Are you learning any new songs lately

I think this is a great thread topic that's been kinda "forgotten", so let's hope it gains a bit of traction... After reading about George Lynch's tone and mods on one of the amp threads, I got a hankerin'... And I've commited and started to learn this one:


What are ye Gents and Ladies currently up to in the field of adding to your repertoire?
 
Yargnad said:
Unfortunately, I have not had the interest to learn any cover tunes in over 15 years. I spend all my guitar time developing my own stuff and that's been far more rewarding and entertaining than when I used to learn other peoples' song back as a teen. That's just me though.
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Covers are a cool learning tool also. You can play a riff from a song and start messing with it, adding, subtracting , and embelishing. By the time its done, it's totally different and its your own. Nothing wrong with taking inspiration from another song, as long as you don't Milli Vanilli riffs.
 
Yargnad said:
Unfortunately, I have not had the interest to learn any cover tunes in over 15 years. I spend all my guitar time developing my own stuff and that's been far more rewarding and entertaining than when I used to learn other peoples' song back as a teen. That's just me though.
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For me its been even longer: The last band I was in that did any cover material at all was in 1996. I loathe learning and playing other people's songs and just won't waste my valuable playing time that way anymore. Really, I always hated it, except for when I was young and first learning to play, but it was a means to and end when playing in bands for money.
 
LiveeviL2000 said:
Covers are a cool learning tool also. You can play a riff from a song and start messing with it, adding, subtracting , and embelishing. By the time its done, it's totally different and its your own. Nothing wrong with taking inspiration from another song, as long as you don't Milli Vanilli riffs.
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I agree, LiveeviL! In my case, being really nothing more than a self-taught amateur player (at best), I believe learning many different songs from many different artists and styles has and will keep helping me to develop new playing skills and expand / hone the ones I already have... I look at it like a bit as "auditing" university classes to learn something all along that I can apply later...

Plus, just trying to reproduce the original guitar tones has really helped me understand the capabilities of and work better with my gear... For which the next step would be (for me, at least) to start fiddling with the covers and making them my own, while also doing my own material too...
 
Yargnad said:
I get that. I first wanted to play guitar because of bands like Motley Crue, Skid Row, Bon Jovi and I learned a lot of songs in my time. I just personally don't get guitar inspiration from other peoples songs anymore. I can't force it so I've stopped trying. I still like to play a few covers ever so often, like Fell on Black Days, Interstate Love Song, Tom Sawyer, Communication Breakdown... but I learned them many moons ago. I'm mostly an improv player anymore. I get most inspired in a free jam scenario.

I've got so many songs myself now that if I were to play thru them all one at a time it would take hours. I'm finally ready to put a band together again and try to put them to tape, but I probably have too lofty ambitions of finding a bass, drummer, trumpet, trombone/euphonium and percussionist in my area.
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I'm sure if you look hard enough, you'll find the pieces of a band. Not overnight, but as the movie said ...
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I personally am a covers guy. I really like playing the songs that i grew up with, it takes me back to those memories of the good things i enjoyed as a young person and Teenager. I am a person who can do pretty much anything if i put my mind to it. I believe i could write a song or two or three, but i just don't care to do that. I like keeping the songs from my past in my sight, and i dislike saying this , but the fact is life was lived in a lighter atmosphere back then, not like the life of today, and i find much of the music today is depressing and not uplifting. Therefore i will play covers until i cant any longer and singing many of them as well, as they say to each their own...
 
Session 5 said:
I personally am a covers guy. I really like playing the songs that i grew up with, it takes me back to those memories of the good things i enjoyed as a young person and Teenager. I am a person who can do pretty much anything if i put my mind to it. I believe i could write a song or two or three, but i just don't care to do that. I like keeping the songs from my past in my sight, and i dislike saying this , but the fact is life was lived in a lighter atmosphere back then, not like the life of today, and i find much of the music today is depressing and not uplifting. Therefore i will play covers until i cant any longer and singing many of them as well, as they say to each their own...
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Ditto that, Norm! I left my frontman aspirations behind the day I sat in front of a mike in a booth, instead of standing on a stage with a guitar. Now I'm just happy by being able to play my favourite songs and do the occasional party piece now and then... But guitar techin' and luthiering, that's definitely becoming more and more my main interest! Of course, as a sideline to my day job cheffin!
 
Yargnad said:
I get that. I first wanted to play guitar because of bands like Motley Crue, Skid Row, Bon Jovi and I learned a lot of songs in my time. I just personally don't get guitar inspiration from other peoples songs anymore. I can't force it so I've stopped trying. I still like to play a few covers ever so often, like Fell on Black Days, Interstate Love Song, Tom Sawyer, Communication Breakdown... but I learned them many moons ago. I'm mostly an improv player anymore. I get most inspired in a free jam scenario.

I've got so many songs myself now that if I were to play thru them all one at a time it would take hours. I'm finally ready to put a band together again and try to put them to tape, but I probably have too lofty ambitions of finding a bass, drummer, trumpet, trombone/euphonium and percussionist in my area.
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Right. Learning "The Standards" as a kid was a crucial tool to help develop my ability to understand what I was hearing, learn different techniques, develop ear/hand coordination to be able to play with other people, but those things to me were all just the fundamental building-blocks of developing my own style. Once I became a competent-enough, and just as importantly, confident-enough player to start writing and performing music with other people and putting my own stamp on it there was no looking in the rear view. My heroes taught me what they could but it was up to me to create something new with what I learned. I may have never set the World on fire with it, but playing my own music my own way has brought me endless joy that just playing through someone else's vision never could, no matter how much that music means to me as a listener.
 
I'm still in the building blocks phase and that is part of why I learn covers.
I learn songs I like, but also view them as practice tools.

I learned all of Beatles And I Lover Her a couple of years ago but forgot much of it.
I play the verse chords as part of my clean tone warm ups.

Been working on Iron Maiden Running Free lately.
I can play most of both guitar parts, but some segments not so well yet.

Much of what I play I cant really play up to speed or without flubs, but I keep trying and sometimes repeat the phrases as fast as I can go without mistakes as drills.
Those same songs, as I improve, I can focus more on the string ringouts or mutes, the attack, etc. - improving the quality of how I play the piece.
 
Yargnad said:
Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that anyone shouldn't play covers. I've always advocated whatever inspires people to be creative. If someone wants to play music I don't like on an instrument that I dont like I'm all for it actually. As long as they're engaged in something more constructive than passive consumerism, bigotry or crime I consider it a win for humanity.

This is the reason I don't have issues with most music. It keeps people busy. Only when there is a specific message that I strongly disagree with in principle will I ever object.
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I never took you the wrong way Yarg, no disrespect to you sir. Just my own thoughts for me.
 
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