Anyways, I realized today that I've been playing in the low C to B range for so long I'm singing in lower key, too. Like, I can't go as high as I used to, at least not right away. I have to warm up to it now.
Now, I could never go very high before- I stayed within the same two octave range, dancing around the middle. But now, I guess because of all the chanting desert rock and stuff I've been listening to, I've moved towards singing natural lows really subdued like I'm dying and hopping up into high falsetto like I just got punched in the sac.
My underdeveloped sense of natural pitch has failed me. It takes me too long to adapt now.
I MUST REBUILD
On the other hand, I've been building my "repertoire," and going nuts on time signatures and stuff. Couple days ago I was trying to speed through most of what I know by heart at around 200bpm.
Basically what that means is my fingers bled. I'm a very clumsy lead guitarist. Give me a one or two string h & p solo and I'm happy. Sweeping arpeggios, tapping, and harmonics are not my forte. I guess I'm more of a chord guy, but that has its pluses when you're into wonky alternate tunings like I am, because getting intimate with tuning-unique chords allows you to make neat little sounds seem just as complicated and thought provoking as anything.
Now I'm just trying to match my easy "go to" chords with their lower string equivalents and such. Basically I want to learn to keep my hands steady while doing awkward chord progressions so I can stretch my hands further out and deviate from base riffs when I do improv. The thicker gauge strings are growing on me (Beefy and Not Even Slinkys, btw), since I was never really much of a delicate player anyhow, but I've yet to reach the point where full step bends on the upper sixth don't make me nervous. Ever have those pre-string bend jitters where you're not really familiar with a certain brand or gauge and you can't really measure how much a string will actually give before it snaps and slashes your face? Super Slinkys I'm familiar with- I can go crazy bending, but'll tear them in half as soon as I get heavy on the strumming. Regulars, not much better. Beefys, I've gotten a little used to. I'll pull the C1 halfway down the neck before I even realize it, and it'll fly. higher notes are uneasy for me, but Not Evens fix that because they give me that wound fourth string I need to not get paranoid about snagging a thin, single sharp piece of metal and pulling it into my eye.
So I've realized melodic notation is basically just adding a couple letters to percussive notes I already knew how to write. I'm just so rusty (I quit drums once I got into high school) I forget stuff like what cut time is and junk.
I'm writing a lot about this. Hey, you know what's cool? I've been playing guitar on and off for like seven years now, and I've only used actual picks for like 30 of that time. The rest I've been using a 1974 U.S. quarter.
Whatshisface, Billy Gibbons? Yeah, he uses coins too. And the Queen guitarist used to use a sixpence coin.
Little things like that make me happy. Like gutting an old hollowbody and re-wiring tube amps. Yeah, I don't know. I'll go do something else now.
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