An Ethereal Guitarist's Path

Monday, October 6, 2008

Bass guitar, visions, etc

Ok. I borrowed my friend's bass guitar and have been playing it a lot. Its pretty different from guitar. I have a lot of fun playing with my fingers and i love its overall timbre. Its literally like a whole new world, and its fun as hell. I basically use the rules for classical guitar picking and apply them to bass, it works like a charm. I can work on what i play on guitar to get better at bass as well.
I have also been thinking about adding bass to my own music. Especially when I have been playing guitar. Ive had many different bass ideas. I already started to make up my own song on bass too. Thus i have decided to buy one for myself

Onto guitar before i forget. Ive been learning some cool technical songs. Im learning this classical intro to In My Own Greed by SPawn of Possession. Once i get it down im going to add in rests, and rhythm variations as there would be in jazz, just to have some fun. Im changing up my practice routine nearly 100%. Im going back to playing more than practicing, but its more of a practice-play. I will improvise and jam on stuff but make exercises out of it or incorporate the exercises i need to work on. It makes it a lot more fun and practical. Im also not recording my practice time. It just gets me so unmotivated. It makes it seem more of a chore when i do it that way. Since then i have been picking up the guitar more often than not, so im glad to see it working. I have been noticing improvement again as well.

One thing i started working on was my left hand's finger placement. It seems like the way to be very accurate is to press the middle of your fingertip onto the string in order that no flesh touches the fingerboard. I should be able to look down at my finger and see passed the gutar. Im finding this makes it much easier not to slip. I think you get a better sound from it, but I am not sure of that. Im not sure of any other benefits but this feels better and more accurate to me. I shall contemplate the benefits more and more as time goes on.

Now...onto a rather strange topic. For a while now I have been getting visions as i listen to music. I did not realize this until somewhat recently though, perhaps a year ago. When i get very familiar with an album or band and I listen to it, i picture things in my head. A lot of the times its a swarm of colors that make other colors that dont exist in our spectrum. I also see textures and "forces". If you give me an album i can tell you what colors it brings up and the cool thing is each time it will be the same. I have tested myself on ceratin albums and they all bring up the same colors. I also see my guitar strings different colors depending on what i play. When I play for a long time and put my guitar down, i can in a way see them still very vibrant with colors. For instance, my low e string is red, and A string is blue, my high e is a bright silver/white. Im not sure of the others just yet. These come and go at different times sometimes.

Ive been listening to music i usually dont. More death metal, jazz, and other random stuff. Its been very fulfilling.

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