Current State of Mind

Dude,

Just realised that I haven’t been real productive in dishing out blog-worthy post. The last one was in July and time passes real fast. There was a title in national language that was published a year ago on 30^th August, and we are just a month away.

Reviewing all the posts since then, I realized I did achieve something in the list this year. Getting Nevermore’s Year of the Voyager DVD. So at least there’s something.

Your return this time round triggered many crazy moments as well as various issues to plan and contemplate on.

Moving on from the crazy two weeks we had, I am slowly settling in work (which is never fun) and life; and as usual, taking some time off to reflect what my current state of mind is.

I would definitely love to find more time to play and doodle, but with work and daily commitments, it’s a challenge to have some time to practice, or in my case recently, doodle.

Speaking of practice, the guitar academic in me is surfacing again, this time looking for some deep instructional stuffs. Before I go further on this, it will be helpful to understand what goes on in the mind.

I am, basically, a simple, single-tracked mind guy. While this is reflected very much in my life, it has also found its way into my guitar playing. I am not capable to adapt to various permutations of harmonic equivalents on the fretboard, resulting in very limited licks vocabulary. Part of the main cause of this is the standard pentatonic box patterns which I employed so much in my playing. In addition, there are some standard licks that have been very much stuck with me from day one.

Despite putting in some effort in the early days to enhance or diversify the playing (with Paul Gilbert’s Terrifying Guitar Trip, John Petrucci’s Rock Discipline, Al DiMeola, Eric Johnson and Steve Morse’s instructionals, Yngwie Malmsteen’s Play Loud, Marty Friedman’s Melody something,something…., etc), it didn’t help much at the end of the day. This is also due to my trait of being a lazy bastard, not wanting to stretch myself.

Years later, today, picking up where I left off, I would re-visit all the videos and they will still sound new to me. That means I have not really put any effort to improve my playing.

I guess you understand now why I was so impressed with your licks in the Wilshire demo. I love the approach of utilizing the entire fingerboard.

As such, I have shortlisted four books which I feel can be of great help. JP’s Wild Stringdom and Guthrie Govan’s Creative Guitars series. To get a real good workout on songs, I would also love to get the tab book to Suspended Animation. Would love to have something Nevermore but there is not one publication that have tabs on Nevermore.

This could be just a passing phase, as I am always in the academic phase in one time or another. Seriously, I have learnt, memorized and forgotten a lot of stuff. That’s why I found that the best way to learn something is back to the fundamentals – doodle – but with a running recorder to record tones, feels, techniques and most important of all, what that needs to be worked on. So, this probably explains all the noises I have been sending you so far.

As I continue to find peace with scales and modes, let’s talk about my new ambition: The Greatest Bedroom Shredder in the World.

I have talked at length about the origin of this (shamelessly) self-proclaimed tittle. But this has always been a desire deep inside me – to able to shred the hell out of a guitar.

This brings me to one of the biggest contributing factor to drive: The frustration of getting another (or  two more) guitars.

The past 7 months has been filled with endless contemplation and planning for a new metal guitar, most notably a 7 string and to be precise, the Schecter Jeff Loomis NT (or FR). Seemed like a taboo every time this guitar is mentioned and there is always some situation that hinders the go-ahead with the purchase (in exchange for fatherhood, I have no complains though!!). In fact at this point while writing this, I already have 2 wedding invitations in September. That's USD200 gone.

With the continuous challenges ahead, getting a 7 string seems impossible....so.....

Song ideas and arrrangements that were brewing inside my mind (coined mainly for 7 strings) were then needed to be translated in a six strings context – which involved different tonality and rhythm arrangements. That was how the doodles session started.

To achieve some bottom heavy tones, I have downtuned the Cort one half step which the low E string is now E flat. That created the right amount of tension (thanks to the 25.5” neck) and definitely created a good vibe for heavy rhythm. The first riff done on this new-found vibe was something called I Think Therefore I Am (Realm of Darkness was done on standard tuning in the key of F#).

There are still some half done stuff – Death Calling, another one – which would require a lot of effort from me, given I am quite a novice when it comes to metal. Despite daily tutorials on Nevermore and Jeff Loomis, Jag Panzer and Chris Broderick, there is still much more to catch up and learn. All this were to prepare myself to embrace the world of 7 string guitar playing. Unknowingly, it has built some some chops which are new to me and kinda spice up a little of my otherwise monotonous, unoriginal sounding lines.

So, those are the force that is driving the academic side, to expand the fretboard and theory knowledge in order to complete the songs and to become The Greatest Bedroom Shredder in the World. Ultimately I believe all musician shares the same dream – to be able to compose their own music and share it with others, no matter good or bad, regardless if there is any commercial value to it. I don’t think anyone will understand why we do the things we do… Of course they don’t. We are musicians, they are just mere mortals, humans…..

Funny how it all started from frustration of wanting a 7 string.

Ten is the current magic number to round up the arsenal of axes. There is a neck-to-neck competition in the 7 string department between JP and JL, while with the 6 strings, JP100D pretty much fit the bill. Unless the price difference  of pickup upgrading of USD170.00 can be further stretched apart with other factors, getting a JP60 and upgrading pickups seemed to be similar to getting a JEM333 and upgrading it to EVO (while it is much cheaper and WORTH by getting the JEM555). And I am quite sure JP70 will be far cheaper than Schecter at where you are now.

So, this time, it’s real intense focus on just the last two - one 7 string and that very last 6 string.

And then, moving on, hopefully, we get to hear some original compositions and taste some fully baked cakes.

Meanwhile, it’s all scales and mode, techniques and tone, harmony and melody; and reviewing blueprint (over and over and over again) on the Ten Guitars Project. Those two are my current state of mind.

Weekend is almost here and I am sure you will enjoy Metallica live in the Lion City. Do me a favour dude: need a full scale gig report after that from you……. And please update your guitar review site! You have got all this cool guitars this year dude!

Take care dude….

We both know very well how my ten guitar plan will end – Option 13. But dude, the bright side is that we musicians will always learn to make do and make most of our current resources….And me dude, I am more than that ‘cos I am The Greatest Bedroom Shredder in the World.