Mattias Eklundh's Growing Your Own Moustache series

Has anyone worked through any of these instructional albums?

http://www.freakguitar.com/growing-your-own-moustache.html

I’m currently working on Volume IV - everything you wanted to know about rhythm but were afraid to ask, since my rhythm needed work. I’ve been working through on first track, starting at the end and working my way backwards, bar by bar. It’s bloody hard! (but evidently not impossible - I am making slow progress, not up to tempo yet but there’s nothing technically that I can’t do)

I must admit my sense of rhythm has seen a significant improvement after only a few days working on it, so I would recommend taking a look.

BTW apologies if this is in the wrong section, wasn’t quite sure where to put it.

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I have a few of them.
I think the rhythmic concepts are getting harder from Volume to Volume.
Some ideas sound really simple but then are super hard to play. not technically but “in time”. And it ´s even harder to play them not to the backing track but only to a click or even worse a foottap or so…
good investment…
If you have the chance to attend to the freak guitar camp, you definitely should go. it´s intense and fun.

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That’s the tune I’m working on.

Seems pretty straight forward at first listen doesn’t it? Wrong!

Mattias really knows how to give you a great rhythmic workout.

If you are into this konnakol / carnatic stuff i would recommend this:


super in depth guide to indian rhythms

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I guess we have very very different thresholds for “seeming straight forward”.

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Haha yeah I should clarify that I was only referring to the rhythm guitar part.

So am I!

I hear that and think “woah there’s some stuff going on here”

Can you give a breakdown of what material each volume covers?

“Wheels within Wheels” is another really good text on Indian rhythm cycles with progressive complexity, as a convenient PDF book. Very mind-expanding.

Can you give a breakdown of what material each volume covers?

puh, thats not an easy one. i obviously can´t speak for IA nor do i know, what he intended when writing this stuff.
My impression is: GYOM i & II is more about lead playing or lead playing techniques.
But then don´t expect too much actual lead playing spread out in the notation; it often simply says “grow your own moustache here” or something similar.
But still the songs are very challenging with rhythm tracks all about sweeps and tapping etc.
Techniques you would usually expect / find in a lead-playing context.
you´ll get an good impession here… who can tell if it´s a lead or a rhythm?! :wink:

From GYOM III on it gets more into the indian / pseudo indian rhythms and tonalities.
The GYOM III package is more or less the same material that he taught during the freak guitar camp 2011. I attended that year and i for the first time got confronted with reductions, odd time signatures all over the place, ragas like Kanakangi or Panturavali etc. It was simply mindblowing.

The following packages GYOM iV, V, VI imo expand on these ideas. For example ; a reduction can be a simple 2bar phrase or a utterly complex 64bar section containing lots of other concepts like tihais etc. You´ll find polyrhythms, all kinds of xy-tuplets, metric modulations, a brief introduction to konnakol etc.
With a strong focus on rhythms there are still many of his trademark tappings, sweeps etc.

Good thing is, you can watch big chunks of each installment on youtube
search for:
blues for FK
babali bedouins
carnatic metal
big machine
on
off
a reshuffling of atoms

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Nice. Thank you for that summary!