Thread: Guitar Showdown Anyone?

2 problems

1. Can I use air guitar? I don't have a real one

2. Can someone teach me to play the air guitar?

For 6 easy payments of $199.99 (A GOOD DEAL!) i will teach you how to play air-guitar!

Hey, Howie linked me to this thread - sounds like fun.

- A submitted video or audio recording which includes you playing a complex rhythm guitar part, also include a description as to why the rhythm guitar part is complex.

Well, I'm not sure if it's the most complicated of pieces - but it is a new piece for me so I'm still learning it. Im not exactly big on technique, I enjoy composing mostly (sometimes I write stuff I'm not skilled enough to play myself).

Anyway, I wrote this one in December. I think it's "rhythm" - not sure. There's a combination of strumming and picking, there really aren't any standard chords and there's some accents and room for improvisation. I wouldn't consider it a difficult piece overall, it's just getting all the little details and technique down that usually trip me up. The transition to the time change at the end still needs to be figured out (most of that was improvised).

Seasons Blues -QuickTime

Note: I don't have a reliable server provider, so I apologize if you have issues downloading

Hey Joe? Where ya goin' with that acoustic in your hand?

Seriously though.. nice left hand technique.. (assuming you're right-handed).. nice tone and bronze "slap".. just the right amount of reverb.. easy to download..

All-in-all, pretty good. Well done that man!

Ok - I'm submitting this:

http://theveryfew.net/rubydream.mp3

This is a complex rhythm part both because of the chords and timing - it involves jazz chords and took a lot of effort to get it down.

It is also related to Dream Views - the lyrics are one of Onus' dreams, direct from his journal.

It is played on my Agile Cool Cat full-hollow jazz box. Sung by me (cringe) into an SM57, both popped directly into my E-MU 1616M. It is a demo - not intended to be presented as a finished or polished piece.

It was a lot of fun though! AND it's Dream Views and lucid dreaming related!

If the singing and the tiny solo disqualify me, then I submit this one instead:

It is all finger-style guitar, with a djembe. Another demo - Taylor 314CE tuned to an obscure low Joni Mitchell tuning (B F# B F# B D#, if you are interested.)

http://theveryfew.net/dirtroad.mp3

As to why it's hard... well, it took me weeks to even get it to this point. On afterthought, this second one is probably a better submission for this task. This song has since been fully arranged, had lyrics added and is one of our band's "standards".

Nice one Joe!

I am definitely going to lose this one.

pj, nice work, did you ever get round to a final mix of the ruby dream piece or has it already been completed?

I am going to submit mine later, however i need to sort things out for Oneiro so that he can listen to them all, so bear with me until i can get this all sorted, it should hopefully be before tomorrow.

Wow pj..

I've listened to the first one (downloading the 2nd) and what can I say? Great chords.. great sound and tone.. nice style change halfway through.. sweet solo.. enigmatic lyrics.. all extremely reminiscent of the great Robert Wyatt (if you know his work)? I am very impressed. You are WAY out in front at the moment in my book.. the originality swings it for me. Looking forward to hearing the second one.

Originally Posted by Lucid Seeker

pj, nice work, did you ever get round to a final mix of the ruby dream piece or has it already been completed?

No - this is all I've gotten to. My life kind of fell apart right after writing that. Sadly, things aren't looking much better right now - meaning that what little "free time" I might have had is toast for the foreseeable future. (I'm fine and my family is fine - but other circumstances and situations continue to deteriorate.)

Originally Posted by Oneiro

Wow pj..

I've listened to the first one (downloading the 2nd) and what can I say? Great chords.. great sound and tone.. nice style change halfway through.. sweet solo.. enigmatic lyrics.. all extremely reminiscent of the great Robert Wyatt (if you know his work)? I am very impressed. You are WAY out in front at the moment in my book.. the originality swings it for me. Looking forward to hearing the second one.

Thank you! I can't wait to hear what you think of the second one - it is as different as it can possibly be. Different guitar, different style...

Originally Posted by Lucid Seeker

I am going to submit mine later, however i need to sort things out for Oneiro so that he can listen to them all, so bear with me until i can get this all sorted, it should hopefully be before tomorrow.

LS? That's very nice of you to think of me. I appreciate it.. but please don't go to too much hassle.. if it proves too much, don't worry, because I can listen to everything, although the vids take ages to download.

Looking forward to hearing your stuff.

Originally Posted by Tornado Joe

Anyway, I wrote this one in December. I think it's "rhythm" - not sure. There's a combination of strumming and picking, there really aren't any standard chords and there's some accents and room for improvisation. I wouldn't consider it a difficult piece overall, it's just getting all the little details and technique down that usually trip me up. The transition to the time change at the end still needs to be figured out (most of that was improvised).

Joe! WOW!

Brought a tear to me eye, it did. I adore that style of playing. Very open and lush, subtle swing... man, that's sweet. You've got my vote so far!!!!

Just heard the 2nd one pj.. really great stuff.. great sound (12 string)?.. nice Joni tuning.. great musicianship.. excellent "feel".. impressive stuff.

The others are gonna have to go some to get near you, IMO.

BTW I love this thread!

Originally Posted by Oneiro

Just heard the 2nd one pj.. really great stuff.. great sound (12 string)?.. nice Joni tuning.. great musicianship.. excellent "feel".. impressive stuff.

The others are gonna have to go some to get near you, IMO.

I dunno - Joe's piece is quite beautiful and sounds pretty difficult.

Thank you. Nope - it is a six string Taylor, popped through a weird COSM patch on my old BR1180, which has since been sold. I liked the "sparkle" at the time. Having the guitar tuned that ridiculously low does give it a lot of weird overtones you don't really expect as well, hence easily mistaking it for a 12. Try doing that on something other than a Taylor or a Kaman Ovation and all you'll get is rattles and buzzes.

I wish I had a form of direct input recording, just so my stuff didn't sound like shit. I'm listening to pjs and Joes right now and I'm very disappointed with my current 'equipment' (if you can call a $30 microphone equipment).

Will be posting very soon.

Wow...okay everyone here has blown me away...pj, cb, Ls, Onei...ever thought about starting a band? xD

I'm sorry to say that i won't be partaking, not only can i not think of what to play, i have also been really really busy and had not much time to upload anything, got no idea what i can do about this so i am going to leave it this week. I'll sort out the thread and everything with the voting and all.

Sorry to drop out, i just simply don't have the time.

First off: Joe and PJ...NICE F'CKIN JOB. Those tunes are gorgeous. Seriously. Very well-played, too. I'm still new to this whole thing, so I haven't really started writing my own songs, but that just gives me all the more respect for people that do. Those songs are phenomenal.

Ok. Here is mine. It's definitely a different pace than PJ's and Joes, but it's all rhythm.

Link

It's Stricken by Disturbed, played to one of the beats on my beat-maker.
I learned this song in 2 days, so it's by no means perfect. My damn right arm is bruised and the fingers on my left hand are swollen from playing this thing so damn much, trying to get it right.

It's complex mainly because of the speed. It really doesn't give you much time to think, between the changes, so you really have to be on top of things. It's in Drop-C tuning, which I've never used before, so that's kind of new. There is a "pinch harmonic" (squeal sound) after the first chorus, also. Now, I have been trying to do pinch harmonics, off and on, since I started playing guitar. I have never been able to do them, but I've tried this damn thing so many times, during the past 2 days, that I can actually do them now (just not all the time). What sucks is that, when I'd gotten the squeal right, I would mess up later in the song and have to start all over again. Then, this time, and did a piss-poor job on the squeal, but I got through the song with minimal screw-ups, so I decided to uploade this one.
Also, I'm not really used to using my pinky all that much, and this one has a chord change where you have to tap your pinky up against one of the strings in a chord that I'm not used to, becuase of the different tuning. It may not be objectively hard, but it's hard for me.

I'll probably be uploading another version, tomorrow, once I spend some more time practicing, if I can get it down perfect.

Originally Posted by Jeff777

Wow...okay everyone here has blown me away...pj, cb, Ls, Onei...ever thought about starting a band? xD

Heh - a guitar choir? The DV Guitar Choir. Getting together to rehearse would be a bitch.

Originally Posted by CoLd BlooDed

I wish I had a form of direct input recording, just so my stuff didn't sound like shit. I'm listening to pjs and Joes right now and I'm very disappointed with my current 'equipment' (if you can call a $30 microphone equipment).

Good will come through a stick mic. I should post some of my stick mic demos some time - but my singing was god awful back when I was doing that and I don't think I could stomach it.

About $50 will get you a USB direct input device by the way - or watch Craig's List.

Originally Posted by Oneironaut

First off: Joe and PJ...NICE F'CKIN JOB. Those tunes are gorgeous. Seriously. Very well-played, too. I'm still new to this whole thing, so I haven't really started writing my own songs, but that just gives me all the more respect for people that do. Those songs are phenomenal.

Thank you!

It's complex mainly because of the speed. It really doesn't give you much time to think, between the changes, so you really have to be on top of things. It's in Drop-C tuning, which I've never used before, so that's kind of new. There is a "pinch harmonic" (squeal sound) after the first chorus, also. Now, I have been trying to do pinch harmonics, off and on, since I started playing guitar. I have never been able to do them, but I've tried this damn thing so many times, during the past 2 days, that I can actually do them now (just not all the time). What sucks is that, when I'd gotten the squeal right, I would mess up later in the song and have to start all over again. Then, this time, and did a piss-poor job on the squeal, but I got through the song with minimal screw-ups, so I decided to uploade this one.
Also, I'm not really used to using my pinky all that much, and this one has a chord change where you have to tap your pinky up against one of the strings in a chord that I'm not used to, becuase of the different tuning. It may not be objectively hard, but it's hard for me.

I love being able to watch you play, O. Not only does that look harder than hell, it sounds really cool and slick. I think you've probably captured the spirit of what LS was looking for best here - that's a true rhythm part, and it's damn hard.

I have a little webcam, but the captures are so huge even at terrible resolutions that I don't bother with the thing. What size file did you end up with for that? What software are you using? What format do you store it in before uploading it? I'm assuming that YouTube does the FLV conversion, right?

Wow. This is great!!! awesome work guys.

Oneironaut.. just watched your vid, and what can I say? Great stuff.. nice dirty tone.. great musicianship..

How can one even begin to compare your entry with, say, pj's? Practically impossible.. they are both so glaringly different..

But if you held a gun to my head, I would have to go for pj's first entry, purely because, although lacking in vocal melody, it is the most original attempt..

But then again, maybe I'm forgetting the ethos of this task: "rhythm guitar". With that in mind, I can't split the two of you.

Keep up the good work!

Originally Posted by pj

I love being able to watch you play, O. Not only does that look harder than hell, it sounds really cool and slick. I think you've probably captured the spirit of what LS was looking for best here - that's a true rhythm part, and it's damn hard.

I have a little webcam, but the captures are so huge even at terrible resolutions that I don't bother with the thing. What size file did you end up with for that? What software are you using? What format do you store it in before uploading it? I'm assuming that YouTube does the FLV conversion, right?

Thanks a lot, PJ. It was definitely a tough project, especially to get it down in 2 days. At one point, I was recording, and I had gotten about 3/4 of the way through, nearly perfect, with the pinch harmonic and everything, and then my daughter comes barging into the room telling me to sign something!

But the file size saved as 626MB, but I used Windows Movie Maker to clip off about 13 seconds of un-needed video and then used the option to "Save Movie with best quality for _____mb file-size" and I set it to 20MB. It then saves it to a wmv file.

Originally Posted by Oneiro

Oneironaut.. just watched your vid, and what can I say? Great stuff.. nice dirty tone.. great musicianship..

How can one even begin to compare your entry with, say, pj's? Practically impossible.. they are both so glaringly different..

But if you held a gun to my head, I would have to go for pj's first entry, purely because, although lacking in vocal melody, it is the most original attempt..

But then again, maybe I'm forgetting the ethos of this task: "rhythm guitar". With that in mind, I can't split the two of you.

Keep up the good work!

Thanks a lot, man.

Yeah, I think it's going to be hard to compete with pj and Joe. Those songs were just amazing. I don't know exactly what finger positions they used, so I can't even say whether mine was more complex than theres, with any certainty, other than the speed. But I dunno. Maybe I'll get lucky when the votes start coming in!

Ok i got the perfect riff for this. A pantera riff i have yet to master 'cause it is effing hard.

I don't know exactly what finger positions they used

Both of mine and TJ's too are all over the neck. I know what I did, of course... and TJ's you can tell by all the open strings he strategically places all through his composition - that requires going wherever the notes are on the strings you aren't letting ring... quite an acrobatic way of playing, and quite a beautiful result.

I have that first one charted out, if anybody is interested in it. It was charted in Guitar Pro, so I can even print out a tab of it.

Maybe I'll get lucky when the votes start coming in!

Let's face reality, O - you have the bigger fan club by FAR!

Originally Posted by pj

Let's face reality, O - you have the bigger fan club by FAR!

That didn't help me very much in last week's contest!!
Haha.

Originally Posted by b12

For 6 easy payments of $199.99 (A GOOD DEAL!) i will teach you how to play air-guitar!

does that come with a free air guitar? I've always wanted one!