Category Archives: The Player’s Room

It’s always a cool thing to watch. I’ll play a theatre production, and as we’re playing the exit music, I’ll watch as people peek their heads over the rail, look over at me and then at their friends with a shocked expression. What usually follows is either “Where’s the upright bass?” or something to that…

It’s a popular belief that history is cyclical: that a historical event will take place in the same or similar fashion in the future. The wide jeans of the 60s and 70s, afro haircuts, flower design on wall papers, minimalist design – many past design styles seem to be making a return. I won’t discuss…

Despite how much jazz and theater guitarists don’t like it, most players don’t know how to read standard music notation. Instead of learning by reading dots on a page, they end up relying on their ears and eyes, which has served many guitarists well. This isn’t another argument for or against standard notation (you can…

The blues has been slowly disappearing as an element of modern rock and metal for over two decades. This doesn’t mean we can’t learn from ‘old guys’ and the simplicity of playing fewer notes with feeling and the right tone. Now the harmonic minor scale has been associated with guitarists like Ritchie Blackmore and Yngwie Malmsteen, who no doubt possess some great bluesy phrasing, but are pretty different from the blues guitarists that influenced them.

We’ve all been there. Staring at a blank piece of paper. Or at a guitar sitting on the stand. We know we should be trying to write something but everything we come up with is either stupid, terrible, or sounds like a million other things out there. This article will cover some ways I deal…

Okay, today I’m going to give you a little freebie: my Ultra Mega Lick Of Doom. This started out as a melody I was working on for a song I never got around to finishing. Frankly, as a melody it kinda sounded a bit boring. But I soon realised that a) whenever I practiced it,…

Music stores can be intimidating. You’re walking into an environment where all the staff there have heard every cliche’d song butchered a million times, and where it can sometimes be hard to get some attention in order to be assisted in choosing your new guitar, pedal, pick, strap, pickup, gadget or wotzit. Now, it would…

At some point you may think that while you love your main band, taking on a second band or project is a good idea. From there you may also decide to sit in and help out some friends, help out a friend on a recording or two (or three), play a theatre show here and…

Behold! The mighty ukulele! Able to lull mighty beasts to sleep, be slung over the shoulder, and woo the women! It slices, dices, makes one mean cup of coffee and if you act now, it WILL make you a better bassist like it did me! *Insert record scratching* Yeah, you heard that right. Playing ukulele…

At some point during our musical education, we come across the confusing idea of 7th chords. Major 7? Minor 7? Diminished 7? And just plain ol’ 7? Aren’t they the same? And who cares! I just play power chords anyway! True, if you just play power chords and intend to keep doing that for the rest…