Are there any books or courses specifically focused on filling in gaps in knowledge for music theory? Exhaustive references don’t help me to teach myself and beginner course and books “from the beginning” are a bit too basic.
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mathias
@mathias@metalhead.club
mastodon 4.7.3Prog metal, jazz, noisy post-rock guitar and general guitar gear enthusiast. Too many pedals. I’ve been playing for something like 20+ years now but I always put the white belt back on, and have so much more to learn.
Solo music: My Name is a Killing Word
Avatar image: A pumpkin with a jack o lantern face on top of a cornstalk body, from the cartoon Over the Garden Wall.
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Joined April 29, 2025
I have a pair of these! They’re great!
For #TuneTuesday here’s a video of ambienttrash’s guitar playing in riffs he wrote over the years.
Playing riffs I wrote from age 13 to now
Tired. Big day for music though — my first jam session with a new group this afternoon.
Replying to
@MatthewKay@musician.social totally understand; I can recommend finding a used Kiesel on Reverb if it has all the specs you want, but that still might be more than comparable budget
I don’t have any direct experience but the only other brand I’ve heard of to mention is Hils — I was looking at their headless 5 string bass but didn’t think I’d actually use a bass. 7 string guitar model: https://hilsamerica.com/the-instruments/p/the-next-hz7-headless-seven-string-wt5c7
Edit: if you can try the Legator in person and verify the neck is good+straight, there’s no finish blemishes and no high frets or buzzing, then maybe go for it! Otherwise it’s always caveat emptor.
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@lich_silvae@masto.fediverse.games other advice I got elsewhere was to try removing all the “I”, “me” etc and then rewriting so the situational details (senses, place) are clear but the meanings are more open to interpretation. It sounds cool, I just gotta figure out what this means for my situation.
Trying to trade for one of these Lichtlaerm Thorn distortion pedals. Excited to try a new-to-me heavy distortion circuit. I am also in the “distortion is distortion and listeners may not hear small differences” but I enjoy gear so this is just a little treat for myself.
LICHTLAERM AUDIO x AMENRA - Thorn Pedal | Evil Greed
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@MatthewKay@musician.social my only other thought is to buy from an online place with a good return policy, like Sweetwater (if you’re in the US.) But Sweetwater not really going to have a lot more headless guitars or multiscale guitars. For headstock multiscale there’s a few Ibanez and some Jacksons or BC rich things.
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@optilude@techhub.social one confusing thing so far:
On the Guitar Practice page, I have a circle of fifths at the top. So if I choose a key, say F major, I have F Ionian below. Great.
But if I change the mode dropdown I noticed it keeps F as the root but shows me, the mode like F Aeolian. My expectation is actually that we stay in modes of F major and you’d show me Dm (D Aeolian) for the rest of the page. The circle of fifths really tells me major keys in the outer ring & their relative minor keys on the inner ring; to choose D there to get to D minor is confusing.
If I’m trying to find a mode like D Aeolian, it might make sense to just choose those with dropdowns?
I’m too tired lately, and life responsibilities haven’t let me really relax for awhile. Fellow #musicians, how do you relax and recharge? Specifically how do you use music and creating music for that?
What are you practicing lately? I need to try and broaden what I’m working on. #musicians #guitarists
Cold and unwell.
Today's #songwriting exercise is to practice rhyming. Pick a short phrase (or pull one from something you’re writing — you’re writing things down, right?)
My first example is:
Fortress of obsession
Now take the last word and come up with rhymes.
Examples for obsession:
Confession
Discretion
Impression
Freshen
Procession
Then once you’ve got around 10 rhymes, try to come up with a story using these end rhymes.
Second, do the same thing but with an internal rhyme. For example:
Walls of _never_ ending light
Rhymes for never:
Forever
Clever
Endeavor
Maybe even something that weakly rhymes like “heather”! Now write lines using the internal rhymes.
Sharing a friend’s latest release:
I’m probably not explaining it well enough or what the problem is, but maybe being vague will help:
#songwriters and #creativeWriting folks: how do you write something that’s personal and maybe a little bit difficult or emotional, but not have it come out as whiny or overly-dramatic navel gazing? Any tips to make it have more emotional resonance and “feel” important?
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@d10c@hachyderm.io @optilude@techhub.social yeah it looks like this is up-casing to make it more of a “subheading” but you’d want to avoid that with chord names.
I’d be curious to check it out more! I think this might start get into the limits of my jazz harmony knowledge but I’ll still give it a try and see if I have further feedback.
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@MatthewKay@musician.social they may have gotten better but I had one that wasn’t great. (Headless 6 multiscale.) I got a used Kiesel Vader after and it is a much better headless guitar. Then a custom 7 string from a small builder.
Strandberg also has a more entry level (for a headless guitar from a smaller builder) line called the Essential line now, but it light only have a 6 string model, not a 7 string model.
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@optilude@techhub.social what if the drop downs chose and the circle of fifths updated to show you where it came from as a key?
Edit: one way I might try to explain this in text is that a given “relative major” gives us the diatonic notes in a key, and then every mode in both major and minor use those diatonic notes starting from different points. But of course that’s not entirely true when we leave modes of the major scale or using different kinds of minor keys (there’s modes of each of the degrees in melodic minor for example, but they get names as basically the thing + modifiers, like melodic minor’s 2nd mode is Dorian b2)
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@optilude@techhub.social nice! And if I didn’t make it clear before, really impressed but how much you’ve put together here. I’m just still figuring out how I’d use it!