Khruangbin

[Seshmeister]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]17274[/ATTACH]

I love Larkin Poe. Took this pic.

Had you fallen over?

[Nitro Express]

I'd say the Meanstreet Intro is much more difficult to get sounding like Eddie than Eruption. As you say, that combo of slap funk and the tapped harmonics...it's a bitch. I tried fucking around with it twenty odd years ago...watching footage of Ed doing it live from three different shows, had the tab for it...I could never get it to flow nearly as well...a lot of quick stops and starts shifting between various techniques...

Brian Young did a pretty good job of it when he was in Dave's band.

Ed had very strong hands with a lot of dexterity. You are talking about a guy who walked around with a guitar on him and he even took the thing to the bathroom. He constantly played and he had hands that most people don’t. You have to have hands like that to play some of that stuff. He would really fire his fingers at the strings and be really accurate. I tried to play some Jimi Hendrix stuff and couldn’t play it like him because my hands aren’t big enough. Jimi had huge hands. So sometimes you just have to have the right anatomy or it ain’t happening.

[Kristy]

I wonder if Kristy likes Billy Strings?

I must have missed this. When did Von out of all people suddenly become cool?

The only album I heard by them is Renewal and all I can say to that is I love the playing not so big on the singing.

[Von Halen]

Had you fallen over?

It isn't sideways on my fucking phone!

[Terry]

Yeah I tried it back in the day like everyone else but couldn't do the timing.

I asked Brian Young about it and he said it took him three weeks. I also remember saying to Ray Luzier that it was a lot harder than the intro to HFT based on absolutely nothing, how would I know?

I think he maybe disagreed.

The HFT intro isn't as hard as the MS intro for me, because the HFT intro is just two-handed tapping...[HFT intro] is tapped slightly differently than some other two-handed tapping stuff Ed did in terms of technique because [Eddie] was using open strings in the sequence - as opposed to, say, the two handed tapping in Eruption - so I had to initially practice that intro slowly in order to incorporate the open string notes and make sure they were audible, and it did take me awhile to get that intro up to speed and sounded as fluid as Ed did it.

[Terry]

Ed had very strong hands with a lot of dexterity. You are talking about a guy who walked around with a guitar on him and he even took the thing to the bathroom. He constantly played and he had hands that most people don’t. You have to have hands like that to play some of that stuff. He would really fire his fingers at the strings and be really accurate. I tried to play some Jimi Hendrix stuff and couldn’t play it like him because my hands aren’t big enough. Jimi had huge hands. So sometimes you just have to have the right anatomy or it ain’t happening.

Hendrix had those large hands...like, you watch footage of him and he's using his thumb constantly for chordings...his thumb could fold over and cover most of the strings, fer chirssake! So Hendrix really had 6 digits on his fretting hand to use vs. 5 for most other people.

Ed, as you say, had those strong hands...that Meanstreet intro...I dunno. I could never get the slapping part - where he is using his thumb and index finger to slap the neck on the 12th fret - to sound good. The tapped harmonics I can get to sound good, but the slapping part I'm hopeless on.

[Terry]

That's marketing for you. No different from when $3,000 Ludwig John Bonham drum came out and people who bought them thought if they had a kit like Bonham they play exactly like Bonham. Wonder how many of those kits are on eBay now. The same with signature guitars and reissues.

Which is just...it's weird to me.

I totally get liking whichever particular player, and being influenced by a player and a player inspiring someone...that part I get.

I've never quite understood the thing...like, the first couple of years I started playing guitar, I fell into the classic trap of figuring it was more the gear/equipment that made a player sound like they did than what they were doing with their hands (or limbs for a drummer).

"If only I could get the same MXR stomp box gear as Eddie, and a guitar with a Floyd Rose...THEN I'll sound like Eddie."

It isn't true that getting the gear in and of itself will make anybody sound like somebody else, and even if you DO get all the signature EVH gear and learn the Van Halen material and can replicate it so it all sounds as close to Eddie Van Halen as possible...so? Or if you get that Bonham Ludwig kit and learn how to play so you sound JUST LIKE JOHN BONHAM...so? I mean, to what purpose?

The idea, to my mind, is that you get influenced by others but that is a stepping stone to learning how to do your own thing as opposed to slavishly replicating what someone else has done.

[Seshmeister]

The HFT intro isn't as hard as the MS intro for me, because the HFT intro is just two-handed tapping...[HFT intro] is tapped slightly differently than some other two-handed tapping stuff Ed did in terms of technique because [Eddie] was using open strings in the sequence - as opposed to, say, the two handed tapping in Eruption - so I had to initially practice that intro slowly in order to incorporate the open string notes and make sure they were audible, and it did take me awhile to get that intro up to speed and sounded as fluid as Ed did it.

LOL my bad. No I agree the intro on guitar to HFT is much easier than Mean Street. My stupid point to Ray Luzier was that the intro on guitar to Mean Street was more difficult to play than the drum intro to HFT.

[Seshmeister]

"If only I could get the same MXR stomp box gear as Eddie, and a guitar with a Floyd Rose...THEN I'll sound like Eddie."

Back before the WWW I would honestly think this about guitar tab books - I would half expect to be able to play all the songs in them once I bought them. I can't be the only person that thought that.

Never went through my mind that all I needed to do is buy the music to a piano concerto by Prokofiev and then I would be able to play it...

[Terry]

Back before the WWW I would honestly think this about guitar tab books - I would half expect to be able to play all the songs in them once I bought them. I can't be the only person that thought that.

Never went through my mind that all I needed to do is buy the music to a piano concerto by Prokofiev and then I would be able to play it...

I remember the first tab I ever worked with, which was Steve Vai's tab transcription to Eruption included in a Guitar Player magazine back in 1983 or 1984.

Guitar Player magazine back then was really the primary magazine for guitar players (this was before Guitar World and Guitar For The Practicing Musician went into publication), but Guitar Player always took a sort of grudging, disinterested attitude toward rock guitar players until 1983 or so, when I suppose it finally dawned on them that they were just screwing themselves financially by NOT focusing on rock guitar players.

Anyway, Vai's Eruption tab transcription was very accurate and as I said I didn't read sheet music, so back then that was a godsend: you couldn't just go on youtube or the web and get video/tab of any tune you wanted.

And even with Vai's tab transcription and a couple of years of playing under my belt at that point, it wasn't like I was playing Eruption within minutes of getting the tab...it was something I had to work at in terms of practice, although I didn't consider practice drudgery because I loved playing so much. So although it was kind of a pain in the ass back then not being able to read sheet music and having to figure out stuff by ear rather than watching it for free on the internet, when I did figure something out by ear it was kind of more rewarding because I did the work.

That being said, I was glad when tabs became easy to get, because I could KINDA figure things out by ear, but sometimes I couldn't QUITE figure things out exactly by ear. Like, when those 6 pack tab books came out in the early 2000s, I was amazed at how much of the CVH stuff I had tried to figure out by ear in the early 1980s ended up being slightly wrong...and I knew back in the early 1980s that some of it was slightly wrong but I got it close enough. Things like using the old two-fingered power chords constantly, whereas Eddie didn't really use those much...or even barre chords.

The first two years I was playing guitar, I used to play along to early Sabbath stuff. I used to play Iron Man over and over and over again. THEN I started playing Van Halen stuff.

Boy, dems wuz de days!!

[Nitro Express]

The HFT intro isn't as hard as the MS intro for me, because the HFT intro is just two-handed tapping...[HFT intro] is tapped slightly differently than some other two-handed tapping stuff Ed did in terms of technique because [Eddie] was using open strings in the sequence - as opposed to, say, the two handed tapping in Eruption - so I had to initially practice that intro slowly in order to incorporate the open string notes and make sure they were audible, and it did take me awhile to get that intro up to speed and sounded as fluid as Ed did it.

Hot For Teacher is a fun song to play because it's got some swing to it. My drum instructor way back in the Stone Age was a jazz drummer so he taught me to play with a swing. It makes music more interesting. My stoner guitar teacher told me to play how you fuck. A different way of explaining it but they were saying the same thing. That's Hot For Teacher. Also it's fun to grab a Gibson styled guitar and flip to the neck pickup for the soft parts and flip to the bridge pickup for the rocking stuff. Having that sonic gear shift just makes it more fun.

[Nitro Express]

I remember the first tab I ever worked with, which was Steve Vai's tab transcription to Eruption included in a Guitar Player magazine back in 1983 or 1984.

Guitar Player magazine back then was really the primary magazine for guitar players (this was before Guitar World and Guitar For The Practicing Musician went into publication), but Guitar Player always took a sort of grudging, disinterested attitude toward rock guitar players until 1983 or so, when I suppose it finally dawned on them that they were just screwing themselves financially by NOT focusing on rock guitar players.

Anyway, Vai's Eruption tab transcription was very accurate and as I said I didn't read sheet music, so back then that was a godsend: you couldn't just go on youtube or the web and get video/tab of any tune you wanted.

And even with Vai's tab transcription and a couple of years of playing under my belt at that point, it wasn't like I was playing Eruption within minutes of getting the tab...it was something I had to work at in terms of practice, although I didn't consider practice drudgery because I loved playing so much. So although it was kind of a pain in the ass back then not being able to read sheet music and having to figure out stuff by ear rather than watching it for free on the internet, when I did figure something out by ear it was kind of more rewarding because I did the work.

That being said, I was glad when tabs became easy to get, because I could KINDA figure things out by ear, but sometimes I couldn't QUITE figure things out exactly by ear. Like, when those 6 pack tab books came out in the early 2000s, I was amazed at how much of the CVH stuff I had tried to figure out by ear in the early 1980s ended up being slightly wrong...and I knew back in the early 1980s that some of it was slightly wrong but I got it close enough. Things like using the old two-fingered power chords constantly, whereas Eddie didn't really use those much...or even barre chords.

The first two years I was playing guitar, I used to play along to early Sabbath stuff. I used to play Iron Man over and over and over again. THEN I started playing Van Halen stuff.

Boy, dems wuz de days!!

I had the Guitar Player subscription as well. I first heard of Steve Vai because he wrote for the magazine. He was more of a gun for hire session guy than a rockstar then. I thought his transcriptions were very well done. So when Roth hired him I'm like cool, Dave snagged the Guitar Player guy. Other guitar magazines were coming out and Guitar Player had to get on it's game.

I learned to read music by taking piano lessons. In my family all the kids had to take piano lessons for three years. My parents did not like rock and roll. My dad was a clarinet and saxophone player and looked at the electric guitar as a novelty item. So I got zero support when I wanted an electric guitar and I had to go buy one on my own with my own money and get the lecture I wasted my money on something stupid. So it was play in the bedroom with the door closed and turn that down! Ha! Ha! Band practice was not going to be at our house.

So my friend's dad was a medical doctor and he owned the building the practice was in and it had a basement. We had all our gear in the basement of the medical building and when the doctors were done the building was empty and man that was a great place to practice in.

[Nitro Express]

When I read Dave's dad was a doctor and Van Halen practiced in his basement I thought that was cool. My friend's dad was a cool fun guy. Sometimes he would be upstairs doing paperwork and he would pop down occasionally and check on us. He would stand there in his white doctor's jacket and joke around with us.

He moved to Palm Springs and went into practice there. He needed somebody to drive his Mercedes 450 SEL down. He made us a deal. We could take the Mercedes to San Diego for Spring Break, have it the whole week, drop it off in Palm Springs and he would fly us home. That sounded good to us. We had friends at the University of San Diego and they were renting a nice townhouse. That was one of the funnest Spring Breaks ever.

[Nitro Express]

Hendrix had those large hands...like, you watch footage of him and he's using his thumb constantly for chordings...his thumb could fold over and cover most of the strings, fer chirssake! So Hendrix really had 6 digits on his fretting hand to use vs. 5 for most other people.

Ed, as you say, had those strong hands...that Meanstreet intro...I dunno. I could never get the slapping part - where he is using his thumb and index finger to slap the neck on the 12th fret - to sound good. The tapped harmonics I can get to sound good, but the slapping part I'm hopeless on.

Most the sound and tone comes from the hands. One person can play through a guitar rig and sound great. Another person can play the same guitar and rig and it sounds like something broke. It's how those strings vibrate and the hands make that happen. That's the source of it all.

[Nitro Express]

I knew what Jimi was doing. I knew exactly what he was doing but I didn't have those huge hands. So I was fucked.