The Official Guitar Thread

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pharmakos

pharmakos

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mkopec said:
Yeah IMO there needs to be some kind of melody behind all that technical shit. IMO music without a melody or some sort of soul behind it is not really music, at least to me.
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Yup. And if you're not throwing in the occasional caveman riff or other simple part, you're probably worrying too much about showing off and not enough about writing a good song. Gotta ask yourself if you're playing a difficult part because it serves the song, or if you're playing it just because you can.
 
pharmakos

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ToeMissile said:
Palmisano does a great job as always laying it out.

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Yeah what he praises is exactly what bugs me. The fact that I've heard all these chord progressions before, and that they essentially have one formula for how to build on top of these chord progressions. It makes it feel like techno music remixes from the early 00s, particularly stock commerical stuff that you'd find in corporate videos. I just can't unhear it.
 
pharmakos

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Then: "did you hear the new Polyphia song? It bangs!"

Me: "it sounds exactly the same, just in harmonic minor instead of melodic minor..."

Like Steve Vai literally just taught them how to make that flamenco sound by swapping in a major IV chord (I think that's what I'm hearing anyway), and then they did their exact same usual thing on top.

Also, still listening to this video. Immediately after dude says "I'm going to just let it play" and then pauses it to try to figure out what song he's thinking of -- he's thinking of "Welcome Home" by Coheed and Cambria.
 
pharmakos

pharmakos

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Anyone thinking "yeah well you probably suck at guitar" I can't shred as hard as they do ever since getting neuropathy from chemotherapy, but I still write way more interesting rhythms.



No multitracking / overdubs, that's a single take of a single guitar track with delay set to repeat every 5/8 and a single drum track. Bunch of different time signatures throughout to make the delay syncopate in various interesting ways.
 
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pharmakos

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I don't HATE on anyone for listening to Polyphia. I don't listen to them all that often, but they're similar to the sort of easy consumption but interesting music I like to put on in the background while doing other things. Everyone listens to music for different reasons, tho, and personally I like to really engage with the music I listen to. And Polyphia just kind of bores me from a compositional aspect. Same tempos, same time signatures, same chord progressions. Doesn't satisfy MY itch. If it satisfies YOUR itch, tho? More power to ya, Pemulis. No need to get your panties in a bunch and waste all your Grenegs over little old Polyphia or little old Pharmakos.

Often the more rhythmically interesting a song is, the worse it works as background music. So y'know.
 
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pharmakos

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The sort of compositionally/rhythmically complex instrumental music I prefer



They got worse after they added their vocalist tho, first couple albums are better than the later stuff. Same general group of musicians was in The Postman Syndrome and Day Without Dawn before East of the Wall, the two former bands are the superior vocal fronted version of their sound.
 
pharmakos

pharmakos

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So many posts in a row, I know, but I just had one more thought.

Most people, their complaint about Polyphia is that they're trying too hard. And props to Tim Henson for sticking to his formula instead of listening to those haters and dumbing it down. But my complaint is -- he's not trying HARD ENOUGH. He is so talented that he can do this shit on autopilot now. I wish he would put the "progressive" back in "progressive metal." Progressive isn't just about physical talent, or rather it shouldn't be. Rather, it's about continually pushing the envelope, challenging yourself not just incidentally, but compositionally. Polyphia is in a (very impressive) groove. But another word for "groove" is "rut." I would be a lot more interested if they started using that talent to explore less accessible sounds, stuff that doesn't have that "pop"-y base under it.

If your sound has a predictable formula, then even despite how much you shred inside that formula, you're not really progressive.
 
B

Bodhy

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pharmakos said:
Yup. And if you're not throwing in the occasional caveman riff or other simple part, you're probably worrying too much about showing off and not enough about writing a good song. Gotta ask yourself if you're playing a difficult part because it serves the song, or if you're playing it just because you can.
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That's the appeal of Djent and progressive metal to me. Anyone can whizz up and down a fretboard, and I think we saw the threshold of how fast plain shredding can get back in the 80s with Impelliteri and MacAlpine and Becker etc.

If someone can make a catchy tune whilst syncopated in 29/16 time, that's a whole other level of musicianship. 2022 onwards will be about the Golden mean between depth, complexity and musicianship, IMO. Push the envelope by capitalising on the affordances of the technological age.
 
Identikit

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Bodhy said:
That's the appeal of Djent and progressive metal to me. Anyone can whizz up and down a fretboard, and I think we saw the threshold of how fast plain shredding can get back in the 80s with Impelliteri and MacAlpine and Becker etc.

If someone can make a catchy tune whilst syncopated in 29/16 time, that's a whole other level of musicianship. 2022 onwards will be about the Golden mean between depth, complexity and musicianship, IMO. Push the envelope by capitalising on the affordances of the technological age.
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someone playing a catchy tune in a specific time signature, or a specific set of time signatures is about as much of a level of musicianship as creating idm, or any other genre of music. Meaning that its fundamentally a template based genre that is more defined structurally than pop music.
 
Alex

Alex

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Identikit said:
someone playing a catchy tune in a specific time signature, or a specific set of time signatures is about as much of a level of musicianship as creating idm, or any other genre of music. Meaning that its fundamentally a template based genre that is more defined structurally than pop music.
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I get what you're trying to say, but "as much of a level of musicianship" is objectively false.
 
mkopec

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So kid got his 7 string. He’s happy as shit.
DED7949F-F683-4F27-9B54-7EC247899854.jpeg
 
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pharmakos

pharmakos

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Haven't been playing enough lately, so to practice I made myself reconstruct one of my old songs via looper



Wrote down all my pieces I've written in the last 19 years that I want to finally get recorded... List is 30 something pieces long, with some being 10+ minutes long. I worked out how to put them all in an order that follows the Circle of Fifths, looping around the circle a little more than twice. Going to drop a three disc concept album as my first album, see you guys in two years when I'm done recording it. 😅

I need a project that big to motivate me. Telling myself to record an EP first hasn't been working. Lol.
 
Identikit

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so I bought a house last year and have been working on situating my synths/guitars so that everything can be routed anywhere and is pretty accessible. the cable situation is serious. I am gonna work on improving that over the year. behind the pedals I have a large patch bay.

I started jamming with a grunge band in the area as well, so I have the pedals on a seperate board that I can pull out of my setup easily to rehearse and gig. Just velcro on a cheap spruce project board. works fine and costed 20 ish.
 
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pharmakos

pharmakos

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Glad I forced myself to pick up the guitar the other day, I've got some momentum going. Started re-recording my 12 minute Drop B Phrygian Dominant metal song (still need to track solos and bass) And rerecorded this old one too:



What I consider to be one of my "short" ones at almost 6 minutes lol. Wrote this one probably 15-16 years ago as well.
 
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