Become A Mystic on the Electric Guitar
by Jason Earls, author of Cocoon of Terror & How to Become a Guitar Player from Hell
http://becomeguitaristfromhell.blogspot.com/
http://www.youtube.com/user/zevi35711
(WARNING: This article contains somewhat bizarre or unusual exercises and commentary that some may consider “philosophical” or “spiritual” in nature; it’s basically an “outside-the-box” thinking lesson.)
A mystic can be defined in many ways. Perhaps the definition I would agree with most is, a person who intuitively experiences (or strives for) obscure types of knowledge through the practice of various “religious” methods such as meditation, praying, study of ancient texts, etc. Examples of mystical experiences could be 1) A feeling of “one-ness” with the infinite forces of the universe, 2) Having a sense of timelessness, 3) Seeing beyond normal modes of morality, 4) Witnessing various images of God, etc.
To explain mysticism a bit further using different words, and with the goal of being as objective as possible, we could say that the practice of mysticism consists of certain “religious-oriented” people seeking after divine attributes of God, with some claiming they experience various mystical states while doing so; and hence the people who engage in such activities can be called “mystics.”
Note that some philosophers and logicians (Wittgenstein, for example) have claimed that mysticism is really not so “special” or “extraordinary” after all. Instead, they view mysticism in the following way: certain objects or things exist in this world, yet simultaneously these things cannot be explained, or are inexpressible – i.e. they cannot be talked about in a way that makes sense, which alone constitutes them being “mystical” in relation to other things in the world.
Personally, I believe in mysticism only in this way: I realize man’s five senses are limited, thus there are things we cannot experience in any way as a result. Yet I also realize there are certain “sensitive” individuals in the world who experience things other people cannot because they possess a heightened sense of awareness, or are especially hyper-vigilant, or have other “extrasensory” perception(s); and these hyperaware individuals, if they focus enough of their energy or attention on striving for mystical experiences, may be able to attain something of the “divine” experiences they are seeking.
The skeptic usually denies the mystic’s claims and says that mystical states do not exist. But realize these doubts are only possible since mystical experiences cannot be put into words and because they defy logic, “common sense,” normal modes of reasoning, etc.
So what does mysticism have to do with music? What does it have to do with playing the guitar? Plenty.
Music is obviously an extremely powerful medium. Many people consider music to have certain “spiritual” properties. And almost every individual in the world likes some type of music. Remember also that certain logicians and philosophers have claimed that mysticism concerns itself primarily with what IS and IS NOT expressible. (To reiterare Wittgenstein’s opinion of mysticism: certain “things” in the world show themselves, yet they cannot be put into words, hence these are mystical things.) So what are the common denominators here? Silence and nonsilence (music); plus spirituality – where these themes overlap, we can hopefully extrapolate those qualities to make them more effective.
Because I want to state my overall purpose in this article as clearly as possible, I will write this sentence: By choosing to become a mystic on the electric guitar, you will strive to have “divine” mystical experiences as you perform; and if you achieve any, you will use your guitar to convey these experiences to others through the music you create with your guitar.
As you can probably guess, I cannot list an exact formula, or any specific exercises using guitar tablature, to allow you to convey the mystical experiences you might have (if any). This article is explaining an experimental, outside-the-box, guitar technique in which you’re pretty much on your own. Nevertheless, here is an outline of an algorithm you may want to attempt:
Strap on your guitar. Meditate or concentrate on the power inside yourself and the universe and try to align yourself with those forces – seek to have a mystical experience (ecstasies or visions or knowledge gained) while playing your guitar. Translate those feelings into your music. Share them with your audience. Make them feel the mystical states you experience. That is probably as far as you can go.
Most mystical experiences will be inexpressible. But perhaps music is the proper vehicle for them. Silence. Remember, there is no silence, which John Cage adequately proved.
At the risk of repeating myself, I will list a few more sentences and questions for you to contemplate, since the exact ideas in this chapter may be difficult to understand.
1. The mystical guitarist uses his dedication to esoteric spirituality to inspire himself and transcend the boundaries of what a more “normal” guitarist can achieve.
2. Inspiration to compose and perform music comes from states of the mind (and other areas) that are not fully understood by psychology or any other discipline. Perhaps it is possible for a musician to go into these and other realms of the mind that are inaccessible to others and be able to pull music out of them. Wouldn’t this be considered mystical?
3. The mystical guitarist’s main goal is to make powerful music so they can share their “divine” experiences with others and transport people’s consciousnesses to other planes more beautiful and more extraordinary.
4. Because many people indentify music as being spiritual in some way, and since music IMPACTS people’s emotions in a myriad of ways with no known method of describing exactly how the process works, is music not itself a case of the mystical?
5. The mystical guitarist nurtures every aspect of spirituality within them, continually focusing on it as they are playing and improvising, striving to feed their devotion to becoming one with the “metaphysical realm” since they know it will elevate them to greater levels on their instrument as well as helping to increase their mental health and spirituality.
6. If a mystic strives after union with the forces of the universe, and they are a virtuoso musician, and they do in fact have a genuine mystical experience, can the same religious or mystical qualities they feel be passed on to members of an audience through their playing? I realize the chances of someone being a mystic and a virtuoso musician simultaneously, then experiencing something “divine” as they are performing, are all very slim, but with six billion people in the world, surely someone somewhere at some point in history could do it, couldn’t they? Is it possible to have a divine experience while playing a musical instrument at the same time? Or would it take most of their concentration to simply play the music? Not if they’re a virtuoso.
If you have a mystical experience while playing your guitar and then share those feelings with members of your audience, I believe you will be the first musician to ever accomplish this feat.
One more thing: I believe it’s actually easier to become a “monk” on the electric guitar than a mystic. When I was 16 years old, many people would have probably considered my behavior similar to that of a monk’s living in a monastery. I would do nothing but practice my guitar for most of the day, usually around 9 or 10 hours. I had very few friends at the time, and I would read and study guitar magazines for hours, using them for both entertainment and learning purposes. I abstained from alcohol and tobacco and I lived on a diet of Coke, omelets, and egg rolls. I did not have a girlfriend and rarely attended parties or social gatherings. If I would have been a more spiritual or religious person at that time, I could have definitely been considered a genuine monk. The only thing that mattered to me during that period of my life was practicing my guitar as much as possible.
When I finally got a girlfriend a year or two later, she was jealous of the time I spent with my guitar, and once she stated, “You love your guitar more than me, don’t you?”
“No,” I lied.
After that, nearly all of my girlfriends have claimed that I prefered my guitar over them. Sometimes it was true and other times it was not.
Although I believe it’s easier to become a monk on the guitar, I think it’s much more important to strive to become a true mystic. Good luck with your attempts.
-end-
(Thanks for reading. If you know of any magazines that would like to publish this article, please contact the author. Also, you would be helping out the author greatly if you purchased one of his books from Amazon.com or another online book store. Thanks again.)
http://becomeguitaristfromhell.blogspot.com/
http://www.youtube.com/user/zevi35711
Bio: Jason Earls is the author of Cocoon of Terror (Afterbirth Books), Heartless Bast*rd In Ecstasy, How to Become a Guitar Player from Hell, Red Zen, If(Sid_Vicious == TRUE && Alan_Turing == TRUE) {ERROR_Cyberpunk(); }, and 0.136101521283655... all available at Amazon.com and other online book stores. His fiction and mathematical work have been published in Red Scream, Yankee Pot Roast, M-Brane SF, Scientia Magna, three of Clifford Pickover’s books, Mathworld.com, AlienSkin, Recreational and Educational Computing, Escaping Elsewhere, Neometropolis, Thirteen, Dogmatika, Prime Curios, the Online Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences, OG’s Speculative Fiction, Nocturnal Ooze, Bust Down the Door and Eat All the Chickens, and other publications. He currently resides in Oklahoma with his wife, Christine.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Monday, December 29, 2008
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Scream Like You Mean It
Scream Like You Mean It
By Jason Earls, author of Cocoon of Terror & Heartless Bastard In Ecstasy
http://becomeguitaristfromhell.blogspot.com/
http://www.youtube.com/user/zevi35711
The music studio was dark and baleful; a few dim red lights, a lone yellow bulb in a far corner illuminating the abundance of electronic instrumentation and band equipment setting around the main recording room.
The recording session was over now. The producer, William Noxquist, who had been running the entire session sighed loudly and slammed his fist down on the mixing board in the engineer’s room. He mumbled a curse and cradled his forehead in one hand. It had been a horrible recording day. The lead singer, Roan Lombardy of the band Jet-Set Llama, had a major ego problem (typical L.S.D. – lead singer disease); and William had a naturally sarcastic personality, so of course the two didn’t mesh well which had caused arguments after almost every take. To make matters worse, the lead singer’s girlfriend, Samantha, entered the studio as soon as the session was over and began screaming incessantly and ordering everyone around. The band members all hated her and William did too. Bitchy Samantha, with her large fake boobs and her butt-cheek implants and her extensive facial surgery that gave her that off-putting Michael Jackson look.
“I hope you weren’t too hard on Roan today,” Samantha told William as she walked into the small engineer’s room. “You know how he treats me when he’s had a bad singing day. And you just love putting people through this recording torture chamber for hours, don’t you?”
William scowled and glared at her. “Well, little Missy,” he said sarcastically, “Roan’s out in the hallway waiting for you now. Why not go out there and check his mental status for yourself and not badger me about it. Go ahead and haul his dumb ass outta here because I’ve had more than enough of him for one day. You think you can do that for me, sweetie?”
“Why are you always so damn sarcastic, William?” Samantha said. “Why can’t you be nice for just one freakin’ day? Or act the least bit respectful towards me and the other band members of Jet-Set Llama.”
“Hey S-s-s (he almost said ‘slut’) Samantha, I’m dead tired so don’t start telling me how to behave! You’ve got no idea what I’ve been through today. Even before work I had a terrible day.”
She squinted and bunched up her huge tits with the top portion of her arms, then brushed back her new hairdo with a defiant gesture. Surprisingly, she plopped down in a chair beside William.
“Do you wanna know what happened?” he said. “I swear if you hear it, it’ll ruin your day too.”
“Go ahead. It won’t bother me.”
“All right, here goes... On my early morning jog at around 7 a.m., before coming to the studio, I decided to run by the park. I wanted to take a different route to help stave off the boredom of running and when I got near the basketball courts I noticed two little asshole teenagers pulling trash out of a garbage dumpster and stringing it through the trees and throwing it on the sidewalk. Of course that pissed me off since I work hard volunteering on the weekends to keep this town beautiful, and I knew the kids were nothing but little degenerate pricks since I’d seen them around town before and knew their family. So I ran in their direction to shoo them away. I started jogging faster and my face reddened with anger watching them litter up the park. They didn’t even notice me they were so busy vandalizing. Then I saw one of the punks go over to the concession stand, a small blue building, now closed for the winter, and one of them squatted down beside it. I ran closer and they still didn’t see or hear me and I watched that punk squatting by the little building and gradually realized what he was doing: TAKING A SHIT RIGHT BY THE CONCESSION STAND! RIGHT THERE IN PUBLIC! Finally they both heard me running toward them and the shitting one stood up and pulled on his pants, but not before dragging a white sheet of notebook paper up the crack of his ass to wipe it. I couldn’t believe one of these punks would just take a crap in the park in broad daylight. Taking a dump right by the concession stand where people sell food and other people eat it! Can you fucking believe that! Uncouth little retards! They both ran and the one struggled with his pants and I was so freakin’ pissed off I started shouting and they both got on their bikes and pedalled off as I ran on, out of breath screaming at them. I went over to the small covered area where the kid had crapped and saw numerous long winding brown turds scattered all over the cement. Jesus Christ, a tremendous amount of shit came out of that little scumbag’s ass and it smelled like a backed-up cesspool. I felt like calling the police and reporting the incident but I had to get to work and couldn’t fool with it. So I jogged home and took a shower and came to work. That’s the kind of morning I’ve had. Then I have to come to this depressing-assed recording studio and be forced to endure your boyfriend’s nasty prima donna attitude and your constant bitching. What a day... My life truly sucks...”
Samantha slapped the arms of her chair and pushed herself up. She ignored William’s story about the kid crapping in the park and focused instead on his degrading statements about Roan and herself: “You know what, William? You’re nothing but an asshole. Don’t ever talk that way about my man! You’re lucky to even be here recording Roan Lombardy’s incredible voice! He knew Axl Rose in Indianna when they were teenagers, they grew up together, and he even inspired Axl to become a singer and also secretly helped him write some of the songs that later showed up on Chinese Democracy. Roan is a major talent while you’re only a C-level producer! You don’t know jack squat about real talent! Yeah, I know he can barely remember the lyrics to the new songs and he sings off key quite a bit, but you’re still lucky to be able to work with him on this record which is going to sell through the roof and make me at least ten million bucks!”
William sneered at her and shook his head, “Fuck you, you stupid shallow bitch. Get outta here before I slap your fake face off. You didn’t listen to one goddamn word I said. Now leave and take Roan Lombardy the prick with you and go fuck yourselves. I’m just wasting my time talking to you. You’re not even supposed to be in this recording studio anyway!”
Samantha laughed and shook her head, then squeezed her lips together tightly. She stood up to leave but wanted to give William Noxquist one last thing to remember before she left the studio. So she raised her left leg high and stomped down on his foot with her pointed high heel, which penetrated William’s boot and entered the top part of his foot.
It took awhile to register, but the pain eventually traveled to his brain and it felt almost unbearable. William screamed, reached down and grabbed his foot, then growled and lunged at Samantha, taking hold of her throat. When he jumped at her, his arm accidentally pushed the record button. He started choking her and she started screaming – deranged squeals and bloodcurdling shrieks issuing from her luscious lips. He squeezed harder and shook her neck a little and Samantha’s shirt ripped in front from her struggling to free herself. Her shirt gradually ripped more and more until finally her large fake breasts were released.
William looked down at her tits. He gasped at the large dark aureolas and the erect half-inch nipples. They were beautiful. His eyes protruded and he felt his genital region pop a boner. But he continued choking her anyway and she kept on screaming maniacally. Then William leaned down and licked one of her gorgeous nipples. He moved a hand down and squeezed one of her fake tits, then sucked on both breasts some more.
High-pitched screams still erupted from Samantha’s throat and William finally stopped sucking, raised up and gritted his teech and choked her harder. The sounds coming from Samantha’s luscious mouth were shrill and disturbing unhinged caterwauls of insane noise and she sounded like she was near death. He listened to her screams and became worried if he would ever release her or if she’d die. He seemed powerless to stop the choke. He stared down at her fake boobs again, now covered with his own saliva. He felt his massive hard-on raging in his pants so much he suspected it might tear right through the fabric.
The recording button on the console was still glowing a brilliant red. William was still recording Samantha’s freakish screams of death without even realizing it. He listened again to the intriguing noises issuing from her mangled throat and was amazed.
Finally the lead singer of Jet-Set Llama, Roan Lombardy, heard the screams in the hall where he’d accidentally fallen asleep waiting for Samantha to pick him up in her BMW. Her loud disturbing screams had forced him to awake and he groggily rose from the couch in the hallway and ran into the recording studio to investigate.
Inside he saw William Noxquist, the producer he despised, with his hands wrapped tightly around his girlfriend’s neck. Her blouse was ripped and her large succulent breasts exposed as they glistened with a slimy coating. Roan saw William with a large tent in the front of his pants and the producer seemed in a deep daze or trance as he continued strangling the woman Roan loved with all his heart and soul. Her outlandish death shrieks continued unabated, and it seemed like Samantha would eventually run out of air, but she never did.
“WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON IN HERE?” Roan Lombardy yelled.
Roan always kept two weapons handy for emergencies such as this:
1) A pair of homemade “brass” knuckles that he’d made out of lead.
2) A small .22 pistol with pearl handles
Both weapons were tucked away deep inside Roan’s snakeskin boots since last summer he’d been robbed and almost beaten to death by a pimp in an alley and had decided to carry sufficient protection ever since.
He bent down and extracted the brass knuckles from his boot and slipped them on. He went into the engineer’s room, lurched back as far as possible and slammed William in the temple. The dazed producer flew and landed on the mixing console a few feet away. Roan then took off the brass knuckles and brought out the .22 pistol. He aimed right between William’s eyes and let fly with five slugs that shattered the producer’s skull into thousands of tiny fragments as brain tissue and blood flew everywhere. Roan wiped the gore from his face and aimed the pistol at William’s chest and put another slug in his heart just for the hell of it.
Samantha was now passed out on the floor. Roan went over to her. He pulled her shirt back over her fake breasts and tried to button it a little. Samantha was making gurgling noises in her throat and Roan looked at the bright red marks covering her neck. That son-of-a-bitch almost killed her, he thought.
“Wake up, Samantha!” he yelled. After slapping her cheeks lightly, she awoke groaning and drooling and he wiped her face with his thumb. “You’ll be all right,” he said. “I’ll get you out of here right away.”
Then he looked down and noticed the recording light still glowing red on the console below.
“What the hell is that doing on? Was William recording something in here?”
He went over and rewound the file and pressed the play button.
The horrific sounds of Samantha screaming while William choked her filled the recording studio at maximum volume.
Hot and cold chills traveled up and down Roan’s spine.
William Noxquist had captured every ghoulish shriek and eldritch squeal and freakish gasp that issued from Samantha’s throat as he tried to choke the life out of her and thus caused her body to feel excruciating pain.
Roan’s eyes opened wide with pure musical excitement. He couldn’t believe how awesome the screaming of someone near death sounded. A combination of “almost-lost” existence on a terror-filled planet with the bone-chilling fear of postmodern death lurking deep within her subconscious. “Gruesome,” he said. “I love it. I’ve got to use these sounds on our next album. Her screams sound incredible, I always knew she had a superb voice. Surely Samantha won’t mind if we use them as long as I give her credit on the album.”
Over the next few weeks, Jet-Set Llama worked on hiring a new producer for their next album which they decided to call, “Scream Like You Mean It.” Roam Lombardy was cleared of killing William Noxquist on a self-defense claim for his girlfriend, Samantha. And Roan also placed the sounds of Samantha screaming in the middle of their first single, “Blood On A Dog’s Dick” as special effects during the instrumental section; and he also positioned more of her vocal wailings at the very end of the album, which he thought acted as an eerie outro expressing even more harrowing music to be released from the band in the future. The single became an immediate hit and climbed the musical charts; and later that year, Jet-Set Llama won a Grammy for ‘best rock album’ and ‘most stunningly original use of special effects,’ all thanks to Samantha (and William Noxquist, one of the greatest music producers in the world who was tragically killed at the peak of his abilities.)
-end-
(Thanks for reading. If you know of any magazines that would like to publish this story, please contact me.)
http://becomeguitaristfromhell.blogspot.com/
http://www.youtube.com/user/zevi35711
Bio: Jason Earls is the author of Cocoon of Terror (Afterbirth Books), Heartless Bast*rd In Ecstasy, How to Become a Guitar Player from Hell, Red Zen, If(Sid_Vicious == TRUE && Alan_Turing == TRUE) {ERROR_Cyberpunk(); }, and 0.136101521283655... all available at Amazon.com and other online book stores. His fiction and mathematical work have been published in Red Scream, Yankee Pot Roast, M-Brane SF, Scientia Magna, three of Clifford Pickover’s books, Mathworld.com, AlienSkin, Recreational and Educational Computing, Escaping Elsewhere, Neometropolis, Thirteen, Dogmatika, Prime Curios, the Online Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences, OG’s Speculative Fiction, Nocturnal Ooze, Bust Down the Door and Eat All the Chickens, and other publications. He currently resides in Oklahoma with his wife, Christine.
By Jason Earls, author of Cocoon of Terror & Heartless Bastard In Ecstasy
http://becomeguitaristfromhell.blogspot.com/
http://www.youtube.com/user/zevi35711
The music studio was dark and baleful; a few dim red lights, a lone yellow bulb in a far corner illuminating the abundance of electronic instrumentation and band equipment setting around the main recording room.
The recording session was over now. The producer, William Noxquist, who had been running the entire session sighed loudly and slammed his fist down on the mixing board in the engineer’s room. He mumbled a curse and cradled his forehead in one hand. It had been a horrible recording day. The lead singer, Roan Lombardy of the band Jet-Set Llama, had a major ego problem (typical L.S.D. – lead singer disease); and William had a naturally sarcastic personality, so of course the two didn’t mesh well which had caused arguments after almost every take. To make matters worse, the lead singer’s girlfriend, Samantha, entered the studio as soon as the session was over and began screaming incessantly and ordering everyone around. The band members all hated her and William did too. Bitchy Samantha, with her large fake boobs and her butt-cheek implants and her extensive facial surgery that gave her that off-putting Michael Jackson look.
“I hope you weren’t too hard on Roan today,” Samantha told William as she walked into the small engineer’s room. “You know how he treats me when he’s had a bad singing day. And you just love putting people through this recording torture chamber for hours, don’t you?”
William scowled and glared at her. “Well, little Missy,” he said sarcastically, “Roan’s out in the hallway waiting for you now. Why not go out there and check his mental status for yourself and not badger me about it. Go ahead and haul his dumb ass outta here because I’ve had more than enough of him for one day. You think you can do that for me, sweetie?”
“Why are you always so damn sarcastic, William?” Samantha said. “Why can’t you be nice for just one freakin’ day? Or act the least bit respectful towards me and the other band members of Jet-Set Llama.”
“Hey S-s-s (he almost said ‘slut’) Samantha, I’m dead tired so don’t start telling me how to behave! You’ve got no idea what I’ve been through today. Even before work I had a terrible day.”
She squinted and bunched up her huge tits with the top portion of her arms, then brushed back her new hairdo with a defiant gesture. Surprisingly, she plopped down in a chair beside William.
“Do you wanna know what happened?” he said. “I swear if you hear it, it’ll ruin your day too.”
“Go ahead. It won’t bother me.”
“All right, here goes... On my early morning jog at around 7 a.m., before coming to the studio, I decided to run by the park. I wanted to take a different route to help stave off the boredom of running and when I got near the basketball courts I noticed two little asshole teenagers pulling trash out of a garbage dumpster and stringing it through the trees and throwing it on the sidewalk. Of course that pissed me off since I work hard volunteering on the weekends to keep this town beautiful, and I knew the kids were nothing but little degenerate pricks since I’d seen them around town before and knew their family. So I ran in their direction to shoo them away. I started jogging faster and my face reddened with anger watching them litter up the park. They didn’t even notice me they were so busy vandalizing. Then I saw one of the punks go over to the concession stand, a small blue building, now closed for the winter, and one of them squatted down beside it. I ran closer and they still didn’t see or hear me and I watched that punk squatting by the little building and gradually realized what he was doing: TAKING A SHIT RIGHT BY THE CONCESSION STAND! RIGHT THERE IN PUBLIC! Finally they both heard me running toward them and the shitting one stood up and pulled on his pants, but not before dragging a white sheet of notebook paper up the crack of his ass to wipe it. I couldn’t believe one of these punks would just take a crap in the park in broad daylight. Taking a dump right by the concession stand where people sell food and other people eat it! Can you fucking believe that! Uncouth little retards! They both ran and the one struggled with his pants and I was so freakin’ pissed off I started shouting and they both got on their bikes and pedalled off as I ran on, out of breath screaming at them. I went over to the small covered area where the kid had crapped and saw numerous long winding brown turds scattered all over the cement. Jesus Christ, a tremendous amount of shit came out of that little scumbag’s ass and it smelled like a backed-up cesspool. I felt like calling the police and reporting the incident but I had to get to work and couldn’t fool with it. So I jogged home and took a shower and came to work. That’s the kind of morning I’ve had. Then I have to come to this depressing-assed recording studio and be forced to endure your boyfriend’s nasty prima donna attitude and your constant bitching. What a day... My life truly sucks...”
Samantha slapped the arms of her chair and pushed herself up. She ignored William’s story about the kid crapping in the park and focused instead on his degrading statements about Roan and herself: “You know what, William? You’re nothing but an asshole. Don’t ever talk that way about my man! You’re lucky to even be here recording Roan Lombardy’s incredible voice! He knew Axl Rose in Indianna when they were teenagers, they grew up together, and he even inspired Axl to become a singer and also secretly helped him write some of the songs that later showed up on Chinese Democracy. Roan is a major talent while you’re only a C-level producer! You don’t know jack squat about real talent! Yeah, I know he can barely remember the lyrics to the new songs and he sings off key quite a bit, but you’re still lucky to be able to work with him on this record which is going to sell through the roof and make me at least ten million bucks!”
William sneered at her and shook his head, “Fuck you, you stupid shallow bitch. Get outta here before I slap your fake face off. You didn’t listen to one goddamn word I said. Now leave and take Roan Lombardy the prick with you and go fuck yourselves. I’m just wasting my time talking to you. You’re not even supposed to be in this recording studio anyway!”
Samantha laughed and shook her head, then squeezed her lips together tightly. She stood up to leave but wanted to give William Noxquist one last thing to remember before she left the studio. So she raised her left leg high and stomped down on his foot with her pointed high heel, which penetrated William’s boot and entered the top part of his foot.
It took awhile to register, but the pain eventually traveled to his brain and it felt almost unbearable. William screamed, reached down and grabbed his foot, then growled and lunged at Samantha, taking hold of her throat. When he jumped at her, his arm accidentally pushed the record button. He started choking her and she started screaming – deranged squeals and bloodcurdling shrieks issuing from her luscious lips. He squeezed harder and shook her neck a little and Samantha’s shirt ripped in front from her struggling to free herself. Her shirt gradually ripped more and more until finally her large fake breasts were released.
William looked down at her tits. He gasped at the large dark aureolas and the erect half-inch nipples. They were beautiful. His eyes protruded and he felt his genital region pop a boner. But he continued choking her anyway and she kept on screaming maniacally. Then William leaned down and licked one of her gorgeous nipples. He moved a hand down and squeezed one of her fake tits, then sucked on both breasts some more.
High-pitched screams still erupted from Samantha’s throat and William finally stopped sucking, raised up and gritted his teech and choked her harder. The sounds coming from Samantha’s luscious mouth were shrill and disturbing unhinged caterwauls of insane noise and she sounded like she was near death. He listened to her screams and became worried if he would ever release her or if she’d die. He seemed powerless to stop the choke. He stared down at her fake boobs again, now covered with his own saliva. He felt his massive hard-on raging in his pants so much he suspected it might tear right through the fabric.
The recording button on the console was still glowing a brilliant red. William was still recording Samantha’s freakish screams of death without even realizing it. He listened again to the intriguing noises issuing from her mangled throat and was amazed.
Finally the lead singer of Jet-Set Llama, Roan Lombardy, heard the screams in the hall where he’d accidentally fallen asleep waiting for Samantha to pick him up in her BMW. Her loud disturbing screams had forced him to awake and he groggily rose from the couch in the hallway and ran into the recording studio to investigate.
Inside he saw William Noxquist, the producer he despised, with his hands wrapped tightly around his girlfriend’s neck. Her blouse was ripped and her large succulent breasts exposed as they glistened with a slimy coating. Roan saw William with a large tent in the front of his pants and the producer seemed in a deep daze or trance as he continued strangling the woman Roan loved with all his heart and soul. Her outlandish death shrieks continued unabated, and it seemed like Samantha would eventually run out of air, but she never did.
“WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON IN HERE?” Roan Lombardy yelled.
Roan always kept two weapons handy for emergencies such as this:
1) A pair of homemade “brass” knuckles that he’d made out of lead.
2) A small .22 pistol with pearl handles
Both weapons were tucked away deep inside Roan’s snakeskin boots since last summer he’d been robbed and almost beaten to death by a pimp in an alley and had decided to carry sufficient protection ever since.
He bent down and extracted the brass knuckles from his boot and slipped them on. He went into the engineer’s room, lurched back as far as possible and slammed William in the temple. The dazed producer flew and landed on the mixing console a few feet away. Roan then took off the brass knuckles and brought out the .22 pistol. He aimed right between William’s eyes and let fly with five slugs that shattered the producer’s skull into thousands of tiny fragments as brain tissue and blood flew everywhere. Roan wiped the gore from his face and aimed the pistol at William’s chest and put another slug in his heart just for the hell of it.
Samantha was now passed out on the floor. Roan went over to her. He pulled her shirt back over her fake breasts and tried to button it a little. Samantha was making gurgling noises in her throat and Roan looked at the bright red marks covering her neck. That son-of-a-bitch almost killed her, he thought.
“Wake up, Samantha!” he yelled. After slapping her cheeks lightly, she awoke groaning and drooling and he wiped her face with his thumb. “You’ll be all right,” he said. “I’ll get you out of here right away.”
Then he looked down and noticed the recording light still glowing red on the console below.
“What the hell is that doing on? Was William recording something in here?”
He went over and rewound the file and pressed the play button.
The horrific sounds of Samantha screaming while William choked her filled the recording studio at maximum volume.
Hot and cold chills traveled up and down Roan’s spine.
William Noxquist had captured every ghoulish shriek and eldritch squeal and freakish gasp that issued from Samantha’s throat as he tried to choke the life out of her and thus caused her body to feel excruciating pain.
Roan’s eyes opened wide with pure musical excitement. He couldn’t believe how awesome the screaming of someone near death sounded. A combination of “almost-lost” existence on a terror-filled planet with the bone-chilling fear of postmodern death lurking deep within her subconscious. “Gruesome,” he said. “I love it. I’ve got to use these sounds on our next album. Her screams sound incredible, I always knew she had a superb voice. Surely Samantha won’t mind if we use them as long as I give her credit on the album.”
Over the next few weeks, Jet-Set Llama worked on hiring a new producer for their next album which they decided to call, “Scream Like You Mean It.” Roam Lombardy was cleared of killing William Noxquist on a self-defense claim for his girlfriend, Samantha. And Roan also placed the sounds of Samantha screaming in the middle of their first single, “Blood On A Dog’s Dick” as special effects during the instrumental section; and he also positioned more of her vocal wailings at the very end of the album, which he thought acted as an eerie outro expressing even more harrowing music to be released from the band in the future. The single became an immediate hit and climbed the musical charts; and later that year, Jet-Set Llama won a Grammy for ‘best rock album’ and ‘most stunningly original use of special effects,’ all thanks to Samantha (and William Noxquist, one of the greatest music producers in the world who was tragically killed at the peak of his abilities.)
-end-
(Thanks for reading. If you know of any magazines that would like to publish this story, please contact me.)
http://becomeguitaristfromhell.blogspot.com/
http://www.youtube.com/user/zevi35711
Bio: Jason Earls is the author of Cocoon of Terror (Afterbirth Books), Heartless Bast*rd In Ecstasy, How to Become a Guitar Player from Hell, Red Zen, If(Sid_Vicious == TRUE && Alan_Turing == TRUE) {ERROR_Cyberpunk(); }, and 0.136101521283655... all available at Amazon.com and other online book stores. His fiction and mathematical work have been published in Red Scream, Yankee Pot Roast, M-Brane SF, Scientia Magna, three of Clifford Pickover’s books, Mathworld.com, AlienSkin, Recreational and Educational Computing, Escaping Elsewhere, Neometropolis, Thirteen, Dogmatika, Prime Curios, the Online Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences, OG’s Speculative Fiction, Nocturnal Ooze, Bust Down the Door and Eat All the Chickens, and other publications. He currently resides in Oklahoma with his wife, Christine.
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Spacing Out on Cocaine
I like Obama, I voted for him. Here's a short story in which Obama makes an appearance. I'm not making fun of Obama, I don't know why I added him as a character to this story, it just formed that was as I was writing it. I hope you like it.
Spacing Out on Cocaine
by Jason Earls, author of Cocoon of Terror & Red Zen
http://becomeguitaristfromhell.blogspot.com/
http://www.youtube.com/user/zevi35711
“Where are you going?” Lars’ girlfriend asked.
“Be back in a minute,” he said. “I’m feeling a bit pensive and need to meditate in the bathroom before my last set.”
“But remember, you’ve got Cocaine coming up!” she yelled. “It’s your best song!”
“I know. I’ll be ready...” Lars said, heading toward the bathroom.
Jesus, give me some peace, bitch, he thought pushing open the bathroom door. His girlfriend was always on his back, bitching and moaning, pushing him to advance in his musical career so that he would make enough money to pay for the plastic surgery necessary to turn herself into a supermodel.
But now he was getting ready to play the last set of the night. Only 45 minutes of music left, then the gig would be over and Lars could go home and relax with a few cold beers. Lars was the lead guitarist in the band Diaphanous-Dolphin and one of his most popular cover songs, Cocaine by Eric Clapton, was next on the set list. Lars could solo over Cocaine all night long without ever running out of ideas: the simple E to D chord progression, the E minor pentatonic scale, and Lars’ naturally bluesy vocals were all he needed to set the crowd ablaze.
Lars had a ritual before the last set of every gig. A secret ritual. He liked to go into the bathroom to regroup and energize himself by snorting a couple of lines of cocaine. It helped him get through the nights when he didn’t feel like playing. Just two lines of coke would give him plenty of physical energy and open his mind to considerably expand his guitar phrasing. You see, while tripping out in the pentatonic box, a lot of guitarists have a tendency to repeat themselves; and Lars couldn’t stand playing any of the same phrases twice during the course of a gig. He always strived to unleash fresh stimulating melodies upon the crowd, thinking that he could improvise as well as saxaphone legend, Charlie Parker, even though as a musician Lars would not have even registered as a tiny pubic hair on the late great Charlie Parker’s buttocks.
Lars went into the bathroom stall and pulled a baggie from his front pocket, then he took out his wallet from his back pocket and sat down on the toilet. He noticed a Hunter S. Thompson book on the floor, reached down and grabbed it, placing it on his lap. He opened the baggie and poured out some of the cocaine. Next he took a credit card and a straw from his wallet, formed two lines of coke on the book, then snorted the cocaine up into both nostrils – first the right, then the left – with two powerful blasting inhalations.
Ahhh, whooo, that stuff really has some kick, Lars thought as he shook his head and squeezed the tip of his nose.
He put the drug paraphernalia away and threw the Hunter S. Thompson book on the floor. Then he felt something loosen in his lower stomach, so he leaned up and pulled down his pants and sat back down on the toilet. A good crap before the last set always helped him a lot too.
Lars sat there voiding his bowels, thinking about his present situation in life: Wow, I’m almost 40 years old and I’m still playing in a little rock band at these ridiculously small clubs. I can barely make enough money to even survive. I have no chance of ever recording an album, no chance of touring or getting a decent band manager. I play with guys who aren’t even creative enough to write one fucking original song. Not a damn song of their own, or who will allow me to play one of my own originals. I just perform other musician’s material every freakin’ night – promoting other people’s music, like a chumped-out loser working for free. I’ll never get anywhere with this crap. I’ll never do anything in music that’s worthwhile like the heroes that I grew up listening to: Metallica, Guns ‘N Roses, The Sex Pistols, Rick Springfield, George Thorogood and the Destroyers, AC/DC, Miles Davis, Slayer, Billy Squier, Cream, Led Zeppelin, Pantera, Ozzy, Megadeth, Aerosmith, The Swans, Van Halen, Black Flag, John Lee Hooker, Poison, Tone Loc, The Butthole Surfers, R.L. Burnside, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Black Sabbath, The Doors, The Beastie Boys, Junior Kimbrough, Nirvana... I’m just living a stupid wannabe rock star dream. You’d think I would have grown up by now. But no, not me. My day job at the nursing home is fucking horrible. I’m truly screwed, burnt out, wasted, dead, cynical, daunted, defeated, fucked over, jaded, destroyed, and pissed off. But you know what? I don’t care. Because I’m getting ready to go out there and play E.C.’s Cocaine after snorting some cocaine of my own and it’s going to be fantastic. I’ll lose myself in the music. I’ll trip out and fly away. Hell, I’ve played Cocaine a million times by now but I’m going to go out play it the best ever in just a few minutes. I’ll release every ounce of emotion and anger from my body and my mind and my transcendental soul to show everyone in the audience that I’m not a loser. I’m a damn good guitar player, I know that much. I’ll show everyone. Nope, I’m not going to sit here thinking about my shitty life and becoming more and more depressed. I’m going to go out there and kick ass on stage and then I’ll be a real man. No one will ever call me a pussy or a pansy ever again. Fuck it, I’m a man.
Lars grabbed some toilet paper and wiped his ass, then he stood up and pulled on his pants and fastened his belt with the large silver Guns ‘N Roses belt buckle. He went out of the stall and over to a mirror. Although Lars loved blues and classic rock the most, he affected a heavy metal look on stage: Faded jean jacket cut off at the sleeves to reveal his heavily-muscled arms; leather straps with long silver spikes wrapped around both wrists; a large silver chain with small golden guitars hanging around his neck; a big blue battleaxe tattooed across his whole throat; his hairy chest visible below showing his large pectoral muscles; long flowing black hair cut into a perfect mullet shape. “Looking good,” he said, smiling into the mirror.
He went out to the stage and grabbed his black Gretsch Electromatic solid body guitar and put it on. He turned to his drummer and counted off the tune and they started the E to D chord progression of Cocaine and the audience hooted and cheered. Lars took a brief solo at the beginning, bending some notes, adding a wide stinging vibrato ala Albert King. His guitar sound was that of a man mega-pissed off, on the brink of defeat, almost every ounce of life sucked from his haggard body, a person filled with almost homicidal despair and angst, and every person in the crowd could feel it, because each of them felt exactly the same way Lars did. He stepped over to the microphone, grimaced and puckered his lips, then started belting out the lyrics.
If you wanna hang out you’ve gotta take her out - cocaine... If you wanna get down, go down to the ground - cocaine... When your day is done and you wanna run on - cocaine. If you got bad news, you wanna kick them fuckin’ blues - cocaine... She don’t lie, she don’t lie, no baby she dont fuckin’ lie - COCAINE!
Lars sang the lyrics so intensely he started feeling searing pain in his vocal chords, but he kept on going, hoping he could make it to the solo section, where he could relax and forget about everything and trip out on his guitar with complete abandon and ferocity.
The solo section arrived and he began with some slow melodic phrases in the 7th position of the neck, bending and releasing and plucking the strings with his fingers, then he worked his way up to the 12th position and played some fast pentatonic quintuplets and transitioned into quick bursts of finger-tapping and trills. Then, for no reason at all, he moved up to the 22nd fret and bent the highest note on his fret board two full steps while leaning into the microphone and screaming “COCAINE!” in the highest falsetto voice he could manufacture; and as he did so, he felt something snap inside his brain – all of the cocaine he’d snorted earlier kicked in at that precise moment with complete force.
He blacked out for a fraction of a second, then awoke to see President-elect Barack Obama’s disembodied head floating before him in space. Obama’s head was surrounded by golden light coming through dark clouds with a few white feathers floating and descending. The music Lars had been playing earlier could still be heard faintly in the background, with him playing guitar somewhere down below.
“What’s going on?” Lars asked.
“I don’t know, what’s going on?” Barack Obama’s floating head responded.
“What are you doing here?”
“Nothing, what are you doing here?”
“What do you mean ‘nothing.’ You’re Barrack Obama and you’re floating here in front of me. I’m supposed to be playing a gig right now, but I’m somewhere in outer space. Let me go back down to where the music is.”
“I’m not holding you here. You’ve chosen to be talking to me. This is your fault, Lars... Don’t worry though, your gig is still going fine down below with you still playing guitar. You’re just having an out-of-body experience at the moment... By the way, I’m not Barrack Obama.”
Lars looked down at his fingers. He was still holding his guitar, a few white feathers fell on the fretboard, he could hear music faintly in his style of playing, but his fingers were not moving. “You are too Barrack Obama. I may be spaced out on cocaine right now, but I’m not crazy. Of course you’re Barrack, you look exactly like him.”
“Perhaps I do resemble him, but it’s only because our brains have been swapped. I’m really Eric Clapton.”
“What.”
“A doctor swapped our brains. My brain – Eric Clapton’s – was put inside Barack Obama’s skull, which you are seeing now, and Barack’s brain was put into my head. You’re actually talking to Eric Clapton right now, not Obama. Can’t you tell by my British accent?”
“I thought that was a little odd. Still, this is ridiculous. Way too confusing. I can’t talk to Eric Clapton when he looks like Obama. Aren’t you going to be our president soon?”
“I guess so. I’m the President-elect.”
“Do you know anything about politics?”
“Of course not, I’m Eric Clapton. I only know how to play blues guitar.”
“Wow, the United States is really going to be fucked up soon.”
“Yes it is, but I can’t help it... Let’s change the subject. I’m here to give you something.”
“What’s that?” Lars said.
“The essence of all music summed up in one melody.”
“Pardon?”
“I am going to give you a melody that will contain the essence of all music.”
“Yeah, sure. What would I do with that?”
Obama’s face fell into a scowl. “Don’t you realize how powerful that would be? The melody will contain the essence of every musical phrase in the universe, every prior one congealed into it. This melody will be an otherworldly divine phrase so mesmerizing when it’s played audiences will become hypnotized and fall in love with you and become your greatest fans for the rest of your life.”
“Uh huh, right,” Lars said sarcastically. He was now in a slight stupor, but could still hear himself playing electric guitar down below on Earth and he was losing interest in the conversation. He turned around and tried to see through the dark clouds to where the gig was taking place, but only blurry images of the people phasing in and out were visible. “I really need to get back down there. Is this almost over?”
Barrack Obama’s floating head continued, “If you record the melody on an album of your own, realize that it will instantly become the best-selling record of all time. And I mean OF ALL TIME.”
“I could certainly use that. But what happens when other musicians hear it, they’ll have the melody too.”
“No they won’t. I’ll make it so that no other musician will be allowed to play it because they’ll be blocked from fully hearing all the notes – one tone will automatically cancel out in their minds and they won’t be able to receive the full musical phrase.”
“That’s impossible.”
“No. It’s weird, but not impossible.”
Lars hung his head in thought for a few seconds. “All right, I believe you, Mr. Clapton. But I just want to get back to my gig now.”
“So you’re ready to receive the melody?” Obama’s head said.
“Yeah.”
The floating head began humming in a soft whisper but Lars couldn’t hear the entire melody before the whole world turned black, then surreal science fiction images appeared in his brain, pictures of quarks melting into gigantic noses, skinny nude supermodel-androids doing back flips on floating tramplines, gluons exploding into ferocious balls of fireworks, and Obama’s face transforming into a geometrical 24-dimensional crystal lattice representation of God – every one of the macabre images freezing inside of Lars’ mind. He looked down at his guitar and saw how quantum chromodynamics drove the inner workings of the electronics and he instantly understood every substance in the universe on a subatomic level; but he also received Clapton’s divine melody in the midst of all this outlandish information, without ever realizing it.
He awoke on stage in his own body, still soloing away on his guitar. He turned around and signaled the band to end the tune, then he hit a final E major chord with the drummer who pounded a loud crash on his cymbals.
But after finishing the song, everything that had happened was still too much for Lars to digest: him soloing too intensely, screaming Cocaine in a ludicrously high falsetto, talking to Eric Clapton’s brain inside of Obama’s skull, seeing the disturbing science fiction images, Lars could not take in all of this material, so he fell back on the stage and blacked out from total shock and exhaustion.
His girlfriend was watching out in the audience. She shrieked when she saw Lars hit the floor and slowly made her way through the crowd, the room was now filled with awkward silences and embarrassed looks, which she tried to ignore. She climbed the stairs and went over to Lars, unplugged his guitar so that he could keep it on, then hoisted him up, throwing his now lifeless body over her shoulder. She carried the poor unconscious bastard off the stage toward the dressing rooms.
Lars awoke while riding on his girlfriend’s back. He glanced around still in a deep daze. “Where is he?”
She didn’t put him down, but walked faster to the dressing room. “Where is who?”
“Obama’s head. Did he give it to me? Do I have it?”
“Have what? What are you talking about?”
“The melody! It’s really important, the greatest melody of all time. An instant best seller if ever recorded on an album.” Lars paused and looked around as he passed a few audience members who were staring at him with their mouths open.
“You’ve gone crazy, Lars,” his girlfriend said, stilling carrying him on her back through the club with her powerful legs. “You’ve been snorting cocaine again in the bathroom, haven’t you? Goddamn it I told you never to do coke before playing Cocaine again. The double whammy effect from it is way too dangerous. You know you can’t handle heavy drugs so you better knock it off. You’re going to fry your brain and never be able to play another song again.”
Lars looked over his girlfriend’s shoulder, he stared down at the ground, bouncing as she carried him back stage. He heard a faint melody begin somewhere deep in his brain. A nice slow phrase, hypnotic and ethereal, which gradually came to full fruition in his mind. It was the divine melody that Eric Clapton had given him from Obama’s head while he was spaced out on cocaine, the greatest melody of all time. It slowly gained in volume and intensity, the phrase picking up in tempo until the entire thing played out entirely in his addled mind. He started humming it a little as he rode on his girlfriend’s back, but he was careful to leave out a few notes so she wouldn’t hear the full thing. He felt now that the musical phrase contained the true secret of the universe and the meaning of life and was more powerful than a hundred nuclear explosions combined.
“THERE IT IS! I GOT IT! HE REALLY GAVE ME THE MELODY! ALL RIGHT! I KNOW IT’S GOING TO GIVE ME A MAJOR WORLD-WIDE HIT SOON! FUCKING A! SHIT YEAH! OH. MY. GOD. I’M GOING TO BE A TRUE ROCK STAR SOON.”
“Shut up and calm down!” his girlfriend said. “You can lie down in a minute.”
But Lars was not sick, he was only excited about the melody, although he knew better than to play it on his guitar that day, or even the next. He was going to save it. For better times and greater things to come. Soon he would be making millions of smackaroos, hypnotizing audiences, making ladies chase him through the streets, wrecking hotel rooms, raising hell on airplanes in mid-flight, receiving insane fan letters, breaking into casinos, swilling hard liquor and doing every drug known to man, yeah, soon Lars would have the whole fucking world by the balls.
His girlfriend set him down in the dressing room, he leaned back and fell onto a cool leather couch setting behind him. He still had his Gretsch Electromatic around his neck. He slid his hand up and down the fret board, trying to get the feel of his guitar again and pull himself out of the lingering cocaine daze. He played a few blues licks and strummed an E9 chord, then fingered an A7. Everything was quiet in the room, his girlfriend had left to get him a glass of cool water.
Lars heard movement outside in the hallway. Footsteps getting louder.
A man walked into his dressing room. It was President-elect, Barack Obama. Wearing a black suit with a red tie. Lars stared at him with his mouth open. Obama came closer, holding out his hand. Obama said, “Hello, Lars, how are you?”
Lars’ mouth fell open even wider and his fingers stopped moving on his guitar.
He noticed Obama was not speaking with an English accent now. But he still didn’t know whether it was Eric Clapton in there, or the President-elect.
“What are you doing here?” Lars said.
“Play me the melody you were given...”
-end-
http://becomeguitaristfromhell.blogspot.com/
http://www.youtube.com/user/zevi35711
Bio: Jason Earls is the author of Cocoon of Terror (Afterbirth Books), Red Zen, How to Become a Guitar Player from Hell, If(Sid_Vicious == TRUE && Alan_Turing == TRUE) {ERROR_Cyberpunk(); }, Heartless Bast*rd In Ecstasy, and 0.136101521283655... all available at Amazon.com and other online book stores. His fiction and mathematical work have been published in Red Scream, Yankee Pot Roast, M-Brane SF, Scientia Magna, three of Clifford Pickover’s books, Neometropolis, Mathworld.com, AlienSkin, Recreational and Educational Computing, Escaping Elsewhere, Thirteen, Dogmatika, Prime Curios, the Online Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences, OG’s Speculative Fiction, Nocturnal Ooze, Bust Down the Door and Eat All the Chickens, and other publications. He currently resides in Oklahoma with his wife, Christine.
Spacing Out on Cocaine
by Jason Earls, author of Cocoon of Terror & Red Zen
http://becomeguitaristfromhell.blogspot.com/
http://www.youtube.com/user/zevi35711
“Where are you going?” Lars’ girlfriend asked.
“Be back in a minute,” he said. “I’m feeling a bit pensive and need to meditate in the bathroom before my last set.”
“But remember, you’ve got Cocaine coming up!” she yelled. “It’s your best song!”
“I know. I’ll be ready...” Lars said, heading toward the bathroom.
Jesus, give me some peace, bitch, he thought pushing open the bathroom door. His girlfriend was always on his back, bitching and moaning, pushing him to advance in his musical career so that he would make enough money to pay for the plastic surgery necessary to turn herself into a supermodel.
But now he was getting ready to play the last set of the night. Only 45 minutes of music left, then the gig would be over and Lars could go home and relax with a few cold beers. Lars was the lead guitarist in the band Diaphanous-Dolphin and one of his most popular cover songs, Cocaine by Eric Clapton, was next on the set list. Lars could solo over Cocaine all night long without ever running out of ideas: the simple E to D chord progression, the E minor pentatonic scale, and Lars’ naturally bluesy vocals were all he needed to set the crowd ablaze.
Lars had a ritual before the last set of every gig. A secret ritual. He liked to go into the bathroom to regroup and energize himself by snorting a couple of lines of cocaine. It helped him get through the nights when he didn’t feel like playing. Just two lines of coke would give him plenty of physical energy and open his mind to considerably expand his guitar phrasing. You see, while tripping out in the pentatonic box, a lot of guitarists have a tendency to repeat themselves; and Lars couldn’t stand playing any of the same phrases twice during the course of a gig. He always strived to unleash fresh stimulating melodies upon the crowd, thinking that he could improvise as well as saxaphone legend, Charlie Parker, even though as a musician Lars would not have even registered as a tiny pubic hair on the late great Charlie Parker’s buttocks.
Lars went into the bathroom stall and pulled a baggie from his front pocket, then he took out his wallet from his back pocket and sat down on the toilet. He noticed a Hunter S. Thompson book on the floor, reached down and grabbed it, placing it on his lap. He opened the baggie and poured out some of the cocaine. Next he took a credit card and a straw from his wallet, formed two lines of coke on the book, then snorted the cocaine up into both nostrils – first the right, then the left – with two powerful blasting inhalations.
Ahhh, whooo, that stuff really has some kick, Lars thought as he shook his head and squeezed the tip of his nose.
He put the drug paraphernalia away and threw the Hunter S. Thompson book on the floor. Then he felt something loosen in his lower stomach, so he leaned up and pulled down his pants and sat back down on the toilet. A good crap before the last set always helped him a lot too.
Lars sat there voiding his bowels, thinking about his present situation in life: Wow, I’m almost 40 years old and I’m still playing in a little rock band at these ridiculously small clubs. I can barely make enough money to even survive. I have no chance of ever recording an album, no chance of touring or getting a decent band manager. I play with guys who aren’t even creative enough to write one fucking original song. Not a damn song of their own, or who will allow me to play one of my own originals. I just perform other musician’s material every freakin’ night – promoting other people’s music, like a chumped-out loser working for free. I’ll never get anywhere with this crap. I’ll never do anything in music that’s worthwhile like the heroes that I grew up listening to: Metallica, Guns ‘N Roses, The Sex Pistols, Rick Springfield, George Thorogood and the Destroyers, AC/DC, Miles Davis, Slayer, Billy Squier, Cream, Led Zeppelin, Pantera, Ozzy, Megadeth, Aerosmith, The Swans, Van Halen, Black Flag, John Lee Hooker, Poison, Tone Loc, The Butthole Surfers, R.L. Burnside, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Black Sabbath, The Doors, The Beastie Boys, Junior Kimbrough, Nirvana... I’m just living a stupid wannabe rock star dream. You’d think I would have grown up by now. But no, not me. My day job at the nursing home is fucking horrible. I’m truly screwed, burnt out, wasted, dead, cynical, daunted, defeated, fucked over, jaded, destroyed, and pissed off. But you know what? I don’t care. Because I’m getting ready to go out there and play E.C.’s Cocaine after snorting some cocaine of my own and it’s going to be fantastic. I’ll lose myself in the music. I’ll trip out and fly away. Hell, I’ve played Cocaine a million times by now but I’m going to go out play it the best ever in just a few minutes. I’ll release every ounce of emotion and anger from my body and my mind and my transcendental soul to show everyone in the audience that I’m not a loser. I’m a damn good guitar player, I know that much. I’ll show everyone. Nope, I’m not going to sit here thinking about my shitty life and becoming more and more depressed. I’m going to go out there and kick ass on stage and then I’ll be a real man. No one will ever call me a pussy or a pansy ever again. Fuck it, I’m a man.
Lars grabbed some toilet paper and wiped his ass, then he stood up and pulled on his pants and fastened his belt with the large silver Guns ‘N Roses belt buckle. He went out of the stall and over to a mirror. Although Lars loved blues and classic rock the most, he affected a heavy metal look on stage: Faded jean jacket cut off at the sleeves to reveal his heavily-muscled arms; leather straps with long silver spikes wrapped around both wrists; a large silver chain with small golden guitars hanging around his neck; a big blue battleaxe tattooed across his whole throat; his hairy chest visible below showing his large pectoral muscles; long flowing black hair cut into a perfect mullet shape. “Looking good,” he said, smiling into the mirror.
He went out to the stage and grabbed his black Gretsch Electromatic solid body guitar and put it on. He turned to his drummer and counted off the tune and they started the E to D chord progression of Cocaine and the audience hooted and cheered. Lars took a brief solo at the beginning, bending some notes, adding a wide stinging vibrato ala Albert King. His guitar sound was that of a man mega-pissed off, on the brink of defeat, almost every ounce of life sucked from his haggard body, a person filled with almost homicidal despair and angst, and every person in the crowd could feel it, because each of them felt exactly the same way Lars did. He stepped over to the microphone, grimaced and puckered his lips, then started belting out the lyrics.
If you wanna hang out you’ve gotta take her out - cocaine... If you wanna get down, go down to the ground - cocaine... When your day is done and you wanna run on - cocaine. If you got bad news, you wanna kick them fuckin’ blues - cocaine... She don’t lie, she don’t lie, no baby she dont fuckin’ lie - COCAINE!
Lars sang the lyrics so intensely he started feeling searing pain in his vocal chords, but he kept on going, hoping he could make it to the solo section, where he could relax and forget about everything and trip out on his guitar with complete abandon and ferocity.
The solo section arrived and he began with some slow melodic phrases in the 7th position of the neck, bending and releasing and plucking the strings with his fingers, then he worked his way up to the 12th position and played some fast pentatonic quintuplets and transitioned into quick bursts of finger-tapping and trills. Then, for no reason at all, he moved up to the 22nd fret and bent the highest note on his fret board two full steps while leaning into the microphone and screaming “COCAINE!” in the highest falsetto voice he could manufacture; and as he did so, he felt something snap inside his brain – all of the cocaine he’d snorted earlier kicked in at that precise moment with complete force.
He blacked out for a fraction of a second, then awoke to see President-elect Barack Obama’s disembodied head floating before him in space. Obama’s head was surrounded by golden light coming through dark clouds with a few white feathers floating and descending. The music Lars had been playing earlier could still be heard faintly in the background, with him playing guitar somewhere down below.
“What’s going on?” Lars asked.
“I don’t know, what’s going on?” Barack Obama’s floating head responded.
“What are you doing here?”
“Nothing, what are you doing here?”
“What do you mean ‘nothing.’ You’re Barrack Obama and you’re floating here in front of me. I’m supposed to be playing a gig right now, but I’m somewhere in outer space. Let me go back down to where the music is.”
“I’m not holding you here. You’ve chosen to be talking to me. This is your fault, Lars... Don’t worry though, your gig is still going fine down below with you still playing guitar. You’re just having an out-of-body experience at the moment... By the way, I’m not Barrack Obama.”
Lars looked down at his fingers. He was still holding his guitar, a few white feathers fell on the fretboard, he could hear music faintly in his style of playing, but his fingers were not moving. “You are too Barrack Obama. I may be spaced out on cocaine right now, but I’m not crazy. Of course you’re Barrack, you look exactly like him.”
“Perhaps I do resemble him, but it’s only because our brains have been swapped. I’m really Eric Clapton.”
“What.”
“A doctor swapped our brains. My brain – Eric Clapton’s – was put inside Barack Obama’s skull, which you are seeing now, and Barack’s brain was put into my head. You’re actually talking to Eric Clapton right now, not Obama. Can’t you tell by my British accent?”
“I thought that was a little odd. Still, this is ridiculous. Way too confusing. I can’t talk to Eric Clapton when he looks like Obama. Aren’t you going to be our president soon?”
“I guess so. I’m the President-elect.”
“Do you know anything about politics?”
“Of course not, I’m Eric Clapton. I only know how to play blues guitar.”
“Wow, the United States is really going to be fucked up soon.”
“Yes it is, but I can’t help it... Let’s change the subject. I’m here to give you something.”
“What’s that?” Lars said.
“The essence of all music summed up in one melody.”
“Pardon?”
“I am going to give you a melody that will contain the essence of all music.”
“Yeah, sure. What would I do with that?”
Obama’s face fell into a scowl. “Don’t you realize how powerful that would be? The melody will contain the essence of every musical phrase in the universe, every prior one congealed into it. This melody will be an otherworldly divine phrase so mesmerizing when it’s played audiences will become hypnotized and fall in love with you and become your greatest fans for the rest of your life.”
“Uh huh, right,” Lars said sarcastically. He was now in a slight stupor, but could still hear himself playing electric guitar down below on Earth and he was losing interest in the conversation. He turned around and tried to see through the dark clouds to where the gig was taking place, but only blurry images of the people phasing in and out were visible. “I really need to get back down there. Is this almost over?”
Barrack Obama’s floating head continued, “If you record the melody on an album of your own, realize that it will instantly become the best-selling record of all time. And I mean OF ALL TIME.”
“I could certainly use that. But what happens when other musicians hear it, they’ll have the melody too.”
“No they won’t. I’ll make it so that no other musician will be allowed to play it because they’ll be blocked from fully hearing all the notes – one tone will automatically cancel out in their minds and they won’t be able to receive the full musical phrase.”
“That’s impossible.”
“No. It’s weird, but not impossible.”
Lars hung his head in thought for a few seconds. “All right, I believe you, Mr. Clapton. But I just want to get back to my gig now.”
“So you’re ready to receive the melody?” Obama’s head said.
“Yeah.”
The floating head began humming in a soft whisper but Lars couldn’t hear the entire melody before the whole world turned black, then surreal science fiction images appeared in his brain, pictures of quarks melting into gigantic noses, skinny nude supermodel-androids doing back flips on floating tramplines, gluons exploding into ferocious balls of fireworks, and Obama’s face transforming into a geometrical 24-dimensional crystal lattice representation of God – every one of the macabre images freezing inside of Lars’ mind. He looked down at his guitar and saw how quantum chromodynamics drove the inner workings of the electronics and he instantly understood every substance in the universe on a subatomic level; but he also received Clapton’s divine melody in the midst of all this outlandish information, without ever realizing it.
He awoke on stage in his own body, still soloing away on his guitar. He turned around and signaled the band to end the tune, then he hit a final E major chord with the drummer who pounded a loud crash on his cymbals.
But after finishing the song, everything that had happened was still too much for Lars to digest: him soloing too intensely, screaming Cocaine in a ludicrously high falsetto, talking to Eric Clapton’s brain inside of Obama’s skull, seeing the disturbing science fiction images, Lars could not take in all of this material, so he fell back on the stage and blacked out from total shock and exhaustion.
His girlfriend was watching out in the audience. She shrieked when she saw Lars hit the floor and slowly made her way through the crowd, the room was now filled with awkward silences and embarrassed looks, which she tried to ignore. She climbed the stairs and went over to Lars, unplugged his guitar so that he could keep it on, then hoisted him up, throwing his now lifeless body over her shoulder. She carried the poor unconscious bastard off the stage toward the dressing rooms.
Lars awoke while riding on his girlfriend’s back. He glanced around still in a deep daze. “Where is he?”
She didn’t put him down, but walked faster to the dressing room. “Where is who?”
“Obama’s head. Did he give it to me? Do I have it?”
“Have what? What are you talking about?”
“The melody! It’s really important, the greatest melody of all time. An instant best seller if ever recorded on an album.” Lars paused and looked around as he passed a few audience members who were staring at him with their mouths open.
“You’ve gone crazy, Lars,” his girlfriend said, stilling carrying him on her back through the club with her powerful legs. “You’ve been snorting cocaine again in the bathroom, haven’t you? Goddamn it I told you never to do coke before playing Cocaine again. The double whammy effect from it is way too dangerous. You know you can’t handle heavy drugs so you better knock it off. You’re going to fry your brain and never be able to play another song again.”
Lars looked over his girlfriend’s shoulder, he stared down at the ground, bouncing as she carried him back stage. He heard a faint melody begin somewhere deep in his brain. A nice slow phrase, hypnotic and ethereal, which gradually came to full fruition in his mind. It was the divine melody that Eric Clapton had given him from Obama’s head while he was spaced out on cocaine, the greatest melody of all time. It slowly gained in volume and intensity, the phrase picking up in tempo until the entire thing played out entirely in his addled mind. He started humming it a little as he rode on his girlfriend’s back, but he was careful to leave out a few notes so she wouldn’t hear the full thing. He felt now that the musical phrase contained the true secret of the universe and the meaning of life and was more powerful than a hundred nuclear explosions combined.
“THERE IT IS! I GOT IT! HE REALLY GAVE ME THE MELODY! ALL RIGHT! I KNOW IT’S GOING TO GIVE ME A MAJOR WORLD-WIDE HIT SOON! FUCKING A! SHIT YEAH! OH. MY. GOD. I’M GOING TO BE A TRUE ROCK STAR SOON.”
“Shut up and calm down!” his girlfriend said. “You can lie down in a minute.”
But Lars was not sick, he was only excited about the melody, although he knew better than to play it on his guitar that day, or even the next. He was going to save it. For better times and greater things to come. Soon he would be making millions of smackaroos, hypnotizing audiences, making ladies chase him through the streets, wrecking hotel rooms, raising hell on airplanes in mid-flight, receiving insane fan letters, breaking into casinos, swilling hard liquor and doing every drug known to man, yeah, soon Lars would have the whole fucking world by the balls.
His girlfriend set him down in the dressing room, he leaned back and fell onto a cool leather couch setting behind him. He still had his Gretsch Electromatic around his neck. He slid his hand up and down the fret board, trying to get the feel of his guitar again and pull himself out of the lingering cocaine daze. He played a few blues licks and strummed an E9 chord, then fingered an A7. Everything was quiet in the room, his girlfriend had left to get him a glass of cool water.
Lars heard movement outside in the hallway. Footsteps getting louder.
A man walked into his dressing room. It was President-elect, Barack Obama. Wearing a black suit with a red tie. Lars stared at him with his mouth open. Obama came closer, holding out his hand. Obama said, “Hello, Lars, how are you?”
Lars’ mouth fell open even wider and his fingers stopped moving on his guitar.
He noticed Obama was not speaking with an English accent now. But he still didn’t know whether it was Eric Clapton in there, or the President-elect.
“What are you doing here?” Lars said.
“Play me the melody you were given...”
-end-
http://becomeguitaristfromhell.blogspot.com/
http://www.youtube.com/user/zevi35711
Bio: Jason Earls is the author of Cocoon of Terror (Afterbirth Books), Red Zen, How to Become a Guitar Player from Hell, If(Sid_Vicious == TRUE && Alan_Turing == TRUE) {ERROR_Cyberpunk(); }, Heartless Bast*rd In Ecstasy, and 0.136101521283655... all available at Amazon.com and other online book stores. His fiction and mathematical work have been published in Red Scream, Yankee Pot Roast, M-Brane SF, Scientia Magna, three of Clifford Pickover’s books, Neometropolis, Mathworld.com, AlienSkin, Recreational and Educational Computing, Escaping Elsewhere, Thirteen, Dogmatika, Prime Curios, the Online Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences, OG’s Speculative Fiction, Nocturnal Ooze, Bust Down the Door and Eat All the Chickens, and other publications. He currently resides in Oklahoma with his wife, Christine.
New Title for Next Guitar Book
Yesterday I received a comment on one of my guitar videos. I would guess that perhaps 90% of the comments I receive are positive, but this one was negative:
"I lost interest at 1m 26. Does your book cover how to play for the song? How to play the blues with a feel for the blues? Or just the mindless shredding on show here?"
I like technical guitar playing (Shawn Lane is my favorite technical guitarist), but I do appreciate tone, phrasing, and feel in a guitarist moreso than shredding ability. Nevertheless, the person who commented gave me an idea for the title of my next guitar book. I might call it:
How to Shred Mindlessly
Good idea?
"I lost interest at 1m 26. Does your book cover how to play for the song? How to play the blues with a feel for the blues? Or just the mindless shredding on show here?"
I like technical guitar playing (Shawn Lane is my favorite technical guitarist), but I do appreciate tone, phrasing, and feel in a guitarist moreso than shredding ability. Nevertheless, the person who commented gave me an idea for the title of my next guitar book. I might call it:
How to Shred Mindlessly
Good idea?
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Fast Finger-Tapping Pattern for Electric Guitar
by Jason Earls, author of How to Become a Guitar Player from Hell
http://becomeguitaristfromhell.blogspot.com/
http://www.youtube.com/user/zevi35711
A finger-tapping pattern that allows one to produce a rapid succession of notes that sound exceedingly fast with only a modicum of finger effort is the following:
{ Tapped note, Middle note, High note, Middle note, Low note; Repeat ...}
What the pattern means is that although the exact frets involved may change, as long as the basic pattern of pitches above is retained, you will be able to produce a musical phrase that sounds incredibly fast, depending upon the natural movement and speed of your fingers, of course. There’s just something special and unique about this particular tapping pattern that generates an abundance of speed for some unknown reason.
As far as a guitar lick that follows the pattern, here is one example (all notes are either tapped, hammered-on, or pulled-off to):
-14t-11-12-11-9-14t-11-12-11-9--
-----------------------------------
-----------------------------------
-----------------------------------
-----------------------------------
-----------------------------------
This lick is based on notes from the C# minor scale. I will normally play the lick more than twice, continuing it for maybe three or four bars. Another thing I should mention is that with this pattern you will sometimes be “cramming in” notes, i.e., you won’t be too worried if some of the pitches are actually played out of order occasionally, since your fingers will be moving as fast as possible. With this pattern you will primarily be concerned with obtaining a maximum amount of speed and you don’t want anything interfering with that goal.
Here is another lick that follows the main pattern:
-14t-8-10-8-7-14t-8-10-8-7---
--------------------------------
--------------------------------
--------------------------------
--------------------------------
--------------------------------
This one is based on notes from the B Phrygian mode), although other keys can also be interpreted. Notice that our original pattern is maintained {tap, middle, high, middle, low; repeat}, but that now we are simply using a different combination of notes.
Finally, here is an example using notes from the D minor scale:
-13t-10-12-10-8-13t-10-12-10-8--
------------------------------------
------------------------------------
------------------------------------
------------------------------------
------------------------------------
It’s interesting that when one taps notes that are closer together on the fretboard, i.e. tapping at the 13th fret while your highest fingered note is on the 12th fret as in the lick above, it seems to sound even faster.
I first ran across this tapping pattern in an Yngwie Malmsteen solo. He played it in the key of E minor using the last fingering combination, and he executed the lick so incredibly fast it sounded like angry bumblebees circling a potential victim.
Of course the thing to do with the main pattern is – (while still retaining the basic order of pitches) – experiment with different tapped notes and fingering combinations until you find something that suits your particular improvisation or the song you are playing. (You could even adapt the underlying pattern to a different fingering combination altogether if something else better fits the natural movement of your hands.) Also try the pattern on different strings.
Remember, the main thing to keep in mind with a tapping pattern of this nature is that if you’re ever in the middle of a solo and feel an emotion such as anger, passion, jealousy, or frustration, you can play this quick tapping lick to hopefully express those emotions. Also remember that 1) It can be adapted to fit any scale you like; 2) Don’t be overly concerned with hitting every note in the exact order, mainly focus on producing a lot of speed.
-end-
http://becomeguitaristfromhell.blogspot.com/
http://www.youtube.com/user/zevi35711
Bio: Jason Earls is the author of Cocoon of Terror (Afterbirth Books), Red Zen, How to Become a Guitar Player from Hell, If(Sid_Vicious == TRUE && Alan_Turing == TRUE) {ERROR_Cyberpunk(); }, Heartless Bast*rd In Ecstasy, and 0.136101521283655... all available at Amazon.com and other online book stores. His fiction and mathematical work have been published in Red Scream, Yankee Pot Roast, M-Brane SF, Scientia Magna, three of Clifford Pickover’s books, Neometropolis, Mathworld.com, AlienSkin, Recreational and Educational Computing, Escaping Elsewhere, Thirteen, Dogmatika, Prime Curios, the Online Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences, OG’s Speculative Fiction, Nocturnal Ooze, Bust Down the Door and Eat All the Chickens, and other publications. He currently resides in Oklahoma with his wife, Christine.
http://becomeguitaristfromhell.blogspot.com/
http://www.youtube.com/user/zevi35711
A finger-tapping pattern that allows one to produce a rapid succession of notes that sound exceedingly fast with only a modicum of finger effort is the following:
{ Tapped note, Middle note, High note, Middle note, Low note; Repeat ...}
What the pattern means is that although the exact frets involved may change, as long as the basic pattern of pitches above is retained, you will be able to produce a musical phrase that sounds incredibly fast, depending upon the natural movement and speed of your fingers, of course. There’s just something special and unique about this particular tapping pattern that generates an abundance of speed for some unknown reason.
As far as a guitar lick that follows the pattern, here is one example (all notes are either tapped, hammered-on, or pulled-off to):
-14t-11-12-11-9-14t-11-12-11-9--
-----------------------------------
-----------------------------------
-----------------------------------
-----------------------------------
-----------------------------------
This lick is based on notes from the C# minor scale. I will normally play the lick more than twice, continuing it for maybe three or four bars. Another thing I should mention is that with this pattern you will sometimes be “cramming in” notes, i.e., you won’t be too worried if some of the pitches are actually played out of order occasionally, since your fingers will be moving as fast as possible. With this pattern you will primarily be concerned with obtaining a maximum amount of speed and you don’t want anything interfering with that goal.
Here is another lick that follows the main pattern:
-14t-8-10-8-7-14t-8-10-8-7---
--------------------------------
--------------------------------
--------------------------------
--------------------------------
--------------------------------
This one is based on notes from the B Phrygian mode), although other keys can also be interpreted. Notice that our original pattern is maintained {tap, middle, high, middle, low; repeat}, but that now we are simply using a different combination of notes.
Finally, here is an example using notes from the D minor scale:
-13t-10-12-10-8-13t-10-12-10-8--
------------------------------------
------------------------------------
------------------------------------
------------------------------------
------------------------------------
It’s interesting that when one taps notes that are closer together on the fretboard, i.e. tapping at the 13th fret while your highest fingered note is on the 12th fret as in the lick above, it seems to sound even faster.
I first ran across this tapping pattern in an Yngwie Malmsteen solo. He played it in the key of E minor using the last fingering combination, and he executed the lick so incredibly fast it sounded like angry bumblebees circling a potential victim.
Of course the thing to do with the main pattern is – (while still retaining the basic order of pitches) – experiment with different tapped notes and fingering combinations until you find something that suits your particular improvisation or the song you are playing. (You could even adapt the underlying pattern to a different fingering combination altogether if something else better fits the natural movement of your hands.) Also try the pattern on different strings.
Remember, the main thing to keep in mind with a tapping pattern of this nature is that if you’re ever in the middle of a solo and feel an emotion such as anger, passion, jealousy, or frustration, you can play this quick tapping lick to hopefully express those emotions. Also remember that 1) It can be adapted to fit any scale you like; 2) Don’t be overly concerned with hitting every note in the exact order, mainly focus on producing a lot of speed.
-end-
http://becomeguitaristfromhell.blogspot.com/
http://www.youtube.com/user/zevi35711
Bio: Jason Earls is the author of Cocoon of Terror (Afterbirth Books), Red Zen, How to Become a Guitar Player from Hell, If(Sid_Vicious == TRUE && Alan_Turing == TRUE) {ERROR_Cyberpunk(); }, Heartless Bast*rd In Ecstasy, and 0.136101521283655... all available at Amazon.com and other online book stores. His fiction and mathematical work have been published in Red Scream, Yankee Pot Roast, M-Brane SF, Scientia Magna, three of Clifford Pickover’s books, Neometropolis, Mathworld.com, AlienSkin, Recreational and Educational Computing, Escaping Elsewhere, Thirteen, Dogmatika, Prime Curios, the Online Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences, OG’s Speculative Fiction, Nocturnal Ooze, Bust Down the Door and Eat All the Chickens, and other publications. He currently resides in Oklahoma with his wife, Christine.
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Monday, December 15, 2008
The Wah-Wham Method: A New Technique for Lead Guitar
by Jason Earls, author of How to Become a Guitar Player from Hell
http://becomeguitaristfromhell.blogspot.com/
http://www.youtube.com/user/zevi35711
Have you been searching for an advanced, cutting-edge lead guitar technique to add to your arsenal, but would prefer one that hasn’t already been performed to death by every guitar player on the planet? Then look no further because I have the perfect technique to turn you into a full-fledged guitar hero: It’s called the Wah-Wham method.
No, it isn’t something that appeared on a TV game show back in the 80s, it’s a bona fide uber-technique for electric guitar soon to be right at home in all the rock and avant-garde guitar circles around the world. First, let’s break down the name.
Wah = wah wah pedal, as in the the classic Dunlop "Crybaby" wah pedal, or Vai’s Bad Horsie wah pedal made by Morley.
Wham = whammy bar, as in the Floyd Rose locking tremolo system, or the Kahler Double locking tremolo system.
The wah-wham method (which was first written about in the excellent instructional guitar book, How to Become a Guitar Player from Hell, by yours truly) entails using both of the traditional guitar tools named above to simultaneously produce otherworldly sheets of bedlam and chaos, but in a controlled way. By using the wah-wham method, you could become a trailblazing avant-garde guitarist well-versed in the metaphysics of nonlinear improvisation – but remember that the goal is to always keep everything under control!
So how exactly do we perform this new technique? Well, there is no exactly. How you use the tools above is basically up to you, but we will be following a basic algorithm to help with the manipulations of the wah pedal and the tremolo bar, since any exact movements would be nearly impossible to transcribe. Here is the main algorithm:
1. Begin by playing a few common licks or phrases, anything at all, perhaps an improvisation using the minor pentatonic scale or the blues scale.
2. Engage your wah pedal and begin rocking it back and forth in a slow steady motion. It doesn’t matter how you manipulate it, just move the pedal back and forth slowly.
3. While executing the licks, grasp the end of your tremolo bar and hold it with your picking hand. Press it down at random intervals in your improvisation as you continue picking the notes. Work the bar around, manipulating it in different ways as you pick notes in whatever patterns you prefer – even random or haphazard manipulations will work.
4. Continue pressing your wah pedal down while also working the tremolo bar as you play various licks, melodies, and phrases. Eventually you should increase the tempo of both these activities as you incorporate more sophisticated licks into your playing, while keeping the wah pedal and tremolo bar going simultaneously.
5. Listen closely, concentrating on the perplexing beauty and transcendent chaos coming from your amplifier.
That’s all there is to it.
High gain or distortion will contribute to the unhinged sounds (but you don’t want them to be too atonal). Also remember to work your tremolo bar and wah pedal slowly at first, then gradually build momentum until you hit a crescendo of deafening sonic blitzkrieg. Picking the strings while holding your tremolo bar and manipulating it at the same time may not be something you are adept at initially, but with practice you will become more proficient.
So now that we know what it is, where did the wah-wham method come from? Well, I believe I invented it because I never witnessed another guitar player using it before me. However, I only employed the technique for a brief period of time one summer several years ago while rehearsing with a particularly "open-minded" band. The members of that band were quite tolerant of extreme music; and the drummer seemed especially impressed by my wah-wham technique; during breaks in one particular rehearsal he followed me around asking how I was making such intriguing sounds. I never actually used the wah-wham method during a live performance, since it produced such a chaotic-sounding swirl of Brobdingnagian tumult. But since the technique is new, I believe experimentation could take it down a few notches so that many legitimate musical phrases could be made with it. Sonny Sharrock, the free-jazz guitar player known for his loose and sometimes noisy playing style would have probably loved the wah-wham method – just imagine the types of sounds he could have generated with it.
Although there are not any explicit licks in this article, one of the best scales I have found to use with the wah-wham technique is the Hungarian Gypsy scale. To play it in the key of A, finger the 5th, 7th, and 8th frets on the low E string, then the 6th, 7th, and 8th frets on the A string, then the 5th, 7th, and 9th frets on the D string, next the 5th and 8th frets on the G string, then the 5th, 6th, and 8th frets on the B string, and lastly the 5th, 7th, and 8th frets on the high E string. Or, here is the guitar tablature:
-----------------------------5-7-8--
-----------------------5-6-8--------
-------------------5-8--------------
-------------5-7-9------------------
-------6-7-8------------------------
-5-7-8------------------------------
You may also want to record yourself playing the wah-wham technique and listen to it a day or two afterward to make sure you are not delving too deeply into pure chaos or noise during your improvisations. Your focus should always be on creating beautiful and sublime melodies at all times. Continually strive to generate compelling music no matter what techniques you use; and if you think you’ve created something extra-special, you may want to send it in to one of the popular guitar magazines and see if they will reward you with a free subscription.
With the wah-wham technique, I encourage you to engage in many different excursions and practice it frequently so you can refine your technique. Keep in mind that this method of playing is of an experimental nature and for only the most intrepid guitarist/explorer-improvisers. But feel free to use it however you like. Play around with it, modify it, use it in your solos to give them a translucent free-jazz sheen. Become a juggernaut of the primordial, but also make sure to use the wah-wham method sparingly since it can be quite disturbing to some listeners. There really is nothing like the wah-wham technique presently in the world and it’s quite ripe for further experimentation and exploration so enjoy and go forth and rock on.
-end-
http://becomeguitaristfromhell.blogspot.com/
http://www.youtube.com/user/zevi35711
Bio: Jason Earls is the author of How to Become a Guitar Player from Hell, Cocoon of Terror, Red Zen, Heartless Bast*rd In Ecstasy, If(Sid_Vicious == TRUE && Alan_Turing == TRUE) {ERROR_Cyberpunk(); } and 0.136101521283655... all available at Amazon.com and other online book stores. His fiction and mathematical work have been published in Red Scream, Yankee Pot Roast, M-Brane SF, Scientia Magna, three of Clifford Pickover’s books, Neometropolis, Mathworld, AlienSkin, Recreational and Educational Computing, Escaping Elsewhere, Thirteen, Dogmatika, Prime Curios, the Online Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences, OG’s Speculative Fiction, Nocturnal Ooze, Bust Down the Door and Eat All the Chickens, and other publications. He currently resides in Oklahoma with his wife, Christine.
http://becomeguitaristfromhell.blogspot.com/
http://www.youtube.com/user/zevi35711
Have you been searching for an advanced, cutting-edge lead guitar technique to add to your arsenal, but would prefer one that hasn’t already been performed to death by every guitar player on the planet? Then look no further because I have the perfect technique to turn you into a full-fledged guitar hero: It’s called the Wah-Wham method.
No, it isn’t something that appeared on a TV game show back in the 80s, it’s a bona fide uber-technique for electric guitar soon to be right at home in all the rock and avant-garde guitar circles around the world. First, let’s break down the name.
Wah = wah wah pedal, as in the the classic Dunlop "Crybaby" wah pedal, or Vai’s Bad Horsie wah pedal made by Morley.
Wham = whammy bar, as in the Floyd Rose locking tremolo system, or the Kahler Double locking tremolo system.
The wah-wham method (which was first written about in the excellent instructional guitar book, How to Become a Guitar Player from Hell, by yours truly) entails using both of the traditional guitar tools named above to simultaneously produce otherworldly sheets of bedlam and chaos, but in a controlled way. By using the wah-wham method, you could become a trailblazing avant-garde guitarist well-versed in the metaphysics of nonlinear improvisation – but remember that the goal is to always keep everything under control!
So how exactly do we perform this new technique? Well, there is no exactly. How you use the tools above is basically up to you, but we will be following a basic algorithm to help with the manipulations of the wah pedal and the tremolo bar, since any exact movements would be nearly impossible to transcribe. Here is the main algorithm:
1. Begin by playing a few common licks or phrases, anything at all, perhaps an improvisation using the minor pentatonic scale or the blues scale.
2. Engage your wah pedal and begin rocking it back and forth in a slow steady motion. It doesn’t matter how you manipulate it, just move the pedal back and forth slowly.
3. While executing the licks, grasp the end of your tremolo bar and hold it with your picking hand. Press it down at random intervals in your improvisation as you continue picking the notes. Work the bar around, manipulating it in different ways as you pick notes in whatever patterns you prefer – even random or haphazard manipulations will work.
4. Continue pressing your wah pedal down while also working the tremolo bar as you play various licks, melodies, and phrases. Eventually you should increase the tempo of both these activities as you incorporate more sophisticated licks into your playing, while keeping the wah pedal and tremolo bar going simultaneously.
5. Listen closely, concentrating on the perplexing beauty and transcendent chaos coming from your amplifier.
That’s all there is to it.
High gain or distortion will contribute to the unhinged sounds (but you don’t want them to be too atonal). Also remember to work your tremolo bar and wah pedal slowly at first, then gradually build momentum until you hit a crescendo of deafening sonic blitzkrieg. Picking the strings while holding your tremolo bar and manipulating it at the same time may not be something you are adept at initially, but with practice you will become more proficient.
So now that we know what it is, where did the wah-wham method come from? Well, I believe I invented it because I never witnessed another guitar player using it before me. However, I only employed the technique for a brief period of time one summer several years ago while rehearsing with a particularly "open-minded" band. The members of that band were quite tolerant of extreme music; and the drummer seemed especially impressed by my wah-wham technique; during breaks in one particular rehearsal he followed me around asking how I was making such intriguing sounds. I never actually used the wah-wham method during a live performance, since it produced such a chaotic-sounding swirl of Brobdingnagian tumult. But since the technique is new, I believe experimentation could take it down a few notches so that many legitimate musical phrases could be made with it. Sonny Sharrock, the free-jazz guitar player known for his loose and sometimes noisy playing style would have probably loved the wah-wham method – just imagine the types of sounds he could have generated with it.
Although there are not any explicit licks in this article, one of the best scales I have found to use with the wah-wham technique is the Hungarian Gypsy scale. To play it in the key of A, finger the 5th, 7th, and 8th frets on the low E string, then the 6th, 7th, and 8th frets on the A string, then the 5th, 7th, and 9th frets on the D string, next the 5th and 8th frets on the G string, then the 5th, 6th, and 8th frets on the B string, and lastly the 5th, 7th, and 8th frets on the high E string. Or, here is the guitar tablature:
-----------------------------5-7-8--
-----------------------5-6-8--------
-------------------5-8--------------
-------------5-7-9------------------
-------6-7-8------------------------
-5-7-8------------------------------
You may also want to record yourself playing the wah-wham technique and listen to it a day or two afterward to make sure you are not delving too deeply into pure chaos or noise during your improvisations. Your focus should always be on creating beautiful and sublime melodies at all times. Continually strive to generate compelling music no matter what techniques you use; and if you think you’ve created something extra-special, you may want to send it in to one of the popular guitar magazines and see if they will reward you with a free subscription.
With the wah-wham technique, I encourage you to engage in many different excursions and practice it frequently so you can refine your technique. Keep in mind that this method of playing is of an experimental nature and for only the most intrepid guitarist/explorer-improvisers. But feel free to use it however you like. Play around with it, modify it, use it in your solos to give them a translucent free-jazz sheen. Become a juggernaut of the primordial, but also make sure to use the wah-wham method sparingly since it can be quite disturbing to some listeners. There really is nothing like the wah-wham technique presently in the world and it’s quite ripe for further experimentation and exploration so enjoy and go forth and rock on.
-end-
http://becomeguitaristfromhell.blogspot.com/
http://www.youtube.com/user/zevi35711
Bio: Jason Earls is the author of How to Become a Guitar Player from Hell, Cocoon of Terror, Red Zen, Heartless Bast*rd In Ecstasy, If(Sid_Vicious == TRUE && Alan_Turing == TRUE) {ERROR_Cyberpunk(); } and 0.136101521283655... all available at Amazon.com and other online book stores. His fiction and mathematical work have been published in Red Scream, Yankee Pot Roast, M-Brane SF, Scientia Magna, three of Clifford Pickover’s books, Neometropolis, Mathworld, AlienSkin, Recreational and Educational Computing, Escaping Elsewhere, Thirteen, Dogmatika, Prime Curios, the Online Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences, OG’s Speculative Fiction, Nocturnal Ooze, Bust Down the Door and Eat All the Chickens, and other publications. He currently resides in Oklahoma with his wife, Christine.
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Diminished Scale Licks for Electric Guitar
by Jason Earls, author of How to Become a Guitar Player from Hell
http://becomeguitaristfromhell.blogspot.com/
The diminished scale is an incredible sounding musical pattern. In my opinion it can sound either mystical, evil, or enchanting, depending upon the context in which it is played. Due to its unusual intervals and constantly shifting fingering positions when played on the guitar, it can also function as a challenging finger exercise. Here is the diminished dominant scale in the key of A:
---------------------------------5-6-8-9--
---------------------------5-7-8----------
---------------------5-6-8----------------
---------------5-7-8----------------------
---------6-7-9----------------------------
-5-6-8-9----------------------------------
It’s easy to see the scale follows a ‘half step/full step’ progression as it ascends in pitch. Arab musicians are thought to have been the first people to “invent” the diminished scale, as written records indicate their use of it in the early 7th century. The Arabs used the phrase “Zer ef Kend,” to name the scale, which meant “string of pearls,” since the alternating wide and short intervals reminded them of larger and smaller pearls strung together.
The composer and piano virtuoso Franz List is thought to have been the first Western musician ever to use the diminished scale in his compositions. His piece, “Feux Follets” features it in a regularly recurring melody throughout the piece.
Even though the scale above is the full version of the diminished dominant, I usually prefer playing only partial intervals of the scale, like so:
~
----------------------8-11-14--
-------------------10----------
--------------8-11-------------
---------7-10------------------
-----6-9-----------------------
-5-8---------------------------
Of course we can also generate finger-tapping licks using the diminished scale. For the following lick, we will use the full diminished dominant scale, not just partials.
T T T T
-------------------------------------
-------------------------------------
-------------------------------------
-------------------------------------
------------------10-6-7-9-10-6-7-9--
-9-5-6-8-9-5-6-8---------------------
T T T T
-------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------
----------------------12-8-9-11-12-8-9-11--
-11-7-8-10-11-7-8-10-----------------------
-------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------
T T T T
--------------------------15-11-12-14-15-11-12-14-15-
-14-10-11-13-14-10-11-13-----------------------------
-----------------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------------------
All notes above are either hammered-on, finger-tapped, or pulled-off to. You can repeat the phrases on each string for a longer duration of time before changing to the next string, if desired. The tapping above can be a little tricky due to the fact that when hammering-on with the pinky finger, you may have a tendency to hit the index finger you are using to tap with, since it will be in close proximity to your pinky. To solve this problem, you may need to tap a little closer to the actual fret while keeping your pinky finger pulled back a tad more than normal, so that your fingers will be sufficiently separated – if they hit against each other, it will throw off the flow and timing of the lick or simply slow you down.
Descending quadruplets also sound incredible when played in the diminished scale, as our last scary lick adequately demonstrates:
-14-11-8----11-8--------8---------------------
---------10------10-------10------10----------
--------------------11-------11-8----11-8-----
------------------------------------------10--
----------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------
--------------------------------------
-11-8------8--------------------------
------10-7---10-7----10-7-----7-------
------------------9-------9-6---9-6---
------------------------------------8-
~
--------------
--------------
--------------
--------------
-9-6----------
-----8-5-6----
As you can see from the examples above, the diminished scale can be a potent weapon against the drudgery of similar sounding licks. Use it like a hand grenade to explode the musically sensitive neurons in the brains of the members of your audience.
-end-
http://becomeguitaristfromhell.blogspot.com/
http://www.youtube.com/user/zevi35711
Bio: Jason Earls is the author of How to Become a Guitar Player from Hell, Cocoon of Terror, Red Zen, Heartless Bast*rd In Ecstasy, If(Sid_Vicious == TRUE && Alan_Turing == TRUE) {ERROR_Cyberpunk(); } and 0.136101521283655... all available at Amazon.com and other online book stores. His fiction and mathematical work have been published in Red Scream, Yankee Pot Roast, M-Brane SF, Scientia Magna, three of Clifford Pickover’s books, Neometropolis, Mathworld, AlienSkin, Recreational and Educational Computing, Escaping Elsewhere, Thirteen, Dogmatika, Prime Curios, Thirteen, the Online Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences, OG’s Speculative Fiction, Nocturnal Ooze, Bust Down the Door and Eat All the Chickens, and other publications. He currently resides in Oklahoma with his wife, Christine.
http://becomeguitaristfromhell.blogspot.com/
The diminished scale is an incredible sounding musical pattern. In my opinion it can sound either mystical, evil, or enchanting, depending upon the context in which it is played. Due to its unusual intervals and constantly shifting fingering positions when played on the guitar, it can also function as a challenging finger exercise. Here is the diminished dominant scale in the key of A:
---------------------------------5-6-8-9--
---------------------------5-7-8----------
---------------------5-6-8----------------
---------------5-7-8----------------------
---------6-7-9----------------------------
-5-6-8-9----------------------------------
It’s easy to see the scale follows a ‘half step/full step’ progression as it ascends in pitch. Arab musicians are thought to have been the first people to “invent” the diminished scale, as written records indicate their use of it in the early 7th century. The Arabs used the phrase “Zer ef Kend,” to name the scale, which meant “string of pearls,” since the alternating wide and short intervals reminded them of larger and smaller pearls strung together.
The composer and piano virtuoso Franz List is thought to have been the first Western musician ever to use the diminished scale in his compositions. His piece, “Feux Follets” features it in a regularly recurring melody throughout the piece.
Even though the scale above is the full version of the diminished dominant, I usually prefer playing only partial intervals of the scale, like so:
~
----------------------8-11-14--
-------------------10----------
--------------8-11-------------
---------7-10------------------
-----6-9-----------------------
-5-8---------------------------
Of course we can also generate finger-tapping licks using the diminished scale. For the following lick, we will use the full diminished dominant scale, not just partials.
T T T T
-------------------------------------
-------------------------------------
-------------------------------------
-------------------------------------
------------------10-6-7-9-10-6-7-9--
-9-5-6-8-9-5-6-8---------------------
T T T T
-------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------
----------------------12-8-9-11-12-8-9-11--
-11-7-8-10-11-7-8-10-----------------------
-------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------
T T T T
--------------------------15-11-12-14-15-11-12-14-15-
-14-10-11-13-14-10-11-13-----------------------------
-----------------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------------------
All notes above are either hammered-on, finger-tapped, or pulled-off to. You can repeat the phrases on each string for a longer duration of time before changing to the next string, if desired. The tapping above can be a little tricky due to the fact that when hammering-on with the pinky finger, you may have a tendency to hit the index finger you are using to tap with, since it will be in close proximity to your pinky. To solve this problem, you may need to tap a little closer to the actual fret while keeping your pinky finger pulled back a tad more than normal, so that your fingers will be sufficiently separated – if they hit against each other, it will throw off the flow and timing of the lick or simply slow you down.
Descending quadruplets also sound incredible when played in the diminished scale, as our last scary lick adequately demonstrates:
-14-11-8----11-8--------8---------------------
---------10------10-------10------10----------
--------------------11-------11-8----11-8-----
------------------------------------------10--
----------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------
--------------------------------------
-11-8------8--------------------------
------10-7---10-7----10-7-----7-------
------------------9-------9-6---9-6---
------------------------------------8-
~
--------------
--------------
--------------
--------------
-9-6----------
-----8-5-6----
As you can see from the examples above, the diminished scale can be a potent weapon against the drudgery of similar sounding licks. Use it like a hand grenade to explode the musically sensitive neurons in the brains of the members of your audience.
-end-
http://becomeguitaristfromhell.blogspot.com/
http://www.youtube.com/user/zevi35711
Bio: Jason Earls is the author of How to Become a Guitar Player from Hell, Cocoon of Terror, Red Zen, Heartless Bast*rd In Ecstasy, If(Sid_Vicious == TRUE && Alan_Turing == TRUE) {ERROR_Cyberpunk(); } and 0.136101521283655... all available at Amazon.com and other online book stores. His fiction and mathematical work have been published in Red Scream, Yankee Pot Roast, M-Brane SF, Scientia Magna, three of Clifford Pickover’s books, Neometropolis, Mathworld, AlienSkin, Recreational and Educational Computing, Escaping Elsewhere, Thirteen, Dogmatika, Prime Curios, Thirteen, the Online Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences, OG’s Speculative Fiction, Nocturnal Ooze, Bust Down the Door and Eat All the Chickens, and other publications. He currently resides in Oklahoma with his wife, Christine.
Saturday, December 13, 2008
Friday, December 12, 2008
Electric Guitar: Natural Harmonic Licks
Occasionally it is hard to rate the difficulty of certain exercises in articles. Determining a lesson's level of playability can be based on a guitarist's personal level of proficiency on the instrument and also their individual taste for playing techniques. If a guitar player likes to play certain things, even if they are more difficult than other "topics," they will be more apt to practice them and won't consider them difficult, even if they are moreso than others, because the guitarist simply enjoys practicing them. Is it clear what I'm trying to say? Another point to remember is that gradually a guitarist's favorite topics will become easier to play as they are performed over the years, etc.
The following exercises could probably be dubbed 'beginner' or 'intermediate' level concerning their difficulty. This article, as you can see from the title, is about natural harmonics. These are different from artificial harmonics where the thumb of one's picking hand is used to attain high-pitched notes (more about the artificial kind of harmonics in another article). Natural harmonics are not fretted in the normal way and can only be played at certain locations.
Try this: To play a natural harmonic, pick your open G string after you have lightly touched the string directly above the 5th fret, without pushing the string all the way down against the fretboard. If a tone higher than your open G string rings out clearly, then you have just executed a natural harmonic and congratulations are in order. Most guitarists have probably played a few natural harmonics before reading this article, I'm sure, since they are quite common. For natural harmonics, basically you simply lay your finger over certain frets and pluck the string without pressing down. Easy enough.
Natural harmonics can be played across these frets, which are called "nodes" on the strings:
4th, 5th, 7th, 9th, 12th, 16th, 19th,
read more here:
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/798427/electric_guitar_natural_harmonic_licks.html?cat=33
The following exercises could probably be dubbed 'beginner' or 'intermediate' level concerning their difficulty. This article, as you can see from the title, is about natural harmonics. These are different from artificial harmonics where the thumb of one's picking hand is used to attain high-pitched notes (more about the artificial kind of harmonics in another article). Natural harmonics are not fretted in the normal way and can only be played at certain locations.
Try this: To play a natural harmonic, pick your open G string after you have lightly touched the string directly above the 5th fret, without pushing the string all the way down against the fretboard. If a tone higher than your open G string rings out clearly, then you have just executed a natural harmonic and congratulations are in order. Most guitarists have probably played a few natural harmonics before reading this article, I'm sure, since they are quite common. For natural harmonics, basically you simply lay your finger over certain frets and pluck the string without pressing down. Easy enough.
Natural harmonics can be played across these frets, which are called "nodes" on the strings:
4th, 5th, 7th, 9th, 12th, 16th, 19th,
read more here:
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/798427/electric_guitar_natural_harmonic_licks.html?cat=33
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Simple Rhythm Guitar Exercise
by Jason Earls, author of How to Become a Guitar Player from Hell
All of my guitar related articles shouldn’t contain only finger exercises and licks related to soloing on the electric guitar, should they? (I don’t want them to). We could use a little rhythm guitar in here, couldn’t we? (Yes, we could). Grooving and jamming in the pocket with a good drummer, or at least strumming some chords along to a CD, can be a fantastic and wonderful experience and can also make you feel like a champion rhythm guitar player.
Rhythm guitar is of course highly important if you are playing in a band. And one of the most common mistakes beginning guitarists make is that they do not focus on practicing rhythm guitar enough in their initial learning stage, but instead spend too much time attempting to play advanced soloing techniques. (Yes, I was guilty of this mistake.) You don’t want to merely concentrate on solos during the first one or two years of playing the electric guitar, because you won’t be developed enough at that point and many people hearing you solo might think someone is strangling a cat somewhere. Play a few chords once in a while. It won’t hurt anything and it may even feel good. Give your fingers a rest and strum some chords, let the smaller muscles in your hands and digits recuperate, so they’ll grow stronger and bounce back faster when you start soloing again. And when you play rhythm, don’t just play power chords (root and fifth) all the time, throw in some more sophisticated voicings too, as in the examples below.
Here is a simple groove you can practice to help your fingers get used to changing positions and placing them into proper chords shapes quickly and efficiently. The focus here is more on playing the chords and getting your rhythm chops enhanced, rather than displaying any awesome musicality or compositional skills. So go ahead and try this exercise:
-7-7------7-7--------7-7------7-7-------
-8-8------8-8-------7-7------7-7-------
-7-7------7-7--------7-7------7-7------- [repeat]
-9-9------9-9-------6-6------6-6-------
-7-7------7-7--------7-7------7-7-------
------0-0-----0-0--------0-0-----0-0--
-5-5------5-5-------5-5------5-5--------
-6-6------6-6-------5-5------5-5--------
-5-5------5-5-------5-5------5-5-------- [repeat]
-7-7------7-7-------4-4------4-4--------
-5-5------5-5-------5-5------5-5--------
------0-0-----0-0-------0-0------0-0--
The chords above are Emin7, E9, Dmin7 and D9, with the open E played twice between them. You can mute the low E if you like. Here is another way the chords can be listed (but notice they are not in the same order as the tablature above):
- - (E9)- - - - - (Emin7) - - - - - (D9) - - - - - (Dmin7)- -
x 7 6 7 7 7 --- X 7 9 7 8 7 --- x 5 4 5 5 5 --- x 5 7 5 6 5
Notice that in the initial tablature, the chords are written as being played in straight 8th notes, but in real life I would never play them that way. You should spice up the rhythm by doing variations on the timing of the chords. Emphasize some chords longer than others, add some funk try to and groove around a little bit. Play the riff along with a rhythm track or a metronome and add some syncopated strumming and muting and give the chords some flair. (Hopefully you have a decent sense of natural rhythm; if you do not, spicing up the chord progression above while keeping it in proper time may be difficult.)
(If you’d like to see a video of me playing the rhythm figure above, visit my youtube channel at:
http://www.youtube.com/user/zevi35711 – please subscribe while you’re there!)
Also remember that when getting funky with various rhythms, it’s important to let the strumming movement come from your wrist. And you will have to become adept at muting all the strings at any time with both your fretting hand and your picking hand, while being able to quickly transition between the different chord shapes. For strumming practice, you can mute the strings with both hands and generate a rhythmic pattern of “scratching” by strumming all the muted strings at once. (Hopefully this brief strumming advice will help improve your funk level considerably on the electric guitar.)
Concerning rhythm guitar, personally I was guilty of not practicing it as much as I should have at the beginning of my guitar career. Actually, I still don’t focus on rhythm playing enough. But I do love jamming with good drummers. I use a lot of eye contact (nonverbal communication) to incorporate many dynamics and to stay as “tight” as possible with the drummer. Sometimes after spending a lot of time with a good drummer in a band, we have gotten so tight we can improvise using nonverbal cues and occasionally the communication has bordered on being telepathic.
-end-
Bio: Jason Earls is the author of the books Cocoon of Terror, Red Zen, How to Become a Guitar Player from Hell, Heartless Bast*rd In Ecstasy, If(Sid_Vicious == TRUE && Alan_Turing == TRUE) {ERROR_Cyberpunk(); } and 0.136101521283655... all available at Amazon.com and other online book stores. His fiction and mathematical work have been published in Red Scream, Yankee Pot Roast, Scientia Magna, three of Clifford Pickover’s books, Neometropolis, Mathworld, AlienSkin, Recreational and Educational Computing, Escaping Elsewhere, Thirteen, Dogmatika, Prime Curios, Thirteen, the Online Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences, OG’s Speculative Fiction, Nocturnal Ooze, Bust Down the Door and Eat All the Chickens, and other publications. He currently resides in Oklahoma with his wife, Christine.
All of my guitar related articles shouldn’t contain only finger exercises and licks related to soloing on the electric guitar, should they? (I don’t want them to). We could use a little rhythm guitar in here, couldn’t we? (Yes, we could). Grooving and jamming in the pocket with a good drummer, or at least strumming some chords along to a CD, can be a fantastic and wonderful experience and can also make you feel like a champion rhythm guitar player.
Rhythm guitar is of course highly important if you are playing in a band. And one of the most common mistakes beginning guitarists make is that they do not focus on practicing rhythm guitar enough in their initial learning stage, but instead spend too much time attempting to play advanced soloing techniques. (Yes, I was guilty of this mistake.) You don’t want to merely concentrate on solos during the first one or two years of playing the electric guitar, because you won’t be developed enough at that point and many people hearing you solo might think someone is strangling a cat somewhere. Play a few chords once in a while. It won’t hurt anything and it may even feel good. Give your fingers a rest and strum some chords, let the smaller muscles in your hands and digits recuperate, so they’ll grow stronger and bounce back faster when you start soloing again. And when you play rhythm, don’t just play power chords (root and fifth) all the time, throw in some more sophisticated voicings too, as in the examples below.
Here is a simple groove you can practice to help your fingers get used to changing positions and placing them into proper chords shapes quickly and efficiently. The focus here is more on playing the chords and getting your rhythm chops enhanced, rather than displaying any awesome musicality or compositional skills. So go ahead and try this exercise:
-7-7------7-7--------7-7------7-7-------
-8-8------8-8-------7-7------7-7-------
-7-7------7-7--------7-7------7-7------- [repeat]
-9-9------9-9-------6-6------6-6-------
-7-7------7-7--------7-7------7-7-------
------0-0-----0-0--------0-0-----0-0--
-5-5------5-5-------5-5------5-5--------
-6-6------6-6-------5-5------5-5--------
-5-5------5-5-------5-5------5-5-------- [repeat]
-7-7------7-7-------4-4------4-4--------
-5-5------5-5-------5-5------5-5--------
------0-0-----0-0-------0-0------0-0--
The chords above are Emin7, E9, Dmin7 and D9, with the open E played twice between them. You can mute the low E if you like. Here is another way the chords can be listed (but notice they are not in the same order as the tablature above):
- - (E9)- - - - - (Emin7) - - - - - (D9) - - - - - (Dmin7)- -
x 7 6 7 7 7 --- X 7 9 7 8 7 --- x 5 4 5 5 5 --- x 5 7 5 6 5
Notice that in the initial tablature, the chords are written as being played in straight 8th notes, but in real life I would never play them that way. You should spice up the rhythm by doing variations on the timing of the chords. Emphasize some chords longer than others, add some funk try to and groove around a little bit. Play the riff along with a rhythm track or a metronome and add some syncopated strumming and muting and give the chords some flair. (Hopefully you have a decent sense of natural rhythm; if you do not, spicing up the chord progression above while keeping it in proper time may be difficult.)
(If you’d like to see a video of me playing the rhythm figure above, visit my youtube channel at:
http://www.youtube.com/user/zevi35711 – please subscribe while you’re there!)
Also remember that when getting funky with various rhythms, it’s important to let the strumming movement come from your wrist. And you will have to become adept at muting all the strings at any time with both your fretting hand and your picking hand, while being able to quickly transition between the different chord shapes. For strumming practice, you can mute the strings with both hands and generate a rhythmic pattern of “scratching” by strumming all the muted strings at once. (Hopefully this brief strumming advice will help improve your funk level considerably on the electric guitar.)
Concerning rhythm guitar, personally I was guilty of not practicing it as much as I should have at the beginning of my guitar career. Actually, I still don’t focus on rhythm playing enough. But I do love jamming with good drummers. I use a lot of eye contact (nonverbal communication) to incorporate many dynamics and to stay as “tight” as possible with the drummer. Sometimes after spending a lot of time with a good drummer in a band, we have gotten so tight we can improvise using nonverbal cues and occasionally the communication has bordered on being telepathic.
-end-
Bio: Jason Earls is the author of the books Cocoon of Terror, Red Zen, How to Become a Guitar Player from Hell, Heartless Bast*rd In Ecstasy, If(Sid_Vicious == TRUE && Alan_Turing == TRUE) {ERROR_Cyberpunk(); } and 0.136101521283655... all available at Amazon.com and other online book stores. His fiction and mathematical work have been published in Red Scream, Yankee Pot Roast, Scientia Magna, three of Clifford Pickover’s books, Neometropolis, Mathworld, AlienSkin, Recreational and Educational Computing, Escaping Elsewhere, Thirteen, Dogmatika, Prime Curios, Thirteen, the Online Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences, OG’s Speculative Fiction, Nocturnal Ooze, Bust Down the Door and Eat All the Chickens, and other publications. He currently resides in Oklahoma with his wife, Christine.
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Practicing Vibrato
by Jason Earls, author of How to Become a Guitar Player from Hell & Red Zen
Guitarists usually don’t practice their vibrato enough. I mean playing wide, soulful vibrato that actually requires some technique to execute. Personally I have a bad habit of falling into using a fast, nervous, jittery type of vibrato that isn’t bluesy or soulful at all. Why? Because I’m usually too busy worrying about playing all the notes in a melody or a lick as precisely as possible, so that when vibrato time rolls around I simply forget about shaking the notes in a wide arc or making them sound emotional. So after I notice what I’m doing, I put on my thinking cap and concentrate on making my vibrato sound musical and interesting. Enough about my mistakes. Let me give you some tips on how you can practice your own vibrato.
First, what is a good definition of vibrato? Well, it’s when a tone wavers up and down in pitch so that a vocal-like quality is produced. A guitarist’s vibrato is very important to their overall style. With enough practice you can create a distinctive sound with your vibrato that can become instantly recognizeable.
Now it’s time to shake some notes. Remember that with good vibrato the majority of the movement should come from your wrist. With that in mind, take a note, say the 9th fret on the G string, and bend it up until it sounds like the pitch at the 10th fret. One half step. That is how far we are going to shake the note. So that it goes back and forth from the original note up one semitone. This will guarantee your vibrato is wide enough. Simply strike the note and bend it up and down trying to make it sound wide and soulful and concentrating on hitting the 10th fret pitch.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
-------------------------------
-------------------------------
–9(10)9(10)9(10)9(10)9(10)--
-------------------------------
-------------------------------
-------------------------------
The vibrato marks above are just to remind you that this is a note-shaking exercise, and not a trill, bend, or a hammer-on and pull-off exercise.
Once the half-step vibrato is under your belt, and if you feel up to it, you can try the same method except taking the note up ONE WHOLE STEP from the original note and releasing it for your vibrato. This is DIFFICULT to do with only your index finger, but with your middle and ring fingers it’s a lot easier as there are other digits behind them for reinforcement. Practice these types of vibrato on each of your strings and in the lower, middle, and upper registers of the neck. Also remember not to neglect your pinky finger either. (Warning: Performing whole step vibrato with certain digits can be dangerous, so be careful not to strain yourself and take it easy. Your pinky or index fingers could get overworked or become quite fatiqued, so give them regular breaks when attempting any monstrously wide vibrato.)
-end-
Jason Earls is author of the books Cocoon of Terror (Afterbirth Books), Red Zen, How to Become a Guitar Player from Hell, Heartless Bast*rd In Ecstasy, If(Sid_Vicious == TRUE && Alan_Turing == TRUE) {ERROR_Cyberpunk(); } and 0.136101521283655... all available at Amazon.com and other online book stores. His fiction and mathematical work have been published in Red Scream, Yankee Pot Roast, Scientia Magna, three of Clifford Pickover’s books, Mathworld, Thirteen, Chiaroscuro, Dogmatika, Neometropolis, Prime Curios, the Online Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences, OG’s Speculative Fiction, AlienSkin, Escaping Elsewhere, Recreational and Educational Computing, Theatre of Decay, Nocturnal Ooze, Bust Down the Door and Eat All the Chickens, and other publications. He currently resides in Texas with his wife, Christine.
Monday, December 8, 2008
Ascending Finger Exercises for Electric Guitar
by Jason Earls, author of How to Become a Guitar Player from Hell
Finger exercises in which a guitarist works their fretting hand up the fretboard are personally very enjoyable for me. Many years ago I would frequently start every one of my solos down on the lower frets and then climb my way up the fretboard using some basic finger exercise pattern. I once naively vowed to start ALL OF MY SOLOS in this fashion so that hopefully it would become my “style.” But of course I quickly abandoned this strange and ridiculous notion.
First we will begin this article with a simple scalar/chromatic pattern. I usually start around the second fret and perform it upward until I hit the 15th fret or so.
--------------------------------------
--------------------------------------
--2-3-2-3-5-3-2--3-4-3-4-6-4-3----
--------------------------------------
--------------------------------------
--------------------------------------
--------------------------------------
--------------------------------------
--4-5-4-5-7-5-4--5-6-5-6-8-6-5-...-
--------------------------------------
--------------------------------------
--------------------------------------
So you can see this is a combination of a picking exercise and a fretting hand exercise that continues its way up the neck as far as you would like to take it. This finger exercise should increase your accuracy for playing quick picking patterns on single strings. Be sure to execute it on other strings as well. And even though the exercise above is technically chromatic since it moves up in half steps, it’s still fairly musical as a finger exercise. You could use it for transitioning between different positions of the neck if you wish.
Our next ascending exercise however, falls into the “harsh” or “ugly” sounding finger exercise category, and should be restricted to bedrooms, garages, woodsheds, and other secluded areas and definitely NOT incorporated into your solos.
------------------------------------
--1-4-1-2-3-2-1-2-5-2-3-4-3-2---
------------------------------------
------------------------------------
------------------------------------
------------------------------------
--------------------------------------
--3-6-3-4-5-4-3-4-7-4-5-6-5-4-...--
--------------------------------------
--------------------------------------
--------------------------------------
--------------------------------------
See, I told you it doesn’t sound good. But it works for building dexterity and increasing precision in the fingers and for improving fretboard shifts.
Our last ascending finger exercise will be one that you can definitely use in your solos. Even though it is chromatic from its ascension in half steps, it is still musical enough to include in your single note excursions.
-5-8-5—--6-9-6---7-10-7-------
---------6-------7---------8-...--
----------------------------------
----------------------------------
----------------------------------
----------------------------------
This exercise is basically a simple 4-note pattern that climbs the neck chromatically, and ordinarily I would use pull-offs for the 8-5s, 9-6s, and 10-7s, etc. You may find using pull-offs in those portions of the exercise easier as well. Theory wise, I believe the notes of the ascending quadruplets above make up Minor Sharp 5th triads, but I’m not exactly positive. Move this lick quickly up the fretboard but keep the notes clean. While playing, your fretting hand should be in almost constant motion. This exercise, if inserted into a solo will build plenty of tension, which you can relieve at any point by stopping the ascension and going into any guitar lick of your choice.
-end-
Jason Earls is author of the books Cocoon of Terror (Afterbirth Books), Red Zen, How to Become a Guitar Player from Hell, Heartless Bast*rd In Ecstasy, If(Sid_Vicious == TRUE && Alan_Turing == TRUE) {ERROR_Cyberpunk(); } and 0.136101521283655... all available at Amazon.com and other online book stores. His fiction and mathematical work have been published in Red Scream, Yankee Pot Roast, Scientia Magna, three of Clifford Pickover’s books, Mathworld, Thirteen, Chiaroscuro, Dogmatika, Neometropolis, Prime Curios, the Online Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences, OG’s Speculative Fiction, AlienSkin, Escaping Elsewhere, Recreational and Educational Computing, Theatre of Decay, Nocturnal Ooze, Bust Down the Door and Eat All the Chickens, and other publications. He currently resides in Texas with his wife, Christine.
Finger exercises in which a guitarist works their fretting hand up the fretboard are personally very enjoyable for me. Many years ago I would frequently start every one of my solos down on the lower frets and then climb my way up the fretboard using some basic finger exercise pattern. I once naively vowed to start ALL OF MY SOLOS in this fashion so that hopefully it would become my “style.” But of course I quickly abandoned this strange and ridiculous notion.
First we will begin this article with a simple scalar/chromatic pattern. I usually start around the second fret and perform it upward until I hit the 15th fret or so.
--------------------------------------
--------------------------------------
--2-3-2-3-5-3-2--3-4-3-4-6-4-3----
--------------------------------------
--------------------------------------
--------------------------------------
--------------------------------------
--------------------------------------
--4-5-4-5-7-5-4--5-6-5-6-8-6-5-...-
--------------------------------------
--------------------------------------
--------------------------------------
So you can see this is a combination of a picking exercise and a fretting hand exercise that continues its way up the neck as far as you would like to take it. This finger exercise should increase your accuracy for playing quick picking patterns on single strings. Be sure to execute it on other strings as well. And even though the exercise above is technically chromatic since it moves up in half steps, it’s still fairly musical as a finger exercise. You could use it for transitioning between different positions of the neck if you wish.
Our next ascending exercise however, falls into the “harsh” or “ugly” sounding finger exercise category, and should be restricted to bedrooms, garages, woodsheds, and other secluded areas and definitely NOT incorporated into your solos.
------------------------------------
--1-4-1-2-3-2-1-2-5-2-3-4-3-2---
------------------------------------
------------------------------------
------------------------------------
------------------------------------
--------------------------------------
--3-6-3-4-5-4-3-4-7-4-5-6-5-4-...--
--------------------------------------
--------------------------------------
--------------------------------------
--------------------------------------
See, I told you it doesn’t sound good. But it works for building dexterity and increasing precision in the fingers and for improving fretboard shifts.
Our last ascending finger exercise will be one that you can definitely use in your solos. Even though it is chromatic from its ascension in half steps, it is still musical enough to include in your single note excursions.
-5-8-5—--6-9-6---7-10-7-------
---------6-------7---------8-...--
----------------------------------
----------------------------------
----------------------------------
----------------------------------
This exercise is basically a simple 4-note pattern that climbs the neck chromatically, and ordinarily I would use pull-offs for the 8-5s, 9-6s, and 10-7s, etc. You may find using pull-offs in those portions of the exercise easier as well. Theory wise, I believe the notes of the ascending quadruplets above make up Minor Sharp 5th triads, but I’m not exactly positive. Move this lick quickly up the fretboard but keep the notes clean. While playing, your fretting hand should be in almost constant motion. This exercise, if inserted into a solo will build plenty of tension, which you can relieve at any point by stopping the ascension and going into any guitar lick of your choice.
-end-
Jason Earls is author of the books Cocoon of Terror (Afterbirth Books), Red Zen, How to Become a Guitar Player from Hell, Heartless Bast*rd In Ecstasy, If(Sid_Vicious == TRUE && Alan_Turing == TRUE) {ERROR_Cyberpunk(); } and 0.136101521283655... all available at Amazon.com and other online book stores. His fiction and mathematical work have been published in Red Scream, Yankee Pot Roast, Scientia Magna, three of Clifford Pickover’s books, Mathworld, Thirteen, Chiaroscuro, Dogmatika, Neometropolis, Prime Curios, the Online Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences, OG’s Speculative Fiction, AlienSkin, Escaping Elsewhere, Recreational and Educational Computing, Theatre of Decay, Nocturnal Ooze, Bust Down the Door and Eat All the Chickens, and other publications. He currently resides in Texas with his wife, Christine.
Sunday, December 7, 2008
What is a Prepared Electric Guitar?
By Jason Earls, author of How to Become a Guitar Player from Hell & Cocoon of Terror
The experimental composer, John Cage, wrote many compositions for "prepared piano," which is when various objects such as bolts, screws, pins, plastic, pieces of weather-stripping, rulers, rubber, etc., are inserted between the strings of a piano. As you can imagine, the sound of the instrument is greatly altered when the strings are "prepared" in this way. Usually one attempts to place the objects inside the piano so the resulting notes and chords sound "good" or "musical" in some way when they piano is played. But "discordant" or "ugly" sounds are also permitted, since there are no rules in music.
Concerning the electric guitar, can we can extrapolate the idea of a prepared piano to that instrument? Of course we can. Fred Frith, an English guitarist, was probably the first person to prepare his guitar in the same manner as John Cage's piano. He would use metal, rubber, plastic, and other materials and place them between the guitar strings, then he would pluck, strike, rub, or scratch them with different objects, rather than use his fingers or a plectrum to execute the notes. Fred Frith also built his own guitar-like instruments for even more extensive exploration and experimentation with sound. For example, once he attached strings to a regular door and added electronics and pickups to make a very large electric guitar.
Perhaps you would like to prepare your guitar with various objects and experiment with the different sounds that can be produced. I have done it a few times in the past and I can assure you it is a lot of fun.
Because this article deals with an experimental method of guitar playing, there will be no exact licks provided. And there will be no precise algorithms to follow either. To play with a prepared guitar, all you will need is your imagination, a few household objects or materials you can find in your garage, and then it will be up to you how exactly to play the "notes" after you have inserted the objects between the strings of your guitar (or on other parts of your instrument.) Remember when playing a prepared electric guitar to be bold and strive to make good compelling music.
But hold on, I do have a few suggestions for you. I have found that effects pedals can help make things more interesting when working with a prepared electric guitar: distortion pedals, chorus pedals, echo, flanger, reverb, etc., they can all help you sound more interesting. Just a few weeks ago, I prepared one of my electric guitars using regular construction nails, clothespins, and a couple of cards (from a regular pack of playing cards used for Poker and other games), then I added some echo and distortion and succeeded in recording some highly intriguing sounds. Tremolo bars may also be interesting to use with prepared guitars, although personally I haven't tried that particular technique yet.
You may want to search for "Fred Frith" and "John Cage" on youtube.com and watch some of their videos to see if you like their music. Perhaps they will inspire you.
-end-
Jason Earls is author of the books Cocoon of Terror (Afterbirth Books), Red Zen, How to Become a Guitar Player from Hell, Heartless Bast*rd In Ecstasy, If(Sid_Vicious == TRUE && Alan_Turing == TRUE) {ERROR_Cyberpunk(); } and 0.136101521283655... all available at Amazon.com and other online book stores. His fiction and mathematical work have been published in Red Scream, Yankee Pot Roast, Scientia Magna, three of Clifford Pickover’s books, Mathworld, Thirteen, Chiaroscuro, Dogmatika, Neometropolis, Prime Curios, the Online Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences, OG’s Speculative Fiction, AlienSkin, Escaping Elsewhere, Recreational and Educational Computing, Theatre of Decay, Nocturnal Ooze, Bust Down the Door and Eat All the Chickens, and other publications. He currently resides in Texas with his wife, Christine.
The experimental composer, John Cage, wrote many compositions for "prepared piano," which is when various objects such as bolts, screws, pins, plastic, pieces of weather-stripping, rulers, rubber, etc., are inserted between the strings of a piano. As you can imagine, the sound of the instrument is greatly altered when the strings are "prepared" in this way. Usually one attempts to place the objects inside the piano so the resulting notes and chords sound "good" or "musical" in some way when they piano is played. But "discordant" or "ugly" sounds are also permitted, since there are no rules in music.
Concerning the electric guitar, can we can extrapolate the idea of a prepared piano to that instrument? Of course we can. Fred Frith, an English guitarist, was probably the first person to prepare his guitar in the same manner as John Cage's piano. He would use metal, rubber, plastic, and other materials and place them between the guitar strings, then he would pluck, strike, rub, or scratch them with different objects, rather than use his fingers or a plectrum to execute the notes. Fred Frith also built his own guitar-like instruments for even more extensive exploration and experimentation with sound. For example, once he attached strings to a regular door and added electronics and pickups to make a very large electric guitar.
Perhaps you would like to prepare your guitar with various objects and experiment with the different sounds that can be produced. I have done it a few times in the past and I can assure you it is a lot of fun.
Because this article deals with an experimental method of guitar playing, there will be no exact licks provided. And there will be no precise algorithms to follow either. To play with a prepared guitar, all you will need is your imagination, a few household objects or materials you can find in your garage, and then it will be up to you how exactly to play the "notes" after you have inserted the objects between the strings of your guitar (or on other parts of your instrument.) Remember when playing a prepared electric guitar to be bold and strive to make good compelling music.
But hold on, I do have a few suggestions for you. I have found that effects pedals can help make things more interesting when working with a prepared electric guitar: distortion pedals, chorus pedals, echo, flanger, reverb, etc., they can all help you sound more interesting. Just a few weeks ago, I prepared one of my electric guitars using regular construction nails, clothespins, and a couple of cards (from a regular pack of playing cards used for Poker and other games), then I added some echo and distortion and succeeded in recording some highly intriguing sounds. Tremolo bars may also be interesting to use with prepared guitars, although personally I haven't tried that particular technique yet.
You may want to search for "Fred Frith" and "John Cage" on youtube.com and watch some of their videos to see if you like their music. Perhaps they will inspire you.
-end-
Jason Earls is author of the books Cocoon of Terror (Afterbirth Books), Red Zen, How to Become a Guitar Player from Hell, Heartless Bast*rd In Ecstasy, If(Sid_Vicious == TRUE && Alan_Turing == TRUE) {ERROR_Cyberpunk(); } and 0.136101521283655... all available at Amazon.com and other online book stores. His fiction and mathematical work have been published in Red Scream, Yankee Pot Roast, Scientia Magna, three of Clifford Pickover’s books, Mathworld, Thirteen, Chiaroscuro, Dogmatika, Neometropolis, Prime Curios, the Online Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences, OG’s Speculative Fiction, AlienSkin, Escaping Elsewhere, Recreational and Educational Computing, Theatre of Decay, Nocturnal Ooze, Bust Down the Door and Eat All the Chickens, and other publications. He currently resides in Texas with his wife, Christine.
Friday, December 5, 2008
Sweet Sweep Picking
By Jason Earls, author of How to Become a Guitar Player from Hell
Sweep picking is one of the sweetest techniques you can perform on the electric guitar. It simply involves playing arpeggios by "sweeping" your pick up or down the strings in one continuous strumming motion. Usually when doing sweep picking guitarists will "sweep" across all six strings very quickly, but not quite as fast as performing a regular uncontrolled strum. The goal with sweep picking is to sound the INDIVIDUAL notes of a chord; that is, not allow them to bleed together. Also, more than one note can occur on a single string with the arpeggios played, but usually those are hammered-on or pulled-off to so as not to hinder the one-directional movement of the pick.
Concerning speed with sweep picking, some guitarists perform the technique too quickly. Be careful not to simply smear your pick over the notes so that it ends up sounding like an incoherent mess. You want to play quickly yet still be able to discern most of the pitches or overall tonality of the arpeggio. Don’t fall into the habit of making your arpeggios sound like a mish-mash of dead clicks (for more advice on sweep picking, along with a valuable personal anecdote, see my book, How to Become a Guitar Player from Hell). The tricky thing with sweep picking is to get your plectrum and fingers in perfect synchronization so the notes flow out quickly with complete accuracy and clarity.
Our first sweep picked arpeggio will be a simple one involving an A minor triad:
-----------12-15p12------------
-------13-----------13----------
-12h14-----------------14p12--
--------------------------------
--------------------------------
--------------------------------
Notice the hammer-on and pull-off between the G note and A note, and on the high E string the G and E notes, respectively. Practice this lick so the arpeggio flows up and back continuously and you could keep it going for hours if you were forced to.
Next we have an arpeggio spanning all six strings. This one is a real doozy. A C# minor barre chord:
----------------9-12p9----------------
--------------9--------9--------------
------------9------------9------------
---------11----------------11---------
------11----------------------11------
-9h12----------------------------12p9-
Very tricky to pull this one off cleanly. It takes good hand and plectrum synchronization to play it fast yet with each note articulated. Notice the hammers and pulls that allow the pick to ascend and descend in one fluid motion. With this arpeggio you will have to use a rolling motion with your fingers to grab the notes (mostly on the 11th and the higher 9th frets), applying and releasing tension with the fingertips so that the notes do not bleed together. Move this arpeggio around to get different keys, e.g., move it down to the 7th fret to have a B minor arpeggio.
Next is a lick that combines two arpeggios together. This one sounds quite pretty. The chords involved are D minor and C major, respectively, which both fit into the overall key of A minor. Usually I toss in this lick when I’m soloing in the A Aeolian mode (See my book How to Become a Guitar Player from Hell for a full explanation of modes and how they are used; okay, I’ll stop plugging my book now).
~
-17p13----------------------13-17p13-15--
-------15----------------15--------------
----------14----------14-----------------
-------------15----15--------------------
----------------17-----------------------
-----------------------------------------
~
-12-15p12---------------------12-15p12-13--
----------13---------------13--------------
-------------12---------12-----------------
----------------14---14--------------------
-------------------15----------------------
-------------------------------------------
Next is a fairly unusual arpeggio that uses a few half step intervals in its chord voicing. I don’t know the name of the chord this one is based on. It could be B major with a flatted 5th and a sharp 11th, but I’m not exactly sure. If you have the answer please email me – see my Bio at the end of this book for contact information. Anyway, I love this arpeggio because it’s very exotic sounding.
------------------------11-13h14p13p11--
---------------------12-----------------
---------------10s11--------------------
------------13--------------------------
-----8s9-14-----------------------------
-7/8------------------------------------
-------------------------
-12----------------------
----11-10----------------
----------13-------------
-------------14-8-9------
--------------------8-7--
Note that I use slides, hammer-ons and pull-offs when ascending, but on descending I pick every note. It’s easier for me that way, but you may be different and want to add slides and slurs on the descent. Feel free to do so.
Next is a lovely arpeggio that consists of notes from an A major chord but with an extension to notes in the same key further up the neck:
----------------9-12-9-----------------
-------------10--------10--------------
---------6-9--------------9-6----------
-------7----------------------7--------
-----7--------------------------7------
-5-9------------------------------9-5--
When you hit the 6th fret, you should slide your index finger up to the 9th fret and continue playing the rest of the notes. Move this arpeggio around to get different keys as well. I play it often with A and G root notes also.
And finally here is a basic A7 arpeggio:
-----------------5--------------
-------------5-8---8-5-—--------
-----------6-----------6--------
-------5-7---------------7------
-----7---------------------7----
-5-9-------------------------9--
So there you have a few of my favorite arpeggios. You can use them when practicing your sweep picking and also be sure to transpose them to different areas of the neck, depending upon the key you are in when soloing. The arpeggios above are all quite musical so you don’t have to worry about adding anything else to your "chromatic-lick" repertoire, which you should always avoid whenever possible.
One personal performance note: for some reason it is easier for me to sweep pick DESCENDING (going from the high E to the low E string) than it is to sweep ASCENDING. Just because of the natural movement of my hands and the way my nervous system is wired, I suppose. Hence I have to practice the ascending motion with more concentration than the descending motion. Pay attention to your own natural movements and figure out what you need to work on to improve.
A good suggestion for working on arpeggios and sweep picking is to get a good book on music theory, learn many chords from it, then practice laying out the notes on the fretboard comfortably for new arpeggios to add to your arsenal. Then practice sweep picking the bejeesus out of them and have fun doing so. Bon Voyage.
-end-
Jason Earls is author of the books How to Become a Guitar Player from Hell, Cocoon of Terror (Afterbirth Books), Red Zen, Heartless Bast*rd In Ecstasy, If(Sid_Vicious == TRUE && Alan_Turing == TRUE) {ERROR_Cyberpunk(); } and 0.136101521283655... all available at Amazon.com and other online book stores. His fiction and mathematical work have been published in Red Scream, Yankee Pot Roast, Scientia Magna, three of Clifford Pickover’s books, Mathworld, Thirteen, Chiaroscuro, Dogmatika, Neometropolis, Prime Curios, the Online Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences, OG’s Speculative Fiction, AlienSkin, Escaping Elsewhere, Recreational and Educational Computing, Theatre of Decay, Nocturnal Ooze, Bust Down the Door and Eat All the Chickens, and other publications. He currently resides in Oklahoma with his wife, Christine.
Thursday, December 4, 2008
The Mohammedan Scale
by Jason Earls, author of How to Become a Guitar Player from Hell & Red Zen
This will be a quick and easy article. We will only be dealing with only one scale, the Mohammedan Scale (which is almost a finger exercise in itself) along with a couple of additional finger exercises built from it.
As you can probably guess from the title, the Mohammedan Scale is used extensively in traditional Middle Eastern songs (of which I can’t say I’m familiar with even one), but I do love Eastern sounding scales, since most of them possess a particularly dark and somewhat eerie quality. Also they can be quite challenging to play since many of them have wide intervals interspersed with half steps. Here is the Mohammedan Scale in the key of A:
-----------------------------5-7-8-10--
-----------------------5-6-9-----------
-------------------5-7-----------------
-------------6-7-9---------------------
-------5-7-8---------------------------
-5-7-8---------------------------------
Listen to the overall dark tone of the scale. To me it seems very "emotional" sounding. Also notice the last four notes that occur on the high E string. If we assign one finger per note on that string, we can produce a nice, challenging finger exercise from that portion along. What I mean is, we can play the last four notes on the high E string using a 1-2-3-4 fingering combination (I’ll put the info below the tablature); and then to make the exercise cyclic we’ll use notes on the B string from the scale as well.
Try this making sure to pick every note:
(to see this article with tablature formatted correctly, go here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/8652244/The-Mohammedan-Scale )
-5-7-8-10-8-7-5-7-------------------
------------------5-6-9-10-9-6-5-6--
--------------------------------------
--------------------------------------
--------------------------------------
--------------------------------------
--------------------------------------
1 2 3 4 3 2 1 2 1 2 4 4 4 2 1 2
The fingering here can be pretty tricky. Notice the information listed below the TAB. Again, you should use all four fingers for the notes on the high E string; and then for those on the B use all fingers EXCEPT your ring finger. That is, the three 4s in a row mean you should fret with your pinky and then slide up (with your pinky) to get the note on the 10th fret, then slide back down again and continue.
The exercise above uses notes directly from the Mohammedan scale, but now let’s generate another exercise using the same four note high E pattern on the B as well, being concerned only with working our fingers:
--5-7-8-10-8-7-5-7--------------------
--------------------5-7-8-10-8-7-5-7--
----------------------------------------
----------------------------------------
----------------------------------------
----------------------------------------
----------------------------------------
Now that’s a real finger stretcher, isn’t it? Note that if the stretch is a little too wide for your hands, you can move it up the neck to frets that are not spaced so far apart.
The exercises above should help build your picking speed, increase finger coordination, finger strength and flexibility while improving your accuracy. Just make sure that your hands are sufficiently warmed up before attempting any of the exercises. And remember to use a metronome as well.
-end-
Jason Earls is author of the books How to Become a Guitar Player from Hell, Cocoon of Terror (Afterbirth Books), Red Zen, Heartless Bast*rd In Ecstasy, If(Sid_Vicious == TRUE && Alan_Turing == TRUE) {ERROR_Cyberpunk(); } and 0.136101521283655... all available at Amazon.com and other online book stores. His fiction and mathematical work have been published in Red Scream, Yankee Pot Roast, Scientia Magna, three of Clifford Pickover’s books, Mathworld, Thirteen, Chiaroscuro, Dogmatika, Neometropolis, Prime Curios, the Online Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences, OG’s Speculative Fiction, AlienSkin, Escaping Elsewhere, Recreational and Educational Computing, Theatre of Decay, Nocturnal Ooze, Bust Down the Door and Eat All the Chickens, and other publications. He currently resides in Oklahoma with his wife, Christine.
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