In the past, I used to be against the whammy bar on the electric guitar. I used to believe that the tool on the electric was a way for guitarists to show off. It’s like them saying, “Hey look at me, I can do all these cool tricks and now I’m an amazing player!” A lot of people believe that the whammy bar is just a way for a guitar player to show off but I don’t think so.

Now that I think about it, the whammy bar on the guitar can be a really expressive tool. You can actually create useful and creative licks on a whammy bar. If you think a whammy bar is just used to add vibrato and bend notes, think again. You can do so many crazy tricks on the whammy bar. Look at Eddie Van Halen and Joe Satriani. Those guys are wizards on the whammy and so is Jimi Hendrix. Hendrix used the whammy quite a lot on the Fender. Listen to Hendrix’s version of the “Star Spangled Banner” from Woodstock, there’s whammy all over that.

Doing whammy tricks aren’t hard as they look. They’re actually very simple. Pretty soon I’ll be using the whammy bar when I’m playing lead. I got a guitar with a whammy bar ’cause I’m hoping to one day learn some of the my favorite shred songs. For example one day I’m gonna learn Satriani’s “Satch Boogie” and I’m gonna try to master Van Halen’s “Eruption”. Those are two of my favorite shred tunes and I want to learn how to play them myself and I will!

Yeah, admittedly I do want to play like a virtuoso and play shred guitar and I still got a lot of work to get there. The whammy is an awesome tool. Like they all say, “Don’t knock it until you try it”. The whammy bar really grew on me. I’m having a lot of fun with it.

Kev

I’ve always wanted to learn how to play the drums and I still can. I’ve been learning how to play the drums for the past year or so. Learning time and rhythm, you’re learning how to play drums. Some people think it’s impossible to learn drums without a drum set but absolutely you can.

With today’s technology, there are all kinds of drum machines out there and there’s also virtual drum sets on DAW software nowadays. There’s also drum software for the PC you can buy like Superior Drummer for example and also EZ Drummer which both are pretty popular. You can find any kind of software on the PC that has a virtual drum set where you can actually play on. Just get one of those and buy a Drummer instructional book and you’re good to go. That’s how I’ve been learning how to play the drums myself.

I really need to learn this stuff ’cause I want to be able to program my own drum tracks when I start recording rock songs on the electric guitar.

It does feel really good learning timing and rhythm in music ’cause timing is everything in music. In the past, I didn’t know anything about rhythm and the metronome. I used to record without a metronome or a click track but now I’m all over it. I’ve definitely improved greatly when it comes to rhythm and the metronome ’cause I used to be shit at it admittedly.

Someday down the road, I will buy myself EZ Drummer software. The program costs like $150 or more but I’m sure it’s worth it. Maybe I’ll buy that software this year. I want to make full band rock songs and doing all I can to get to that goal.

For bass guitar tracks, how would I go about doing that? Well I’ll probably do that with MIDI on Mixcraft 8. I even thought about buying myself a real bass guitar and add bass tracks myself. Either that or I could find another bass player that I can collaborate who is willing to work with me. I’ll figure something out.

Making full band rock songs is something I’ve always wanted to happen and it will. Just trying to get all the right gear, software and all that stuff. It takes time and money but I’m working on it.

Kev

So today I’ve just gotten back into using the free edition of Spotify on my new PC. Using the Spotify app on Windows 10. I know I’ve been switching back and forth from Spotify to Apple Music, but I think I’m gonna stick with Spotify from now on. I’ve used Apple Music streaming for a long while but decided that I didn’t like it anymore. Spotify is easier to use. I plan on subscribing to Spotify full time sometime in the future whenever I can afford it.

This morning on Spotify, I listened to Gregg Allman’s final solo album “Southern Blood” on it which was beautiful stuff. I also listened to the Greta Van Fleet album “From the Fires” which was also an amazing album. Now I’m listening to Myrkur’s newest album, “Mareridt” which is a Danish black metal band with Amalie Bruun as lead singer, half way through that album and it’s amazing stuff.

I’m gonna use Spotify as a way if I want to hear an album if I like it enough, I’ll buy my own copy. Plus to listen to albums I’ve always wanted to hear that I never got to yet. Just listen to music on it like always.

I love listening to music. Supporting other bands and artists is good for ya. I like to listen to tunes while I’m browsing the internet. As always, I’m a full album kind of guy. I listen to albums all the way through. I never listen to selected songs like a lot of people do nowadays.

Kev