Questions for serious Musicians | GTAMotorcycle.com

Questions for serious Musicians

Sativa Quemador

Well-known member
ive always had questions I'd love to ask, but i dont know any.. If anyone can offer up some thoughts... go ahead.


Drummers- do you write music, and play it the same all the time, or is there a "feel" to it

the reason i ask is because drummers like Stewart Copeland, Keith Moon sound like its impossible to duplicate.

as far as Guitar Solo's go.. are they written and planned out ?
 
Drummers- do you write music, and play it the same all the time, or is there a "feel" to it

the reason i ask is because drummers like Stewart Copeland, Keith Moon sound like its impossible to duplicate.

as far as Guitar Solo's go.. are they written and planned out ?

It really depends on the musician.

Guys like Frank Zappa have stacks of charts that all his musicians have to memorize. Individual solos have room for improvisation, some guitarists like Dave Gilmour will hum out most of his solos beforehand and then transcribe them, others play something different everytime they get up on stage, but they either have to play their solos in the alloted number of bars (or sets of chord progressions), or they have to have very good rapport with the rest of the musicians so they all know when to jump back into the song.

As for drummers, I think Neil Peart would probably chart and play a song exactly the same 100 times out of a 100. And so will the audience that are playing air drums along with him! Others will probably be a bit looser with a different fill here or there, as long as they aren't changing the basic rhythm or feel of the song.
 
thats what i expected to hear for drummers.

Neil is about as perfect as it gets, but its almost robitic in a way.
Copeland, Moon, Bonham, etc all have that x factor like groove


Zappa was a genius and an amazing guitarist , all members of the band were great


So thats how jams work ? each players has an alloted number of bars..

whats going on in the brain, is there math going on, doing timing, on what to do
 
Neil definitely is note for note, but most guys just improv through the groove. I remember reading an article from a guy who subbed in for part of a tour for alice cooper, and mostly he just made que notes along with the lyrics for breaks, fills, etc, which is very common. I use chord charts with lyrics, and I just note the BPM, segments, time sig, and anything special that I need to hit. If its a specific beat, I'll hand write a bar or two of the rhythm just for reference, especially if i am leading the intro. Jams, mostly rely on simply having a good feel of who you're playing with, and a few basic principles followed. A lot of jams have something like an 8 or 12 bar progression, so it's easy to solo, etc.
 
So thats how jams work ? each players has an alloted number of bars..

whats going on in the brain, is there math going on, doing timing, on what to do

No math, if you know the song well, you kind of know the chord progression in the background as you are playing you can fit your solo in so you can time the end so it fits in the number of bars of the chord progression.

Easiest example is the 12-bar blues, you know it's 4-bars of a chord (root), then 2-bars of another chord (fourth), then 2-bars (root), 1-bar (fifth), 1-bar (fourth) and 2-bars (root). Those last four bars are called a turnaround and it's very distinctive from the rest of the progression (1 bar each) and basically tells the soloist, "wrap it up". If the soloist misses the turnaround and keeps on playing, then the band goes and does another 12-bars.

This is just a simplification, other songs have their own progressions that have their own number of bars and chords to play through, but it gets across the idea of the structure of a jam and solos.
 
About guitar: It's kind of like dancing, you can have every move planned or allow a little room for improvisation. I was once on stage playing songs I had barely even heard before so I had to come up with a style on the spot - most fun I ever had haha. Regarding solos, if I think I already have the perfect solo theb I play it note for note. If I never really put much effort into it in the first place the I'll just wing it every time. I guess it depends on how much I like the song...
 
Gilmours guitar on Dog's is simply incredible, actually the entire Animals album is some of the greatest music ever recorded, imo.

The cool thing about gilmour, is there are more skilled players, but no-one has his style/feel.
 
Ritchie Blackmore never played the same solo twice! Always an entertaining treat for the audience.
 

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