Grateful Dead Music Forum

Been playing for about 6 yrs. now...mostly acoustic...last few mos. i've been playing my electrcs --mainly my telecaster...been really struggling trying to transition from acoustic to electric ...it just seems so different...especially the strumming...i feel i play acoustic much, much better...any suggestions to make this transition pay off...i'm ready to ditch my tele and amp and just stick to my acoustic

Don't give up! It's just a different approach to a familiar instrument.

I'd suggest working a ton of barre chords on the acoustic and transitioning them over. The control over chords on the electric is part of its beauty!

thanks...i just discovered that playing my epi casino is similar to playing my acoustic...has a much mellower sound than the tele probably because of the hollow body ..but i really dig the cruch from the tele...I'll heed your suggestion and get busy with the barre chords

I also had a tough time making this transition. I found that when I play acoustic, I try to fill in the voids, putting fills and such in, while playing the electric, I was too "busy" and needed to leave more of the space in, letting things ring and such.
I usually play acoustic solo and electric with a band, which is VERY different. I adhere to what Chick Corea said: "it's not what you play, but what you DON'T play".
I also found that watching people who play electric solo really helped me. I would suggest Billy Bragg.

Great point. When I swiched over I played "too much" as well. On electric, in a band, less is more.

Gil

Along with what everyone else has said, work on playing smaller chords, especially if you play with distortion. What I can't stand is when people crank up the od and try to play full barre chords it makes eveything sound muddy and awful. If you play mostly clean, it's not as big of an issue, but you should experiment with playing further up the fretboard, the action on an electric is definately much easier for barring and more complex chords. Also, you have much more freedom for soloing; you can bend notes, you have more fret space to experiment with different forms and higher notes.

stick with it. the transition you are doing now is, for the most part, far easier than going in the other direction.

Do you palm mute? I do with both acoustic and electric but if you are used to freely strumming you might find that is a lot more out of control on electric. To palm mute, practice different pressure from the heel of your picking hand right on the bridge saddles of your tele. Make sure that ashtray is removed! You should be able to go from completely a dead thunk to a pretty open sound and everything between. It becomes second nature.

Dig It!...rukind folks ...thanks to all for the encouragement and the tips!!!

FWIW, i started on electrics and transitioned to an acoustic. I sounded lick crap on the acoustic at first but just played the hell out of it and now sound much better. (it also helps that i have a sweet Martin Dread, but thats besides the point). The great thing is that playing all that acoustic rapidly improved my electric playing.