DoiDoi [comrade/them, he/him]

  • 59 Posts
  • 609 Comments
Joined 3 years ago
Cake day: January 6th, 2022
  • DoiDoi [comrade/them, he/him]toTrans Music Production•Looking for advice on leveling up my guitar playing/music writing
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    8 days ago

    Guitar pro is by far the best. It's the standard for both pros sharing comps with the band as well as pretty much all tabs online (like if download from songsterr or ultimate guitar). A lot of official tab books are just printed out guitar pro lol. If you can't justify the cost I'd just try to pirate it. Tuxguitar is free but a complete mess in comparison.

    but I'm pretty unhappy with Reaper

    Ah shit, what's wrong? That would also be my rec for home recording. It's definitely a bit more open ended at first but great once you get a work flow settled. Don't have any alternate recs there as it's the only DAW I've ever used in depth.

    But I'm not gonna pretend I have a lot of depth there - I know enough to fill in a lot of gaps as needed.

    Hey that's fine and a good foundation to build on. Lot of guitar players out there to just refuse to learn even basic theory or practice to a metronome.

  • DoiDoi [comrade/them, he/him]toTrans Music Production•Looking for advice on leveling up my guitar playing/music writing
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    8 days ago

    Without any music theory to fall back on you're really going to set yourself up for some frustration - especially if you aren't willing to study already written music. Ideally you would learn about keys / scales and then recognize them within the music you would like to replicate while learning the piece yourself. I would bet that you're struggling to resolve your own compositions mostly because you haven't studied how whatever style you're trying to replicate solves this eternal problem of writing. It is tough and something that every writer will struggle with.

    What I find really isn't helpful. For one, I am not starting with a melody; a ton of this content assumes you are.

    Yeah that's because it's a lot easier to do it that way. You can outline an idea, then modify it through modal shifts due to the underlying chords while adding flourishes and whatnot to really fill it out. This isn't possible without at least some basic theory though. Even chord progressions without a lead will often work on the principals of melodic intervals moving within the chords.

    Playing with other people is great, but without any music theory it can also be very unproductive. Depends on what style you're going for.

    Two, a lot of it just really doesn't discuss the- I guess philosophy and approach? Mechanically i'm already at a point where I can play a song, but I haven't been able to self-discover a process for taking my own material and whipping it into shape, and focusing it up?

    For me (and most people I know) the best / only way to do this is by using composition software. Being able to separate your fingers from the idea can really open up your writing in ways you would never reach for while trying to play at the same time. Also really helps to hear it back with the ability to make small changes repeatedly, save different versions for comparison, and even just to shelve an idea for weeks at a time without forgetting it. I've always used guitar pro, but I know there are some free options out there like tux guitar. Personally I'd just pirate guitar pro if you aren't able to justify the cost. It's very good.

    I'm not on here too much these days and just got lucky seeing this post, but I'm a former guitar teacher and current full time musician, so happy to help point you in a helpful direction if I can