Oh, I totally know what you mean. I have art school background and years of being my worst critic behind me as well. Thick skin? I can be a bit too touchy at times, I know, but I mostly take constructive criticism as intended. I accept that I don't have the polished playing my tracks could use.
I play the parts myself simply because I don't have the time or patience to wait for my bandmates, Gary and Derrick, to learn their parts. I need to have this album demoed and into rehearsal by the summer, so I'm just going at breakneck speed, and leaving them in the dust, I'm cranking out songs a week at a time, in some case, which is fast when I'm playing all of the (non programmed) parts and recording it myself. I certainly don't like lording it over them and making them miserable learning my parts and playing idiosyncrasies when I'd much rather just let them find their own parts in the mix. I just can't seem to make myself wait any longer. I've been sitting on some of these songs for over a decade.
My problems are twofold; Derrick is out of practice on drums, and needs a steady hand on bass to keep him locked in the groove (tricky playing is NOT his forte, sadly; some of the stuff I've programmed is more of a suggestion to him than an order, because I know he doesn't have the chops for it); and Gary is an avowed rhythm guitarist who isn't comfortable in the lead role, and doesn't like soloing unless I'm holding down lots of stuff and leaving him free to make scary noises (I love his ersatz Andy Summers playing, but he doesn't do it enough). He's neither the most confident player, nor is he the most adventurous, these days.
It's a bit frustrating, but they're my best friends, and I try to make a place for them in what I do. I kind of feel obligated to include them, since I learned most of what I know about music from working with them; I wouldn't say I've outgrown them precisely, but I do smother them sometimes. I just keep hoping they'll catch up.
So, in the end, when I write parts they can't play (yet?), I shoulder the blame so as not to make them feel too bad. I also generally never get them to perform the songs I've written without their help, unless they go away and quietly learn certain of the songs when I'm not looking. It's far from an ideal situation, but I guess I've just reached the point where I realize, I'm not a strong enough player to join somebody else's band (yet), I'm not a strong enough singer (these days) to front a band of technically superior players playing my unfinished songs (yet), and I'm not getting any younger. So I just dive in and muck up the parts on my own. Multi-instrumentalist FTW?
My hope is to get the demos solid enough that my bandmates and/or some new recruits will be able to learn the parts and take the songs out to gig and rerecord 'professionally'.
As for your offer, I'd love to take you up on it. I have to confess, I'm not used to working with technically superior guitarists, given that I've only ever played with real musicians a handful of times in my life, and I've never written for them. I trust that you're enough of a 'feel' player that you can fill a space without having your hand held. I'd hate to have to sit down and write tabulature for the kind of half-assed playing I do.
My only concern is that I might end up putting Gary out of a job, and I'm practically married to the guy (don't tell my wife
). So whatever parts I record for him to learn have to be cool but fairly elementary. If I write a great guitar part for him that has lots of widdly-widdly in it, he'll baulk and I'll have one more song in my collection that won't ever get played... unless and until I get him in the room with a lead guitarist he likes enough to work with. I've been working on that, but the one guy I was thinking about broke his hand, so he's busy healing at present. Another reason I ended up playing the part myself.
I mean, it's not like Gary loves my guitar part on that song. He already told me he doesn't like the sound I picked. Personally, I haven't married myself to it, but I think it suits the track. I was just working fast and going by ear, using a stock sound built into my multi-track, but it did the job. I figured he'd wind up picking his own sound, but I did want to get some distortion in there, just to prove it works. Gary doesn't play with a lot of distortion, so he's not used to hearing it in my songs. I expect him to be confused. I know Derrick was.
I've just been thinking that too many of my songs in the last few years have been these squeaky clean pop songs, and that's not really the way I roll. I mean, you know I love all these stellar guitarists we have in common, so you can imagine how weird it is for me to listen to my music and realize that I'm not getting as much rock and roll in there as I'd like.
Okay, I've written a novel here. I'm gonna PM you my email address, and we can pick up from there, if you like.
