Caelumamittendum’s Guitar Blog

Hello and welcome everyone!

The reason for doing this…

A couple of weeks ago I presented the idea of adding a blog/log section on the forum, where people could have their own blog/log/thread. By posting this I am not questioning the speed at which ideas go through the system, but my own eager to do this prevents me from holding back any longer.

I got this idea from a danish site, a drummers’ site, where they have a dedicated “blog”-section on their forum. those blogs could typically be about your setup, your playing, your new gear. People post their videoes, what they’ve been practicing and readers can comment and give critique and what not.

The reason I wanted to start this is simply that I lack self discipline. I cannot just sit down and practice scale run on scale run or some other technical stuff. Sure, jamming along, having a good shred once in a while and just generally fooling around is something my self discipline (or lack of) can handle. However, without that very needed self discipline it takes so much longer to learn something than with a dedicated practice session. So, basically I needed something to give me a push in the “right” direction. I don’t think I’m the only one that feels this way…

…so, about my lack of self discipline.
…so, I signed up for a Premium Membership on InfiniteGuitar – just for a month to see what the site had to offer, and most importantly how it would affect my playing. This signing up forces me to play, as it would otherwise be wasted money. A lot of people ask me: “do you really want to pay to play guitar?” and my answer will always be: “yes, if it “forces” me to practice. I want to play guitar and I want to be good at it. This site helps me in providing good lessons and I pushes me in that right direction.” (Thanks, IG!).

Quoting the drum site:
Here is a quote from http://www.trommeslageren.dk, which states their intentions of the blog section. I have translated it somewhat roughly:

This sub-forum is not for the regular general discussion, but the intention is that every user (who wants to) makes their own thread (you could use the title-bar to state your name, so we all know who’s blog we’re reading.) Remember that there’s only one thread per user allowed.

The idea behind this is that you write your practice notes and the likes in the log. In this way others can follow exactly what YOU’re practicing, how you’re progressing, just as others can give you good ideas and suggestions.

About me:

Enough with all the inapplicable talk. Here’s the real deal.

My name is Benjamin Storm and I play guitar, to the big surprise of all of you. I am currently 19 years old, and I have had guitars in my life since I was about 13. I used to play football, but got a pretty bad knee injury, which totally put me out of the game forever, so I decided I would find another hobby. For some reason that became guitar playing, though I had never really had an interest in music. I hear quite a lot of guitar players around saying how they’ve been playing since they were 4,5 or 6 years old. Unfortunately I have not had that privilege.

My first chord was a D.
After I got injured I had been thinking for a couple of days about starting to play guitar, so I had of course found some basic instructions on the internet on how to play the guitar. So I sat without a guitar and tried holding my fingers the way it was presented on the internet site. Later that week I asked my mom: “Can I get an guitar?”. I geuss it was sympathy due to the knee injury that led her to say: “sure.”. We looked in the used section of the news paper and found a pretty cheap Fender Sierra Vista acoustic guitar. I had read that Fender was supposed to be good, so it seemed a fair deal. I bought the guitar, took it home and played the D chord I had been practicing.

The following years went by with playing Nirvana, later Alice in Chains and Pearl Jam. I then got my first electric guitar, a Hohner, from one of my dad’s friends. He also gave me his old amp and a blues overdrive pedal. He didn’t play the guitar anymore, so he felt I could have it. Nice bloke. About a year later I got my Yamaha AES800.
I used to play a little with a guy from my class who got a severe concussion and also couldn’t play football anymore. It was nothing serious, but it was quite fun, though we had no idea about what we were doing.

Two years after I got my first guitar I went to an “independent boarding school for upper secondary students” (dictionary…), where young people dedicated to music attends. You live there for one year. You don’t have to be anything special to be there, you just have to be lucky. By this time I was still into Alice in Chains, but more bands like Dream Theater and Pain of Salvation. I didn’t play as much music as I would have liked, mostly due to me being a ***** about it, as all we ever played in the “teams” were pop and funk. This day today I would have been more interested, of course. There were not many metal heads at the school, but I had a few jam sessions with a drummer who was into Planet X and such. Nothing much, but it was alright. Most importantly I got to practice guitar seriously at this school. We had every evening off and a lot of free time (which I honestly didn’t take enough advantage of), and I would sometimes go into one of the rehearsal rooms and sit there for an entire evening playing through John Petrucci’s Rock Discipline.

These last 2½ years I have been very busy with school, which means I haven’t had time to practice properly, and I admit to have totally neglected it. With my lack of self discipline everything I had learned pretty much went down the drain. It comes back fast though, and I’ve always been a “fast learner”, so that’s really an advantage. These past months I’ve been trying to get back into the game, trying to play more and more guitar. And it really pays of.

My gear these days:

Guitars:
Schecter C7 Diamond Series (old model with Floyd Rose)
Yamaha Aes800
Fender Sierra Vista

Besides that I still got the old Hohner (Strat copy) and another acoustic (12 string Takamine Jasmine) – sorry for the bad pictures:

Effects:
Boss GT-6
V-amp2
Boss DS-2
Electro Harmonix Small Clone Chorus
Crybaby Wah pedal

Amps and stuff:
I recently sold my Marshall “rehearsal” amp, which was a MG30DFX, so now I’ve only got my half stack, which is a cheap Laney MXd120H.

I don’t use that much as I’ve now plugged my pedal board through my computer, just for the ease of recording, which I’ll post a picture of later.

other stuff:
Besides the above I got a digital Yamaha P140 piano:

A Behringer B-1 Microphone and a Behringer Tube Ultragain Mic100 Pre-amp alongside it.

Some of the above stuff I got at birthdays (single pedals, Mic, etc.)

What I plan on doing here:
The problem with me is that I lack some of the basic stuff. I know my tapping well and I know my legato alright. My alternate picking has become rather bad through the last years of not playing much. I know my theory for my needs (chords, scales, harmonies), as I’ve still been able to keep that up as it does not necesarily have anything to do with playing. Lately I’ve been working on arpeggios and sweep picking, which suddenly led to a neglection of my alternate picking in regular runs and gave me the idea of using economy picking.

Anyways… I plan to write in this blog every time I go into/I’ve gone through a dedicated practice session (be it 5 minutes or 2 hours), write what I’ve played, maybe record/Video it, let you hear it and comment on it etc. All unserious practice (picking the guitar up and playing some ****) wont be included. I will write dates, time, year etc. to keep a fairly good view on development. I hope this will take me to the next levels of playing.

Have fun!
It has taken me a pretty long time writing this, so I won’t start of with anything about practicing, but I will leave that to the next time I post.

I hope this inspires you to go and make your own thread if you feel like it and see the benefits of it.

Finally:
Feel free to ask questions about whatever you want!

/Ben