A member from the neighborhood

[mad00002]

Hey Kristian and you all! I hail from Finland, one of the three greats of metal (it all goes down here in Scandinavia, eh? ) I play guitar, do DM/BM vocals, and write my own music.

I´ve been stalking these forums for quite a while, trying to get each little piece of info possible about the upcoming album, guitars, tapping in Demonoid songs etc. The moment Jacob posted a tapping line as a tab, I decided I´d register and criticize on it!

I´ve listened to the first album for quite a while. I really like most of it´s components; the beautiful and original solos, monotous and solid vocals, great riffs and guitar sound, and some quite progressive and unconventional song structures.

I understand the new one will feature Dark Funeral´s vocalist. He wouldn´t have been my first choice, but I trust you guys know what you are doing. Just make sure he doesn´t sing on top of his lungs all the time - there needs to be variety of pitch and intensity. He tends to do that in DF. Hehe, feel free to ignore me on that - just speaking my mind.

Anyways, I think that was it. I´ll go and reply to that tapping thing.. :zombie:

 

[Jacob Kjær]

Hey Mad,

Welcome! Great to finally have another fellow lick-lover on the forum. Hope we'll be supplying each other with some useful knowledge

Cheers!

Jacob.

 

[mad00002]

Yup, sure thing! By the way, what have you (and other guitarists who happen to read this) practised recently? You mentioned Sea of Lies in the other thread. I tend to practise way too many things at a time - I have so many unfinished SX songs! Just yesterday I decided I´d learn Children of Bodom's Children of Bodom song's solo! So, CoB - CoB. Nice one with sweeps and scalar runs, no notes faster than 8th triplets at 205 bpm.

 

[Jacob Kjær]

Since September I've been practicing following:

Cream - Crossroads. A blues song with no less than 80 bars of solo, and I did all of it! Took a lot of patience from both me and my teacher. Not really because it was that hard once I had it down, but because it took a lot of stamina to keep going, especially in the last 12 bars. I pretty much nailed it when playing it live, phew!

Eric Clapton - Old Love. An acoustic song with a nice lady-wetting solo.

Demonoid - Wargods. You know that already! The majority of my energy has gone into practicing the C# into F sweep with a metronome, and it taught me a thing or two. I've never been very tight with my rhythm, and my sweeping has always been very a little muddy, so nailing this lick after hours of practicing was great. Else I am still in the stone age with the other hard licks of the song. I also spent some time with the A#min7 into chromatic lick (along with the rest of the song), but it is hard to put a lot of energy into something that I don't know is correct or not.
On a sidenote, you should try sitting down with one of Kristian's solos and tab it - I would gladly check it out for you and try to make corrections if there are any errors (and I'm sure he would give a pointer too ). I'm concidering looking into some parts of Death myself. It's not that hard with modern technology by your side for slowing down songs (even Yngwie did it to get licks from Paganini, but on vinyl!). I use a program called Audacity to do that for me when I'm in doubt about anything. You also notice some funny things. Try, for example, to slow down the into solo on Flesh of Gods from Live in Midgard and listen to the phrasing. Jazzy, eh?

King Crimson - Fracture. An insanely hard piece of music. The record of it is played flawlessly by Robert Fripp - can't be done better than that. I practice parts of it slowly once in a while to discipline myself when I've been a bad boy. You might hate it, though, it's a very special piece . Check out this guys notes under "Frippuary".

Dream Theater - Never Enough. Just the tremolo picked session. Good fun, messes up your arm if you play it too much with bad technique . The arpeggis that come afterwards are absolutely insane at the speed that they are played, maybe I'll give them a try in a few more years.

Camel - The Snowgoose (album). Played around with a few songs from it some evening. Andrew Latimer plays some amazingly tasteful solos.

Opeth - The Lotus Eater (solos). Gotta love that song. Haven't nailed it yet, don't know if I will.

Therion - Ljusalfheim (solo).


And, well, a lot of other stuff. I realized this week that my right hand picking technique is pretty bad, so I think that my next goal is to nail some three-note-per-string runs over all 6 strings yngwie style to improve. I might also check out some Jimi Hendrix stuff to see if I can get some of his sound into my right hand, mostly so that I can continue and try and nail some Uli Jon Roth solos (or sections thereof). That kind of playing style is SO different from what most metal guitarists are doing in these days. Fantastic articulation

Woops, long post. Hope you can find the same inspiration in these tracks that I have.

Over and out! Jacob

EDIT: P.S: I just thought about how many "easy" solos that are out there that I love and could nail in a day or two, and how weird it is that I'm not doing it. Must have something to do with sports. Should try working on that problem for the future.

 

[BloodLegion]

Man, you Scandinavians are natural born killers in guitar. It takes an Asian guy like me much longer to do 1% of the stuff you guys do!

I've been meddling with blues again, this time with the sweet solo in Hotel California (not pure blues, so what!) - it's great for bends, I've never been the best string bender (more of a Death/Thrash rhythm + riff dude). But if I had all the time in the world, I'd learn everything there is about guitar, but sadly work takes that dream away from me. So I have to settle at being a local metal guitar god - keyword being 'local', in country like Malaysia even Avril Lavigne can be a guitar god(dess).

 

[Jacob Kjær]

Hey, BloodLegion, you know that isn't true. The only thing that matters is how much time you spend playing.

I get furious when I hear about people that started playing really young. I didn't start before I was 16 myself, think about how much I could have learnt! But I got good at computer programming instead, so I didn't waste *that* much of my time

Anyway, Hotel California is a great solo. I played it myself last spring, and you are right about it being great for bends - especially those two 1½ semitone bends on the B and D strings are tough to nail when you start bending. Especially if you are using heavy gauge strings (I did it with 10's on a 25.5" scale neck). Builds muscle, though!

Sounds like I have to go to Malaysia to become a guitar legend

 

[mad00002]

That´s cool Jacob, you are really working your butt off. I have never had a teacher, but I´ve been pretty tough on myself. Also, I have taught privately for a couple of years - teaching others teaches you a whole lot.

I´d like to practise some Demonoid solo, and I reckon I could pull off most of it. The only problem is learning one by ear and tricky bends and slides and tapping. My fingers can deal with tapping parts, but I still have some difficulty with keeping it clean. I´ve attempted to copy Michael Romeo´s technique as well as possible, and it´s getting better.

In any case, I think I´ve used most of my time with Symphony X songs. You mentioned Sea of Lies already.. I learned it´s solo before christmas. It´s ok'ish, but far from perfect. Then I´ve practised Smoke and Mirrors for ages.. Turning, all of The Odyssey (24 minutes or so), Inferno, Of Sins and Shadows. Oh, and In the Dragon's Den, my eternal enemy, yet to be fully conquered.

BloodLegion:
I´ve seen a whole lot of asian guys shredding like maniacs on youtube! I guess the reason is, our metal scene has been around much longer. I am a metal god only among my family and friends.

Oh, almost forgot - I posted both Demonoid tabs I´ve done in the Demonoid Tabs -thread!

 

[BloodLegion]

Thanks for the words of encouragement guys! Well, I started out late too...I was around 17-18 when my uncle gave me his Yamaha F-310 acoustic (it was a bitch to play) but now I'm approaching 26 and I'm at a level where I can write and play my own songs, so I'm happy - but the learning never ends!

I'll check out the tabs now! Damn, Kristian sure pulled off some insane tapping licks on Riders!