This is my first recorded video playing on an electric guitar and it shows. I have been practicing this for a few months, but playing live in front of a camera really turns my fingers to clay. My acoustic guitar recording looks and sounds relatively polished, but I’ve played beginner level songs in public for more than 40 years. I got interested in electric in 1999 and have just played around learning a few riffs. So this is my first song. After 7 takes, I decided to use the last take, mistakes and all, to show that you can be a beginner again, when you change instruments or styles.
Also I decided to show just how cheap you can go when playing electric. I am using my Fender Mustang Micro headphone amp and running through cheap PC speakers that cost 15 to 20 US dollars. I’ll improve the audio on later recordings of this song that I add as I improve my playing.
Well here it is, mistakes and all, but at least the power chord tone and rhythm wasn’t too bad.
Great effort, and I can see progress.
Doing it is progress, and you will definitely get smoother and better as you do it more.
Love your enthusiasm!
Have fun!
That was good stuff Steve. You certain can tell what the song is. Keep at it to polish it up, though that redlight fever sure can mess with your digits.
I thought it sounded good as well for such a cheap setup.
A couple of “hints” as I play this one quite a lot. Don’t worry about sliding down for your first intro run…easier (particularly as a beginner) to start at the ninth fret with your first and ring finger in place…play the first notes, slide them up and play the next notes, slide them up and use your pinky and ring finger for the next one AND final one just keep your ring finger where it is and place your first finger at 3rd fret b string. Then little finger across to the 6th string, play, followed by first finger and play…then you’ll need to slide down to start again.
For the “bridge” slide. Start at fret 7 with index finger on G string and first finger at fret 6 on B string. Play both strings and let it ring, play strings again and slide both fingers up one fret and play strings again… THEN play strings again and at the same time slide both fingers to fret 1 before playing for the last time and sliding back to fret 3. That is your first run completed AND then you can do it again.
Hope that simplifies the start and bridge for you.
This one actually surprised me Steve, after watching your other recordings like morning has broken, etc, where you’re quite good at acoustic, it was surprising to watch a bit of struggle. Kudos for posting as an honest representation.
Jason has given some good tips for the song, I’ve watched his band recordings and they’re pretty good!
A couple of hints for electric in general. Muting is a lot more important than on acoustic, so watch those stray strings. I also found it takes a while to get riffs and individual string picking under control, particularly in the middle strings, so songs with riffs on either the high or low strings are a LOT easier to get under the fingers.
What I will call Red Light Paralysis is real. Just to show that I do have better skills under my fingers than is in the above video, I recorded the intro, the power chords for the verses and the bridge separately. I had the luxury of then having several takes for each and choosing the best versions. I selected 2 takes for the intro. The second video has more fret hand vibrato, which might be good or just too much. also used 2 small speakers and a subwoofer for these recordings.
I’ll admit that the intro is played at too slow of a speed and is not ready for recording, but I wanted to kickstart my electric guitar playing and this song was one that I liked.
I played the power chords for the main verses and tried to improve my left hand muting.
I was probably overly ambitious with choosing a grade 3+ song for my first electric guitar song, but my goal is to some day (maybe 4 years in the future) play some of the grade 7 songs (SRV, Hendrix.). That will keep me motivated.
I have been practicing the first SRV blues lick from grade 4, looking ahead, to give me a taste of what is to come.
@Rossco01 Jason, those are helpful hints and I will give them a try. I still think that i can play Justin’s transcription of the song eventually. I have already added links to 2 new versions of the intro and will add the new power chord and bridge versions when I upload them.
@jkahn Thanks for viewing and the suggestions. I am adding updated versions of the intro and bridge and power chords played individually. Since I’ll probably never play in a band, getting the riffs up to speed and sounding good is my main goal. In the worse case, I could splice the audio for a final recording.
Good one @SteveL_G99! This is the first song I see from you and it wasn’t easy. And I especially liked the slide with vibratos at the beginning. And kudos for showing how cheap we can go to play guitar. I’m thinking of getting a Fender MiniMustang too. Seem like a nice gadget to have. For a quick practice or when travelling
I have also recorded House of the Rising Sun, which is a Grade 2 song that I have been playing for techniques in Grade 3 like finger rolls and strumming individual notes as done in the version by The Animals. This is recorded with the PC speaker audio.
This is a somewhat unrehearsed or partial improvised rhythm performance so some regular strumming was added when I felt like adding some emphasis.
@Rossco01 Jason, I went back and listened your post of the OM VII live band version of Fortunate Son. I could hear your suggestions at work and you were right. You sounded good and you really couldn’t tell the difference from the original version in a live recording. The vocals sounded good too and I’ll give it a try again in the future and post. Thanks.
No problem Steve and honestly keep going on Justin’s version I wasn’t suggesting you wouldn’t get it just that there are other ways to skin a cat and get to a good version of a song.
Hi Steve, thanks for sharing, great seeing your progress on electric guitar. Leveraging your previous playing experience comes through most obviously with HotRS, really see your confidence with solid chord changes and switching to rolling finger style. Looking forward to seeing more in future
Hi Steve, congratulations on your first AVOYP on electric .
The song was absolutely recognizable. I’m sure with a bit more work on it, it’ll sound great .
I thank you for this honest, work in progress video. It’s always good to see, that everybody is struggeling with new songs/new styles .
Jason, Your simplification of the bridge was brilliant and it sounds very close to the original just playing the 2 string version.
For the intro, in addition to leaving off the slide which was slowing me down, my problem is the using my pinky finger. I modified your suggestion, starting at the 9th fret D string with the ring (or third) finger and played the 8th fret B string with the middle (or second) finger, then slide ring finger down to the 7th fret, with middle finger on the 6th fret B string. Then the big change is to slide the middle finger down 1 fret to the 5th fret B string and play the 5th fret D string with the ring finger and then with the ring finger as anchor at the 5th fret D string, play the 3rd fret B string with the first (or index) finger. Then my pinkie is free to play on the 6th string, followed by the first finger. This seems the easiest to me.
Thanks so much. The biggest hurdle for me was to put aside my ego and to admit that I needed to simplify. I verified that out by using a metronome and saw that I could only play the intro and bridge at half the speed of the power chords, which is not good. As the old public service advertisements have said - The first step to getting help is to admit that you have a problem
At least I understand why my performance didn’t go so well even after practicing several times a week for a month and doing several takes in the recording. I was performing a high energy rock song with no metronome or backing track. The energy of the performance made me play faster than my practice speed in the performance. I practiced the intro at about 65 bpm and I checked my performance at about 78 bpm. The power chords were about 95 bpm. I was just stumbling due to playing too fast for my skill level. In the future I will perform with some type of rhythm track.
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