Lessons

Lesson Info

General Q&A

Patrick wants to know how high is this hybrid and I my patrick thanks for calling how do the concepts you write about shaped the music that you create? Does the music affect the story or vice versa? Um that is a good question we think of uh well you know what I've got one show on death out in three there's a song called and drama and it is a really it's a really really feminist song from a really screwy point of view from the point of view of like a like a like an evil guy was dominating women and then from the women taking control but that had to do with unep isoda I wanted to write a song about that and I knew that was the song where I was listening to temple wise I was listening to a song off that's why I took a tempo right I didn't steal the cores everything but it was a slayer song from off god hates us all I just really loved it I just thought this song has got the perfect tempo for this kind of for actually sound and I just took the tempo and I started writing with that and then...

and then lyrically of course absolutely I will write about something um and uh and I also want the song to stand alone outside of the episode if possible at times and I think their songs were you know there's, a song called birthday death day off death down one this is about happened on they sing a song about a new happy birthday song uh, about the brutality of aging to really murderface and old episode but that's that's lyrically of yes, absolutely it's very often it's rare that the episode doesn't influence the song lyrics musically, it's basically, I just don't want to do what I did the last song that's how I feel, what I do last time, what was my tempo, it's that ok, I'm not going to do them to do this, so just to kind of keep things fresh uh, this one got one vote from be tinker you've talked about copy and paste what about larger chunks of the song like duplicating entire sections of the song like versus and courses would you ever do that? Will there ever be an advantage to doing that? Or I have done that before and when I do that, um or it's, usually in my overdubbing slash arranging sessions. So this is after this section, once we've recorded the base there's like exactly after this section, I take all of you take a hard drive like whatever the hard drive is this is this something else? I'll take a hard drive back to my house, into my pro tools thing and load everything and I'll listen to it and I'll start coming up with vocal ideas will start singing rhythms, not even words yet, but rhythms and they'll start coming up with ideas for melodies, and I'll start kind of coming up with an energy for a solo, and then I'll realize after putting all that stuff together that the we're not finished with this song, I need something else or any different cords here, I need something else that happen, so I'll have to kind of get into I'll get into will be here in just a shuffle mode and that's where a whole bunch of problems can happen when you don't get out of shuffle, you think you're in grid mode, so I will take sections and duplicate them in a different place and say, I think we need another verse or I think we need a double chorus or we need something else or delete sections or I'll take a big chunk of this is a foreign half minutes on this is not need to be it's wearing out its welcome unless the ending is becoming this huge climbing epic thing, which often happens on that start there, but all either squeeze stuff out and have to find a way for him, so basically you're gonna have to find a way for the room mike to match from one drum to the next or if I duplicate a section, do we have a different take that makes things the duplicating thing it's tricky on lee because like you're you're fills, they're going to be the same and people can can pick up on that. Um, so, you know, I find it to fill yeah, I usually proceed with caution on duplicating entire sections um although it does happen, you know, way to do it. Yeah, I don't think it happens that often I mean, I think most of jeanne's stuff is pretty pure it most what we mostly what we do is subtract, yeah, because they usually have too much of this is definitely a thing that happens again, it's like when you go, if you're out on a shoot like if you're if you're producing a piece of film, you want to much footage, you want too much stuff to play with, you want to get a million different angles, you want to make sure you've got too much stuff and same way with music, I want to I want to make sure I have too much song so I can trim in a way and show you the edited version that I think is the actual living breathing song so often times and again, like even if push comes to shove and we're running out of time if we can find a non distinctive guitar part, we will duplicate it elsewhere to where I'm like this is it our days done? I have eighteen more songs to do, and I've got five days, whatever. So again, you don't want to do that stuff it's like auto tune don't use auto tune unless, of course, you have to use auto tune and you don't do it don't just don't do its own, which is why we do it, but you have to do well and it's okay to copy like I find it's okay to repeat certain sections when other stuff over this section is not repeated, so it does not sound the same if there's a b melody on something else on the new element comes in or like you let's say, you only pace that the drums, but you're playing the bass over it in a different way are going to get tired stars or whatever as long as that everything is completely identical. It's easier to get away with it, but no one sets out to do that stuff, it's only when you're in a tight spot, so yeah, otherwise it will sound, you'll hear slide on a guitar sometimes I think we've heard stuff like cutting and we're out of time and we hear like a slide on the same in the same part like the hand moves on the guitar and you just hear that stuff sitting on by no one we mean us yes, but we're not perfect hyde wants to know who are your biggest musical influences when you were growing up and playing guitar for me only for both of you if you guys both camps I've got big influences uh I grew up loving queen you know, I just my parents had the records in the house and I love brian may and by the time I discovered the prophet song off night at the opera I was I was in love and I wanted to make those sounds and you hear me ripping off queen quite often in some of the men the theme song from etta lock lips for death clock and then for guitar anybody that's ever done anything on guitar I'm a big fan of like I like everybody from you know, jeff back to like of course inveighing and saturnian vai and you know billy corgan when he really places get tire you know, I think it's really cool. Um I like a lot of stuff I like josh hami from queens the stone age like all that stuff but growing up eddie van halen was I went crazy over I think it's so cool but I also I kept going to harder stuff like, you know um alan holsworth and then going into the dixie drags and going into stuff like that steve morse but hendricks everybody everyone that's ever done anything on guitar I spent a lot of time listening to and trying to play like you know, so they're actually learning those parts a lot of yeah I think that's a good part to like to you know, a big part of what makes the's guitar players great is how they how they touch a strength how they move a string and if you could do an impression of some of your favorite guitarists kids it's more to your bag of tricks and you start understanding it so angus young has this court this tight little violin like va broad oh that I just love but that's what makes him sound like that brian may has his own abroad oh, eddie van halen has his own for broad oh, and if you can start kind of hendricks has his own for bravado and billy cubans has his own so all those guys have a personality where they can play, you know two bars of music and go well obviously that's jeff back or whoever it is he's using the tone arm yeah so it's all identity so it's almost like in a comedy or voice over if you could do an impression of somebody you start to kind of further your personality too so you know, what about she would you started? I grew up was a metal head in europe you know, like, uh, early early eighties before before the medal it was abba in greece the first record I think was moving move by abba and that's amazing perfectly written music on dso and then then it was greece and then it was kiss a life too much to do detriment of my parents but I would just like to state that like abba is a gateway music to mental yeah it is and all that stuff is because my favorite metal that I started listening to I could hear pick out really cool court stuff too and then you know, when I started getting into the metal metal stuff it was you know master of puppets and anthrax and slayer and testament and all the you know, the thrash guys and then it's kept getting heavier and heavier and heavier and heavier and then everyone got ahold of it and just tuning down further and all that stuff and then you get the european guys and the and like the metal of like, you know, turn this turn of the recent century stuff they you know, the people that really start playing their instruments again got really exciting again they really cared about their instruments, but but obviously metal too but I go more melodic first and when medal is melodic then I'm there I'm really excited you know what I mean by my world went from like hiss alive to to like, you know, the maiden and they rain super monica and you know, motor head and you know, all those all those guys like that the first time around when they saying this and they're not that the other part isn't great, which is what I do too but notes those notes are great use those yeah pitch last question last question this from dust in his music school and necessary step to becoming successful in music, I struggle with learning notation dear recommend any books or learning tools to gain the shredding skills to make awesome metal that's a good question and I think the answer is no, I don't think you need to goto music school too to learn how to do what you want to do. I think you have to have goals and you have to have heroes that you want to again if you have a favorite song and it has a part that gets you every time, learn why that part works so even in like you can hear me using apart from, um the prophet song and almost every death clock song war the idea use that third to root harmony thing where you're climbing up a cycle five things like a five of each quarter read you're you're modulating constantly so you can hear that in the middle like lifts theme song but it's good to know the names of the things and you'll get there faster notation I'm terrible at there was a time where I was slightly less terrible at but reading music is not great I think the most important thing about reading music is being able to read the rhythms because that will come up and that will help you everyone's well but oftentimes it doesn't for me and because I work in a certain way I don't write anything down this is my this is my notation right here and I have to listen and kind of re figure stuff out but I don't do it that that often plenty of guys mike nearly can do it really well brian bell you can do it really well I'm I'm in a place where that's constantly never being asked of me so if I had to go and join a pit band somewhere I probably stink or I have to go and learn it but the other thing about music school that I think is it's really tricky to feel teaching some really cool stuff that you could learn in a half hour but to get it on your fingers you need like six or seven years to do it so the example I think I told you guys yesterday as I was an amazing class advanced jazz solo concepts and we were talking about john culturing and the teacher and brilliantly and eloquently told us all about what john coltrane's process was for the tonic systems that he used which is like a crazy scale that's modulating major thirds uh in the song giant steps and it made total sense and I got it and he I get it oh, so that's tomic systems oh, so that's what he does and giant steps I get it now I would have to go away for six years and on ly work on that scale and be able to play that only in the time those chords came up tio babel which is what john coltrane did they all went away and they would shit this stuff but I think it's an important thing to do a couple of years of school and then maybe go away and apply and if you want more, go back and get it I think four years too much unless you really don't know what you're gonna do afterwards, which is what I did. So I start taking comedy writing classes while I was in music school that's that was that was kind of one of the more important parts of my career is not so much being a guy who knew how to play music and for playing shredding fast stuff get the instructional videos those things work paul gilberts instructional video inveighs instructional video the franken bali stuff all those instructional videos really worked really well and you've got youtube now but I would pay for him just to those guys get a couple bucks but you can get inspired by youtube toe learn how to put your hand in the right place and to make peace with the logic of the guitar because it is a very it is a very logical instrument but you're you're you're working in millimeters in your right hand and getting that up and running and making peace with the movement all that stuff that's something you do on your own but you know you spend your ten thousand hours there one day somebody's birthday and there's a guitar there and you impress everybody because you spent ten thousand dollars to find yourself playing the guitar there was like way but you secretly are working on the stuff so it's kind of like cheating so when I go on a comedy room like there's a guitar there and they want me to play it and everyone's really wowed it's cheating, I've secretly worked on that I've been working my whole life for that one moment, you know? But you'll get it if you want tio the best guitar compliment I think I ever got was was the most logical guitar compliment so michael amon from arch enemy I think I was playing like a death clock demo when he was coming in doing voice over and I said check check out the song this is a song this is ridiculous on and I played mondello and he swung like this thing is you know sounds like put in the hours is what he said and I was like yeah that is what I did I did exactly that I put in the hours I'm not magic I don't have a natural gift for guitar I struggle with that I wrestled with the demon in the little room as we all have to d'oh and I I sometimes and but some days I got it some days I don't so you watched me play all morning it's not perfect it's were these amorphous blobs that sometimes they're in shape and sometimes out of shape and sometimes it works nicely and sometimes it doesn't but you know every time it's like the movie memento you know remember that movie where the guy has like a very short window of memory and yes to write down all these things every time I sit down on the guitar I think all right, what we doing here what's this thing I got my hands all right? All right don't press so hard. All right, relax with this thing all right, ok that's right? If you get this angle of a prado's better off if you do this you don't have to white knuckle the pic oh yeah this is yeah, I have to hold it like this, and all right, right, right. I could play so much faster if I just loosen everything up. All right? So you just have to constantly tell yourself that stuff is saying is, if you go on stage and do come, you have to tell yourself a whole bunch of different things. Otherwise you'll forget, hey, hey, stupid, have fun out there, right? Yes, have fun out there. Yes, yes, yes, and then you go and have fun out there, and everybody laughs that's a lot. In a short amount of time, you may want to rewind it.