wanting to be a muscian and the steps that need to be taken?

Ok take some music theory. Learn chords, harmony,time etc

Learn piano. Best instrument to be able to write music on. Nothing fancy. just helps with harmonies and chords. Listen to you music that you dig the sense of melody. Covering songs you like helps you understand them. Listen to different types of music that's outside your references.

If you want to write beats linn drums is great. Also open tunings are great for writing. And don't get caught up in effects pedals. Buy an old tube amp instead. Deluxe fender or on the cheaper end is magnatone, Gibson skylark etc. very cheap but sound great
 
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It can be pretty hard finding band members who are willing to play what you want to play, id reccommend writing your own material but jamming out covers while you are still learning, most important thing is to get out there and actually try, ou are not going to become popular overnight, deal with the idea that you are going to be screwed by shady promoters, have poor performances from time to time and spend alot of time getting good.
on the other hand, chicks are no longer a problem if you got good energy and can get the crowd going
 
A good example of a bad guitar habit learned when young that is near escapable now happened after I posted my reasoning earlier when I cranked my amp up today.

When first learning guitar, I learned a beginners facsimile of "Castles Made of Sand" by Jimi Hendrix which I was one of the songs that made me want to learn guitar. However as a beginner I couldn't sweep pick very well, so I down picked a certain sequence of notes that progress accross 3 strings so I could play the cover quickly instead of practicing the correct strum very slowly and building up. To this day I have to conciously fight the urge to triple downpick instead of sweep if a try to transfer to a adjacent higher string from a proceeding uppick.

If none of that makes sense -it doesn't have to -all you need to know is the techniques you develop in your first few years will largely determine the way you play later -so be very concious of developing good techniques and habits. Take what you find difficult and slow it down and build up speed.

-also don't use a tuner for the first few years -this will force the development of your ear -which is critical and will help you develop a pallet for good tone too. I did not use a tuner until I started touring and needed a stage tuner to avoid tuning between songs going through the PA. To this day I can tune a guitar to perfect pitch without needing tuner -all because I developed this over time.

-also, the left hand is the easy part of playing guitar -don't be fooled. The right hand is what seperates great players from good.

-
 
Vincent86 said:
I have heard good things about ableton but have never used it myself.
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Honestly, most DAW recording programs are fine these days for tracking and mixing.. People don't need to rush out and buy Pro Tools -especially because of the short shelf life and expense of the Pro tools plug ins.

I still use Protools because of the advantages in file transfer and workflow when recording an album in many studios. (I try never to track, mix, or master in the same facility -the albums come out too colored).

but I own versions of Cubase, Logic, and a few others and for tracking and mixing the Non Protools software caught up fully to Pro tools around 5 years ago. It used to be that Cubase and the others were basically MIDI software and PT was recording software -but both sides meet in the middle now.

It's a great time to be a home recording musician -the digital recording options and features are fantastic -my house if full of tape machines and tape that will follow me around forever but will get little to no use -and at my studio -nobody is asking me to break out the tape machines anymore.
 
Tape is where it's at. But if you use computer I use logic for a lot of stuff.
 
The whole "will I ever be good enough to be a pro" is kind of laughable to be honest. Kurt Cobain is widely considered one of the best guitar players of all time and is always ending up on those lists and you don't have to be a musical genius to see his mediocrity. After playing guitar heavily for 6 months I could play most of the songs on rock radio minus the solos, and those are just shapes and patterns that you learn in time. The trick to being a "pro guitar player/musician" is having something interesting or inspiring to play and writing music that people can relate to or are touched by. The bummer of cours is that there is no book or game that will teach you that.
 
Vincent86 said:
I'm thinking about buying actually, my long term goal is to make music again and I need 3 very basic things. Killer pc, Killer speakers and software. So might as well get the software legal. Have to start saving up for a pc big time though
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Ardour is a decent free alternative, it is only available for mac and linux though.
Bought a Focusrite saffire pro 14 for my brother a few years back and he mainly uses Ardour for his stuff now.
And yeah, good set of monitors is a must.
Only brand I have any experience with is m-audio, again because me and the rest of the family got together and got my brother a pair for his home studio a few years back.
 
Vincent86 said:
I'm thinking about buying actually, my long term goal is to make music again and I need 3 very basic things. Killer pc, Killer speakers and software. So might as well get the software legal. Have to start saving up for a pc big time though
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For music, i'd go with a Mac, and that's from a PC fan. My boy has a mac and it just feels a hell of a lot smoother for making music.

You can get a good MPK for like 100 bucks and the stuff you can do with that is endless.
 
Da Speeit said:
For music, i'd go with a Mac, and that's from a PC fan. My boy has a mac and it just feels a hell of a lot smoother for making music.

You can get a good MPK for like 100 bucks and the stuff you can do with that is endless.
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My idea is to get a pc only to make music, a mac may not be a bad but it's a long term idea. Haven't made music in a while and it's not something that needs to be done this instant.

Re Monitors. I really like the rokit ones
 
Just get good at guitar but also practice your stage presence. A lot of people can play, not many can get the crowd going while playing.

Edit: One trick is to practice in the dark. Nothing looks worse then a guy on stage staring at at his hands the whole time.
 
to get to be a famous musician need to give good head
 
My friend has been playing guitar a very long time, nobody ever taught him and he doesn't know how to read music. He just learned to play a few songs by ear at first, learned his way around the guitar (what sound came from where, etc), and then started just jamming. Now 5 or 6 years later, he's played guitar with the strokes, he's played tons of concerts, and is working on a deal for voodoo fest next year.

He told me the best thing he ever did in his music career was NOT learn music. He compared learning to read music before learning to play on your own is like teaching someone to read a book before they know how to talk to somebody else with their own words. I'm currently learning the bongos the way he suggested (just playing and jamming, learning songs by ear), and its going great. Either that or I'm too high to not know it sucks
 
EyeTrainUFC said:
The whole "will I ever be good enough to be a pro" is kind of laughable to be honest. Kurt Cobain is widely considered one of the best guitar players of all time and is always ending up on those lists and you don't have to be a musical genius to see his mediocrity. After playing guitar heavily for 6 months I could play most of the songs on rock radio minus the solos, and those are just shapes and patterns that you learn in time. The trick to being a "pro guitar player/musician" is having something interesting or inspiring to play and writing music that people can relate to or are touched by. The bummer of cours is that there is no book or game that will teach you that.
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He isn't considered one of the top guitar players of all time.q
 
CrazyN8 said:
Just get good at guitar but also practice your stage presence. A lot of people can play, not many can get the crowd going while playing.

Edit: One trick is to practice in the dark. Nothing looks worse then a guy on stage staring at at his hands the whole time.
Click to expand...

I practice that by playing along to my favorite songs in a room with full speakers.
Rockstar moves when the cool riffs are playing. Don't give a f*ck. It's hard not to rock out when you are shredding a cool riff.
 
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