Being Different

Dude,

I was listening to Def Leppard’s Greatest Hits the other day and was immediately swept with some sweet nostalgic memories of growing up, guitar wise that is.

My musical choice was really different from my peers. At that time, it was the mid-90s’ so pop music was at its peak, commercial boyband pop I mean. Let’s see who was at the top: Spice Girls, Take That (fading), Backstreet Boys (just coming up), Boyzone, 911, and many others.

My choice at that time: Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, Def Leppard, Yngwie Malmsteen, Mr. Big and for some strange reasons Van Halen.

It was rather difficult to find like minded friends to share stuff on those music. Back then, I would not listen to any music without guitar solo in it. So, the musical choice was rather limited.

I couldn’t really fit into conversation about music with people and certainly wasn’t very popular with the girls as I can’t name all three members of 911.

But when MY music plays, nothing else matters. Maybe that was why I got more time on had to practice.

Well this post is nothing much actually. It’s just to remind me how far I have come and the journey is still on-going, with new discoveries everyday, from having one classical guitar to six additional electrics, from playing to the walls to playing in 2 of your EPs and of course Dev’s Boogie. 

It’s a post to remind me to be thankful of what I had and what I have, and also to assure me that being different is ok.

Being different is good. My best achievement was able to play the entire Highway Star solo on my classical guitar.

The 7th Son

Dude,

As expected, this is a post on my 7^th guitar, the newest addition to the family: The Ibanez AFJ 81.

It has been 2 weeks since that Sunday night when I brought it home. Initially, I didn’t know what to do with it. Looks like a cello, bulky, but yet fragile (maybe I am not used to hollow body).

First one week was spent tuning the axe up, messing around with the truss rod to get the suitable tone (string height secondary). Any attempts to play it like all other guitars of mine yielded no results. Other than some finger exercise and Yamaha lesson type chord picking, there is not much I can do. It felt really different.

Fast forward a week later. Maybe it’s the “getting used to it already” feeling, I started to feel real good about the guitar. Of course, there was that night when I made comparison with the S-65, but that’s another story.

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Dude,

File information said that this post was last modified on 19^th April 2012. So, it’s that long since I left that last paragraph hanging…..(receipt showed that the guitar was purchased on 8^th April 2012).

After your visit some time ago (mid June), I guess by this point you understand what I was trying to tell you for the past 2 months.

There is nothing I can do other than jazz on the AFJ. Sounds a little bit strange but jazz lines naturally flow out from the player’s hand.

The biggest problem lately is that the more I play, the more I realized how much I DON’T know jazz.

So, I guess the AFJ opened up a second chapter in my academic pursue in music.

With blues, I can feel it as if it was the air I breathe (in fact, it seems to be). With rock and metal, I have got good references in you and the ever growing audio visual media…but jazz…..?

I guess I need a little more time than expected on this. Need to brush up on the bebop and swing lines before going into moving into chord study and a try to do some Wes Montgomery type octave/chord melodies.

So dude, I am spending a little bit more time on home tuition with Wes, Joe Pass, Pat Metheny and Charlie Christian. Of course, the on-going tutorials with EJ, EC, Megadeth, Furyon, Randy and Yngwie is continuous.

Nowadays, tutorial means listening to CDs or watching DVDs. For the AFJ, it means finding the correct setting (been messing with the truss rod too much) and looking at printed tutorials in my mountain high guitar mags. Seems to be going nowhere though….

Jazz can be highly academic. Maybe I should explain in a separate post what attracts me so much to it.

Excuse me now. Gotta’ go study melodic minor soloing…..

If you play a scale starting from E to E of the next octave in a C Major signature, you are actually doing E Dorian. I strummed an E chord and did just that… Doesn’t make sense. Haven’t tried with an E5/Em. Could be pioneering jazz-metal then.

Guitar Hero: Pat Metheny

Dude,

You might be thinking that the first post of Guitar Hero is either Eric Johnson or Eric Clapton. As you can see now, this is not the case.

The very first guitar hero I encountered should be Yngwie Malmsteen and Kurt Cobain (getting old, can’t clearly establish the timeline). While Kurt may not be your typical “guitar hero”, he does have something we can learn from, especially, when half the world’s population picked up acoustic guitars after the Unplugged in New York session.

Then there is Malmsteen and around the same time, Kirk Hammett. That was in 1995, (although Clapton is much earlier, I didn’t really start appreciating him until later when I went seriously into blues).

But one of the most interesting discovery was Pat Metheny.

Somewhere in 1996, I saw a review of Pat Metheny’s Quartet album in an issue of Guitar World. I was quite curious about it so I ran to that little CD store and ordered it. Do remember that I had to wait for a week or two before the CD arrives, as at that time, I trust no one in my hometown knows who Pat Metheny is.

I was expecting some jazz shredding.

And boy…. Was I surprised.

I shall describe how I felt when I first inserted the CD.

The opening was piano with some guitar lines and it was dumb. Dumb as in stupid. Stupid as in NOT the way we say stupid. I was expecting some guitar acrobatics remember?

I was rather pissed (but not for long). Track two, changed my life. It was a very dark tune with very gloomy and slow rhythm. I thought it will be another stupid track and boom, came that warm and big tone. And what went on for the next 3 to 5 minutes was a sheer pleasure and that made me decide I shall love jazz from then on.

His lines were chromatic but yet melodic. Melody seems out off place but the phrasing was flawless – in the sense that if I were to put the melody and rhythm together, they would have been like lock and key – perfectly fit in perfect harmony. And that tone……

TO cut the story short I spent the rest of my life (so far) grabbing every CDs and DVDs with his name on it (Pat Metheny, Pat Metheny Trio, Pat Metheny Group, Pat Metheny with John Scofield, etc.)

His playing, until today, is still beyond my understanding.

It wasn’t until a recent email on your encounter that I decided to re-visit Pat Metheny again. Well done on dissecting his style and I believe your experience was almost the same as mine when I caught him in Singapore. Listening and watching videos of him is one thing. Experiencing the man live, it’s another.

One of the thing that really caught me is the way he compose his music. The progression is unorthodox and once again, I guess only he himself can fit a melody or phrase within the progression.

I once read that he works non-stop and many times, he composed his songs on his MacBook during flight. And you are right. Some his solo album, most notably One Quiet Night was like what you described – going into basement and just let his creativity take over.

I have always put this guy on another level – musically, together with people like Vai or Zappa and maybe Syd Berrett.

But from what I have read, this is a guy who tries to make time for his wife and sending his kids to school and picking them up…..Sounds like your average Joe hiding in a mad scientist body (or the other way ‘round)

Pat Metheny is music himself.

Distortion, sweep picking arpeggios, drugs, sex and rock and roll? Not needed if you are Pat Metheny.

Try google Pat Metheny vs Kenny G. Pat is a true defender of jazz.