Spotlight Guitarcade: String Skip Saloon and Day 41

String Skip Saloon

String Skip Saloon is a game where you play a bartender/owner cow-girl.  Bandits have decided to raid and destroy your saloon, so you have to defend it by shooting a pop-cork gun at them to knock them out.  Each "lane" of bandits is a string on your guitar.  You pluck/pick/play the string to make the cow-girl fire in that lane.

This game is a take on a game I had never known about or played until a little over a year ago.  It is called "Tapper" and the reason I know about it is because it was the video game character bar in Wreck-it-Ralph.  In that game you pour and sling beer down the counter tops to the awaiting cowboys.  The sounds are very period correct, and the game is almost exactly what you'd expect from a game inspired by Tapper.

String Skip Saloon helped me immensely... kind of.  The game did not help me learn the strings, though since I was a bass player before, I had practice with that sort of thing already.  What the game got me used to was the way the game presented the lessons and songs.  In traditional music, the top string is actually the bottom string.  Meaning, "high" "top" string is your highest pitched, skinniest string, and your "low" or "bottom" string is your thickest, deep bass string.  Counter intuitive to beginners, but "normal" for anyone that's used sheet music or tabs.  The way the game is set up, like Guitar Hero where the notes fly toward you, having it a mirror image of your guitar is easier... if you're new.  String Skip Saloon helped me learn an alternate view of notes and schematics and get "used" to it.  I flipped the strings on screen, that IS an option, so it would feel familiar, but it made the actual song and lesson thing harder.  So you'll just have to figure out which is best for you, and String Skip Saloon can help.

Changes I'd make?  I'd allow the strings to be switched for JUST this game, instead of having to switch them for all the lessons and songs as well.

Day 41

I have said before that because of my written word habits, I record just about anything interesting I might not remember later.  I came across one of the recordings when I was practicing power chords.  It was a clean recording, but there was a part where I continued through the chord into a sort of lead phrase and it sounded great... I stopped for some reason and didn't continue and went back to the chords.  I could not remember how I played what was recorded there, but it caused me to get to experimenting.

I'm working on moving in and out of chords while playing some lead.  I'm trying to get it all to sound like it all fits.  I know a lot of it is timing, but it is also getting the phrase right in the amount of time before you have to go back to the chord so that you don't sound like you put a halt on the song.  At least, that's what is going through my mind as I work on and try to get it working right.  Its much easier to do when playing some chugging metal, because the distortion will carry you through.  With a clean sound, its much harder, and so that's what I've been focusing on.  The more I get into chords, the more I want an acoustic.  Rocksmith has an acoustic modeling amp, so that's a help.

Once again, and I can't emphasize this enough, Power Chords are wonderful for practicing this.  Don't turn your nose at them.  I can go back and forth to them easily, and it really gets my confidence up.  Once you're physically prepared for this kind of play, you can then move on to using other types of chords.  They can easily be stepping stones, and they sound great and that's encouraging.  They help me and so I can only assume they'd help you.

I guess I have not had a huge "break through" in a while, and I'm not sure if this is good reading or not.  Playing both rhythm and lead in the same song might not be an epiphany but it is a real skill I'm practicing along with chords.  My pieces are getting better though.  My phrases are matching up and I'm sure what I play can be confused as music.

Wahhhhhh and Day 34

The Wah, the Auto-Wah, and the Envelope Filter.

These are some of my favorite filters for just having "fun" with.  If you are new to instruments, you can sound like you know what you're doing if you have one of these to play with.  Its the funk "wick wicka wick wah" sound, the "bow chicka wow wow" sound.  To the new, they all seem the same, but to someone presented with the 3, it becomes a little more clear.  So here's what they are, and consequentially the differences.

First off I should talk about the origins.  The origins in modern music is thought to be traced back to the 20's and 30's when horn players learned they could manipulate the horn mute in and out to create a "wah" kind of vocal sound to their playing.  Later this was reproduced in electronics in the form of a Wah Pedal, later came the envelope filters.  Sitars are known to be able to make this type of sound too, but the influence in modern rock is from the horn players.

A wah-pedal is a filter that let's you change the filter's "Peak" by using your foot.  Where the peak is determines where the sound gets highest or lowest in the signal modulation.  You can hear it very noticeably in Jimi Hendrix's "Voodoo Child(slight return)".  The Wah-pedal makes every performance a unique experience, with slight changes in how much the player uses the pedal affecting how the song sounds.  The performance is not standardized, but there's much more "expression" from the player.

(video above is my favorite pedal of any type for any instrument of all time, the Bass IQ from EBS)

Technically an Auto-wah is an Envelope Filter.  A pedal uses an Envelope follower to create a voltage from the volume signal of the guitar.  This volume signal changes the peak of the modulation of the signal.  The difference is that an Auto-wah typically stays set at a fixed position that you choose and creates a much more consistent sound.  This is useful for recording or freeing the player from having to manipulate a pedal and focus on playing.  The notes will always trigger the auto-wah at the same spot and make the same sound.  What is typically known as an Envelope Filter allows the intensity of your playing to alter the sweep.  If you play lightly, you sweep slower, lower, longer and softer.  If you play hard, you'll trigger the sound to make a fast, quick, snappy and short sweeping sound.  It brings in the "expression" from a wah pedal, but frees the player from having to mess with a pedal just like an auto-wah.

I am a huge fan of Envelope Filters on bass guitar, though my enthusiasm for wah of all types on guitar is growing.

Day 34

Wow.  Some days.  Some times there's like this thing in the air.  Your state of mind, the atmosphere, the guitar is tuned just right or the knobs on the amp are tweaked to some kind of point... Today I had the most metal practice session ever.  Like, I would not mind playing in front of some people kind of playing.  I needed extra arms to make the lml etal horns while I played.  I was playing so metal, I am pretty sure that I accidentally bumped into actual parts of Black Sabbath songs.  I would look up those parts to see how close I was to them, but then I'd be so excited I'd play 3 more hours and I just can't do that right now lol.

Its snowing outside, and I'm pretty sure I was playing the Viking raiding anthem.  I dare not entice them more.

The ironic thing is, I was like "ok, today I'm mastering the next tier of "Simple kind of man".  A song that is decidedly un-metal.  I just don't know what got into me, but I kinda wished it did so more often.  Anyway, I have began noticing people playing chords that I know while watching TV, movies or youtube.  Now I'm starting to recognize when people are playing a bunch of power chords.  I was watching some really good pedal demos today, demos done by the people that make the pedals, and they sounded really good and all they did was play power chords.  I experimented with power chords which lead to my metal practice today.

I know there's a hipster sort of thing going on and has been for a long while, where if someone is playing a lot of power chords, some smart ass says "pfft, they're just playing a bunch of power chords" and frequently its by people that a power chord is just about the only term outside of "note" that they know.  Come on.  People are better than that.  Music is music.  Do not become a snob of technique, because let me tell you, unless you're Bucket Head, Joe Satch or Malmsteen, there's always going to be someone that can put your skill to shame.

Appreciate the simple and complex.

And never be ashamed of the music you make(I need to listen to this advice myself).

The tech of Fender vs Gibson and day 15

Like a sports team rivalry, a lot of new players are going to come across fans that are very argumentive between the 2 guitar heavy weights in the industry; Fender and Gibson.  To a lot of non-guitarists its just going to be a style war.  Fender looks like they have 1950's car styling and Gibson has that old guitar look to them.

Gibson has been making guitars for 120 years, and they go back to the era of mandolins and banjos, and a lot of their guitar designs were based on that.  Many of their newer designs, like the Flying V and Explorer, were ways of combating Fender's success in the 50's and 60's.  Fender came in and said "we can do it modern".  Their guitars were light, they were based on ease of play in "modern" music, and weren't shackled by an old legacy.  So you have the "old vs new" thing going on too.

The real, applicable choice between the two brands comes down to sound.  There are really two distinctive sounds that come from choosing Fender or Gibson.  That is "single coil" vs "Humbucker".  Even today, with new types of pickups, they are described in these terms.

Those are single coils.  This is what Fender traditionally used.  We have wrapped magnets that are aligned in a single coil.  They are bright and very well defined.  Hendrix in his early years favored these, and Clapton in his later years favored them.  They have a crispness to them.  From a technology standpoint, they do have a problem, the 60 cycle hum.  When these coils are powered differently(adjusting the blend), you get a hum sound.  This hum is the sound of alternating current going through the coils, and it happens in more than just guitar pickups.

That is a Humbucker, patented by Gibson.  There were ways of eliminating the hum before, but Gibson's design is the mainstay of the industry.  Without going into too much detail, it is two coils wired in reverse polarity, so that one side's 60hz hum smashes into the other side's reverse polarity 60hz hum, and you basically get no hum.  You also get a darker, less crisp sound from the pickup.  It is a matter of preference on if you find that a down side.

Hendrix played Woodstock with single coils, but Clapton did much of his work in Cream with a humbucker.  Heavy metal is often associated with the dark sound of a humbucker, unless you look at Iron Maiden.  Jimmy Page's most used guitar live is a Les Paul with humbuckers, but recording he preferred a telecaster(an earlier Fender guitar using single coil).  So there's a famous trap where some knucklehead will talk about Page using Les Paul, making it the ultimate tone, and maybe even playing a song for you so you can hear... and its a telecaster on the recording.  You can get close enough with either to do the kind of music you want.  There's nothing wrong with having a preference either, just watch out chasing popular guitarist's "tone" because that can be a money pit.

Day 15

Ugh.  I am not a tall person, which means I do not have long arms.  This has not bothered me much with bass guitar(whose scale is about 10 inches more than a regular guitar) because I tend to play up near the neck.  In Motown, you want that thicker, rounder sound that comes from playing near the neck.  I rarely, if ever play near the bridge.  Well, in palm muting, my right hand is basically married to the bridge so that I can get the right sound.  This means new angles for my left hand, because palm muting also works best at the farthest end of the fretboard near the nut.  So my arms are extended, my wrist is at a new angle, all this meaning I have sore arms all the way through.

Its a good thing I like playing metal inspired riffs.  I've done over an hour of just that today, despite my arms aching.  Palm muting is such a game changer for me.  I can go back and experiment with EVERYTHING I've ever played.  Ever home-grown riff, every hacked together "song" I have ever done, and add palm muting.  I have done lots and lots of just muted sweeps to add percussion and keep timing, and now I can do actual palm muting.  I'm looking at what works where, and what sounds good, and I'm still working on getting my technique down.  This feels like "learning guitar" to me.  Sorry to maybe be a downer to any new guitarists, but learning guitar hurts.  There are ways to minimize things hurting, and definitely it hurts less if done "correctly" but there's no doubt about it, you're going to ache, get blisters, and get tired.  Its those that soldier on through it that get stronger and are able to do it.

That's not all I'm doing today though.

I'm working on songs.  I am still having problems learning songs using the game's interface though.  I think I am going to just have to use the Riff Repeater option to slow down and learn parts till I'm fast enough to play it normal.  The main game likes to dumb down the sounds in parts that I suck at, and then at parts where I'm almost 100% on, they keep it dumbed down, and I'm like "quit treating me like an idiot because I don't have the solo down, I've got the chorus, I've done the chorus, you've seen I can do the chorus 100%, stop adjusting the chorus already" and it gets my head all angry and next thing you know, I fuck up the chorus.

With one of the songs I'm working with, I'm getting the most known parts done using the riff repeater, and then going on youtube to see some "how to do" videos on other things, because sometimes I can see things better watching hands play the song, than just looking at notes coming at me head on.  So I guess that's a suggestion for Rocksmith 20XX.  Include videos of people playing the song, because sometimes that helps.