British vs American amp tone and Day 42

British and American tone

You see it practically everywhere when you are looking at instrument gear now.  Digital is pervasive, and since there are a lot of "amp modeling" going on, you have to describe the amp type without using proper nouns.  Even many tube amps now have a "American" and "British" switch on them to change their voicings.  What exactly does it mean?  Well the American amps of the late 50's and early 60's were clean sounding, while the British amps of the 60's brought in the more aggressive distortion.

(ACDC is a great example of pure British tone)

The Tubes:  A sort of, but not really, truth

Technical jargon ahead, skip if you want.  Marshall's first amps were essentially Fender amp clones.  They did not have the same tubes as Fender, but they did have similar ones that were sold surplus by the US military.  Soon they switched to more locally made KT66's.  By the time Jimi Hendrix was popular they were using EL34's because KT66's were becoming cost prohibitive.  Fenders almost exclusively used 6L6 Tubes.  The problem with this definition is that as you are aware, Marshall used 3 different tube types, and then Vox also introduced EL84!  Today it is accepted that EL84 and EL34 are the "British" tubes.

The Sound You Hear

The big Marshall change to their early "Fender" clones was that they tweaked the circuitry to distort much faster than a Fender.  These changes and the change of tubes essentially means that the "British" sound from a Marshall is a mid-pushed distortion that backs off on the bass and treble.  This is what you will hear with your ears, no matter what the tech jumbo says.  So "American" "Fender" sounds are boomy and chimey, with a smooth and light distortion.  Fender clean is very clear, very precise and ringing.  The "British" sound is mid-range aggressive, even the "clean" has a little bit of harmonic break up, making it described as "creamy" and "fat" and the distortion is stronger and grittier.

(almost always performed with a Fender Bassman)

Not so clear Anymore

When you see "British" vs "American" you really have to think about the music of the 60's.  Over half a century later, and there are amps from each side of the pond that do what the other is famous for.  Mesa and Soldano amps from America have distortion in huge amounts.  Vox, even in the 60's, made super clean amps in Britain that rivaled Fender.  Several amps now use BOTH types of tubes and let you switch between or blend them.  There are digital circuits and active equalization that can make the cleaner 6L6 tubes sound "British", and this is a common usage for them now.  Marshall even uses 6L6's in their big series amps because they are more even and you can EQ them to sound "British".


Day 42

Started out today doing the Palm Mutes and Hammer On practice tracks again.  It has been a while since I had done that because I was working up my skills through playing on the real amp.  The Hammer On is really more a timing practice for me, I'm pretty proficient in Hammer on usage already.  The Palm Mute practice track gets my speed and accuracy up.  I can kind of get into a relaxed, slow chugging mood with Palm Mutes.  I think Thunderkiss '66 is fast, and then I play the Practice track and realize I've got a ways to go before I"m "fast".

I keep alternating between practicing what I need to practice and practicing what I want to practice.  What I need to practice is academic and building of skill.  What I want to practice is all the song ideas in my head.  Both help with creativity and skill, but in different amounts.  I think academic basic skill building is about 70% skill building, 30% creativity.  Practicing my own stuff is 30% skill building, and 70% creativity.  Doing the academic gives me new skills to make more creative stuff, while doing my own stuff allows me to put my skills together in new ways, pushing me challenge my skill in ways that practice tracks just do not do.

For example: the hammer on practice track.  Its a ton of hammer ons.  Its me using hammer ons in specific ways at specific times, and pushing me to do them faster, more accurate, and in different combinations.  However, when I play my own stuff, I'm stringing hammer ons with bends and blending them with chords.  I'm saying to myself "can I do a bend, hammer on, then unbend, and slide?"  At first, probably not, but later on I work on it, and yes I can.

Its a balancing act, and I tend to fall on the "practice your own stuff" side of the balance a little too much.

The Teacher's Warning and Day 25

There is a warning that I hear a lot from videos on youtube and from teachers giving free advice to players in general.  The warning is "if you focus so much on learning 2 or 3 songs, then all you're learn is 2 or 3 songs".  This does speak to me.  I have a few songs I obsessed over on guitar as a teenager, thinking "if I learned to play this, I'd know I'm a guitarist".  It is dangerous because if you devote months of time to such a small set of skills, you will absolutely learn those 2 or 3 songs, but the risk is that you have left yourself with no new goals.

Well, I feel that I am past that point of danger, but my songs are still there.  I still have that list of "I want to break this out in case I'm playing in front of Cousin A" or "I want to play this one for my sister because she and I enjoyed listening to this song when I was little".  The warning still creeps in, and I'm worried I'm not advanced enough to do them without getting caught up in them.  But I think acknowledging the risk will help get over and past the risk.

So what's my list?  Here's a few.  I may add others to other posts later.

ACDC Highway to Hell.  I've mentioned before that this song shaped my music tastes, forever putting me on the path of pure Rock and Roll.  Plus all my cousins will love the hell out of hearing it.  All my cousins come over on Easter, so I can tell anyone thinking its inappropriate, "Catholic dogma says that Jesus descended into hell to rescue the righteous of the past".  So there.  Highway to Hell is appropriate for Easter and don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

Sweet Child O' Mine is a song I used to ask my cousin to play all the time.  The beginning just seemed so amazing to me as a young kid.  I hear that it is not all that hard to play the whole song.  I do have to contend with the whole E flat tuning though.

Yellow Ledbetter is a song that got me back into wanting to play guitar after learning bass.  I've learned that this song is basically a love letter from Pearl Jam's guitarist to Jimi Hendrix.  This got me back to listening to Hendrix and several songs of his that I had never heard before.  After Angus Young's style of playing, Jimi's bluesy stuff is the 2nd style to have the most influence on me.



Day 25

It was a Sunday, so it was a late practice.  In Rocksmith I did the guitarcade, and for a second time went completely through Return to Castle Chordead.  This game really does help.  In fact, I was going through the chords I had in my memory today and wow, I have actually learned quite a few that I can name while changing between them.  They aren't the super useful ones, but they are chords and I am able to practice with them.

I practiced tuning to drop D without a tuner.  I'm making headway.  I know there is a way to make a harmonic of a note and tune correctly using that by using your ears, but I need an example of that with some lessons.  There is a "special" lesson section in Rocksmith, and one of them is "Tuning by Ear" so I need to mark that for watching tomorrow.  I'll let you know how the video is.  Its rather unfortunate that its at the bottom when you sort by "recommended".

Music Branches and Day 22

In my post titled "Regression" I talked about being able to back up in time to find the influences of your favorite bands that would in turn be able to influence you in your playing with the same genre.  Sometimes though, you do not have to go back, but you can branch sideways in time.  For this I gave the example of "Grunge" in the 90's.

The person I was talking to likes some Nirvana.  I told this person that this was only natural, as their favorite genre was Punk.  I said that if you take the top Grunge acts of the early 90's, you can basically split them with Grunge and a more classic style and see EXACTLY how they formed their music.

If you take the Sex Pistols, The Clash, The Ramones, and Black Flag, and you add the typical Grunge characteristics to that style of music, you're going to get Nirvana.  Kurt Cobain wrote in his own personal journals that the Sex Pistols were thousands of times more important to him than The Clash.  He was also a huge fan of the pre-punk band The Stooges, and of their lead singer Iggy Pop.

If you look at the "world music" influenced heavy rock of The Who and Led Zeppelin, and then listen to Pearl Jam, you're going to see similarities there too.  Heavy 70's rock mixed with Grunge fits with classic Pearl Jam perfectly.  If you take heavy metal, like Black Sabbath and Motorhead, and mix that with grunge, you're going to get Soundgarden.

Being a fan of Grunge might lead you to being a fan of playing more genres than you ever thought you would.  Nirvana can lead you to Soundgarden which then leads you to heavy metal, or it can lead you to Pearl Jam which will lead you to classic rock.  All the while you can be going back and finding those influences and before you know it, you are a very very diverse musician.

Day 22

Holy crap did I play a lot in day 22.

Started out before lunch doing my warm ups in Rocksmith.  I have pretty much stopped doing Gone Wailin' every day, and I only play it when I'm in the mood for it.  It has helped me with my chord strumming, and I very much appreciated it, but I have lots to do now and I feel like I can drop it.  I still find Ducks Re-dux good for getting my mind thinking about the fretts, I kind of need it to get past the 12th fret faster, as I'm getting into some songs that use a lot of stuff up there but that marker skip to 15 is F'ing me up.

After lunch I checked out the Everlong that is in the game.  I had pretty much stopped playing this version because its a version of the song I never see myself playing.  I know the parts that I don't play, but I don't really practice them.  As I've said before, Everlong is done live with 3 guitars and a bass.  The "Lead" version on Rocksmith has stuff in it that sounds HORRIBLE unless you have a rhythm guitarist backing it up at the very least.  Anyway, I was doing a few things wrong, and I needed to know if I wanted to do the reverse lead up on the last uptake of the chorus.  I also went to youtube to see more versions of how people play it online.  I fixed a couple of things I was doing WAY wrong, and it has made my version sound much better.

I then decided to record my little bits of songs I use to practice the Pentatonic minor/major scales, and a few other little phrases I play a lot.  I named each one and recorded them on my phone in case I ever go a long time w/o playing them and want to remember them.

I then practiced several songs in Rocksmith that I had already done.  Blitzkrieg Bop I have learned and played to 95% completion.  I just mess up a little going through the whole song, but I know the parts.  That is by far my most done song, and its also rated the "easiest".  Though, Everlong has several songs rated below it on the easiness meter, and I disagree with it.  I tried Thunderkiss '66 and did quite well.  I was right to wait till I had done a ton of palm muting.  I am very surprised to do that it is tuned in Standard E also.  I did 16 Saltines and I am fairly confident that I could get all of it, except the solo, with an evening of really focusing on it.  I tried one of the random "I don't know this band" songs because it was listed as easy, and it was, but omg, I think i'd rather mute the TV.  There were a couple of more that I can't think of right now, I'm typing this the next morning instead of after the practicing like usual.

I watched a movie and playing in the pentatonics while watching the movie.  They are easy enough to do without looking at the fingerboard, so I was fine even though it was a sub-titled Japanese samurai movie.  So all in all, it was a real productive day.