Media added by Ed Seith

I've been reading the autobiography of Tesla's bassist this week (it's actually a lot better than I expected it to be) and this morning, I was reading about the making of their 3rd album, Psychotic Supper. Edison's Medicine was the lead single from that album, so I decided to start learning it this afternoon. This is my second playthrough the track - some parts I can't play up to speed or get lost, other parts I haven't actually learned yet. No thought given to any leads yet AT ALL. This is as raw as it gets for me, so here you go. If I decide to keep working on this one, there might be a progress video in a couple weeks, though this is not something I would work on continuously for all of that time.

It's all about the SGS. The whole idea here was going cold.

We'll see how this fits in. For possibly the first time ever in a lead, I made a chart of the key I wanted to play in (A minor) and, here's the real trick - I stuck to it. I also tried to incorporate a MOTIF from the blues lessons; first in the middle, then to wrap up at the end.

Doing the Blues for the Syn Gates school. This is the PRS Custom 24 with the pickup selector in #4 (Bridge humbucker and neck single/tapped) and a low-gain lead tone with more delay than I usually use. This is about the 10th take of just winging it, with the first 9 being iteratively finding a loose tapestry of things that "work" to my ear and filling around them improvisationally. @[42619:@Aileé Guerra Aréizaga]

I didn't know this was out there. This was from the lesser of the two gigs I did with this band before it fell apart. It's also the last gig I played - end of summer 2018, which seems like forever ago now. Rocking the PRS Custom 24 through the AxeFX IIXL+ through my JBL Eon PA speaker.

I was fiddling with a new and mellower lead tone, and it's versatility struck me. During trying times, I often find myself gravitating to this song, a Bon Jovi classic from 1995, the title track from the album These Days. These Days, indeed. Corona quarantine. This is another one-take wonder, and it comes at like 3am after a long day. The leads are all improvised, with mixed results, but it's real. All one preset on the AxeFX, though I do kick on a little extra gain for the outro solo.

Okay, today’s metalminute is also a part of the #synystergatesschool riff challenge. I was challenged by @idssdi to step outside my straight rock box and learn something with GROOVE. He assigned me “Vibrato” by the inimitable @paulgilbert_official. The notes are simple. The groove, not so much. Star

SynGates.com "Riff Challenge" - learned the opening bits of Trivium's "The Heart from your Hate" with about 30 minutes effort.

I don’t usually play solos note for note, and this is not QUITE an exception, but it’s such a wonderful, tasty and emotive place that I had to put some of my...

I don’t usually play solos note for note, and this is not QUITE an exception, but it’s such a wonderful, tasty and emotive place that I had to put some of my own heart in it, you know?

Song and Emotion from Tesla. With coffee.

Taking popular shapes and patterns you know and finding ways to make them different

The hair! The reverb! The pink shirt! So many notes, with no direction or meaning! It must be the EIGHTIES - but no, it wasn't. It was 1994.

Inaugural offering of "Cooking with Captain Ed" video series. This episode looks at a long-term problem with picking mechanics, and how I came to be aware of it, along with how I'm going about fixing it. Sometimes a different pick can expose mechanical issues!