(05-29-2021, 11:07 PM)grampahol Wrote: I don't have the ability to change sides of how my brain controls my hands or at least not yet. I'm left handed for only 2 things I'm aware of,  eating and writing.  I've tried more times than I can count to use my right hand for both and it's a lost cause. I'd starve to death if I had to use my right hand to eat and forget writing..I can't even scribble decent.. Never had a left hand guitar though.. I dunno.. I still have my mahogany Fender. Maybe I'll trade it in.  Come to think about it I've never been able to use a pick with my right..might be able to with my left..hmmm.. 
Oh well..I do have other fish to fry besides learning to play guitar left handed..

Ever try to wipe with the off hand?

(05-29-2021, 10:27 AM)Wes Mantooth Wrote: ^^^

Youtube is amazing.  There is just so much quality stuff that available.

I'm pretty similar to you, although I took lessons for about 3 or 4 months.  Just enough time for my teacher to show me my open chrords, and tab out Witchy Woman, Lying Eyes, Smoke on the Water, Hotel California, and of course Stairway.  After that I was on my own.

I remember saving up to buy tab books or God forbid I had enough money to buy one of those instructional videos (they were like 40 bucks!).  I honestly cannot imagine having all of this stuff available today back then when I was like 14 and trying to learn Chili Pepper and Rage Against the Machine songs by ear.

Youtube actually really helped me get back into playing.  I still noodled around but I hadn't progessed in a long, long time.  Fwiw, I probably spend more time watching youtube now than actually tv.  All sorts of different guitar stuff. 

Not sure anyone really cares but here's some of my favorite channels: Robert Baker, Paul Davids, Rhett Skull, Pete Thorn, Matthew Scott, Norm's, Trogly's, Casino Guitars, etc.

(05-29-2021, 10:44 AM)BengalsRocker Wrote: I'm pretty much self taught.  Early lessons did not help me very much.  That Mel Bay approach to guitar was not appealing as a young player.

I had a teacher once give me some basic scale charts and later on I worked on some of those.

At that point I had been playing for a couple of years picking up chords and such from other guitar players.

After playing in bands for years, I finally started taking lessons from a legit highly talented player.

He asked me to show him how much I knew how to play.

Amazingly enough there was quite a lot I had already known, but didn't know what it was called or how it related in music theory.

I learned some things but I got lazy, didn't want to pay for lessons anymore, and eventually quit.

Playing in bands and being able to do most typical things with little effort makes it too easy to be complacent.

It's when I watch someone fingerpick, use a slide(I suck at it), or other techniques that I lack at that make me want to get better.

Learning different scales and approaches to phrasing is appealing as well.

I recently was playing in a band with an excellent sax player and his approach to solos was much different than mine.

The realization from watching him play and how the audience reacted was his hold out notes and anticipation spacing.

It's not all about blazing solos and technical gymnastics.

With Youtube you see a ton of great technical guitarists that play like robots and have little to no feel in their leads.

I do feel somewhat lucky to have learned how to play by ear from the start, because the internet and tabs just weren't strong back then. The tab books at the stores cost a fortune at that time when I started (for my budget) so it was all ear learning, chords and solos, all of it. What's funny is that it was embarrassingly not until within the past few years that I really started to understand scales and modes (beyond the first scale positions of major, minor and pentatonic) and realized how it all connects. If I'd made that breakthrough 20 years ago, my playing would have grown even more rapidly, because of the way most popular music fits into a fairly standard knowledge base. I tried the original Mel Bay approach when I first got my guitar and I couldn't hack it. In fact, I hated it. The book I DID get that made things start to click was "Guitar for the Absolute Beginner". There were two in the series, with CDs and a video as I recall as well. I got it right after it came out (late 90s, I guess). I lent those out to someone years later in college and never got them back.

There are some great people on YT now, though, and I'm so glad they're there. Trying to think who my regular subs are...

Robert Baker
Rhett Shull
Rick Beato
Tim Pierce
Paul Davids
Ben Eller
MusicIsWin
Late Night Lessons

I watch other people as well, but those are the channels I'll always check out when a new video drops. MusicIsWin started a new series a few months back interviewing guitar "villains" and he had Paul Gilbert on there, who is one of my favorite guys to learn from. Always re-inventing himself and just drops so many nuggets in any interview or video he does. I can't play anything he does, but he makes me approach the guitar differently, which I love. I also found some inspiration from the Cracking the Code videos, realizing there's more than one way to skin a cat.

My lessons were drunk at the kitchen table with a friend who was a great piano player, but not much of a guitar player..It's amazing I remember anything at all about it when I think back to those years.. I quit both drinking and guitar playing since although the table saw had more to do with me quitting playing guitar than drinking. I don't even want to think about what might have happened if I had a table saw back then..nothing good would have come of it I'm sure..

(05-30-2021, 12:16 AM)MileHighGrowler Wrote: I do feel somewhat lucky to have learned how to play by ear from the start, because the internet and tabs just weren't strong back then.  The tab books at the stores cost a fortune at that time when I started (for my budget) so it was all ear learning, chords and solos, all of it.  What's funny is that it was embarrassingly not until within the past few years that I really started to understand scales and modes (beyond the first scale positions of major, minor and pentatonic) and realized how it all connects.  If I'd made that breakthrough 20 years ago, my playing would have grown even more rapidly, because of the way most popular music fits into a fairly standard knowledge base.  I tried the original Mel Bay approach when I first got my guitar and I couldn't hack it.  In fact, I hated it.  The book I DID get that made things start to click was "Guitar for the Absolute Beginner".  There were two in the series, with CDs and a video as I recall as well.  I got it right after it came out (late 90s, I guess).  I lent those out to someone years later in college and never got them back.  

There are some great people on YT now, though, and I'm so glad they're there.  Trying to think who my regular subs are...

Robert Baker
Rhett Shull
Rick Beato
Tim Pierce
Paul Davids
Ben Eller
MusicIsWin
Late Night Lessons

I watch other people as well, but those are the channels I'll always check out when a new video drops.  MusicIsWin started a new series a few months back interviewing guitar "villains" and he had Paul Gilbert on there, who is one of my favorite guys to learn from.  Always re-inventing himself and just drops so many nuggets in any interview or video he does.  I can't play anything he does, but he makes me approach the guitar differently, which I love.  I also found some inspiration from the Cracking the Code videos, realizing there's more than one way to skin a cat.

Funny that it seems like we kinda walked the same path in learning.

Like you, it was kind of embarrassing that I could play really well but in terms of theory I wasn't there.

Of course knowing the key you're playing in and being able to recognize the chords immediately is really important.

I knew how to do that.  That is extremely necessary when playing with other musicians.

I have kind of a funny snippet about tabs.

One of my guitar buddies ordered some tabs of Steve Vai's music back in the late 80s-early 90s from a guitar magazine ad.

They sent him a blank book and an audio tape that told him what to write on the tab sheet!

Apparently they didn't have rights to print it but could record themselves reading the tab.

What a scam.  

I can't imagine learning Steve Vai time consuming stuff from tab in the first place, let alone have to write it all down first.

I don't have that kind of patience!!

Paul Gilbert is great.  Even with all of his talent and knowledge he's always try to push himself to be better.

I just love to hear him talk about guitar and his past experiences.

I suggest anyone in this thread to watch the Hire Guns documentary movie as well.  Great watch.

Yes: Trumpet and flugelhorn.

I have a Bb Trumpet for commercial and pop gigs and a C trumpet for classical music or for playing in church.

(05-29-2021, 10:21 PM)rfaulk34 Wrote: Back in '88 i worked with a guy who accidentally cut the tip of his left index finger off (he had done this before working with me). He was so upset that he trashed all his guitars, since he couldn't play them any more. After calming down he went out and bought a left handed guitar and learned to play that way. 

He was an Yngwie Malmsteen nut. 

Not sure how much of it he cut off, but Tony Iommi cut off the tips of multiple fingers (2 maybe?) and somehow rigged up something to put on his fingers to continue playing.

Pretty sure that's kinda how Black Sabbath got their sound too.  I think he started tuning his guitar down a step or two to compensate for this.

(05-29-2021, 10:32 PM)rfaulk34 Wrote: I've taken exactly 1 guitar lesson at Maschinot music--where i bought my first guitar--sometime around '90 or so and never went back.

Anyone remember their "Buy one Strat get one Strat for a penny" promotion that they'd do every year?

(05-29-2021, 11:07 PM)grampahol Wrote: Come to think about it I've never been able to use a pick with my right..might be able to with my left..hmmm.. 

Screw the pick and your right hand.  Just play like this...

(05-30-2021, 09:58 AM)Wes Mantooth Wrote: Not sure how much of it he cut off, but Tony Iommi cut off the tips of multiple fingers (2 maybe?) and somehow rigged up something to put on his fingers to continue playing.

Pretty sure that's kinda how Black Sabbath got their sound too.  I think he started tuning his guitar down a step or two to compensate for this.

Didn't know about the finger thing, but I think you are correct about him tuning at D instead of E

(05-30-2021, 10:09 AM)jfkbengals Wrote: Didn't know about the finger thing, but I think you are correct about him tuning at D instead of E

Here's a pic of his nubs...

(05-30-2021, 10:20 AM)Wes Mantooth Wrote: Here's a pic of his nubs...

Some of his best playing was on the records with Dio.  I don't know if Ronnie pushed him, but it was clear that the bar had been raised.  It really is amazing to know the story about Tony's fingers.  I believe he lost the tips of them just before he was going to quit that job for his blossoming music career.

(05-30-2021, 09:35 AM)Fan_in_Kettering Wrote: Yes: Trumpet and flugelhorn.

I have a Bb Trumpet for commercial and pop gigs and a C trumpet for classical music or for playing in church.

I've always loved the flugelhorn.  Trumpet gets all the love, but I really appreciate that mellow sound from the flugelhorn.  My favorite in the brass section is the French horn, though.  In a similar way, I'm more attracted to cello over violin.  I'm not embedded in any way in the band community, but it feels to me like classical band instruments (including jazz, marching band, symphony) have much less interest now than they did in the past.  Music class in my kids' school doesn't have them learn instruments, just ideas.  Band is an elective, so very few students actually take up an instrument, which I think is sad. 

I love guitar and modern music, but there's not much more of a moving musical experience to me than a full symphony orchestra performing live in a theater.   

(05-30-2021, 01:07 PM)MileHighGrowler Wrote: I love guitar and modern music, but there's not much more of a moving musical experience to me than a full symphony orchestra performing live in a theater.   

Amen.  My brother is a percussionist in one of our major philharmonic orchestras and you're absolutely correct.  Hearing him perform live is one of the highlights of my life.

I did the DCI thing in the summer when I was younger.

(05-30-2021, 10:20 AM)Wes Mantooth Wrote: Here's a pic of his nubs...

You have pictures of a man's nubs?!??

(05-30-2021, 01:36 PM)jfkbengals Wrote: You have pictures of a man's nubs?!??

In action... no less.

(05-30-2021, 01:36 PM)jfkbengals Wrote: You have pictures of a man's nubs?!??

Don't kink shame.

(05-30-2021, 01:36 PM)jfkbengals Wrote: You have pictures of a man's nubs?!??

The song was originally called Nubbin' Man.

When Ozzy sang "I Am Nubbin' Man" the producer stopped the tape and called for a re-write.

He came back with "I Am Iron Nub" and they decided to meld the two phrases together in post production.

True story.

(05-30-2021, 09:58 AM)Wes Mantooth Wrote: Not sure how much of it he cut off, but Tony Iommi cut off the tips of multiple fingers (2 maybe?) and somehow rigged up something to put on his fingers to continue playing.

Pretty sure that's kinda how Black Sabbath got their sound too.  I think he started tuning his guitar down a step or two to compensate for this.

Yep. He either didn't have the wherewithal to craft something like that, or he just didn't like the feel. I think that's what caused the trashing of the instruments. 

Of course, if he hadn't been so hot-headed, he probably could have sold his righties to offset the cost of the lefties. 

(05-30-2021, 10:01 AM)Wes Mantooth Wrote: Anyone remember their "Buy one Strat get one Strat for a penny" promotion that they'd do every year?

I don't remember that. I just remember how outrageously expensive they were and it was much worse for a left handed guitar. Back in '84 i bought a Westone Electra, a Gorilla amp and a distortion and chorus pedal from them and thought they owed me dinner after that raping. 

I'm kind of weird in musical tastes..I'll still watch the musical, Fiddler on the Roof about once a year and get all teary eyed every time.. I have no idea why.. I'm not Jewish, not religious in the least, but that movie and the music just gets to me..
I love old Jazz, Benny Goodman, Louis Armstrong, Fats Waller, etc..
If you ever wanna get rocked out of your seat go find some quiet dive bar out west and have a mariochi band start playing right behind you when you don't expect it..