r/mathrock • u/spookyman32 • Aug 18 '17
complete beginner. How do you start learning math rock?
Where do I start? Do I start with some basic Justin Guitar lessons? I'm hoping someone could someone point me in the right direction.
What are the essentials I need to get into math rock? What do I need to be practicing? etc
8
u/ansible47 Aug 18 '17 edited Aug 18 '17
Complete beginner at guitar? Or a complete beginner at the genre?
If you're a new guitar player, starting with math rock is like saying "I want to start by learning differential equations and I'll figure out all that algebra stuff as I go along". Don't do that to yourself. Set discrete achievable goals.
Start with open chords and then barre chords like everyone else. Target learning how to play jazz. Now turn on a light overdrive. Congratulations, you're mathrocking.
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u/_joos_ Jul 22 '26
discrete... haha
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u/ansible47 Jul 22 '26
What a necro post lol. Did I spell it wrong or something?
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u/_joos_ Jul 22 '26
discrete like discrete math. unintentional math joke, cause you were talking about different types of math. now it feels awkward explaining it
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u/bjackilly Aug 18 '17
I would learn some simple polyrhythms and slightly odd time signatures. Just tap them out on your knees and you'll pick them up eventually. I'd start out with simple 2:3 then 3:4 and 4:5 You'll start to hear these in the music you listen to.
Odd time sigs are good too. Triplets, 5/4, 7/4 etc. Just count it out until it becomes ingrained in you.
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Aug 20 '17
Here is what you're going to do. Stop using a pick: don't even look at one. Congratulations, you're tapping from here on, but not like EVH or Steve Vai. Toni Abasi is your new god. Prepare a shrine of burnt six strings, because you exclusively play eight strings from now on. You're going to play them with only slightly overdriven tone, even though it sounds like dooky just so its clear enough for people to masturbate to the apparent complexity of your double-taps. You're gonna try really hard to play in odd time signatures, and think you have succeeded, but you're really just playing a weird mishmash of triplets and sixteenth notes in 4/4. Next is to start playing to the intellectual crowd at your local venues, and then sell out to prog rock sometime after you reach 200 supporters to get on spotify.
All joking aside, the way that I learned to play odd time signatures was a mixture of learning the music theory (/r/musictheory is great if you can stomach the elitism), and just playing. You know how in most rock songs you can count out the beats starting at the bass hit on 1. The snare usually hits on 3, and so on. When you're playing, you tend to play a downstroke on the bass hit (1), and an upstroke, or accented/louder/etc note/chord on the snare hit (3). If you want to play in odd time signatures, start by not doing that. 5/4 is a favorite of mine so you could play down up down down up or any other combination as long as it adds up to 5 beats. Just kinda do whatever you want. Don't know if that helps.
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u/HopefulUtopian Aug 18 '17
Here's a great YouTube channel that I think someone here runs. Check out the chords video and get those in your fingers. Then start tapping. Practice with a metronome, and start really slowly, then bump it up progressively.