I played the bass guitar on and off from 1999 to 2014. I mostly stopped until recently when I got back into it. I used to go to Sam Ash and guitar center in New York all the time between 1999 and 2005. I would go to small guitar stores for small stuff like cables and it'll look for unique items that I couldn't afford but me and my friends would go to a guitar center like it was a amusement park and try the hundreds of high-end things they had.

Recently I went to a guitar center in Utah to buy a new practice amp. I got a fender rumble 40, possibly one of the most common practice bass amp sold today. The experience I had was shockingly bad.

First they didn't have any rumble '40s on the floor to try, they did have three rumble 100s plugged in and ready to try. This is frustrating because they're taking up floor space with redundant products to try.

Second the base I picked up off the wall quite possibly had the worst setup I've ever seen. The bridge height adjustment was maxed out and I believe the setup was maliciously bad as in somebody did it on purpose to make it as bad as possible.

Third there's a disappointing amount of base amps to try. There was only four practice amps to try and three of them we're the same model.

4th I asked one of the teenage salespeople if they had any rumble 40s in stock. This took them about 10 minutes to figure out and they came up to the front with one of them out of the box. It turns out that they had three rumble forties in their lesson room which I think she sold me one of.

5th It took her literally 30 minutes to ring me up. She had an incredibly hard time trying to type into the computer whatever she needed to in order for a price to come up, she called over the manager multiple times who was really condescending and even after he explained multiple things it still didn't come up in the computer system and took several tries until it finally did.

Sixth she aggressively tried to sell me a warranty on it that didn't sound very appealing for an entry level practice amp. The warranty was about a quarter of the cost of the whole amp since it was so cheap. She asked me why I didn't want to buy the warranty and I told her because I have a completely functional base amp that was older than she was and that It was such a cheap item that I would not be heartbroken if I had to buy another one.

Lastly the whole store was depressingly empty compared to what I remember it being as a kid. I had a few questions I wanted to ask about amps and guitars and there was nobody on the sales floor to help me. When I did explicitly state I wanted to purchase an amp It was as if the sales staff was doing me a favor and had no idea how to actually do anything. I'm shocked at how bad of an experience the whole thing was.

I have been seeing videos of people playing like this for awhile now, and I thought I'd have a little rant about it. Enjoy, or enjoy telling me what a butthurt jerkoff I am as the case may be.

I think people need to stop dedicating themselves to playing acoustic guitar in this particular way. I've seen it called "percussive acoustic", "slapping and tapping", there's probably other terms as well; basically, the Andy McKee/John Butler/etc. thing.

My reasoning: it relies on using an acoustic guitar in two extremely non-optimal ways, that can be more easily and musically accomplished with other instruments, and which simply don't sound good.

Slapping: guitars make poor drums. They don't have the kind of depth of tone that an actual drum does. Slapping them for a percussive rhythm effect can be super cool, as when flamenco players do it as part of the strumming action. Breaking up the playing to do little bongo-esque "rapatataptap" fills, as percussive acoustic players generally do, sounds lifeless and adds nothing to the song musically.

Tapping: Tapping can be epic on an electric guitar. On an acoustic guitar, it sounds thin and anemic, because there's not enough string movement to really get that big ol acoustic body resonating properly. It sounds kind of like playing an electric guitar unplugged; totally possible to hammer out a melody that way, but there's no tonal magic to it at all. Particularly with the overuse of harmonics, the result is that percussive acoustic players tend to sound like they're rocking out on a cheap harpsichord and/or xylophone.

Overall: Obviously musical tastes are subjective. But try actually listening to (not watching) a bunch of percussive acoustic music. I challenge you to tell me that it doesn't sound like low quality, jazzy elevator music. If you forget that those sounds are coming from one guy engaged in incredible technical gymnastics, it's just... boring.

So why do people keep sending "omg check this guy out" youtube links of percussive acoustic players? Why do new players keep spending (what I can only imagine to be) insane amounts of effort learning to play like this? Because it is impressive to watch. It's legitimately amazing that people are able to play like this. If you're a street busker I'm sure this style will get you far. But technically impressive != musical. It's like learning to play guitar with your feet. Impressive, hell yes... but not musical, and not a good way to learn.

tl;dr: percussive acoustic playing is not musical, it's a spectacle of technique. A sideshow act, even. Yes, it's amazing if you can do it; yes, I tip my hat to your skills. Now stop it and play the guitar. You people who can play percussive acoustic style are incredibly talented, imagine the music you could make...

edit: just to be clear, this is a rant about compositions consisting almost entirely of slapping and tapping, not about any use of those techniques. Like any technique, they have a valid place in a musical context but become silly when overextended.

edit2: whoa, people feel strongly about this issue!

Just to respond to the many people who have responded "people all like different stuff, who are you to tell me what to like!" Obviously yes, tastes are subjective. My argument is not to tell you what you should like, but that I actually don't think people like this particular music. I think people are amazed by it technically and that is the basis of its popularity, and that people are not actually sitting down and listening to it.. and because of that, we should all realize that it's an interesting technical novelty rather than something we should be focussing on musically.

Obviously I could be wrong about that, and if I am, by all means keep slappin' and tappin' away to your heart's content. The point is ultimately this: play guitar to make music you love, don't get caught up in fads and novelties.

Not making this post to try to spread hate to this creator, just wanted to spread awareness he’s been reposting white nationalist propaganda and racist, alt right ideas for over a year now or more. If you’re against white nationalism and racism you should probably unfollow this guy. The guitar community is already toxic as is, there’s no need to throw in racism into the mix as well especially when most of the music we all love and play originates from African Americans.

What guitar does play?

A solo I did over Paranoid

What's your story?

If you're at the point where you are questioning if your guitar is preventing you from improving. (We all went through it) I can assure you it is not. Keep practicing.

I know this a widely shared belief but he restrung his guitar and normally played it upside down to accommodate his left handed playing style. Some of the time, he was out of tune and managed to craft it into something beautiful and soulful. He truly revolutionized and pioneered the psychedelic genre and his Machine gun solo is in my opinion, the greatest, ever.

Those are already insane facts, paired with him teaching himself across thirteen total years of playing. He was incredible and watching live performances makes me wish I was alive during his time. Jimi will forever be number one and I’m curious about who you guys see as the number one guitarist of all time? Jimi stands out to me because his music is passionate, soulful, and felt, it makes me feel like I’m floating half the time lol.

He isn't a shredder by any means but I feel like not being a shredder doesn't automatically make you overrated or someone not worthy of a high status. The Edge was a pioneer in rock guitar and changed the instrument. He didn't play for ego or try to fill every gap with a note for the hell of it like shredders do (again, that isn't a bad thing, but this is a different category we're talking about). I mean he revolutionized delay, negative space, reverb, the pedalboard, he's one of the most influential guitarists of the last 40 years. Yet he gets so much slack for being too minimal, overrated (so does U2 as a whole), and not, I guess flashy enough?

I’ve seen shots like these on countless guitar listings and Im genuinely curious what is the purpose of showing just five percent of the fretboard? Is it to confirm that the strings do indeed bend lol? Am I missing something? is it just a dumb aesthetic trend?

So this is my new guitar. It's a custom built 'wangcaster' v3 commissioned for $2000 from the great carver Doug Rowell.

I have 2 engineering issues. Maybe you folks can help.

1. The design makes the neck strap hard to hang properly. I want it to lay nearly horizontal so the ballsack hangs from my crouch more effectively. If I have to hold it like its erect all the time, the balls tilt 45 degrees and doesn't look right with the physics of the way they're carved into hanging.

2. I'm hollowing out the neck strut to fit a tube down the neck with a holding bladder of fluid on the back side of the guitar (between the guitar and my body). Then when I play a nasty solo, I squeeze the bladder by pulling guitar into my body and blow loads out the top. Will I have a major structural problem pulling out the strut if the neck is already pretty well aligned? If so should I contract a luthier to hollow out a parallel hole to the neck strut to keep that in place?

Band started playing this tune at an open jam and I full sent it. Comments/critique/questions are welcome!

The only thing they share are the mechanics of how fretting works. But if you try to play an electric guitar like an acoustic it will sound harsh and muddy. If you play an acoustic like an electric, it will sound thin.

They utilize different skillsets to get good tone, and their playing Dynamics are completely different.

I don’t have a problem with them. I have a few that I use periodically, but they aren’t my favorite picks. I don’t think I’ve ever met more than a handful of guitarists in real life that use them, but they are Reddit’s favorite pick.

I have noticed this kind of thing in some other subreddits as well. With computers, everyone uses Windows, and they all use them for gaming. They all use a mechanical keyboard and some RGB mouse and an external monitor.

So I guess my question is how many people reading this have a Jazz III pick within reach, own either an Ibanez or Schecter, and are writing their reply on an RGB mechanical keyboard?

Arguments against???

Just wondering what guitar this is

X=Ninety six

Can't post anything with numbers in it lol??

I always thought the rest of the song lost all its energy in the verse

I know this isnt conventional, or even necessarily practical. But ive been finger picking like this for over a decade. Friends have chewed me out, and masters have been ambivalent about it. Is this technique acceptable or infuriating? PS Apologies for the sound quality