Yeah, I noticed the pan after I had put it on youtube! It won't be like that in a final version

Great! Congrats mate.

Hey Gabriel. I'm gonna copy this into the personal thread, as I think it could be important to talk about. This is from your "Why are you not playing guitar?"-thread.

"I think there are several reasons for me. I'll try and put some words here about it. It's a bit of a mess though. No specific order to this:

- About 10 years ago I felt I had reached a level where I was satisfied with my playing - at least happy enough that I could write songs to an extent that I was fairly happy with.

- About 10 years ago or so I discovered Rick Graham. He was amazing even back then and has only gotten better. 5 years went by and I said to myself: "If I at least can practice for real and put the time and effort in for the next 5 years till I'm 30, then I can get closer to his level!". I never put the practice in, not in the first 5 years of knowing about him, not in the following 5 years, and now I spent more time regretting than playing.

- I have always felt I have an easy time learning licks, riffs and such to some extent. This means I actually often put less time in than I ought to. Learning a Todd quick without having seen it before AND recording it takes about 1-2 minutes. I know it would benefit me more if I then spent 15 minutes really getting it even better down, but I don't. I don't spend much time practicing anything and I haven't for 10 years. I pick up the guitar and jam a bit here and there (about 2 times in 1½ month now) and that's it. Then it comes down to regret again: "What if I had put in the time and effort? Where could I have been?". Even if I have been told by many that they would like to have my skills, even if I'm not satisfied myself now a days.

- I lack the motivation, initiative. I don't want this to be an excuse, but I do have a mental health related illness, which causes some problems. Even getting basic things done can be a fight; dishes, laundry, food, getting out the door and shopping, you name it. I often only have the energy to get one thing done in a day. I have the time, often not the energy though.

- I lack balance in my activities. Planning, maybe. I have the time, as I said. I struggle to concentrate on ACTUAL, focused practice. 1 minute then I lose concentration and focus. However playing Minecraft and streaming it on Twitch is an activity that I actually CAN focus on for long. Some days 1½ hour, some days a lot long; one day I was streaming live on Twitch for 12½ hours. I would like to carry that concentration into guitar playing, learn from that Twitch-experience, but not give up on it. Twitch is a new thing for me, for about the last 2 months it has really taken off and I have about 400 followers now.

- Even before I did Twitch streaming I was struggling with these things I mentioned about guitar playing. So I'm hoping I can take something from the concentration I find in playing Minecraft and put it into guitar playing.

- I am very scatter brained, even in music. I have done a bit of rap, I have done acoustic songs now, I have done guitar related stuff, djent, prog, pop. I don't know where I really belong, but that's maybe because I don't stick by one of them long enough.

- I like positive feedback and appreciation of what I do. I like contests. Those make me put effort in. But I don't see enough contests at my level, which is still not up to par with some of the guys that actually win. So I feed on the appreciation of my music, but prog is a bit of niche genre, so I don't get that many listens, views or likes, however the few I get sends me over the moon (I think I have 5 likes at most on any of my songs).

I may add more later, but that's what came to mind now."

Hi Cael, that's a very interesting post with a lot of information to analyze.


Some questions:

- What makes you happy regarding music and guitar?
- What's the thing that gives you more fun regarding guitar?
- How would you like to see youself in 5 years regarding music?

1. It makes me happy to finish a song and get a like on YouTube. Just a single like. Of course getting 30 would make me happier, but you get the point. It's a frustrating process sometimes, and I'm sure you know that feeling of not being 100% happy or not being able to find the right transition from part A to part B.

2. I enjoy writing music, which I think is fun, and I enjoy thinking about entering contests. I enjoy seeing progress (but how can I see myself get better if I don't put in the effort!?)

3. 5 years ago I said: "Practice 5 years properly and get closer to Rick Graham's level", of course he's a guitar god that has improved even further in those years, but just closer to where he was 5-10 years ago. I think that is still my goal, both to put in those hours and get to that level.

Hi Cael,

You have clear goals which is the most difficult thing. I feel that you need to put some time into marketing yourself as musician. You need to find the way to make your compositions and overall work reach more people. You need to be consistent and more present at social networks and why not, relate your gamer side which is clearly sucessful online with your musician side.

We are here for the music, but it's not motivating to share a new piece of music and seing that nobody watchs it. And the cool thing is that the reason why nobody watches is not related to the quality of your job or your talent, it's related to marketing.

So, the key now is to become consistent at any social network and provide regular top quality stuff. Experiement with different formats, concepts, ideas, with the only objetive os seing which things attrack more people to keep them, and which things not, to avoid them.

While doing it, you can work on your two goals, Technique, and composition. Make everything related to these two topics at first, to keep on getting better on this two things while experiment with ideas to increase your followers.

That's what I feel you could to to keep on moving forward and don't lose motivation. What do you think?

Those are some good advice and suggestions! I have long been thinking about releasing more "lesson/learning material" too. This is actually one of my main goals, but it does take work, effort and energy to do videos, talk on video and all that. That is why I like streaming; turn on the camera and you're good to go! But I want more professional looking lessons.

I agree with the marketing, but I also think I am not 100% happy with my music. Not happy enough to really put THAT much effort into marketing. I have some undeveloped ideas that I think could go somewhere, but they're in a very early phase.

Doing and providing lessons on YouTube for instance will also help me work on my technique, as well as maybe gaining a few followers that will be interested in my music too.

By marketing I don't mean to promote it as if it were new DT album. The key to connect with people is to be honest and open yourself so if that's what you think about your music now, that's what you can say in your youtube videos or whatever you decide to do. The process of not being happy with your skills to becoming a master is something that many people likes watching...

For Example, I've seen Ola Englund having problems with his own technique, or showing his limitations as guitarist, and that's a cool thing. Imagine if he would decided to wait until he can play like Rick Graham to start doing things... (I don't know if I'm clear with what I want to say here).

Don't wait until you feel happy with your skills to start sharing your music, this could never happen if you don't experiment the process of sharing your music with people. Identify which things are more liked and which things not. I've heard Mateus Asato saying that he decided to share 2 videos per week at his insta, and that shaped the style and type of videos based on the things that were liked more or had more views... and now he is touring all around the world!





Yes. But you have to do it weekly, and don't feel bad if the first ones don't reach many people. Each lesson should be like an experiment.

I agree with you completely.

One thing I have noticed that I do, and this is a big hindrance and is a "mindset" that I need to change: I do find it easy to learn certain licks and such - maybe not get it 100% under my belt, but good enough that I have taken something from it and can use the ideas from it. This will be within a matter of minutes of practicing. I'll try and upload and example later today. My ear is not that good, so most times I won't be able to get it just by ear, but if I see someone play it meanwhile and especially if I have the tab, it's a fast process. But this is silly! Why not spend 20 minutes with it to get it even better? Or the time required to master it?

I was very much the same in high school. I never had to spend more than 5 minutes on given homework, and I could write a 5 page assignment in a very short time. Meanwhile my aunt once called my mom and said something like: "Does Benjamin spend 3-4 hours on homework each day like my daughter?", and I don't know what my mom answered, but the truth is that I didn't. At most I skimmed through it.

Back to guitar though, this again leads to "what if..." thoughts about where I could have been.

Here's an example of what I was talking about

Hi Cael,

The video is totally clear for me. I still thing that your experience can be very cool for other guitar students so the youtube videos idea is really good for both build your fanbase but also to have it as an excuse to practice.

Let's play a game. I'll give you a Challenge here. Let's call it 10 days challenge.

Practice this lick 15 minutes each day over metronome, increasing your tempo and share a take of how you can play it in 10 days.

Are you in?

Sorry, Gabriel. My world kind of fell apart for about a month. Finally finding my feet again. I started working on a medley of game music tonight:



That's only one part. Haven't worked on more for now, and things might change, just trying to get a grasp of things again.

Slightly better:

That sounds good Cael!! And it's a cool idea mate!! Keep going!

I have also started really working on playing drums and learning that It's fun to learn new things!

Awesome mate! You are becoming a multi instrumentalist!

I bought an electronical drum kit in the summer, as I think I mentioned, but I only played about 5 hours since the summer, and not at all in the past 4 months or so. In the summer I could only do very simple patterns, such as 1 and 3 on the kick or 1, 3 and 3½. You know what I mean. And I couldn't do any drum fills at all.

I then sat down the other day and could play things with 16th notes in between 8th notes on the hi-hat. I could also suddenly do some relatively simple drum fills, and I have no idea where those things came from!

I'm having a lot of fun exploring piano, drums and vocals Will have to make sure I don't forget how to play guitar

hahaha very nice mate! You won't forget how to play guitar! don't worry! I even think that it will help you with guitar and provide new elements.

Absolutely! Even just from the small practice on the piano I feel my chord theory knowledge has improved, how I can put chords together and move between chords. Maybe some things are not completely by the book yet, but sometimes you need to go outside of the box. It also seem a lot easier to visualize 7ths, 9ths, 11ths and 13ths including sharps and flats!

i.e. the last part of that Super Mario minor theme I was working on moves from FmAdd9 to Baug to Abdim7 (G#dim7?) to Gb7 (F#7?) as far as I'm aware. In some inversions. I'm not sure how that progression would be described? Maybe it could be improved, but I kinda like it.



This post has been edited by Caelumamittendum: Dec 17 2018, 04:18 PM

Yeah! Most of the most creative guitarists took influences from other influences. These guys always cite some pianists as one of their influences, and the results can be seen in how many cool chords and inversions they play.




I also think that guitarists who also play drums, or even drummers that compose, usually create tunes that have a more interesting or creative use of rhythm. A cool example of this is Dave Grohl, who explains his approach to guitar like this: