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Posted by: Henkka Jan 18 2008, 06:02 PM

Hello!

My name is Henri and I'm from Finland. That's right, the land where polar bears stroll.

I Work in the field of IT/web dev., and at the moment I pretty much don't have any other hobbies besides playing guitar.

Actually It's a funny thing, when I was younger I played a lot for few years. I was in my school's "music class", and we performed in our school's events and concerts etc. It was fun and playing with friends for a hour in the middle of a long school day was a superb stress reliever. Though I hated the performing part, propably because I wasn't that good after all. We played Stairway to heaven as our last song in our "graduation" concert. I'll never forget that glorious day... it was the day I laid down my guitar. My performance on the stage was horrible, and because of this the stress reliever had become the biggest source if the stress itself... so I decided never to touch the guitar again.

~6 years later, a bit wiser, not a bit smarter (definately lazier...), I picked up my old guitar for some recollection (this was few months ago)... and I've been on that road ever since. And I've had so much fun.

I even bought a new guitar, black Ibanez rg321, and I just love it... but gear doesn't make me any better player so I signed up!

Top bands at the moment: Dream theater, Between the buried and me, Symphony X, Devin Townsend, Sonata Arctica ... but when it comes to playing, everything goes.

So here's my humble introduction thread, I hope you can help me become a better player and I can help you become better ... in something.

Cheers!



-Henkka

*EDIT*

OH I totally forgot something! I have this huge issue while playing ... when I'm playing, I tend to bite my teeth together really hard! It hurts! Any tips for fixing this??

Posted by: SEANCD2005 Jan 18 2008, 06:04 PM

Welcome to gmc im sure your going to love it here

Posted by: Muris Jan 18 2008, 06:07 PM

Welcome Henri,feel free to ask if you need anything!

Posted by: Ralleliciouz Jan 18 2008, 06:12 PM

hi muris

i was just wondering if you could make a new " in style of" lesson with mark knopflers song money for nothing... i checked the other lesson you made and it was amazing!!

Posted by: Smells Jan 18 2008, 06:22 PM

Hi Henri & welcome to GMC

Posted by: Crazyfret Jan 18 2008, 06:25 PM

Hi Henri,

Good to see you've gone back to your guitar. You'll love it here at GMC plenty to learn and the instructors are superb. You will improve.

Posted by: TekHousE Jan 18 2008, 06:48 PM

HI mate..

The biting thing..how about a mouth guard mate?

Posted by: Milenkovic Ivan Jan 18 2008, 06:54 PM

Hi man, and welcome to the GMC

Posted by: mattacuk Jan 18 2008, 07:23 PM

Welcome Henri ! Nice guitar you have there, soon you will have the skills to give it a real work out

Posted by: Andrew Cockburn Jan 18 2008, 08:34 PM

Hi Henri and welcome!

The mouth thing - that is down to tension and is the enemy of us all - it means you are not 100% comfortable with what you are laying so you tense up which makes it a little harder so you play worse and it goes around.

One way to combat this is to practice relaxation, and playing very slowly. When you can play something very slowly and perfectly relaxed then speed up a little, all the time playing cleanly, easily and in a relaxed way - eventually you will be playing at super speed and still relaxed - and the key is repetition.

Good luck!

Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi Jan 18 2008, 08:46 PM

Hello Henkka!! Welcome to GMC! You'll find great progressive lessons here!

gabriel.-

Posted by: MickeM Jan 18 2008, 08:54 PM

Welcome. Painkillers?

The only thing I can think of is to convince yourself NOT to bite, obviously you can't control it when playing. So try sticking your tounge out, I bet your mind will tell you not to bite so hard while you're too busy playing the guitar unable to think to control it.
Won't look so nice maybe but perhaps a good start, next thing, before you go on stage would be to get used keeping your tounge in.
...might not look that way but this was a serious suggestion.

Posted by: stratman33 Jan 18 2008, 09:59 PM

Hi Henkka, welcome to GMC!!

Posted by: Tomy Jeon Jan 18 2008, 10:27 PM

Welcome to GMC Henri! DT FTW!!!

Posted by: Hisham Jan 18 2008, 11:13 PM

welcome to GMC man

Posted by: Jerry Arcidiacono Jan 18 2008, 11:14 PM

Welcome to GMC Henri!

Posted by: Smikey2006 Jan 18 2008, 11:38 PM

Welcome to GMC, great taste in music too

Posted by: Toni Suominen Jan 19 2008, 01:24 AM

Welcome Henri!

Kiva saada suomalaisia lisää tänne!

Posted by: Bogdan Jan 19 2008, 12:45 PM

Very nice introduction , welcome to GMC man !!

Andrew is right , you just need to practice to relax a little more

Posted by: TekHousE Jan 19 2008, 03:45 PM

Actually I was really thinking about this...Because its an obvious stress related thing.

So my real suggestion is this:

SING!

I'm not talking about learning words etc...But maybe take a lesson from George Benson, and humm or sort of sing along with your playing.

I have done this on the piano for jazz stuff when playing free jazz. Its cool and also helps you in learning about pitch and note selection.

What do you reckon?

Posted by: kyldeee Jan 19 2008, 05:11 PM

Welcome to GMC Henkka

Lisää Suomalaista vahvistusta joukkoihin

Polar bears rule

Posted by: Mark. Jan 19 2008, 07:32 PM

Welcome to GetMuchCooler
Just made that up, don't know if it is real english

Posted by: Andrew Cockburn Jan 19 2008, 08:14 PM

I like it a lot

Posted by: Mark. Jan 19 2008, 08:20 PM

What do you say when someone ask you what are you doing each day ?
"Well I ummh Get Much Cooler each day"

Posted by: SLASH91 Jan 19 2008, 08:24 PM

I know, I'm stupid and probably pretty childish, but I just couldn't help laughing about that.

Welcome to GMC, dude

Posted by: Pavel Jan 19 2008, 10:15 PM

Welcome man! Another IT guy in the house

I hope you'll like it here! Nice list of bands you have there - definitely a good list of guitar players

Posted by: botoxfox Jan 19 2008, 10:19 PM

,

Posted by: Maximus Jan 19 2008, 10:20 PM

Welcome to GMC!

Posted by: Henkka Jan 20 2008, 04:31 PM

Whoa... so much replies... talk about a proper welcome Thank you! Nice to see GetMuchCooler has people from Finland too!

About the biting... yeah, maybe I should get a mouth guard or a gag or something to chew while playing. Singing sounds tempting, but I'm not sure how my neighbours would feel about that... but I will definately try the humming!

I think I've tried to play too fast for my skill level. I just realized that when I slow down enough I notice immediately when I'm crushing my teeth together. I need to learn to relax while playing!

Thank you so much for the tips!

Posted by: Dejan Jan 20 2008, 10:08 PM

Welcome to GMC

Posted by: Juan M. Valero Jan 23 2008, 12:33 AM

are you ready?? welcome to GMC

Posted by: Juan M. Valero Jan 25 2008, 11:49 PM

Welcome, I like all the bands you metion Have fun in this site !!!