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I retired a couple of months ago and decided that this would be a good opportunity to transition my guitar playing from acoustic to electric. Having played intermediate level acoustic for a couple of decades, I was surprised to see what a different animal a Fender Stratocaster is compared to a Taylor GS-Mini. After years of laboring to maximize good sounds out of my acoustic, I now find that the challenge is to keep the bad sounds of my electric at a minimum. I watch other people play the electric and they don’t even seem to think about it, so I guess that the secret lies within good playing technique, which I currently don’t seem to possess.
If anyone has some pointers to how to approach this problem I would be most grateful. As it stands now my plan is to visit Brian’s blues course and spend a lot of time on each lesson emphasizing effective and noiseless playing.
Thanks for any pointers that you might have.
Jeff Clesius (Swiss Elk)
Perfect vision is when 2020 is hindsight!
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Jeff,
I guess the amplification and overdrive expose all sorts of unintended extra string noises. You will discover all the muting techniques to go with your picking, rakes, bends, hammer-ons and pull-offs that work for your hands. The muting happens in both hands with the side of your palm, a free finger, the tip of a fretting finger on the string above, laying fingers down to deaden strings. The prize is all kinds of potential new musical expression. Enjoy the discoveries. I’m sure some of the techniques cross over to acoustic.
John -
Jeff,
John has it right about the muting. It’s not just from gaffes, but also from sympathetic vibrations causing open strings to start ringing on their own. On acoustic, this is a subtle, nice effect. On electric, it quickly becomes too much.
The other issue common in making the switch is learning to lighten the pressure of your fretting fingers. Often there are tuning problems with the lighter gauge strings, especially with jumbo frets, when the string is pushed down too hard.
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You sound just like me. I bought my first electric guitar (Fender Strat) just 2 months before joining ActiveMelody. I had all the same issues you describe. Now – 3 years later – I am playing much cleaner with less unwanted string noise, fewer dead notes, etc. But I still have a long way to go before I get it sounding as clean as some of the pros. My ability to mute strings is way better, using all the techniques charjo mentioned above. But I still sometimes get string rattle from adjacent strings when bending a note, or one or two dead notes in certain bar chords. Sometimes a string falls exactly in the groove in one of my finger joints, so it doesn’t get fully pressed down, giving nothing but a deadened “thunk” sound. A lot of it has to do with the size and shape of your hand.
Sunjamr Steve
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Hi Jeff as a recent retiree of 6 months I can only say that I’ve no idea how I found the time to go to work.
Being able to put a bit of quality time into my guitar playing rather than always rushing seemed odd at 1St but now I can savour the momments.
Anyways tips for transition from acoustic to electric, my brother is an acoustic player and when he comes round and has a noodle on my gear he tends to hit the strings way too hard.
He plays better on the guitar I have heavier gauge strings on, most shop bought guitars tend to come with 9’s, personally I prefer 10’s as a general rule but you can put 11’s on most electrics.
Heavier strings don’t bend as well but are more in keeping with what your used to on your acoustic, get used to playing the electric at 1St then work down to the string gauge that suits you.The way an electric feels and plays changes quite a lot with string choice.
Good luck
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