An Ethereal Guitarist's Path

Sunday, January 6, 2008

tons of frustration, some inspiration, not enough practicing

Scales
I really wanna learn scales on guitar but theres so freakin much to know. Im used to thinking in patterns so that is probably my problem. To play well in a certain key basically means i would have to know that scale up and down the whole guitar easily. The problem there is each time you move up a fret and play the same scale (ie major or minor) the finger pattern is slightly different, hence it gets real confusing. My only guess on a solution is to pick a key and master that down before really venturing a lot into others. I dont think im going to concentrate on scales so much right now. The problem with music is that there is too much to practice

Beethoven...What to say? Beethoven is an AMAZING composer and pianist. Ive been listening to some of his piano sonatas, and holy crap im amazed. His music is definitely making an impact on me and helping me with new ideas for some death metal songs. since listening to a lot of Beethoven, I have been motivated again to practice more. Looks like i just needed something new and interesting to bring to the table. At times classical music can seem pretty heavy. Its pretty intersting, I never would have thought that, but in Beethoven's Ppiano sonatas he takes classical to another level. He plays very fast and loud at some parts and just the way its performed makes it sound pretty damn heavy.

I took initiative and started learning some beethoven on guitar, of course its his moonlight sonata. I just needed something easy to start with. Plus that piece, the first movement in particular is very emotional and ive always loved it since the first time I heard it. I plan to learn the second movement afterwards too, and eventually the third. Focusing on the first movement though, its a lot trickier to play than it seems. Its very slow but my fingers need incredible strength to keep up. For instance there are some interesting chords, where to get the right effect I need to prolong a note as I pick the others. Plus it is pretty hard to play without muting a note or two because my fingers get so crowded on the fretboard. But when all is said and done, the piece begins to fall into place and sound amazing.

Im almost always looking to learn really fast songs but I think learning MS was a good thing to do. Its helping me develop better finger strength. Just because a song is slow doesnt mean its going to be easy. I want to get really good at playing really fast, and im not too sure how to do that. Im guessing i need to just practice tons of legato and finger patterns slow and gradually build upi speed with everything else. Soloing is pretty damn hard though.