The League of Clandestine Guitarists

The options for clandestine guitarists today are endless. I'm talking about that large group of people who pick up the guitar once a year, people who strummed away in their bedrooms as kids and still cling on to a distant memory of how much fun it was. They are the people who refuse to play anything in public because a) they can't remember a single tune and b) are transfixed with fear if asked.

I understand - I'm one of them!

And then one day I passed a guitar shop, stared longingly through the window for a while and decided to revisit guitar-land.

If you're thinking "mmmm that could be me, but how embarrassing...", then I'd encourage you to put your embarrassment to one side and think again - the options are accessible, easy, fun and relatively cheap. This blog post (and some to follow) record my trail of guitar devastation back into guitar-land as a clandestine guitarist.

Note: I'm not a musician as will become clear shortly. I'm a tinkerer and fiddler, I've learnt possibly two pieces of music in my entire life but love playing with guitars, keyboards and computers. So I can pretty much guarantee that you'll not be intimidated by my playing but hopefully inspired by the possibilities!

Before I start, here's an example I "created" and published on the web within a couple of days of starting my exploration:



Forget the guitar playing for a moment (yes I know), what's important is that it's just me, a guitar and an iPhone having a huge amount of fun without annoying people. The "tune" is made up as I go along - it's unlikely that I could ever play it again. This is in the spirit of the clandestine guitarist and should be considered a virtue.

What you need to do...

Guitar

You'll need a guitar. No surprise there. I have an accoustic which I rarely use - partly because other people can hear me and partly because the action is to too high. I decided to go electric. With headphones this provides a way to make as many mistakes as I like without my family throwing things at me. It also provides a much easier action and can be recorded easily. Not to mention the large selection of interesting effects now easily available.

I chose a Fender Squier Strat as they're very cheap considering what you get, freely available in most music shops and... I always wanted a Fender Strat. It was up there on my Armchair Bucket List but I really couldn't justify the cost of a "proper Strat", so I opted for Fender's lower end range of guitars and have been very happy with the result. As an clandestine guitarist, you really can't go to far wrong with one of these.

Amp

You'll need something to plug it in to. As I've mentioned, I picked an electric so I could play quietly not loudly. 

I bought an iRig with my guitar and downloaded AmpliTube Fender for my iPhone. Plug it in and off you go! Amazing.

Band

Next you'll need something to play along with. As a clandestine guitarist you'll need a backing track not real musicians. Remember, you can't be seen playing your guitar in public.
Fortunately there are thousands of free backing tracks to choose from on the web. Simply search for "Jam backing tracks" or "Jam tracks" or "guitar backing tracks" and you'll see a whole range of sites. Many of these sites also provide TAB notation for the lead and rhythm.
The track I've used above is: http://www.jamtracks.ru/mpjam2/Blues/Texas_Blues_In_A.mp3
YouTube is also a great place to find backing tracks and tutorials,

Record

AmpliTube allows you to load backing tracks, change their speed for practising and when you're ready - you can record it as well. That's how the Oxtail Soup track (above) was recorded: A guitar, and iPhone and an iRig adaptor and red wine.

Publish

I've used SoundCloud, it's very easy to get going and free to upload quite a bit of content. You can make it publicly visible or you could keep it private if you like. Don't be worried about making it public - no one really cares about what you play and the chances of anyone stumbling across it are close to zero anyway.

Of course you don't have to publish. I wanted to have something to aim for so I could say "done!". But also, as I've mentioned, I tend to make all my "music" up on the spot. Sure I figure out what the scale is in the key that's being played, but apart from that, all the things I've ever played have long faded from memory. Some of the tunes I quite liked and wish I'd recorded them. Publishing on the web makes it real and reminds me of what some of the tunes were like - that's if I ever feel like playing them again.

No one in their right mind would take this stuff seriously - so there's no reason for you to.

So go buy a guitar, download some software and have fun!