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Posts: 1486
Location: Michigan | i don't know about you , but i am 56 years old and i always wanted to play the lead guitar in a band after 35 years of aging . i still want to but i have to say that i am still frustrated not being able to and that is why i picked up an acoustic guitar and started playing chords songs that i could relate to . Chord songs can amuse me and keep a melody ,but i still want to play like this .... it seems to me the rhythm guitar is easier for me to play then the lead .GWB
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AA7lshz6wm8 |
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March 2005
Posts: 12761
Location: Boise, Idaho | Same here, but I'm a bit older. I started taking lessons for the first time recently and told the teacher what I like to play and what I wanted to learn. He noticed that all the songs I like are songs I can sing to and said maybe I'm just a rhythm/vocal guy. He's probably right, but I'd still like to be able to ad lib some long lead parts with those guys up in Seattle. Don't know if I could maintain focus long enough to learn to do that, though. |
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January 2009
Posts: 4536
Location: Flahdaw | I just wanna grab a guitar off the wall and play and sing a song.....acoustic is perfect for me. I don't like cords and pedals and amps. To play lead you need a rhythm player or other backing to make it interesting. |
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January 2006
Posts: 5881
Location: Colorado Rocky Mountains | I go back and forth, some rhythm, some lead, some electric, mostly acoustic. I played rhythm and lead in surf bands back in the 60's, with a heavy emphasis in early rockabilly, which was a clean sound with varying amounts of reverb, tremolo and delay. Then I was heavy into the acoustic folk era followed by country, pop ballads, blues and even a little jazz. All of it leans to a clean sound with perhaps some crunch for blues and some of the more contemporary stuff we do, but never anything with heavy metal distortion. Because I lean heavily towards a clean sound, acoustics work well for me most of the time. Nonetheless, I grew up loving electrics and have lots of both types. This is one of the reasons I love the VXT. It is basically an electric with the addition of a Fishman bridge piezo that can be blended in. This is also the reason I like hybrids (electric size solid or chambered bodies with piezo bridge pups). They sound more like acoustics, but play like electrics. My preference for acoustics is the SSB size, again, beacause it is thin like an electric. All of my amps are on the clean end of the continuum, too. In the end, I'm just a gear addict. Everytime I hear a kid play something phenomenal, I realize that my skill will never exceed mediocrity, get depressed, then make myself feel better by buying another piece of gear. That's why I stopped listening to YouTube. I couldn't afford to continue buying my way out of the resulting depression. |
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March 2005
Posts: 12761
Location: Boise, Idaho | db said what I meant, using fewer words. Perhaps it's an occupational hazard for me.
Last night I was looking at getting a Pod, with the idea that it would make my electrics more fun. (See other thread). That lead to a few other sites on hooking up to a footcontroller and computer, which led to MIDI terminology and computer speak. After I got all frustrated with that, I went downstairs and played the K1111 RI. No electronics, but I was perfectly happy. |
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March 2010
Posts: 486
Location: Suisun City, Ca | Originally posted by ProfessorBB:
Everytime I hear a kid play something phenomenal, I realize that my skill will never exceed mediocrity, get depressed, then make myself feel better by buying another piece of gear. This sounds familiar. (Let me check who posted this.... No, wasn't me!) |
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March 2002
Posts: 15680
Location: SoCal | You guys all worry too much. I'll always just be a hack guitar player (if that). But the guitar has introduced me to friends all over the world, including some of my very best friends. I have played for my kids at night when they were small, comforted them in the middle of the night after bad dreams, and thru illnesses. I've romanced my wife with songs, and led worship in church.
I ain't never gonna be a better player or singer than I am, yet it has given me so damned much. Count your blessings that you can do what you can.
Or shut up. Nobody wants to hear you whine..... |
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January 2006
Posts: 5881
Location: Colorado Rocky Mountains | Very well said, Paul. |
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March 2005
Posts: 12761
Location: Boise, Idaho | Originally posted by ProfessorBB:
Very well said, Paul. except for the whining part about hearing us whine. |
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March 2002
Posts: 15680
Location: SoCal | Mark, you're an attorney. Everybody expects you to whine..... |
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January 2009
Posts: 4536
Location: Flahdaw | I picture Moody in his p.j.'s, 3 a.m., dark with just a nightlight shining in the child's room, softly singing........"Like a rhinestone cowboy"... |
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March 2002
Posts: 15680
Location: SoCal | Done that, but it scares me that you think of me that way.... |
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September 2006
Posts: 10777
Location: Keepin' It Weird in Portland, OR | I have a couple of Solid Body electrics...
Cheap Parkers, a Cheap Stienberger, the Uber-Deacon...
I had some awesomely scary looking BC Riches...
But I play them all LIKE acoustics.
Ballady stuff, Neil Young stuff, Moody Blues, Wish You Were Here, Stairway to Obscurity...
Except that I will do the Star-Spangled Banner ala Vox emulator just before I close-up the case...
(Which makes the Espresso-Dude happy cuz it means that I am leaving) |
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December 2008
Posts: 253
Location: Seattle | For me it is the issue of working through the material .... doing the work to nail the timing/chords/vocals and then getting to the point of adding electric lead & embellishments. Really have to work at having something that is additive to the arraignment.
Many times I just have to walk away and come later to find something to say.
Maybe, to get better, I should just practice with practice jam tracks and give up my day job. |
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Joined:
November 2004
Posts: 382
Location: USA | I started out playing acoutic guitar but not knowing really what is was all about fell to the electric because that was the cool thing to do. A funny thing happened...I found myself sounding like everyone else and everything i listened to. As a player i couldnt find my voice. I put down the electric took a break for about a year or 2 regrouped and came back to the acoustic.
It was like heaven. I realized i had learned all my chops on the electric and made the transition.
I break out the electric from time to time but the acoustic is my weapon of choice.
I could go on and on... |
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why do i play an acoustic guitar when i always wanted to play electric ?