My New Guitar And Games Dev Blog
AdamB
Nov 22 2014, 06:33 PM
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Hi,

I decided to start up a blog about making video games and playing guitar, which obviously have little to no overlap, but if you're interested you can check it out at http://www.6stringsand16bits.com

I just posted my first video on there - a play through of Pride and Joy by SRV, feedback is really appreciated!

-Adam

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Cosmin Lupu
Nov 23 2014, 01:21 PM
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Hey mate smile.gif

I think you did a very, very good job here - you have the chops and the timing!

Now, the tone could be a bit less distorted for the style, if you ask me and there are moments in the recording in which you tend to rush the groove a bit - see minute 02:27-02:28 for instance.

I think that focusing more on the groove is what this tune really needs, if you want to perfect your approach towards the shuffle smile.gif All in all you did very well and I am looking forward to see more recordings from you, mate wink.gif

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Todd Simpson
Nov 24 2014, 07:22 PM
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Cool! Please share your new stuff here as well!!

QUOTE (AdamB @ Nov 22 2014, 01:33 PM) *
Hi,

I decided to start up a blog about making video games and playing guitar, which obviously have little to no overlap, but if you're interested you can check it out at http://www.6stringsand16bits.com

I just posted my first video on there - a play through of Pride and Joy by SRV, feedback is really appreciated!

-Adam

You are at GuitarMasterClass.net


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AdamB
Nov 25 2014, 11:58 AM
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I'm now working on practicing this track again slowly while counting on the back beat to try and lock my playing into the groove. I don't really know of another way to work on that.

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Gabriel Leopardi
Nov 25 2014, 06:25 PM
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Hi Adam! That's a very cool idea. I like the topic of your blog. There are lots of guitar lovers that also love video games so I can feel that there is a bit connection between both and it's a cool idea to combine the numbers 6 strings and 16 bits. You're very creative.

I will explore more your blog but I could listen to the SRV song and I can say that your playing is very good! It's not an easy tune and you can play all the solos and rhythms very tight! Well done. I also agree with Cosmin about tone which could be better on this video. Your guitar is lacking some presence in the video, to gain definition. Using less distortion can also help as well.

Keep on this great initiative and energy. I bookmarked your blog so I'll stay tuned! smile.gif

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AdamB
Nov 26 2014, 03:54 PM
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Cheers guys,

I intend to update it regularly with new videos and articles about my game development stuff!

I'm going to keep on with the covers for the time being until I get my video shooting and recording stuff down. I'm going to come back to pride and joy when I've spent more time practicing the grooving of it. My next video is likely to be either Technical Difficulties or For the love of god.

I'm leaning towards FTLOG being the next song at the moment, because I've done that one before (I want to shoot a better quality video for it this time) I know I can play it, and Technical Difficulties is really, really hard.

Then in the future I intend to write my own pieces and do videos for them smile.gif

Games dev wise I'm working on a bunch of games at the moment, but the bulk of my posts about this stuff are likely to be technical so won't be to everyones tastes.

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Gabriel Leopardi
Nov 26 2014, 05:46 PM
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Interesting stuff. Both songs are tricky, while FTLOG requires a good manage of expressive techniques like vibrato, bending and dynamics, as well as some fast legato, Gilbert's song requires a good control of alternate picking. These two lessons combined with the cover by SRV are a good series of songs that can take the playing of every electric guitarist to a very high level. How do you usually learn the songs? by ear?

I think that once you record both new covers, it's a great idea to start working on your own music. These covers will attract the attention of guitar lover who then will want to explore more about your music. Are you planning to compose instrumental music? Have you ever composed you own stuff?

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AdamB
Nov 26 2014, 06:18 PM
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With FTLOG and TD I have learnt them using tabs mostly, and then playing along with the original track. However I haven't finished learning TD yet, I have difficulties (hah!) with the fast run at the end of each round of the intro section. I can play the fast picking up to speed until it reaches the low E. I have trouble picking cleanly at that speed on the low E and A strings, and the speed at which I can do that whole run cleanly is around 120bpm, which is 10bpm short of what's needed.

FTLOG I have done before, the only problem was it took like 50 takes to get it right, but I'm hoping this time around it'll go smoother!

I learnt Pride & Joy by ear. I used RiffStation to slow it right down and worked out the licks piece by piece until I had something that sounded similar, and then sped it back up, finally piecing it all together and learning to play it through.

I have composed before, but only 2 songs. Neither are particularly good or interesting. I don't do song writing often so far because I find it demotivating. I will spend entire days working on a song, only for it to be terrible and then having nothing to show for it, when I could of been working on my playing and progressing in my abilities. I find playing live the same, I like the idea of playing live, but whenever I do it I find it saps my motivation because of all the mistakes I inevitably make. I get to thinking 'you've done thousands of hours of work with the instrument and you can't even get through a simple punk song without messing it up.' hehe.

But I do want to write my own music, I just need to find time to do it where it won't take away from the time I spend practicing, so hopefully it'll balance out my mood!

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Cosmin Lupu
Nov 27 2014, 01:45 PM
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Mate, playing live is a totally different world smile.gif let me give you a little insight into what it actually means:

- at home you can usually reach 90% of your full potential if you practice religiously
- at rehearsals - about 75-80%
- onstage.. about 50% and sometimes less smile.gif

Don't be discouraged by these things - it's only normal and it takes A LOT of concerts in order to shift that 50% up towards the 90%. If you see things this way, you will be motivated to carry on and push forward until you reach a high level of proficiency as a stage artist.... if of course, you want that smile.gif

Composing is the same - it is the way in which you express yourself. You should never neglect that. Imagine that if you compare playing the guitar with speaking, by now you can only read what other people have written. If you would be placed in the situation to speak freely and tell someone yoru thoughts, you wouldn't know how to do it.

You have to begin somewhere and why not, maybe sharing the songs you have so far could allow us to bring some suggestions to the table that would slowly help you develop your own voice smile.gif What do you say?

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AdamB
Nov 28 2014, 04:25 PM
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Thanks for the feedback.

As I say I only have 2 tracks that I've written and recorded. They're both instrumental tracks, they're on my soundcloud;
https://soundcloud.com/adambradleyguitar/rain-song
https://soundcloud.com/adambradleyguitar/a-song-for-ali

They were written in quick succession a number of years ago. I haven't written anything before or since. Unless you count co-writing some of the music to a band I was in at university, but that was just coming up with the odd riff and some song structure.

I do have some live stuff as an example that I shared a few weeks ago, this stuff:
https://soundcloud.com/adambradleyguitar/sets/recordings-with-or-wot

I find in my playing, not just live but playing live does bring it out more, that I make a lot of mistakes. But the problem is whenever I get advice about it, it's usually "isolate the bit that's causing trouble and work on it". The problem is that the errors are always in different places, with different things. It doesn't seem to be dependant on the difficulty of the song or the technique used - I mess up ridiculously easy power chord punk songs just as much as complex solos. The errors are always in different places in different takes with different techniques. When I spend so much time practicing, and have gigged a lot, messing up a three chord rock song doesn't feel good! hehe. So I find I have to over compensate with technique practice to balance out how I feel about my playing.

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Cosmin Lupu
Nov 29 2014, 12:38 PM
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Adam smile.gif I think you are fretting over some reasons which should only be boosting your efforts even more - to be honest, as brutal as that might sound and what's worse, you are choking your creative power! I have listened to your compositions and I must say that your technique needs just a bit of polishing here and there, especially in respect to vibrato, which should be more expressive, but otherwise, the piano parts and the overall vibe and orchestrations are very nice in both recordings.

The second one, felt a bit more structured as I sensed some more direction and some themes. If you ask me, these are the main things which you should be focusing in respect to composition:

- structure - analyze your favorite tunes and see what sort of structures do they involve? What parts and how are they linked? How many situations can you spot? smile.gif It's a GREAT exercise - then apply those structures on your ideas!
- making your compositions memorable - instead of improvising endlessly over the track - don't get me wrong, there were a lot of good lines in there, but they are floating and not developing themselves properly - you should strive on developing themes and memorable parts/riffs, chord progressions, which should be linked to one another following the previous observations mentioned in the first lines biggrin.gif
- building vocabulary - you can always keep things fresh, by picking up things in GMC lessons - licks, phrases, riffs and applying them in your own compositions, by altering rhythm, some notes, some rests smile.gif Adapting, in less words and making things sound like you, but getting the inspiration from the lessons - I'm sure you'll find a lot of things that will catch you in the good way smile.gif

About performing live - there's only one way - perform MORE and always pay attention to the mistakes you know you did in the past. NEVER forget that you are human and the stage is an unpredictable place. Experience is the one thing that will help you with performing better. You can't be angry at yourself because you are not at the expected level (expected by you, of course) if you haven't had at least 100-150 gigs for which you have thoroughly prepared smile.gif

There's A LOT to talk about here, but I am curious about your input as well wink.gif

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