I've been playing music since my first year of college. Roughly six years of focus on drums, ten years of focus on the voice, a hiatus for my two (then) small children, and six months ago I took up guitar. Along the way I've played keyboard a bit, mainly to figure out vocal scores and now, the full step/half step layout of guitar chord voicings. I work swing shift so I needed something that I could practice on without waking up my family - hence, the git. Just to get the gear out of the way, I have a Ludwig/Slingerland vintage drum set with Paiste, Zildjian, and Sabian cymbals, and some Rototoms. I also like percussion like toy xylophone, bongos, shakers, etc. I have a Sohmer upright piano and a mid-'90s Yamaha prosumer keyboard, which has a MIDI interface which I keep meaning to explore. I have a Fender Mustang and "Wal-Mart" acoustic youth-sized guitar, with a cheapo ten watt practice amp.
My buddy is into writing songs, so we've formed a duo and I'm learning his material plus other things, such as Amazing Grace. I'm not terribly religious but I have done a ton of church music, from choral parts in major works like masses to Sunday anthems to leading hymn singing to solos (I'm a baritone who can fill in as a tenor if the part isn't too high.) It feels good to have a chordal instrument that is easy to play rhythm on - keyboards never really ignited my passion. As far as inspirations go, I admire the Police, post-punk bands like REM, the Minutemen and Husker Du, prog, "post rock" and surf (both are heavily instrumental genres) and, well, pretty much anything. Renaissance polyphony, anyone? I'd like to work my vocal training into a more electric setting, be a really good rhythm guitarist, write songs, record, play out, and so on. One goal is to get better at reading music written for guitar (is it an octave higher than written, or lower? I'm so confused...)
"Wade"
Welcome Wade!
I'm new too.
No idea about that chart-reading question.
Let's see a pic of that Fender Mustang!
I think that guitar music written in staff notation is played one octave lower than written. So if you encounter middle C, you play the C one octave lower. That avoids having to decipher bunch of hash marks over the top of the treble clef. Other instruments do the transposition for readability's sake. Piano has one middle C, but you can play the equivalent note in several places on the fretboard, which is sort of the root of my confusion.
I'll post a pic at some point. It's a mid-'60s dealio in red, quite a find actually.
Im not sure if you use sheet music for drums, but since i played piano,it was easy reading sheet music for guitar. Knowing the positions and fingering is a little difficult at first but being able to read music beforehand helps alot.
When we started the band, it was because we were waiting for a sound that never happened. We got tired of waiting, and we decided to just do it ourselves. - Mike Shinoda
