Loved The Beach Boys. Meant to reply to your post on them (not MC5) Beach Boys we’re Very sophisticated musically and had great harmony.
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OT: Guitar / Guitarist Appreciation Thread
- Thread starter Bleem Phuppert
- Start date
Uh oh we actually agree on the Beach Boys. I'll have to give them another serious listen and find out if I've been wrong about them lol.
Terrific breakdown of this great tune from back in 1972 , “Summer Breeze” by Seals and Crofts. Brings back some nice memories from my youth:
I enjoyed this video. I paid for Rick's beginner guitar course to learn by video. Did that nearly a year ago, and have never watched a single minute. Watching this video, I don't think I'm going to bother. I have too many other things occupying my time, and I think I have realized that by torturing myself to learn to play guitar may dampen my love of guitar driven music. Does that make any sense?
I'm going to guess you will not like this, but I absolutely love the Type O Negative version of Summer Breeze. They also do a closer to original version Cinnamon Girl.
Kenny Hickey from NYC is their lead guitar player. Type O Negative is defunct. Their lead singer died in 2010. Sorry to ruin the nice song.
Some discussion on how Kenny Hickey achieved that low fuzzy tone for Type O.
Completely understand about the guitar. In the beginning it can be frustrating. Beato is so knowledgeable , on another level about all things musical. For beginners, I really think limiting music theory is wise, it can lead to overload and frustration. Music needs to be fun to offset the basic difficulty of learning how to play an instrument. I initially started playing in my teens back in the 70’s. I got very frustrated because I did not have the patience and dedication and put it down. A mid life crises of sorts brought me back to it some 20 years ago. In my 40s I had the determination and patience to learn. Regarding the song, as a fan of acoustic music I prefer the original but there are a number of interesting covers. Some people are also very fond of a cover done by The Isley Brothers back in the 70’s.
I'm a big fan of Rob Baker from the Tragically Hip. More of a complementary part of the band than other lead guitarists, but his versatility was key to their sound. On a side note, there's a great documentary on Amazon Prime about the Tragically Hip. Worth the watch for sure.
Big fan of the Tragically Hip...and of course Rob Baker. I think I saw that documentary when PBS was running it for one of their begathons not that long ago. I have most of their CDs and I was surprised when I played the one I created a while back from what I consider their best stuff at how much of Baker's guitar work shined through. Much less so in that documentary.
Gordon Downie is so missed.
That was a great documentary. There was another one on Netflix that chronicled their final tour.
Totally agree, playing music needs to be fun for the vast majority of beginners (and post beginners!). When I first started a friend showed me a few chords then he was off to the Vietnam War so I was on my own. It was a year or two before I started to spend time on theory in addition to playing songs. That was 50+ years ago. Another piece of advise I’d offer to beginners is to get a decent guitar. You don’t have to spend thousands (and shouldn’t because you won’t appreciate it at first.) You can get a decent beginners guitar for a few hundred bucks. Then, once you get better and get hooked you can spend lot more if you so desire.
I agree about getting a decent guitar to start with. My first guitar was a fairly cheap Epiphone acoustic (which I kept and still play at times). What added to my early frustration was trying to learn Barre chords on an acoustic with a very thick neck. My untrained and weak hands had trouble with getting the Barre chords to properly sound out, eventually leading to frustration and me putting the guitar down for 30 years.
Glad you picked it back up! Yea, barre chords were difficult at first and then all of a sudden one day they weren’t!
You’ll get there! Start with barring with the E shape and get that down. Actually, thinking back, I remember just trying to barre with my index finger alone just to get used to it. You could tune to open G just for barre practice and an index finger alone would produce major chords up and down the neck. Then go back to standard tuning for your regular practice and playing. Also, tilt your index finger a bit counter clockwise rather than flat (if you haven’t tried that. And make sure your guitar neck and action height are good. Best of luck, it’ll work and you’ll wonder what the problem was. I struggled with barre chords too, and before that F chords and half barres…
Thanks. I've tried tilting the finger with limited success. Didn't know about tuning to open G and just using the first finger - will give that a try.
Any open tuning will work but G and D are best, in my opinion. Think Richie Havens, or Delta blues guys like Robert Johnson (George Thurogood did a lot of open tuning). I’m not saying to stay in an open but I think it’s good for practicing a straight barre, then you can move to standard tuning and it’ll be easier. I play 90% in standard tuning, with 10% open, drop D, double drop D, etc. great lifetime hobby! Nothing like working out a new song you want to learn—very rewarding.
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There are ways to get around using a full barre chord. Basically , you just want to get the sound to ring out. An easy way is just use your index finger to form an A major chord (standard tuning- hold down the D,G,B strings on the 2nd fret) . You can use that shape and move it up each fret to get to the major chord you want. Move up 2 frets to get a B, 3 frets to get to C and so on up the scale.
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