Advice from old time metal players...

[horns666]

After working/jamming with my son, and some of his friends. Vibrato and pitch mean EVERYTHING.

If you play guitar in ANY style, vibrato and pitch is everything.

If you're tone deaf and like guitars..well, they're pretty to look at.

[Hellbat]

Hey Bill!

You are right on with the vibrato angle. I was watching this Tosin Abasi vid on the GW channel the other day and he's supposed to be the latest be all/end all technical player and his vibrato was like a 5lb canned ass 8 months past expiry. So many of the 'shredders' suffer from the same defect. What seperates the good ones like Loomis, Takasaki, Moore, and Malmsteen is they have awesome vibrato and pitch control on their bends.

[markD]

that is why i was always a disciple of michael schenker and gary moore. i like to think it rubbed off. i have been complimented on the vocal quality of my melodic playing and i attribute that to having nice vibrato.

[horns666]

Hey Bill!

You are right on with the vibrato angle. I was watching this Tosin Abasi vid on the GW channel the other day and he's supposed to be the latest be all/end all technical player and his vibrato was like a 5lb canned ass 8 months past expiry. So many of the 'shredders' suffer from the same defect. What seperates the good ones like Loomis, Takasaki, Moore, and Malmsteen is they have awesome vibrato and pitch control on their bends.

Exactly..Oh Yeah..My kids and his buds were all 'bout Animals As Leaders. I HATE it. If it came out 10+ years ago..I may have jump on. But I watched Tosin's EMG vid..like Loomis and ect. I don't care how many strings or arps you play. But if one one slips into shit and you hold it there...fuck you! He does that alot!!! Jimi says ALOT more with that "Machine Gun" note than Tosin' entire body of ..shit. Haha.. I mean that fuck has talent. He could do shit I can't technically. But who cares. I'm all about pushing boundries..of course! I think most of us, and the pros draw from the same well. I was full on Eddie (still am) until I met Loomis in the 90's. Yes, please..please push the limits of music..the key word is MUSIC!

I love the greats ..Schenker, Moore, Marino, Sykes..Gary and Vinnie, Page..well you get it.

For me..the epitome of dynamics, feel and pitch is...must I mention him ???

I don't think I have to..

[Jayster]

In the broadest terms I will agree with the OP, I would like to point out that one of the biggest radio rock songs of all time:


Stairway to heaven 8:02 minutes


Playing live often stretched into 25-30 minutes...

[horns666]

Jay, I never want to hear a 25 minute drum solo. Not even from the ghost of John Bonham.

I always hated drum solos. I can tolerate them like people for about a minute...minute and a half.

Page's solo to that song is a piece of art. Sure many can copy it..but not create it. It's not too difficult...just perfect. Yngwie would put shit-tons o' arpeggios in there. He's a dick!

[jgcable]

In the broadest terms I will agree with the OP, I would like to point out that one of the biggest radio rock songs of all time:


Stairway to heaven 8:02 minutes


Playing live often stretched into 25-30 minutes...

Thats not a good comparison though because Jimmy Page was already famous when Led Zep was formed.

If I use your logic then what about Layla? Another very long song that was played on the radio but Eric Clapton was already famous when he wrote it.

There are many exceptions to the "long song" rule but 99% of the time, young players tend to flex their "music muscles" too much when writing and end up with a 6 minute plus song that has about 1:30 of good music in it. Especially death metal bands. I have heard many new bands with songs that have 2 minute intro's that pretty much go no where. No A&R person is going to sit through that. Trust me I know. I sat with many A&R people over the years. I worked at one of most prolific recording studio's in the 80's. You need to hook the audience quick.

[jgcable]

I think that John Lennon said it best when he said that after the Beatles were famous they could have put out a record that had no songs on it. Just an empty sleeve and it would have sold millions. Once you are famous you can write all the 8 minute songs you want.

[markD]

There are many exceptions to the "long song" rule but 99% of the time, young players tend to flex their "music muscles" too much when writing and end up with a 6 minute plus song that has about 1:30 of good music in it. Especially death metal bands. I have heard many new bands with songs that have 2 minute intro's that pretty much go no where. No A&R person is going to sit through that. Trust me I know. I sat with many A&R people over the years. I worked at one of most prolific recording studio's in the 80's. You need to hook the audience quick.

that is the greatest truth ever!!!! nothing more needs to be said.

[horns666]

If you can't say it in 4 to 4 1/2 minutes. It wasn't worth sayin'.

I hate long-winded, "epic" songs. well, for the most part. Even my very faves over-stay their welcome.

I write songs in a VERY "pop" oriented format. It's what humans and myself are used to. I don't even try or think about it..it just falls into place. Maybe I got it from all that Van Halen, and shit. Ex: Who really gives a shit about that piano part in Ozzy's Mother Earth..just get to my very favorite Randy solo already. Man, I ALWAYS hated that part from day one!!! The best Randy solo ever recorded to my tatse...GBTR is perfect as well.

Ex: This kid my son jams with put a "song" on Youtube. My son laid down one of my riffs as a rythm part. Just fuggin' round with a click beat. This kid continues to put a freestyle solo over the whole recording. Not hitting ONE fuggin' good note in the process. It sounds like a wounded bee with its pud stuck in the mud. I asked Vin.."can't he hear that?" He posted on YT and he can't hear that??? Then he keeps it on there..not fixing anything. This kid has guitar/amp/tone credibility and potential. He sets up all his shit, changes tubes..etc. He bought a Agile 7 Baritone..against my advice. Now he's sorry he did. I'm just tryin' to help. I taught my son to be a very good drummer, and I can't play drums to save my life. But I have meter, and I can tap on a wall or table. That's how I taught him. I never blew smoke up his ass as a kid and literally told him "he sucked" some days when he refused to count. But, he came back stronger the next day, and it was great.

I truly think you can NOT learn pitch. Tone deafness can NOT be cured. Either you have pitch or you don't. This is something I've learned in my 35 years of music. I dunno, I have OCPD amoung other things. If I don't think it's OK at best ..I don't want to share it. Take that Tosin dude for example. He's supposed to be "the elite" these days amoung kids. He practiced ALOT..still he's tone deaf. So he plays thousands of notes and I ONLY hear hundreds of bad ones. Because they stick out like a dick....in ..a...thing.

[Snoogans]

I truly think you can NOT learn pitch. Tone deafness can NOT be cured. Either you have pitch or you don't. This is something I've learned in my 35 years of music. I dunno, I have OCPD amoung other things. If I don't think it's OK at best ..I don't want to share it. Take that Tosin dude for example. He's supposed to be "the elite" these days amoung kids. He practiced ALOT..still he's tone deaf. So he plays thousands of notes and I ONLY hear hundreds of bad ones. Because they stick out like a dick....in ..a...thing.

Interesting that you raise this point - it's something that I've been thinking about recently. First off, I'm NOT a good player. I have no doubt that most of you guys could kick my ass. But I do seem to have a pretty good ear. I sometimes hear other players or recordings, and find myself thinking "How the hell did that get by? Did they not hear that?"
Maybe I'm fucked-up, and just hear bum notes that aren't really there!
Same with tuning - I get so frustrated watching guys fanny around with electronic tuners. I always just want to grab the guitar from them and simply tune the fucking thing - it's easy, right?

[Larz]

The Perfect Pitch salesman disagrees.

[Jayster]

Maybe I'm fucked-up, and just hear bum notes that aren't really there!

Along these lines, within certain progressions it can fool your head into hearing an "implied" melody and/or create tension/release when the resolving note does come in. This is an excellent technique to use. Melody is often overlooked in a lot of current 'music'.

As far as wrong notes, I can't listen to 'outside' jazz at all. It sounds like ass!!!!!


John, I agree completely with you about presenting your music to someone who probably could give two fucks about it. I would love to believe that we are still in the world that allowed musicians to grow through several albums before dooshing them. In the world of majors this doesn't happen anymore.

The beautiful thing is that with minimal investment, your average band can make some pretty good quality pre-production demos in the comfort of their own rehearsal space. That coupled with the ease of self production and distribution, can help spread your songs/albums. Of course you still want to have something to offer musically, I feel that there is still a crowd of people out there that are hungry for inspired music that does not fit the AOR model.

Ultimately though, if you want to be a 'rockstar' you will have to play their game.

[Devotee]

I agree with everything Bill has said so far. Especially about Tosin Abasi; players like that bore me to death. It's all sweeps and technique but there's no voicing, no expression. A guitar solo should be like a little song within a song, it's like singing. Hendrix's playing was so vocal, even the way he used to sing over his playing is demonstrative of that. He knew how to get exactly the right sound out of his instrument that would get his message across, even without being the most technical or precise player. But his unique approach, technique and feel is exactly what made his playing so expressive.

Bands like Animals as Leaders (and even worse - Periphery) don't sound unique nor innovative to me; they just sound like a mish-mash of second rate reject Meshuggah riffs, the worst of the worst of Metalcore-for-malls ala Bullet For My Valentine with seemingly random electronic music elements thrown in for good measure. Every second of it almost sounds like a practice exercise, nothing about it touches me or sends a shiver up my spine like good music should, nothing about it evokes any emotion other than the feeling of confusion as to how anyone can actually enjoy listening to someone play the Mixolydian scale in 57 different modes up and down the fretboard. Not to mention the fact that the band members themselves dress like nerds, have their guitars up to their chins and look like they'd be more comfortable at a skate park than onstage. There's nothing METAL about it - there's no aggression, no fire and no balls!

Now if you excuse me, i'm going to go listen to some Venom...

[VitaminG]

People started caring about the fucking length of songs from the time we got youtube and similar stuff....they wanna try all the other songs that are there on the right area of our pc's screen ,so when they watch it they end up going"ha 6 min, fuck it, I'm gonna check that one out".....as long as you do it oldschool , put the cd and let it play you don't care about the length of it.It takes you far in the music realm(same thing with books ,there are people that don't read them cause they've got a lot of pages).

Warning: this isn't the case with a boring repeating song, where 5 min are a pain in the ass....

too true, man. Remember when the Beatles used to play these long exploratory 7 minute pieces? And the YouTube came along and they had to start cutting the shit down to that 3:30 "Love Me Do" schlock. Fuck YouTube in the ass - they're ruining music.