Playing fast licks and shredding may sound a lot of fun… I like that stuff too but you don’t want to obsess with playing fast notes. That’s one problem that a lot of guitarists have… they obsess with playing fast just to try and impress people. If you really want to impress people and melt faces with your guitar playing, why not focus on phrasing? I’ve explained what “phrasing” is before. “Phrasing” means sounding musical… like someone singing a song. If you wanna impress people… make people feel goosebumps over your playing, you have to make your lead guitar playing sound like it’s singing a song. This is what made Satriani, Hendrix, Jeff Beck and SRV so great ’cause they were good at “phrasing”. This is one thing I need to get worked on. Trying to improve my “phrasing”. This is why I’m just starting to record my own rhythm playing and jam leads over it so I can practice my “phrasing”. Shredding is nice but it’s over-rated. 

I’m so glad that I decided to take lead guitar seriously and take learning music theory too. Music theory really does help and it does help you become a better lead guitarist. I’m learning a lot. I’m starting to learn how to apply scales to chord changes and key changes and all that stuff. I’ve learned the CAGED system and learned how arpeggios relate to that. Learned how pentatonic scales relate to the CAGED system. Thanks to the two “Fretboard Theory” books by Desi Serna which I recommend to every guitarist out there. Those books are really helping me.

I have all the chops and techniques I learned in lead guitar like hammer-ons, pull-offs, slides, bends, vibratos, double-stops, etc. — I can play all the licks well… I just need to get better at the ear training and improvisation part which that is also getting worked on.

The key to improving ear training and pitch is memorizing the sound of the notes in your head. I’m trying to do just that and getting better at that as well. It’s a struggle but if you don’t give up, it’ll pay off.

I’m getting kind of bored of acoustic guitar and kind of wanna focus on electric more. I wanna start writing some of my own rock n’ roll songs sometime down the road. Not metal but maybe hard rock, yes. I don’t have the singing voice for “metal” even though I love the genre. I’ll just play just regular original hard rock kind of in the likes of Led Zep, Soundgarden and Sabbath maybe.  

My guitar playing is kind of Jimmy Page-like a little bit ’cause I spent many years listening and studying his playing. Other than Led Zeppelin, I have listened to many other of Page’s projects. I’ve listened to his playing for many years. 

Yeah, I’m taking lead guitar very seriously. Playing along with a metronome and trying to memorize the sound of each note. Learning scales and all that stuff. 

I’m very “serious” of becoming an actual musician. I’m having fun learning and practicing. 

If I wanna get backing tracks for my original rock songs… maybe I’ll just forget the MIDI bullshit and get real musicians. I’d like to collaborate with other musicians for my songs sometime down the road. 

Kev

Just this morning, I finally purchased and downloaded, the AmpliTube guitar playing app for the Ipad. I’ve always wanted that app and it’s a very nice guitar playing app. Guitar sounds on it sounds real and professional sounding. Better than garageband, in my opinion!

I wanted that app so I can record electric guitar riffs and song ideas for rock songs. I also got it so I can practice jamming guitar solos over my rhythm playing!

I think I’m just about tired of writing acoustic songs all of the time and I wanna start writing hard rock songs. Write rock n’ roll songs with strong riffs and guitar solos!

For years now, I’ve been trying to find ways to investigate on how to make my own backing tracks and getting there.

I wanna write rock n’ roll songs and rock out. This is why I’m trying to learn music theory and trying to improve my lead guitar chops… getting the hang of both.

Soon, I’ll be making full band songs for the internet. It just takes a lot of learning and research.

AmpliTube is a great guitar playing app, though. I’m impressed with it!

Kev

Well, I guess I’ll have a change of heart with the new “beep beep boop” editor on wordpress. Look like they just fixed all the technical issues. The loading is a lot faster than the previous editor now. Plus, the new editor seems easier to use than the old one. While wordpress did a good job fixing all the technical issues, I’d still say they should get rid of the “beep beep boop” loading message… I hate seeing that and it’s annoying. 

I came pretty close to leaving wordpress for another blog site but I guess I’ll stay. 

Kev

Now that I got that electric keyboard, I’m gonna have to get some accessories for it now. For starters, I really need a keyboard stand and bench. I also need a sheet music holder for the keyboard so I can put sheet music books or an Ipad on it. Maybe a sustain pedal too. I also got a get a Irig MIDI adapter and MIDI cables too.

I’ll start getting all this stuff sometime this year.

My keyboard/piano instruction is going okay. Just doing some simple finger exercises so I can get the hang of the fingering and build up my speed. Each time I play the keyboard, I’m playing along with the metronome.

I’m enjoying the piano and gonna take it seriously. Both guitar and piano are pretty much the same thing. If you know theory, you’re already good to go.

Next time I go to Best Buy, I’ll see what they have for keyboard accessories. I’m sure they have some stuff. If not, then I’ll just order what I need online. I’ll probably just order stuff from Sweetwater Music, that’s a great company. I think Sweetwater is a better music company than AMS or Musician’s Friend.

Kev

So last night, I got around to practicing the piano a little bit. Beginner stuff. Something to start off with. So far… it seems pretty easy from the looks of things. If I keep at it which I will, I could learn the piano very quickly. It might take me less than several months to learn. I already seem to get the hang of the fingering pretty well. Learning to read music seems really easy too!!! Learning to read music should take me a little bit to learn.

I already have a good sense of timing with rhythm and tempo on the guitar so it should be no different with the piano. I just gotta learn how to finger the chords and the scales and all that stuff.

I’ll learn and practice the piano for a little while and once I feel I get good enough, I’ll start learning cover songs.

There are tons of cover songs I wanna perform on piano. I wanna do a lot of Billy Joel and Elton John songs. I’ll play some Adele too. I also wanna cover Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” at some point. I also wanna cover some Jerry Lee Lewis like “Great Balls of Fire” or “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On”.

I think I’ll start off with something simple like a Billy Joel song or whatever.

I wanna get good with the instrument and know how to play it first before I start writing songs on it.

Next time I go to Barnes & Noble… I’ll go buy a Piano Chord Book and maybe a songbook too.

I’m never giving up the guitar of course, just wanna try something new. Switch back and forth from guitar to piano. Once again, it’s always a good idea to play more than one instrument.

I’m gonna practice some more piano today.

Kev

I just got that keyboard I was talking about a few minutes ago. Somebody I know didn’t want it anymore so this person gave it to me.

It is a MIDI keyboard, btw. I will be able to hook up this keyboard into my IPAD so I can use it with garageband and stuff but I would need an Irig MIDI adapter for that which I will buy soon.

Before I hook this keyboard up to do some recording with first I have to learn how to play the instrument. Which is what I’m planning to do soon. I just bought a piano instruction ebook for the Ipad to start off with. Next time I go to Barnes & Noble, I’ll buy more Piano and Keyboard books.

Learning to play the keyboards/piano will take me several months so I can get the hang of the basics and stuff. Once I get good enough with the keyboards/piano, then I’ll start writing some songs on it and playing some covers or whatever.

I wanna take this instrument seriously and commit myself to learning it.

Now that I have a MIDI keyboard with MIDI hookup and all that stuff… I’ll soon be able to make my own backing tracks to my songs. That’s what I wanted a MIDI keyboard for.

Once I get good at playing the piano which should take me about several months or a year, I’ll start doing some MIDI stuff with it. Like I said above… I gotta get an Irig MIDI adapter first which should cost about $60 not so bad. I’ll see if they have them for sale at Best Buy.

Kev

I want to learn to play piano/keyboards so I can do all that MIDI stuff with my songwriting. I’m going to start off with a cheap and simple electric keyboard for now so I can learn how to play it and try to get good with it. I’ll start off with a cheap and simple keyboard and then I’ll buy a more expensive keyboard with all kinds of MIDI sounds like strings, jazz ensemble, choirs and other sounds if you know what I mean. I wanna be able to learn MIDI stuff with home recording and for that, I need to learn how to play the keyboards.

If I’m going to learn how to play piano/keyboards then I’m gonna have to learn how to read music too. I’ve already started learning how to read music for piano ’cause I have an app that gives you lessons on how to read music. That “Musicopoulos” app that I’ve been talking about on here. Learning how to read sheet music doesn’t seem that hard. All it is it’s just a C major scale.

I also wanna play just regular piano too so I can perform cover songs and write originals on regular piano. I really would like to perform Billy Joel and Elton John covers. I can perform their songs on guitar if I wanted but they would sound better on piano.

I’ve already had tried to learn how to play piano/keyboards in the past before but back then I didn’t take it very seriously. I think I wanna take it seriously this time.

I just wanna play another instrument other than guitar and I think the piano is just right for me. I think I can write great songs on the piano. The piano have always been a cool instrument and I’ve always wanted to learn how to play.

Someday I would get myself a real piano like an upright or something but not at this time, maybe sometime down the road.

Kev

If there was another instrument that I wanna play other than guitar… that would be the piano. I’ve always wanted to learn how to play piano. I’ve always been a huge fan of piano ballads. I’m a huge fan of artists like Adelle, Billy Joel and Elton John. I would like to start covering some of their songs but on piano. I would like to play both covers and originals on piano.

Somebody’s gonna give me an electric piano next week, I hope. This person is giving it to me for free ’cause this person that I know never uses it.

As a matter of fact, a lot of original acoustic songs… I originally heard some of those songs as piano ballads in my head. I played those songs on guitar ’cause I don’t play piano.

Learning to play piano should be pretty easy. If you know a lot about guitar, then you already know a lot about piano ’cause they are both pretty much the same thing anyways… it’s just that the fingering is different.

I just wanna take my music to different directions. It shouldn’t take me that long to get good with piano. It should take me several months  or less to get good with piano. At least, to learn all the basic and simple stuff. I’m not gonna become a classical pianist on it or anything… I just wanna sing piano ballads. I love that stuff.

I’ve been interested in the piano for years but I ended up focusing on guitar more instead. I’ll always play guitar forever, I’ll never give it up. I just wanna try something different and something new. It’s always good to play more than one instrument.

I could get an upright piano up in this room but there’s not a lot of room in here for it. I’ll just use an electric one for now.

Kev

I’m really am studying music theory. Studying pretty hard. Trying to learn and memorize it all.

Stuff I learned so far are:

– All the notes all over the fretboard
– Knowing the notes in the major scale in all keys
– The Circle of Fifths/fourths
– Key Signatures
– Intervals
– Notes in chords
– A few different scales like Minor/Major Pentatonic, the Blues Minor Pentatonic scale

There’s still a lot more stuff I need to learn. I’m not a music theory wizard just yet but I’m getting there, though and that’s my goal. I want to learn as much of it as I can. I want to understand music and understand it well.

There are many reasons why I think it’s important to learn music theory.

1) You’ll become an even better musician
2) You’ll be able to improvise better and solo well
3) You’ll write songs a lot better and be more creative
4) When you jam with other musicians or when you’re talking with other musicians, you’ll be able to
understand what they’re talking about when they give you chord names, note names, scales and all this theory stuff.
5) Other musicians will take you more seriously if you know music theory. This is no joke. If you know your shit, other musicians will be proud of you.

When you want to become a part of the musicians community… it’s pretty important to know this stuff. Why would you want to become a musician and not know this stuff??? I mean when you talk to a musician about music, chances are he/she is gonna be telling you all kinds of chords with weird names and all kinds of notes and if you don’t understand any of that stuff… he/she will look at you like you’re some kind of hobbyist.

There are tons of books out there that teaches you theory and there are all kinds of apps that I can recommend you.

Theory isn’t that difficult to learn. Piece of cake. Even a 5 year old kid can learn this stuff. Music theory is fun to learn too. It may seem boring at first but once you get into it, you’ll like it more. Learning music theory is kind of like learning math in a way. I’m having fun studying this stuff. Still got way more to go.

Kev