Creating an Atmosphere Lesson

Creating an Atmosphere

Post your take
  • Lesson
  • My notes

  • In this lesson we are going to work on creating an atmosphere, using simple but important techniques as vibrato and bending.

    The key in creating such an effect is in playing long and controlled notes.
    Two most common mistakes you can make here are:
    1.) bending notes out of tune
    2.) bad vibrato

    All you want to do here is to make your playing sound pleasant. But if you bend notes out of tune and if you can't control your vibrato, you can be sure it will sound bad.
    You also have to adjust your sound. It shouldn't be too harsh or too muddy. Nor too distorted. When you find a good balanced sound using your equalizer, I would advise you to add some delay on top of it, not to sound too dry. I always use it somewhere around 400ms, and 3-4 feedbacks.

    When you make sure you have the right sound, and you are controlling your bending and vibrato, you can start playing.

    But how???


    Another important thing here is phrasing. You should play some simple and melodic phrases and avoid playing too many notes. Let the notes you play ring. If you have enough space (your solo is long enough) and you desperately want to show off your technique, you can throw in a short fast lick, here or there, but please avoid tasteless shredding.

    Remember that SHREDDING may be FUN TO PLAY, but it also may be pretty BORING TO LISTEN to, especially when you are trying to create an atmosphere ;)

    This lesson contains:

    -vibrato
    -bending
    -slides
    -pull offs
    -controlling long, sustained notes
    -whammy bar tricks
    -pick sliding tricks

  • Login to use my notes. No GMC account? Register here.
Scrubbing / forward / rewind: arrow right, arrow left keys
Jump to start: Home or `s` , you can also click/tap the lesson part again (the numbers above player)
Go to next part: PageUP or End.
Volume: ArrowUp / ArrowDown keys
Go to any part: Number keys (combinations also possible)
Pause or play: `k` or space key
Fullscreen: `f`, esc to close
Increase / decrease speed : `+` or `-`