Hi, I'm back after a year away, lots of new techniques to check out

Hi guys, you may or may not remember me as Bofatron. James, BadHorsie and a bunch of you were all very cool and this was one of my favorite message boards. Anyway, I got all bogged down with writing and bands and whatnot and I'm just now getting back out on the internet. To make a long story short, as some of you will recall, I had been working on all sorts of crazy techniques. Well, the techniques are even crazier now. And a lot of the stuff is available as .pdf downloads at my new site: Gtr Oblq

http://kronosonic.com

I've recorded a lot of new material as well you can listen to if you're so inclined.

Nice to be back and good to see many familiar names still here.

Excellent playing!! I like the updates to the site since last time I visited. Nice, easy to format to navigate, with good information. One thing, though - Your "Blues Progression" lesson is linked to "Modal Interchanges", the lesson above it. Keep up the good work.

Hey thanks...and I'll correct that link asap.

Hey! Bofatron Sofasaurus! Welcome back!

Hey, I checked out that link you gave a long time ago, where someone (probably you) was saying how basically you needed to be only as fast as Neil Young, and to have anything really novel happen, you would have to become really super fast, or something. (As you can tell, it's been a while since I read the page). Anyways, on the site, there were claims of the interesting things that happen when an extreme level of speed is achieved. I tried looking for mp3s, but the links were all dead.

Anyways, what ever became of that?

Hi. It's infinite ego these days...bofatron is pretty much dead. More or less ;-)

But, yeah, my take on things is still the same: (a) music is about melody so give people melody. You wouldn't sing a song as fast as you could go so take it easy...Neil Young, Bill frisell, Jimmy Page, etc...they all get the job done. Cool phrasing and memorable lines are still king in music. But, (b) you don't always have to play "music" and you can use "non-musical" elements in your music for effect. If you're going to play fast why not play really really fast such that, on the one hand, you avoid playing melodies fast (a la cartoon music) and, on the other, you can create someting totally new soundwise. It's no more difficult to play 3 times faster than normal than it is to play normal...it's not a physical thing really.

The page you're remembering is probably long gone by now. I totally revamped the site including moving to a new server.

Some demos, including all the old stuff, is here
http://www.station185.com/kronoson/kronosonic/Demos_Sounds/

For a sample of what I'm talking about try Jupiter Blues (a new thing) or Guardian of Forever (one of the old Bofatron demos). The speedy stuff is purely textural rather than melodic. Some people dig it and others don't. It's all cool.

I totally agree with you. I also like sweet memorable melodies more than super fast(but shallow) shred. I have checked some of your work and I think that you have some very inovative ideas. But how do you mean that it is not actually hard to play faster than at normal tempo? I have once read your article covering technique called multitasking or somethink like that. Is this what you have meant?

I think he means that by using hybrid picking rather than just playing with the pick you can aquire an increase over your normal speed in virtually no time.

You are both correct. Hybrid picking is one way of doing more in but, yes, multi-tasking is a larger concept. I divide the guitar into "regions" and operate in 2, 3 or even 4 "regions" simultaneously. I developed techniques like "virtual tapping" and, especially, "covered sweeping" that shifts muting functions between hands and generates cascades of harmonics blended with normal pitches, etc...there are other things going on. One thing that helped was reading an interview with Pat Martino who urged gutiarists to treat the instrument as a matrix rather than a linear thing.

Literally, with little or no effort you can play twice, three times faster than almost anybody. HOWEVER, and it's important to stress this, I had a sound in my head years ago that I wanted to get (after listening to Vernon Reid and jazz guys like Dolphy and 'Trane) and all my techniques were designed around that. That's why the phrasing is so crazy. I do not and will not play scales or arps a la shred and fusion guys. You can use limited versions of my techniques to do normal stuff but I just don't. Why be normal?

In the year I was a way I revamped my techniques such that now I mostly play with a clean channel with no effects. My goal is to arrive at a musical place similar to what 'Trane was doing at the end of his career on Interstellar Space (listen to the track "Mars")

I used to sell videos of all this crazy stuff...it was fun to enrage the shred kids. ;-) Actually, last week I shot video #5 but it was not cool...or, I should say, I was not cool in it. So I'll have to re-shoot the video this summer some time.

But seriously, listen to the track called "Jupiter Blues" (one of the later demos) and at the end, as far as I can calculate, I was reaching insane speeds (I'd say how many notes per second but it sounds absurd) -- not really "notes" but more like sound events) -- but let me say, it is not speed for the sake of speed (or to hotdog and show off) but only as an effect, as texture...and anybody can do it...more of a trick than anything else.

The hard part is doing stuff like that on a totally clean, dry amp. I can't play anywhere near that fast on a clean amp....but still way faster than most. The secret is treating the guitar as a matrix rather than a linear instrument.

Again, I say, anybody can do it if they just try. The blueprints lesson is enough to get most people off the ground. With some imagination and experimentation you can figure out the rest.

http://kronosonic.com

[Edited by Ego on 06-06-2003 at 10:10 PM]

I think most people just hold themselves back because they think there is "one best way" or only one valid way to play guitar. Once you can get over that then you're home free. Literally. One time a kid at HCGF was trashing what "Bofatron" was doing and he said that "Muisc is a language..." i.e., that there is one language and that all musicians must conform to the rules of one language. That's pretty dumb if you think about it. There's lots of languages in the world, each different, and each loaded with variations. That whole concept of a mono language is just fascist. I say liberate yourself and let the fascists argue amongst themselves.

http://kronosonic.com

[Edited by Ego on 06-06-2003 at 10:09 PM]

Do you still have any videos for sale? If so, please post a link or instructions (and if you have time, a description of what's in each video). Thanks a lot.

No, sorry, I don't have any of the vids left. vids 1-4 were sold out long ago (I can only get so many copies made before the master tape 8mm wears out and makes crappy copies). Vid 5 was supposed to be the new update. I shot it a couple of weeks ago but I was really unhappy with it. The playing was fine and the instructions were right on but I came off like an ass for some reason. Actually, I shot it on my deck and it was hot as hell that day and there were bugs flying around, and a couple of cars go by, and I just was getting frustrated over a couple of hours...

;-)

I'll shoot a new one some time this summer or in the fall and do a better job.

http://kronosonic.com

Hi, sure, just go to

http://kronosonic.com

find "infinite ego" on that page, you'll go right to my page and hit "music" and you'll run into about 30 demo tunes some old and some newer. you'll also find a track off my new album-in-progress with Savior Onasis...fair warning, though, it is really weird ... a mix of retarded goofing off and really creepy sounds...the track is called "No Other Sign Shall Be Given" (it is a huge file)

ive just visited the site and im just blown away by the baskethead by bofatron mp3 who taught you how to play or what books can you let me know i thought i was good but need more knowledge on the guitar

Well, I've studied a lot of books and my first teacher was the guy who plays for the Ozark Moutain Daredevils.

But the fast stuff, what you hear there is 100% original to me. It is my own approach that I've been developing over the last few years. I have a lesson on my site you can download that will give you a good intro to how I play like that. It is called "Blueprints"

Funny, Baskethead was the first recording I did to document this new approach to lead playing. That was one take (not the first take) from start to finish and all improvised. Just goofin' on the guitar. All my stuff is improvised.

http://kronosonic.com

You should listen to the old "Jupiter Proximity" or "GPS" if you like that fast stuff.

Hey, Ego, what's your setup?

For example, on Wool Winter Ghi, I really like both the rhythm guitar's distortion and the kind of weird tone for the lead guitar.

What kind of guitar, amp (and amp settings), and effects do you use?

On Ghi the rhythm guitar is a Dual Recto patch on my GT-6 and the lead is the Soldano high gain patch...and then I used some of the fake guitar synth sounds -- also, from the GT-6. So, for most of demo songs the sounds all came from the Boss GT-6 and in the case of earlier demos from a Boss GT-3.


I used some other things here and there but those have been my work horses for several years. Oddly enough, I have my GT-6 on Ebay right now...and the Carvin "Bofatron" used to record the first demo album...as well as a ton of other stuff. At the moment I'm in the process of changing my entire rig. Funny, I felt like adding to the Carvin description "this guitar used by Bofatron, the famously obscure guitar wrangler..." ;-)

My guitars have been Parker NiteFly and Carvin DC135.

In the future, though, my rig for recording will be a Bogner Shiva with EL34s and a 2x12 open back cab, Parker NiteFly, and the effects I have in my computer. I'm hangng on to my GT-3 as well as a Lexicon Vortex. I just bought a ton of new studio stuff last year and I can do without so many outboard effects filling my limited space.

All I got to say is..... DUDE!!!!!
The blueprints lesson kicks ass. Not many people would take the time to do near 40 pages for one lesson.
My hand hurts now from all the new techniques...need to take...break.....but it's just so damned interesting!!!

Thanks. Take your time, go slow and have fun.

There are some holes in the lesson where the video(s) take over...it was just to difficult to try and tab and describe with words a lot of what I was doing...hence the vids...I really ought to put a new one out.

http://kronosonic.com

Ego, what a great lesson. I had never experimented with hybrid picking until reading this lesson and I can honestly say that I've already noticed a significant amount of change in speed.

Great lesson, and great songs too. Kick a*s job!