad Blood Blues
Cold Comfort
Home Hooch
Just Another Wine Bar
Soho Blues

Full Player.

Is it possible I was a Blues Player in a previous life? I sure likes whisky and I likes sitting outside on a nice summers evening playing my guitar. Makes you think eh?

 

[Reformed]

Well I stuck some music on this forum where pro musicians lurk. Well they didn't like the effects I have been using - flange effect. Said it was way over the top to put it politely. Here is a new song with only slight reverb added. What is your opinion on the song and sound now? Better get opinions here first as the other forum is somewhat critical for sure . Few background clacks as my fingers hit the guitar a few times. Just need to practise it a bit more. Fast picking and you have to be precise on this one. Sweet song though. Happy sounding.

Laid back blues. (with slight reverb - mp3)