Finally! A new post!

*Updated 8-27-09 with newer versions of my Youtube videos.
I don't know the extent of what I will post here. I mean, I can't do anything near as good as IG and others did/are doing it and he decided not to do it anymore. I am posting a couple of clips of me mangling and screwing up a couple of songs. (yes I do plan on re-doing them sometime soon! I think!) Getting a good or semi-decent sound out my little Rick amp is difficult. I now have a Digitech Artist 200 pedal that helps. I also used my Boss Super Overdrive on the Def Leppard stuff. I love my Fender Super Reverb, but that monster is way too hard to move around and I have it in the garage and have to move the cars out and everything to play.
Well here they are. I will probably redo a few and do others too. I had a few (well more than a few) screwups but all in all they're ok. I think.

Here's the basic chords to (my version) of Love Won't Let Me Wait

And now for something a little different...

I have always really liked this song by Major Harris, Love Won't Let Me Wait. This is a great romantic soul song, with great melody, chords and smooth singing. It also has some, ah-hem! err...very, very nice "sound effects" at the end of the song!

Anyway-I was just trying to play along with the song one day, and found it not too difficult to "get" the chords to the song. The chord changes are real smooth, melodic, and mimic the vocal lines somewhat. Here is my version. It's based mostly on what I hear, and maybe a tiny bit of looking for the song's chord charts online, so as always, what I'm playing isn't definitive (there's another guy on YT who does this song with way different chords). Hope you like it. I love this f*&%#'n song! (Uhhm-that could be taken literally!)
* Geez! After listening to this I realized the sound and video quality are poor on this one! I need more modern equipment!



Here's the player for the song so you can check it out!


Related Tags: Major+Harris Love+Won't+Let+Me+Wait soul RnB

Foreigner-Cold As Ice-rhythm guitar-main verse/Solo

Here is the main rhythm guitar part (at least what can be played guitar-wise for the song) for Foreigner's Cold As Ice. I am playing it in the key of Eb minor. I am playing a Eb7sus4 to Ebmin, then going to Eb7sus4 transitioning to B, and then B6 to B. I am playing it slightly different from my earlier post, but not much more than having the Eb7sus4 being the transition to the B6 rather than just going from Eb7sus4 to Ebmin; B6 to B. Here is a link back to the older post I had for this song. Foreigner's Cold as Ice -main rhythm part and solo...
It's probably not the exact chords, but I think it sounds good enough.



Here is my version of the solo to this song. I always liked (and still do) Mick Jones' playing! He has great tone, and a great sense of melody! This has always been one of my favorite guitar solos! Hope you like my version. There's another guy who does a slowed down version of this solo Cold as Ice solo slowed down and it's much better than mine. If you like this version, let me know.




Related Tags: Foreigner Cold+As+Ice electric+guitar classic+rock solos Mick+Jones

Brighter Than Sunshine

Hey! Here is me playing along to the song Brighter Than Sunshine by Aqualung. I had noted the chords for my first post Welcome to Guitarthrill.blogspot.com! Hope you like this! I was really nervous! My timing was off later in the song, I know, but I think that overall that my playing was ok.

Trying something new out soon!

I am going to try something out soon! What I am planning on doing is taping the songs that I tabbed/described in previous posts, and posting them along with those descriptions. I already did the Brighter Than Sunshine song last night-I just need to edit it a little.

For now, I was thinking about distortion/overdrive sounds, and how they are all different-some are harsh, some are warm and some are a mix of the two. There's the solid state amp sound and the tube amp sound. I like them all, but I do tend to like the old warm overdriven tube amp sound-that classic sound.
Below are some songs with different overdrive/sounds. What do you think? Which kind of sound is your favorite type of crunch?
To me, there seems to be 3 main types-(I know that might be simplifying the sounds too much but in the interests of not getting too crazy and technical-lets say 3) of :crunchiness":
1. warm, tube classic -classic rock, older metal bands, punk
2. "tighter"-heavier, less-nuanced crunch-newer metal bands/thrash
3. mix of the two sounds above-80's metal, "grunge"

*Gonna try to post some songs you might not think of for this discussion of distortion/overdrive:

warm, classic crunch:

Dave Mason-Only You And I Know-I absolutely love the guitar sound in this song! Damn! That tone! &^%*! It just has the warmest, singing tones I have ever heard! When the chords are strummed, you can hear the individual notes, and the lead tone is awesome. As you can tell, one of my favorites in terms of tone!
*I know it says Gordon Lightfoot, but this is mislabeled. It really is Dave Mason!




Three more classic overdrive sounds:

James Gang-Funk #49 and:



The Bomber



One more classic sound:

The Who-Won't Get Fooled Again




The newer metal/thrash sound:
Rammstein-Du Hast



Metallica-Enter Sandman:




Dream Theater Forsaken


If you can think of some band that I missed for this type of sound, let me know-I am not as familiar with the newer metal bands.


Mixture of the two sounds:

Judas Priest-Breaking the Law:



Scorpions-Still Loving You:



So...do you have a favorite overdriven guitar sound, or do you prefer the mixture of both sounds?

Hmmmm....interesting!

Hey gang! I just "re-realized" something! I have been playing a lot on my steel string acoustic guitar lately-even playing and learning lead stuff like Rikki DLTN, Boston songs, Badfinger, and The Rasberries.

I use heavier strings on my acoustic-(.013-.056-Martin Marquis's). I have not been able to take out my electric lately-its kind of pain to haul even the smaller old Rickenbacker amp out and connect adjust, etc, when I can just pull my acoustic out and jam. The only thing is that I can't hit some of those higher notes and sometimes it is really hard to do that heavy bending on some songs!
I guess that all that playing on the acoustic has paid off! I picked up my electric-just unconnected-and tried some of the same stuff that I had been doing on my acoustic. Geez! It felt like I was bending rubber bands! (Kind of!) It was soooo easy to bend and to hit some of those really high notes! And I don't use too light of strings on my electric either (usually .010 to .046's).

I remember quite a while back, I had read in a guitar magazine about how Stevie Ray Vaughn used very heavy strings on his guitars, and the story's author mentioned that a player's finger strength could be increased by using heavier strings. Of course, I wouldn't recommend using heavy strings for a beginning player. I prefer using the heavier strings just because of the feel, and the extra "oomph" I get out of them, but I think the only drawback is that the top (5,6) strings might get a little dead quicker, since they are so heavy. I don't know-maybe that's just my imagination!
If using these heavier strings on my acoustic makes it so much easier to play on an electric guitar, then I will surely continue to do that!

Do any of you play on an acoustic or use heavier strings on one guitar and then move to another? I guess this would be somewhat like what the baseball players do when getting ready to be at bat-swinging with weights on the bat or more than one bat(?)


Related Tags: strings electric+guitar acoustic+guitar