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Old 12-31-2003, 01:54 PM   #16
facelessman
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Quote: (Originally Posted by tremonti.net) I guess with WTLF, you can maybe start with the strumming of the chords, instead of picking those individual notes. .
ok thats pointless
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Old 12-31-2003, 06:44 PM   #17
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Thanks for all the advice. I was think WTLF or One so Ill go that route. First I am going to do Vacant by East West.
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Old 01-02-2004, 10:05 PM   #18
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Creed's guitarist, Mark Tremonti, has created a vast array of different types of melodies, chords, bridges, and fills in his music to truly reward any guitarist with the patience to learn.

Now, a few basics: approximately 95% of Creed's songs are in Drop-D tuning.

If you don't know what that is, it's the same as standard, except that the 6th string is tuned a full step lower.

A few exceptions? Weathered, and What's This Life For?

Let's start from the beginning. You're going to want to start with the album, My Own Prison.

Pick up a tab book and learn these songs. This is the same path I took and enjoyed.

Illusion -- This is definately the easiest song you could choose to play in all of Creed's music. The opening toggle switch/bend after the bass intro gives you good practice on how to make consecutive bends. Also, the chorus, bridge, and solo will help you reach intermediate status as a guitarist.

If you practice this song, you'll get a good feel for timing and song structure. Plus, the solo is so much fun -- you'll be hooked. The bridge following the solo is pretty easy, too.

You may have minor difficulty catching the time on the part after the bridge, where he says .. "Just ... an ... Illusion" repeatedly.

Next song --

My Own Prison -- Definately one of the easier songs. You'll learn the basics of clean-tone picking, which will be important later on for a number of other songs. The chorus is easy too -- chromatic, so it just goes down a step. Also, the solo is one of the easiest in existence.

Just learn the three parts. The chorus, the solo, and then the clean tone melody. This will get you ready for our next song ...

Torn -- A step up beside the other songs. Here, you'll learn how to change up between a few easy Drop-D chords, and, more importantly, you'll establish a stronger base for your clean picking. The melody is tougher because it incorporates pull offs and quick, clean picking. Chorus and bridge are easy, although the fill in the chorus will prove a bit challenging to get a hold of. It's a great song, and it will prepare you for a few HC songs.

In America -- Next easy songs. Just slide the same chord shape up and catch the strumming rythm. The bridge is easy cheese. The part that'll give you trouble is the chorus. Get this song down, then move on to a cool one --

Ode -- Yeah. This is where the fun starts. The riff, ( 0-0-0-7-0-6 ...

0-0-0-7-0-6-0-4 .... 0-0-0-7-0-6-4-5-2-3-2-1 ... )

Is fun to learn, and play. It'll take you through most of the song. The chorus is tougher -- you've got a fill, and you have to learn the timing on when to slide the chord shape up. Finally, the bridge will get you to be faster. When you look at the tab, you'll notice you'll have to move from the twelfth fret up to the first one in a snap. It'll be fun. I promise.

Essentially, an easy song. Just learn the three main parts.

Next, try out One. It's not too bad. But from here, the songs only get harder.

Unforgiven is tough. The main riff will give you problems because of the picking/fretting.

Try out What's This Life For once you've got your clean tone picking down. It's in Standard, so be sure to tune your guitar correctly. The melody is really tough -- it's long, entirely clean, and very discreet. You won't have distortion to cover up your bloopers. This is, indeed, an intermediate guitarist song.

Finally, leave Pity For a Dime well enough alone. You won't be able to play it for a long, long time. So I suggest you forget about it until your able to play every other Creed song with your TOES. The melody, change of chords, bridge, and *especially* the solo are definately only for the advanced.

Took me four years to learn that song.

... On to Human Clay, the next logical step in our progession.

Starting off, you'll notice the music is a bit tougher all around. Faster paced, more difficult chords, and a combination of difficult techniques run amuck, making your life as an aspiring guitarist all the more difficult. Let's start simple, alright?

Start off with Beautiful. The main melody is easy, the chorus is fun, and you'll learn how to bend two strings at once. The solo may give you a bit of trouble, but I trust you'll keep along with it.

After you get this song down, try Are You Ready? -- It'll teach you how to slide around with power chords. The extra distortion will give you a bit of help in covering your mistakes.

After this, try What If? .. the intro is great, and it's really easy once you figure out how to bar the chords and fingerpick correctly -- two very important skills you'll need as a guitarist are being able to bard clean melodies with strength and consistency. Also, fingerpicking is an important skill for every guitarist. The Main riff is easy, and the chorus is wacky. Took me a while before I was able to play something that sounded close to the track. However, ... the chorus is just tough, at least, for me to sound out. I play what I can, though. The tab book doesn't help so much with how to play the chorus though. Bleh.

Finally, the bridge will teach you how to palm mute and downstroke, as well as how to move around a bar on a guitar with ease.

Next song has got to be Say I. Great song! The chorus will give you trouble, as will the melody. It's an intermediate song. Also, the bridge has a short little solo that will be tough to pull off IF you're doing the palm muted bridge. You'll have to jump from the first fret all the way down to the tenth fret in a split second. Fun.

Also, the part after the bridge -- tough to learn for starters. Fingerpicking several strings at the same time, and then changing which ones you fingerpick, will prove challenging.

Next, you need to learn how to play Wrong Way. Tough song to play perfectly, but man ... it's gorgeous. The part that will give you the greatest difficulty, besides the main melody, is the clean tone fingerpicking -- "I hope I helped you live" ...

It's life What If's intro, except ... 300% faster with MUCH harder chord shapes. Enjoy.

Skip Never Die. It's not worth playing.

Faceless man is fun if you have the time. Check the tuning -- it's different. Something exotic. I can't remember.

With Arms Wide Open -- Again. Fingerpicking. Learn how to do it. Chorus will have you stretch a bit. Solo is simple. Hardest part -- the melody.

Higher -- A bit tough. Just incorporate what you've learned into mastering this song.

Wash Away Those Years -- Same

Inside Us all -- This song will give you trouble because of the fingerpicking AND the difficulty of the chord shapes. It's a stretch to hold a couple, so ... you may have to wait a few months before you gain the bar-strength to hold the shapes consistently enough to pull off the melody.

Ok. Now, we graduate on to Weathered, the most (technically) difficult album of Creed's.

Most of the songs here will be in the advanced guitarist's field. Paticularly, you'll have trouble with all the solo's, all the fingerpicking, and most of the chords -- Especially Weathered, Bullets, One Last Breath, My Sacrifice ( actually, it's not too bad. But still. ), and Stand Here With Me -- which are the songs I took the time to learn.

... If you're going to try out one of the songs, I say start with Bullets. It's a really tough song that requires endurance, mental acuity, and a tenacious picking attack that sounds only of celerity. It's my favorite song to play though.

Easy to learn notes, difficult to master. ... But that's a lesson for another day.

Now go. And learn well, for one day you shall master the great and mighty sound of Creed.
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Old 01-03-2004, 12:51 AM   #19
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Quote: (Originally Posted by Malevolence)
Ode -- Yeah. This is where the fun starts.
ill agree with that
Quote: (Originally Posted by Malevolence) Finally, leave Pity For a Dime well enough alone. You won't be able to play it for a long, long time. So I suggest you forget about it until your able to play every other Creed song with your TOES. The melody, change of chords, bridge, and *especially* the solo are definately only for the advanced.
ill agree with that too


Quote: (Originally Posted by Malevolence) Skip Never Die. It's not worth playing.
i agree with that

Quote: (Originally Posted by Malevolence) Faceless man is fun if you have the time. Check the tuning -- it's different. Something exotic. I can't remember.
open-D5
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Is that what you call a getaway?
Tell me what you got away with
B/c i've seen more spine in jellyfish
and ive seen more guts on 11 year old kids.
Have another drink and drive yourself home
I hope theres ice on all the roads
and think of me when you forget your seatbelt
and again when your head goes through the windshield.
Seventy Times Seven- Brand new
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Old 01-03-2004, 01:32 AM   #20
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Thanks for the advice Malevolence. That was quite helpful.
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Old 01-03-2004, 01:40 PM   #21
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Maalevolence.... THAT WAS A LONG ASS POST
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Old 01-03-2004, 08:18 PM   #22
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Quote: (Originally Posted by TremontiWanaB) Maalevolence.... THAT WAS A LONG ASS POST
I KNOW IT THE GUYS GOTTA LOT TO SAY DOSENT HE
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Old 01-03-2004, 11:11 PM   #23
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Quote: (Originally Posted by TremontiWanaB) Maalevolence.... THAT WAS A LONG ASS POST
sure was
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Is that what you call a getaway?
Tell me what you got away with
B/c i've seen more spine in jellyfish
and ive seen more guts on 11 year old kids.
Have another drink and drive yourself home
I hope theres ice on all the roads
and think of me when you forget your seatbelt
and again when your head goes through the windshield.
Seventy Times Seven- Brand new
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Old 01-04-2004, 02:50 AM   #24
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i agree with most of malevolence's post except for a few things


I'll start with the thing that i noticed first and straight off the bat, and if you follow this thing that he said you will learn a bad habit that is the mark of a bad guitarist

Rule #1 for playing guitar: DO NOT EVER.....may i emphasize....DO.....NOT.....EVER use distortion to cover your mistakes, it will make you feel like playing sloppily is ok and you will never truly master a song.

The best example i can give you is this: let's say you take that advice and you learn a song and just crank the distortion on the part you can't play that well so it sounds ok because it's more or less drowned out.

A few days later you go over your friend's house and he asks you to play the song (after you having told him you can play it very well and it being his favorite song) so he hands you an acoustic guitar and says play. You're screwed, because without distortion you can't hide your mistakes.


My advice to you: learn all those songs clean on your electric first, once you can play them well, do them how they're written with distortion and don't crank the gain on your amp, you will sound 500x better if you can play the song accurately vs. drowning out your playing.


Nothing ticks me off more than someone who thinks it's ok to play a song wrong and just crank the distortion to try and hide it.



A few other things i would like to add:

1) Start with MOP first, not illusion. MOP has very very basic riffs in it and it's fun to play and will teach you hammer ons and basic barre chord shapes. It's chord progressions are not very complicated and you should learn them quickly, illusion will only frustrate you as a beginner because (as a beginner) it has awkward timing and it has a lot of bends and quick playing that you will have never done. It is better to learn two songs quickly (mop and then illusion) than to spend the same amount of time trying to learn one song.

2) Don't learn songs in order of the cd's, they dont' go up in order of difficulty through the cd's (as malevolence seems to think, there are easy and hard songs on every cd). My best advice is to start with My Own Prison, then try Beautiful (very very simple song as well), Wash Away Those Years (shouldn't give you too many problems except for the bridge, it's a step up from the first two). Those are the ones you should start with, then you can move on to songs like Torn (fills may give you a few problems, just practice practice practice), Don't Stop Dancing (will introduce you to a chord shape different from the barre and power chords you'll be used to by then, solo may be difficult, but it's not that hard), etc. etc.

3) Say I - Chorus is not hard at all (don't know why malevolence thinks it is?). It's a little quick, but i learned it by ear in my garage in about 2 minutes just humming to myself. Word of advice: The verse riff to Say I and the bridge of Are You Ready have some similarities (the are you ready bridge is much harder than the say i verse, so if you learn that first, the say i riff will be a piece of cake).

4) Do NOT limit yourself to creed, they're a good band to pick and choose from, but there are a lot of gaps in skill requirements. It doesn't slowly build up harder and harder, it skips and jumps, so look around in other bands. The first song i ever learned was the chords to the song Good Riddance by Green Day (better known as Time of Your Life)

5) What If - The intro to this song is probably the best thing you can learn as an introduction to finger picking. It's relatively basic and it repeats itself, but learn the actual song first before you do the intro as it will take time (note: when finger picking, use your thumb for the 3 thickest strings and your pointer for the three thinnest, this is not always how you finger pick, but it's how you do it best in this case...why? i'll explain that in a bit). The verse riff is very basic, don't worry about the harmonic (that screech before the song goes heavy), that takes practice, you'll get that later on. The chorus is extremely easy (again, confused as to why malevolent thinks it's hard?) it's two chords back and forth, you just keep your fingers in the same place and slide. The bridge to this song is my favorite creed riff hands down, it's mostly on one string and pretty quick, it will take practice but it sounds really cool when you get it at the right speed. The break down is 4 chords (3 barre and one open) it's very quick and you will want to be able to change from barre chords to open chords quickly.

6) Finger Picking: The reason i said above that you use only your thumb and pointer (as opposed to all fingers but your pinkey as you would normally do it) is because in this song there's a point where you need to go from fingerpicking to struming pretty quickly. You won't be able to do this at first, but the best thing to do is to cup the pick in your picking hand with your middle, ring, and pinky finger against your palm and picking with your thumb and pointer, then sliding it into your thumb and pointer to strum (this will take a lot of practice but makes everything sound smoother when you're transitioning, like when you play With Arms Wide Open).

7) With Arms Wide Open: Stay away from playing this song all the way though until you can do #6, otherwise you'll pause too long during the song and it'll mess up the rhythm. It's a fairly basic song, the solo is just a little harder than my own prisons, but it's not a biggie, this is finger picking and strumming, it's a nice little song, but again when you go from verse to chorus you need to change from finger picking to strumming and you'll want to be able to do #6 for that.





To make learning the song easier for yourself i would advise this: Don't start out by learning songs. Learn basic chord shapes first and practice changing from one shape to another. Once you are comfortable with changing from chord to chord at a decent pace, then move on to learning songs. You will see that a lot of songs use basic open and barre chord shapes and it will make it much simpler, fun, and quicker to learn if you can change quickly.




Also, don't rush into learning Ode. The verse, while not overly complicated, is very fast, especially for a beginner. This song is best learned once you can play What If's bridge (it's another one string riff). The fills in the chorus are very quick (faster than tha verse) and they will take a lot of practice to get the timing right.

i think i hit on most of what i want to say, if not i'll post again.
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Old 01-04-2004, 12:41 PM   #25
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Thanks man.

I have been learning the chords and going through a stetina book I have. But I feel I would like to learn Creed to help me improve. I have also pulled some stuff from other bands such as East West, 12 Stones, Green Day, and Relient K out so I can have a variety to work with.
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Old 01-04-2004, 01:33 PM   #26
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Rune.. .. THAT WAS A LONG ASS POST TOO!!!!! You guys i really don't have the attention span to read all this stuff!!!!!
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Old 01-04-2004, 01:38 PM   #27
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Quote: (Originally Posted by Iced) Thanks man.

I have been learning the chords and going through a stetina book I have. But I feel I would like to learn Creed to help me improve. I have also pulled some stuff from other bands such as East West, 12 Stones, Green Day, and Relient K out so I can have a variety to work with.
WHOOOAAAAA WHOOOA WHOOA ... please... don't learn greenday... it's fun to listen to... but it REALLY wont help you improve as a guitarist at all!!! it's all powerchords... please try something a lil more challenging... trust me...
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Old 01-04-2004, 10:07 PM   #28
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time of your life will help alot with changing between open chords

it's not so much necessary for huge improvement, just getting used to changing between different types of chords, no one expects to learn how to play melodically or shred from a green day song
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Old 01-04-2004, 11:34 PM   #29
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Quote: (Originally Posted by facelessman) ok thats pointless
I believe that it's very important to get strumming down before picking. Or you can use Time Of Your Life as Rune said above.
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Old 01-04-2004, 11:45 PM   #30
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Quote: (Originally Posted by tremonti.net) I believe that it's very important to get strumming down before picking. Or you can use Time Of Your Life as Rune said above.


hey tremonti.net is there any reason why your site is down?
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