Finally agreed to the continued urging/suggestion by a co-worker who actually plays gigs and does some home production work to play/record some songs with him. He then asked me if I had any songs or riffs written and much to my dismay and his great surprise I have NOTHING. All I have is random noodling used to test pedals. Truly a humbling epiphany after having played guitar and bass for the past 31yrs.
When playing a power chord with the root on the A string you can add the same fret on the low E to beef the chord up a bit. I've been playing for 25 years and this only clicked recently!
Finally agreed to the continued urging/suggestion by a co-worker who actually plays gigs and does some home production work to play/record some songs with him. He then asked me if I had any songs or riffs written and much to my dismay and his great surprise I have NOTHING. All I have is random noodling used to test pedals. Truly a humbling epiphany after having played guitar and bass for the past 31yrs.
I'm pretty much in the same boat. Got my first guitar in '64 at age thirteen. A Wards Airline arch top acoustic. Probably made by Harmony. In '66 got my first electric. A Gibson Kalamazoo bolt-on neck single pickup solid body. Cheap guitar. My 'ear' has never been very good. A close friend can hear something and know what key it's in and how to play it without having guitar in hand. I've been envious of this since we were kids! I've always had a thing for guitars even though they'd be better off without me. Five electric's and five acoustic's(love Eastman acoustics)! My epiphany is/was I'll never be any good. But, I can build pedals!!
I’ve realized recently that I’m rarely able to successfully write music in the genres I intent to, and that most of my best music I’ve written is coincidentally most similar to genres I otherwise don’t really like.
I realized I can actually handle the lead acoustic guitar chair at our weekly Friday night jam when needed. I’ve never owned an acoustic guitar though, so that is a bit non-intuitive. Working on selling off my gigging DIY bass amp to finance an acoustic guitar now, since gigging is a receding memory and I have other viable bass amps if I ever get another sub call like I used to pretty frequently. Bassists are a dime a dozen around here though, and gigs are still not anywhere near back to pre Plague levels yet.
I’ve only been playing for 53 years myself, and I am a few years older than you.
you have no idea how big of a coincidence it is that you say that, considering last week I came up with an idea for a death metal ep covering a certain yacht rock classic…
Guess there are quite a few more old farts here in this forum than I realized. At 13, (in '66), my step-father would spank me for touching his Gibson L5. I saw him play (ridiculously well) and wanted to learn hoe to play too. I persisted and thought eh spanking were worth it. After about 6 months of that, he relented and got me my own guitar - a Gibson dbl-pickup Melody Maker and a small Kay tube amp with an 8" speaker. Then I started getting spanking for practicing late into the night under my covers without the amp. The spanking were worth it. I loved the process of learning. But I was not fast on the uptake. Step-dad had no time to teach me, but he did give me a Mel Bay book of guitar cords - so my focus was chords. Lots and lots of chords.
It wasn't till I got into the Air Force that I got my first acoustic guitar - a 1974 Alvarez K. Yairi DY-90 with solid spruce top, solid Brazilian Rosewood back & sides, with an ebony fingerboard. It was a canon.
My first guitar epiphany occurred only a few years after I'd let go of both the Gibson Melody Maker and the Yairi DY-90. My only guitar regrets. Then I stumbled on an Alvarez K. Yairi DY-58 DCB 9-string acoustic. I fell in love and it became my dream acoustic to possess, but was unable to procure it as it was beyond my financial reach. I immediately started saving my pennies to buy it, but by the time I got enough raised for a down payment, it was gone - with none available thru the stores or directly thru Alvarez.
Since then, I I kept a close watch out for another one. In the early 90's I found one, but again, my finances were the downfall and it too was soon gone.
In 2010, I had accrued enough funds to seek and procure a master-class level acoustic and found a beautiful custom hand-made Breedlove by Kim Breedlove himself. It was made for a client who decide shortly after ordering and buying it that he didn't like it. It originally cost that client over $8,000 to have it made. The store in AZ (Acoustic Vibes) had it on the rack for $4K. It tool has solid Brazilian Rosewood back & sides with a solid red spruce top with a nice rounded cut-away. I wrote the check on the spot. Out of curiosity, I wrote to Breedlove to ask what it would cost to make that same guitar today - actually 2012 - and they responded with a base price of over $12K. So, I thought my search for my dream guitar was over.
My next epiphany was that I realized I was still pining for that Alvarez K. Yairi DY-58 DCB 9-string acoustic. But none were to be found. Turns out that only 600 of the Yairi DY-58 acoustics were made, and only 100 of the Alvarez K. Yairi DY-58 DCB 9-string acoustics were made. There was magic in the DCB aspect of that instrument. It made it a real canon.
A DCB (Direct Coupled Bridge) . . . .
As fortune would have it, years later (about 3 years ago now, I walked into our local music shop and there it was . . . . . . a 1988 Alvarez K. Yairi DY-58 DCB 9-string acoustic guitar. It was in perfect condition as the owner bought in 1988, played it for about a year then stuck it in his closet for the next 32 years, where the music store owner found it at an estate sale. Being older with more financial means, I jumped on it and just wrote a check out on the spot. It came with the original Alvarez case too. Before taking it home, I had a high-quality bridge/saddle pickup installed. I've been playing it nearly every day since.
The Alvarez K. Yairi DY-58 DCB . . .
My epiphany from all this . . . . . . patience.
So between my modified '78 Fender Strat, Breedlove and the Yairi_DY-58, I have all the guitars I ever truly wanted and get to play every day.
you have no idea how big of a coincidence it is that you say that, considering last week I came up with an idea for a death metal ep covering a certain yacht rock classic…
When playing a power chord with the root on the A string you can add the same fret on the low E to beef the chord up a bit. I've been playing for 25 years and this only clicked recently!
Finally agreed to the continued urging/suggestion by a co-worker who actually plays gigs and does some home production work to play/record some songs with him. He then asked me if I had any songs or riffs written and much to my dismay and his great surprise I have NOTHING. All I have is random noodling used to test pedals. Truly a humbling epiphany after having played guitar and bass for the past 31yrs.
Born in 81, lessons started around 6 or 7 but my parents are both master's level music educators so I was involved in children's choir and kinder music programs before that. I now have a degree in music performance myself, blah blah etc... my point is that I'm RARELY the guy with the initial idea. I think I'm pretty jaded so anything I come up with I either dislike or assume I'm accidentally plagiarizing. Once I accepted that I'm far more productive as a collaborator, I became not just happier with end results but also happier with my contributions to the sessions.
Maybe i just have something like dysmorphia but in my ears.
I’ll preface this with, I own about 6 tube amps, and a fine crate GX10 bench amp. Tube screamers and the like are idea for solid state amps, of which I own none. I should buy a solid state amp to see how they sound in that situation. Done!
That's just adding the chord's 5th as the bass note, right? <Tries to remember some of them theory videos on SBL> Mind you, I have never thought to do this in any tuning, so thanks for gifting your epiphany to me.
Most recent life epiphany involved a career shift. Turns out I don’t miss something I fought hard to be good at. Like at all. Who knew?
As for guitar, I just keep trying to learn new ways to play the same three chords. Also yellow LEDs for clipping diodes kinda blew my mind. Not as much as that salad, but still.
When playing a power chord with the root on the A string you can add the same fret on the low E to beef the chord up a bit. I've been playing for 25 years and this only clicked recently!
Having played in two duos and playing in my teens with my cousin who is a drummer. I did this pretty much all the time and now it's just second nature, and I find it hard to stop doing since it's involuntary at this point
When playing a power chord with the root on the A string you can add the same fret on the low E to beef the chord up a bit. I've been playing for 25 years and this only clicked recently!
