If David Gilmour Could Hear Me, He Would Cry
I seem to be in the midst of a musical suck cycle.
Everything I play lately sounds like I'm scraping poop over a screen door. Not that I was ever especially talented, but I did have some measure of competency in getting first position chords together for God's sake; even that's sounding half-assed. But the memory-feel of the strings under my fingers is exactly right.
And also, lately my amp isn't...well, it isn't helping. Is it that time of year or something, where the vagaries of temperature change, barometric pressure, humidity, melting snow, deepening mud, lunar phases, and de-hibernating wildlife unite to affect the atmosphere in such a way that I sound like poop?
Clean channel, overdrive, super-ultra overdrive, effects loop on or off, all sound about equally scatalogical. Everything coming out of the amp sounds mushy, I can't get a decent tone to save my life, and once I just surrender to sounding like I'm underwater and play something, I end up with the aforementioned turd/mesh matrix.
Last night I went through some leads I've known...or, apparently, USED to know. After a solid hour's worth of attempts I just couldn't try anymore. I was too frustrated and, frankly, embarrassed, with Lady Lethal within earshot, to continue. I tried to play it off, you know, a little humor, with something like, "Sheesh, do you know what it's like to suck so badly?" To her credit, she didn't reply with the obvious answer, "Do you know what it's like to have to HEAR someone who sucks so badly?"
I've been in these cycles before and am hoping this is just another trough before a period of great coolness. Because it works the other way too, where you just plug in and you surprise yourself at the improbably cool stuff coming out of your amp. I just don't recall a trough quite this deep or lengthy.
Is anyone else having this problem?
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Well, if you consider a six
Well, if you consider a six-year hiatus from the electric guitar as the same problem, then yes.
Don't play bass much any more either, which really gets in the way of my role as the white Bootsy Collins.
J,
J,
Well follow up later. Plug in and have a go. Hear if it sounds like your soundwaves are swimming against a septic riptide.
That would mean replacing the
That would mean replacing the high-E string on the ol' Strat Ultra, and that hasn't been done lo, these many years.
If I ever had been able to
If I ever had been able to play a musical instrument, what I can do now might be considered a slump. But really, my talent has been a flatline since birth.
Geek (and Johno),
Geek (and Johno),
Plug in, find that one chord that you love to hear, and play the death out of it -- and ignore the screaming from Lady Lethal. You'll get back in the groove.
NDR,
NDR,
Lady Lethal doesn't scream. Even if she did, I wouldn't hear her over my racket. Our cat, Marco, does get very upset when I play and he might yell and be bitchy when I stop.
Your recipe sounds both potent and easy to make. For me, I'm a "D" guy.
All your D are belong to us.
Glad to help. Sometimes y
Glad to help. Sometimes y'gotta get in touch with your primitive side.
NDR
NDR
Last night I got some back, although I still sounded mushy.
What I did was go through "Comfortably Numb" and "Time" until I re-learned the leads. Both have really big, important Ds in them, so I got to take your advice on beating up my favorite chord.
But what also helped, and in another brute force manner, was just to listen to them over and over and over, and pick everything out again note-for-note, and marry that "new" knowledge to the dusty memories of them I already had.
So a solid 45 minutes spent in that manner last night was way more satisfying than the previous 5-6-7 hours I've played the last month.
David Gilmour wouldn't cry now. He'd probably be disappointed, but my level of suck wouldn't move him to tears. And that's improvement.