xRisingForce

No no, I'm sorry if you took it that way, I'm not calling you stupid or less of a musician or anything like that- of course not. I'm just speaking from personal experience, from what I've seen in person and what I've seen on YouTube. And of course you should have the technicality required to play your solo before you play it, that's stupid to try and play something you're incapable of. I don't know if we all hate Yngwie here since it's America so we're probably all Satriani-fanboys, but I know even he says that "If you can't play it clean as well as fast, don't play it at all." I think even more than rhythm, the melody of your solo is more important, since the term melody entails both rhythm as well as pitch. I'm not sure what you mean by "using it to your advantage", but that sounds to be in the same vein as guitarists telling me that I'm stupid when I bash their solos because "That lick was made to catch your attention," or "That lick's based around the fifth to fit the Cmaj7#9." This dude was pulling shit like this out of his ass for ages when I told him his composing and improv skills sucked (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmbZxQQJWJg). Thinking so much before you play makes you sound so mechanical- you can describe it as amazingly as you want but if it doesn't sound good in action, what's the point? Plus, if a "fifth" sounds best during a "Cmaj7#9" chord, I'd rather be the type to recognize that by hearing and to match a great sounding lick to that chord without having to listen to the song 10 times beforehand to write a lick that sounds decent. It makes your playing much more organic and expressive, I think. Tensai, if you have a videocamera, would you mind recording some of your playing for me as I'm very interested in how you play, unless you have some videos up on YouTube already? Plus, I don't think there's a such thing as "practicing properly". Yngwie J. Malmsteen never once practiced to a metronome, but look at how clean his playing was when he was with Steeler. And this is sort of relevant, Tensai. Could you tell me what you think of this?

http://xtourdeforce.blogspot.com/2007/10/my-thoughts-on-music.html Read it, I agree with most of the things you guys said. I appreciate Tensai-san's positive remarks, and yeah, those sweeps were put together about five minutes before the video. They're much cleaner now. Purely focusing on improving your technical side, via exercises or drilling to a metronome, is stupid in my opinion. It completely tears apart your musicality. All of the guitarists I've heard drill six note exercises over and over again, I've found to have very little musical expressiveness and very robotic and sterie vibrato. I think it's much better to "practice" to real music, or backing tracks if it comes to that. And to Nekofrog, maybe you should start approaching music in a different mindset. Not as a guitar player, because that binds you to 21 frets and 6 strings. Maybe you should approach music as, I dunno, a musician. I appreciate Liontamer's defense, as some of this criticism is just stupidly irrelevant. Thanks for all the constructive criticism for those of you who didn't nonsensically bash it. And I'm not arrogant, but I think the tapping part was clean.

Why does it fail? And could you please offer clearer criticism? Baseless bashing benefits neither you nor me.

Here's my metal remix of a kickass song by Michiru Yamane. Questions and comments appreciated. Song: ~Bloody Tears ~Guitar Ver.~~ Artist: ~Michiru Yamane~ Performed and Arranged by: ~Kenichi Matsubara~

Well, there really was no thread for this, so this was the best place. It's going to be annoying to upload a lot, so I'll upload one that everyone should know: "Dracula's Castle" - Castlevania: Symphony of the Night Artist: Michiru Yamane