What's been your latest accomplishment?

[Donovan Etue]

Hey guys, hope you guys are doing well! I remember seeing a similar post a while ago and it had some awesome replies. The accomplishment can be anything. Have you dedicated some time in the past few weeks to music theory and you feel like you're making some progress? I'd like to hear about it! Finally gotten the hand of that awesome lick/riff that has been bugging you for a while? Have you dialed in a guitar tone that you really like and has been inspiring you to play more? Finally pick up your guitar for the first time in a while and you really enjoyed it? I'd like to hear about those too! Big or small, difficult or not, I'd like to hear about it and I'm sure there are others here who'd like to hear about it too.

Myself, I've been feeling like I've been in a plateau the last 2 or so months. I've found myself not attempting to learn anything new and I've been sticking with my go to riffs that I've got mostly memorized by this point. As well as just not picking the guitar up as much lately. That's absolutely fine if you're currently experiencing that. Everybody goes through it. But I've been kind of frustrated with it. That being said, recently Neural DSP released Tim Henson's (from Polyphia) own signature amp sims. I've recently been getting more into them lately. I've also been really fascinated by Tim's guitar tones and having a hard time emulating myself. Luckily Neural DSP has a 14 day free trial to try it out and I've been loving it so far. If you're not familiar with Polyphia, they're a progressive rock/math rock band that mixes jazz, prog, some metal, and most notably hip hop/trap into their own music. They don't regularly use hi gain amps for their work. Mostly relying on clean/crunch/vintage hi gain for their tones. That's been forcing me to play a bit more out of my element and inspiring me to pick up my guitar more. I also just had the pickups replaced in my first guitar on Tuesday along with a whole new wiring setup in it for different tones. More specifically split coil tones which are also pretty new to me and helping me try out new things.

Anyway, before I ramble on even further I'll cut it there. I hope you guys are having a good day/night! Thanks for reading.

 

[ari.mac]

Really nice thread! Great to read about what you are up to now!! I'm not playing as much as I'd like to as well because it's too hot, and that + work make me feel exhausted but now I have two weeks off so I hope to practice more!
Two of my latest accomplishments are:
1. I managed to learn the intro to Welcome To The Black Parade by ear.
2. I'm somehow managing to learn rhythm guitar of Nightmare (A7X of course)..you would have told me a year ago I wouldn't even dream of it!!!

 

[The Trash God]

I have been in an awful mindset recently, and I stopped playing for a while, which is something that I never do. But in doing so, when I picked up my guitar again I started learning Beg by Seether, a song I tried learning when I first started guitar and failed at back then, but now I can play through the whole thing very easily. So that is a small accomplishment, but an accomplishment none the less.

I am also getting better at not only the Nightmare Solo, but the Critical Acclaim solos as well, so that is an acconplishment as well.

 

[Donovan Etue]

Really nice thread! Great to read about what you are up to now!! I'm not playing as much as I'd like to as well because it's too hot, and that + work make me feel exhausted but now I have two weeks off so I hope to practice more!
Two of my latest accomplishments are:
1. I managed to learn the intro to Welcome To The Black Parade by ear.
2. I'm somehow managing to learn rhythm guitar of Nightmare (A7X of course)..you would have told me a year ago I wouldn't even dream of it!!!

That feeling of successfully figuring something out by ear is always great. Especially if it's a part you thoroughly enjoy. Well done! Good luck with Nightmare! You've got this!

 

[Donovan Etue]

I have been in an awful mindset recently, and I stopped playing for a while, which is something that I never do. But in doing so, when I picked up my guitar again I started learning Beg by Seether, a song I tried learning when I first started guitar and failed at back then, but now I can play through the whole thing very easily. So that is a small accomplishment, but an accomplishment none the less.

I am also getting better at not only the Nightmare Solo, but the Critical Acclaim solos as well, so that is an acconplishment as well.

Sorry to hear that man. I hope your mindset begins to improve soon. That's awesome! That feeling of returning to what used to be a really hard song/riff/lick/part/whatever it may be and being able to figure it out/play it easily is incredible. I felt similarly when I returned to Descending by Lamb of God. There's still one part I need to focus a little bit more on but for the most part what used to be a fairly difficult song for me to play has become fairly easy and very fun! Those aren't easy solo's man! That's an awesome accomplishment! Well done. How far along on the solos are you if you don't mind me asking.

 

[Andrew Fernandes]

Making an ok song but very well packed in with vocals, also trying a very weird song structure with this song. The song is actually quite fun to perform actually. To then make a song after that one very catchy and it makes me feel hopeful and happy about it. I was doubtful about the song structure and now I think it's spot on. What made the second song better was saying f**k it! I am doing what I want and don't care if it's ugly to people.

 

[The Trash God]

Sorry to hear that man. I hope your mindset begins to improve soon. That's awesome! That feeling of returning to what used to be a really hard song/riff/lick/part/whatever it may be and being able to figure it out/play it easily is incredible. I felt similarly when I returned to Descending by Lamb of God. There's still one part I need to focus a little bit more on but for the most part what used to be a fairly difficult song for me to play has become fairly easy and very fun! Those aren't easy solo's man! That's an awesome accomplishment! Well done. How far along on the solos are you if you don't mind me asking.

Yes it is a nice feeling to play something easily after struggling on it. And as far as the solos I'm in between on them. I know what notes to play, and I don't have to play them super slow, but I cant play them fast either. So I can play them at medium speed, getting better at playing them fatser though.

 

[Donovan Etue]

Making an ok song but very well packed in with vocals, also trying a very weird song structure with this song. The song is actually quite fun to perform actually. To then make a song after that one very catchy and it makes me feel hopeful and happy about it. I was doubtful about the song structure and now I think it's spot on. What made the second song better was saying f**k it! I am doing what I want and don't care if it's ugly to people.

Very interesting dude! The only opinion on the song that truly matters is yours!

 

[Donovan Etue]

Yes it is a nice feeling to play something easily after struggling on it. And as far as the solos I'm in between on them. I know what notes to play, and I don't have to play them super slow, but I cant play them fast either. So I can play them at medium speed, getting better at playing them fatser though.

Ah, so you're not very far from finished then. Just have to get some time in with the metronome and continue speeding things up then! Good luck man!

 

[Chris Johnston]

My latest accomplishment is finally having a busy student schedule enough to take a holiday with my Fiance. I've spent about 5-6 years building my business and now I'm finally working to live rather than the opposite! During the first lockdown I had 2 students and now I'm about to hit 28 a lot of stuff I learned on the school has really helped me do this aswell

Apart from that I've been playing a lot more using Triads and I feel like my improvisation has improved quite a bit because of it!

 

[William B.]

Hi! I've gotten better with my technique and doing mostly ear training type stuff. Also been trying to write tabs, all 8th notes for now, soon I'll try and use the 16ths and try to write solo stuff. I learned how to move notes around to get all the different chord voicings ( maybe not all). Finding matching notes has gotten a lot easier and faster. Really cool is that I can write the chords without my guitar like visualize it, not super good at all of it yet, awesome nonetheless. I got sick earlier this week so I'm trying to rekindle my drive again. Playing with my keyboard, drumsticks and occasionally trying to sing some as well. It's all gotten better so I guess that's an accomplishment. I tried learning "Nightmare" for a day it went good, saw that I could move some notes to make the tab more playable for me. I noticed some tabs have the right notes but maybe played in the wrong area of the neck, I can't say for sure. I started learning "Crystal Mountain by DEATH" the other day, there's this really cool lick/passage I like, the fingering confuses me some so I guess that's good for my growth as a player. I kind of do a bit of everything to get better and haven't really set any goals to accomplish, so I didn't know what to write. I haven't been listening to a lot of music for the past few weeks, not sure why, I'm still keeping busy though

 

[Donovan Etue]

My latest accomplishment is finally having a busy student schedule enough to take a holiday with my Fiance. I've spent about 5-6 years building my business and now I'm finally working to live rather than the opposite! During the first lockdown I had 2 students and now I'm about to hit 28 a lot of stuff I learned on the school has really helped me do this aswell

Apart from that I've been playing a lot more using Triads and I feel like my improvisation has improved quite a bit because of it!

Hell yeah man, that's awesome! Glad to see business is doing well for you! I'm also glad to see your improv is improving too! I'm not too knowledgeable when it comes down to theory (as much as I've tried to dive into it more I've had issues retaining info about it) so what is it about using triads more frequently that seems to have improved your improv? I hope you and your fiancé have a wonderful holiday Chris!

 

[Donovan Etue]

Hi! I've gotten better with my technique and doing mostly ear training type stuff. Also been trying to write tabs, all 8th notes for now, soon I'll try and use the 16ths and try to write solo stuff. I learned how to move notes around to get all the different chord voicings ( maybe not all). Finding matching notes has gotten a lot easier and faster. Really cool is that I can write the chords without my guitar like visualize it, not super good at all of it yet, awesome nonetheless. I got sick earlier this week so I'm trying to rekindle my drive again. Playing with my keyboard, drumsticks and occasionally trying to sing some as well. It's all gotten better so I guess that's an accomplishment. I tried learning "Nightmare" for a day it went good, saw that I could move some notes to make the tab more playable for me. I noticed some tabs have the right notes but maybe played in the wrong area of the neck, I can't say for sure. I started learning "Crystal Mountain by DEATH" the other day, there's this really cool lick/passage I like, the fingering confuses me some so I guess that's good for my growth as a player. I kind of do a bit of everything to get better and haven't really set any goals to accomplish, so I didn't know what to write. I haven't been listening to a lot of music for the past few weeks, not sure why, I'm still keeping busy though

Glad to see you're keeping busy man, and making quite a bit of progress too from the sounds of it! That's awesome that you're getting to the point to where you can write out the chords without a visual que. That's certainly not an easy thing to do! I've been running into issues with slightly inaccurate tabs too a bit lately. In particular the tabs for Backbone by Gojira that are on Songster are off a bit. Luckily thanks to live footage I'm pretty sure I've got most of the song figured out, just have to build up the stamina to play it. Goddamn fast paced heavy gallops for most of the song are particularly brutal haha. Ooh, Crystal Mountain is fun but certainly tricky at times like you mentioned. Chuck had a weird/interesting sense for note choice which results in some particularly odd note patterns that are hard at first but somehow end up feeling fluid to play once you get it down. The Flesh and the Power it Holds intro is like that. It's odd at first but once you get it down it somehow feels fluid. Hey man I just asked to hear your music related accomplishments and you did just that! Anyway, glad to hear you're doing alright. I hope you start feeling better and rekindle more of your drive here soon!

 

[William B.]

Backbone by Gojira

Cool song I thought I haven't heard it yet. I'm hearing some live versions and they all sound slightly faster than the recorded ones?

I tried playing a few of their songs through tab, great fun! Maybe would be a good idea for me to look at how the tabs are written and see if I can apply it to my own stuff. I can play stuff like that but not write it yet lol

Was my first time trying to play a DEATH song, sometimes I just like listening, should probably give more things a try.

Gallops are fun, one of my fav things, if you keep at it the stamina will build up for sure.
I still get tired but it's not so bad anymore

I'm back listening to DEATH, just took a nap

 

[Chris Johnston]

Hell yeah man, that's awesome! Glad to see business is doing well for you! I'm also glad to see your improv is improving too! I'm not too knowledgeable when it comes down to theory (as much as I've tried to dive into it more I've had issues retaining info about it) so what is it about using triads more frequently that seems to have improved your improv? I hope you and your fiancé have a wonderful holiday Chris!

Thanks man! I was honestly the same with that kinda stuff a few years back before I started teaching, but you just kinda chip away at it I feel like the triads have helped with more interesting melodies & visualising smaller chunks of the fretboard - as I used to fall into the trap of ripping up and down arpeggios in the middle of an improv & I felt limited when doing it, so I feel as if I have a bit more of a flow. Thanks so much! I'm looking forward to it. I'll probably be sitting playing my guitar for half of it in all honesty

 

[Donovan Etue]

Cool song I thought I haven't heard it yet. I'm hearing some live versions and they all sound slightly faster than the recorded ones?

I tried playing a few of their songs through tab, great fun! Maybe would be a good idea for me to look at how the tabs are written and see if I can apply it to my own stuff. I can play stuff like that but not write it yet lol

Was my first time trying to play a DEATH song, sometimes I just like listening, should probably give more things a try.

Gallops are fun, one of my fav things, if you keep at it the stamina will build up for sure.
I still get tired but it's not so bad anymore

I'm back listening to DEATH, just took a nap

Yeah they seem to play it a bit different live, some parts faster, some more drawn out. Gojira songs are some of my favorite songs to play. Kickass riffs, interesting note choices, unusual techniques, and occasionally some unique song structures. Toxic Garbage Island doesn't really have a structure so to speak, it just brutally powers forward. Crystal Mountain is a good place to start with Death. Fairly straight forward and nothing incredibly advanced like some of Chucks other work in his later years. It's got some great riffs too. I understand. I've definitely made some progress with my stamina over the past few months. Backbone is one of those songs where I'll check in every once in a while to see if I've improved my endurance any haha.

 

[Donovan Etue]

Thanks man! I was honestly the same with that kinda stuff a few years back before I started teaching, but you just kinda chip away at it I feel like the triads have helped with more interesting melodies & visualising smaller chunks of the fretboard - as I used to fall into the trap of ripping up and down arpeggios in the middle of an improv & I felt limited when doing it, so I feel as if I have a bit more of a flow. Thanks so much! I'm looking forward to it. I'll probably be sitting playing my guitar for half of it in all honesty

Ah alright, I can understand that. Haha "Babe look at that sunset! It's so beautiful!" "One second sweetheart, I think I've finally found the perfect Maj9 chord to complete this chord progression I've been working on!".

 

[William B.]

Toxic Garbage Island

lol I didn't know the name of that song

 

[Ethan Keeling]

After getting back into the school (kinda, been on holiday but thinking on what vids to do) ive also been playing more, noticed ive gotten faster and cleaner and just enjoying playing more!!

 

[Donovan Etue]

After getting back into the school (kinda, been on holiday but thinking on what vids to do) ive also been playing more, noticed ive gotten faster and cleaner and just enjoying playing more!!

That's awesome to hear man!