Part 2 (because I was tired AF yesterday):
I always find that part of my life cringe-worthy, and a few next years of it as well. My parents divorced at that time, actually. When I went to elementary school, I was heavily listening to Green Day. This year, I will mark my 10th anniversary of since I've first heard "American Idiot". I got mad for them, I still have like 6 of their albums, as well as a shirt and an unfulfilled wish to go on their concert. However, they actually were in Belgrade, which is about 600 kilometers from me...nearest place they have ever been to. As you may know, Green Day has a lot of power chords in their songs. I think there are only a few songs that have only open chords. I think "Good Riddance" is one of them. Anyway, I got my first guitar in 2013. I had to keep a promise that I would learn guitar myself, because nearest instructor is probably like 15-20 kilometers from here. And that was January 2013, so I will mark my fourth year of my guitar journey soon!
Anyway, that's where my musical evolution starts. All this jibber-jabber before was just an introduction to it. I turned away from Green Day and I started to discover "garage rock", with bands such as The White Stripes, The Hives, The Futureheads, anything that has "the" before their name, basically. And in my society, it was very hard to convince people that I am actually listening to those bands, because PSY, Michel Telo and other freaks ruled the mainstream pop scene at the time. Listening to rock, garage rock in particular was really hard here. In my county, there were certainly people who liked rock music, but garage rock wasn't really suitable to anyone. "Dad Rock" was really popular here, bands like Deep Purple, Cream, Led Zeppelin, Queen, Creedence Clearwater Revival ruled the "rock scene", and you could find the cover bands of those any time. Actually, a long long time ago in elementary school bands used to play those. It was regardless if they had a shitty, grungy distortion tone on, the purpose of those performances was...well, there were a lot of them. Some teachers enjoyed the "dad rock", so that was mainly for them, students were obsessed with N-SYNC and Backstreet Boys.
I was self-thought, and I'm totally aware that I have learned myself wrong. I started out with G Major, C Major and D Major. And "Hotel Yorba" by White Stripes was the first song I have learned to play. I remember that "Sweet Home Chicago" was also one of the earliest songs, because it had B7, not B major, which was a bitch to play when I started to learn guitar. There were a lot of songs played, and chords were gradually added, but barre chords like F Major took me a lot of time to learn properly. I think I spent 5 or 6 months to learn how to play barre chords. And I went to sleep, and I woke up the other day, and I knew how to play barre chords. I have no idea how that happened... I never tuned to Drop D to play chords easier, unlike my friends. I was listening to a lot of RHCP then, and "Californication" was the first solo I actually learn. Unison bends were very hard to do on an acoustic guitar, and access to fourteenth fret was a bitch. I replaced the tuners, and did some minor changes on it. It still sounds like shit, but I will gladly keep it, even though I am likely to get an Ovation this year. And then, there was a phase when I listened to a lot of Led Zeppelin. I found "The Song Reminds The Same" and basically the show there was a pure perfection to me. Led Zeppelin heavily influenced my playing, not because of the usual, bluesy stuff they used to have in "Whole Lotta Love" and "Black Dog", as well as "Rock And Roll", but the alternate tuning stuff. That happened way after I learned to play guitar solos and stuff... Well, the first alternate tuning I used was the Open G, because something like that was used on "Death Letter" by White Stripes. I discovered many open tunings, but the Open B is and will be my favorite to fiddle around with. Anyway, "The Rain Song" had the DGCGCD tuning, and "When The Levee Breaks" also has some kind of weird tuning to it (Open E?). And don't forget the Kashmir... Today, I use about 15 to 20 alternate tunings to play songs, as well as compose them. Some people just don't understand the importance of them, because on most of them you can't really solo the shit out of it. They give the song a different meaning, different feel, and everything sounds so stellar!
Anyway, I bought myself a Dunlop Trigger capo, which is the capo I use to this day. It is brilliant! Then, I got into Oasis. I think they have pretty simple stuff for a beginner, although I wasn't that much of a beginner when I started listening to them. Of course, the "Wonderwall" is the first piece I have ever learned from them, because it is simple and it attracts all the ladies. Well, not in my case. I got into the pentatonics trap thanks to "Live Forever" and "Slide Away", which are filled with them. I still have the issue when I sound boring to myself because I really can't get out of all those boxes. I have added the natural minor scales, but still, those pentatonics still haunt me.
I actually started to listen to Smiths, which got me into all those weird muffled chords like 244300 or x24400 or 799800, which is just exactly what Coldplay did to me. They also have the weird chords in "Yellow". My Morning Jacket learned me how fucking cool can pentatonics sound - "One Big Holiday". There is also blink-182 in all this mess, and Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds haven't been a shitty project of Noel Gallagher. I love both self-titled album and the "Chasing Yesterday". Regardless of how uninnovative he can be I still love Noely G. I also listened to The Who, but Metronomy and Bloc Party are basically ones that got me into electronics.
Now, this is a new phase for my musical evolution, I want to drown in effects pedals and get as many as I can. I definitely don't want to be like AC/DC, who have the same consisted "SG/Gretsch-Marshall" guitar tone for some 35 years. I want to experiment. Effects pedals are very, very expensive here (Boss PS-6 costing around 250 bucks!), and shipping, as well as duty things to pay... Bloc Party really got me into effects, and I have tried some out, and I really wish I could have one of the many... So far I have built-in reverb, which can act as a delay if you crank it up to 10...
I know it might be silly after all, but I'm just an unexperienced kid who wants to experiment with effects pedals and modular syths.
Anyway, that's it.
Yeah.
