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Welcome, and enjoy your stay.

Instructor

Good points Don.  Do you have a list of songs that you feel are "winners" for most players starting out?  I like the questionnaire idea a lot, and it sounds like we do similar things in the pre-interview process.

Instructor

Troy's stuff is top notch and I second this.

I cut my teeth on Heavy Metal Lead Guitar book 1.  I still know the solos Open Fire, to The Stage and  From the Heart, which is a wicked Blues based jam in F#minor.    Some of the tastiest metal blues I have ever heard.  Troy was a teach at the Conservatory of Music in Wisconsin, and I can imagine what it would have been like to learn from him.  Definitely a major influence.  I still use a lot of his articulations and licks to this day some 20 years later!

Instructor

Yes it does.  Currently I use CBI 18 foot GA.  I've tried others like Planet Waves etc, and they dont do as good a job.  Ive also had Monster Cable but I think it's honestly more marketing than substance.  I like CBI and their 10 year guarantee (In five years Ive never had one go out).  PW has a lifetime, but I have had to actually use that warranty 4-5 times.  I'd rather not worry and use something that never seems to go out.

Instructor

Straight into a BlackStar these days, I use the reverb on there a touch but I love the feeling of getting back to basics.  I have gotten further and further away from effects and back into an organic feel and how it all sounds when it's stripped down.

When I used to tour years ago, my Pedalboard was an NYC with a Dunlop Brick, a Dyna Comp, Digitech Synth Wah Envelope filter, Phase 90, a Digitech X Series Delay and a Turbo Tube Screamer, and a Visual Sound Volume.  I was in an R&B Funk band, hence the wah and filter.

Instructor

I think the apps coming to iPhone are the wave of the future.  With Native Instruments and so on, it will be the next level, in my opinion, and others will quickly follow.

Line6 has an app already, and ESP has an app as well.

Instructor

I like Beta Monkey as well, however they are straight recorded loops, and you cannot change tempos at all, if you have the same ones I bought (This was years ago)

Thats correct.  For example, the song Iris, as I recall used B D D D D D  which suggests a Bmin triad, using the Root and 3rd.

The song Name is D A E A E E as I recall.

One might see this as a D sus 2 tuning.

Instructor

Can you explain it a bit more?  The E isn't in G Pentatonic, but Pentatonic isn't a Key.  E is in G major it's the 6th.  Plus if it's played while C is playing its accenting the 3rd of C...

Please isolate where you're looking at and what chord's playing at the time...

Instructor

Great question.

I think it comes down to the ears.  Play along with it and when you sense a pitch is "the home note" try and hunt and peck to find what pitch that is.  Then play it as a bass note over the rest of the changes, and verify if they seem to still somehow "work".  Without a foundational background in harmony and theory, it can be very difficult to objectively say, "do this and you'll know without a doubt this is the key".

In truth, lots of practice, developing your ear to match pitches, and experience is needed to fully be able to do this and get better at it.  The ability to apply theory helps bridge that gap substantially. 

Instructor

When using Power Chords the tonality can be ambiguous.  In the first scenerio I showed that very thing you just said.  It's in A Major with borrowed chords.

But because of the use of C, in this instance I think its actually A Minor, since C is a critical note...its the b3 of A.  Since 3rds are the sole determinant of what makes a chord minor or major, and since there wasnt a C# in this, I would suggest that the C makes it a dead giveaway that its in A Minor.

Look at the chords in A minor and see if we agree:

Am  Bo  C  Dm  Em  F  G 

Under this the A is I  C is IV and Dm (expressed as a power chord) is iv.  (It could also be a D7 which would invoke the A Harmonic Minor) Em is the v.

Thus you have a basic 1,4 5 in Am and C is the III, no borrowed chords, and resolution is to Am.

Did this help?

Instructor

Hal Leonard has a Great series on Home Recording, but their books can be a bit pricey.  The things I am learning is that recording is a science and an art, just like other disciplines.  You have to learn about the harmonic range of instruments and where they are found so you can isolate those in the audio mix spectrum, as they reside in certain frequencies.  Its much more than, listening...these guys know "where" the problem is at and whether to take it down -2 or bump up a neighboring frequency +.5.

If you plan on some good results, some time invested learning these kinds of things will help get you there.  I have the whole series and it was several hundred for them, but I cannot say enough good things about these books.  They really do pay for themselves.  Even though I cannot presently record myself I understand more about what to do and where, when the time comes.

Instructor