Originally Posted by: mpaq[QUOTE=Silimtao]Damn, equator really has great ears. I can't wait to listen to your track mpaq- along with the others of course. But I'm curious about yours right now because I want to see if I can pick up what equator is talking about in your bend. I'd probably miss it, lol. Damn, I really want to play now, but I'm wilted from the heat, even with the a/c on. So I'm just gonna lay here, and maybe listen to the BT to see where my mind takes me.[/QUOTE

You and I sound a lot alike in our approach...although I think you can play a lot faster than me. Hard to tell what your style is, i havent heard enough from you yet. Ive only been playing since last November, my wife and kids bought me an Epi Les Paul for my birthday...ive since picked up a Strat as well as ive recently been learning the blues and the Strat just gives me that tone....anyhow i think i have a good base to work from, everyone tells me the "feel" is the hardest part...to me its applying the theory. I'm a "show me" kinda guy. :)

You've only playing since last November? Cool! That means you have the addiction!. From what I've hear of your playing, I think you've come a long way in less than a year! Really, I think you've shown a lot of dedication, and should be proud of yourself. I especially give you a lot of credit for having the stones to put your music out there. I've always had a fear of playing in public. What makes this BT assignment so cool is, I'm going public, but I'm still anonymous, lol.

I don't know what my style is anymore. I'm really a blues/classic rock kind of guy. I wouldn't know a Metallica tune from a Britney Spears one, so metal is foreign to me. I started when I was 12, I'm 50 now, so do the math. But I haven't really played in over 10 yrs, but started again in Feb. of this year. Our approach may similar, but different. I can get the "feel" pretty easily, but I'm lousy in theory. I know that Equator and Light are pretty well grounded in theory, so I've been examining ways to get out of the box of diatonic, and that's where I have problems. I really don't like to "think". If you did a basic blues BT, I can just close my eyes and rip away, I'm not saying I'd necessarily play something good, but I know I wouldn't be thinking, "dorian? phyrgian, mixolydian?" I wouldn't be thinking at all. This is basically my approach- I'll listen to the BT, get the feel, ideas will start to flow. With only 2 mins. to play, it hard to set a theme (for me), then I start noodling around. With this month's track, I was thinking, what do I do with the C# in the A7 chord?- I *think* I've solved that situation, but I dunno. When it's time to lay down the track, I may have a rough idea of what I'm going to do, but, I forget everything, and just play. And this is where I almost got into a flame war with an instructor here. He basically was saying you need a plan so you can think ahead. I contended, that thinking gets in the way; as long as you're grounded in your mechanics, just stop thinking and PLAY. I was just offering up a different approach. Bottom line is, what is "right" is what works for YOU. We all have our own approach. I'm a self taught player (I don't count the years at Berklee; but I do wish I paid attention in theory class). So, I'm not "stuck" with rules per se, because I don't know them very well. That's good and bad. It's good because I'm already outside the box, so I let my ears be my guide. It's bad, well, because I've come full circle and now understand it's good to know music theory. But I'm not gonna sit here and say, ok, this month's track is in D-, that's Aeolian, so that's the 6th degree of F, so, so, so....SO WHAT! I'm not going to sit here and over-analyze something to the point where I'm forgetting the music. But that's just me. And as far as I'm concerned, when you're expressing yourself through music, you are putting YOU out there, not just random tones. Whether it's good or bad is subjective. Catch ya on the boards, and hopefully I can contribute something, but time has been really tight for me. :)