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Post by grampalerxst on Dec 28, 2018 6:05:45 GMT -6
2018 was a strange year for me as I basically took a hiatus from March thru October, and when I started back up I ramped up really slowly. Nevertheless, I felt like over the last 10 weeks or so of the year I really started moving past some long-standing limitations. Of course, all the hours I logged in 2017 and the beginning of 2018 contributed to that. What really seemed to provide the boost was playing along with slowed-down original recordings. Seems like such a basic way to approach things with the "technology" that's been readily available (for some time now). Dunno why it has taken me so long to exploit it.
I'm now in a very weird transitional stage where I have to "relearn" just about everything. It's hard to explain beyond noting that it appears my way of organizing information that precedes telling my hands/fingers what to do is evolving.
So as 2018 winds down I'm actually a bit more optimistic about how things are going than my norm. I used to think of it as, "Well, I'm going down but by golly I'm going to go down swinging," to "Geez, I might actually hit the ball". (I think I'm mixing a boxing metaphor with one from baseball there, but it works for me).
So, on to 2019, in no particular order:
*I'm going to keep using the play-along-with-slowed-recording (aka "reps") tool for learning stuff.
*I'm going to continue to pick some beyond-present-abilities phrases/licks/passages for the rep approach as technique builders (the "Electric Gypsy" lick falls firmly into that category).
*I'm going to pick up where I left off in Blues Rhythm Guitar (Wyatt). I really feel like that book was just what the doctor ordered for me at the time I started it, and in anything blues-related I do I can see its influence. I want to take it over the finish line.
*Each month I'm going to isolate and drill down on one of the BYCU studies (starting with #1) using an appropriate adaptation of the reps method, get a recording of it, then consider myself "done" with it. Even some of the very first ones still vex me, but it's time to make one last best faith effort and move on. I still have four more books from the BYCU series in the Himalayan Summit of Wisdom (my name for the considerable stack of learnin' books I've accumulated that remain unlearnt).
*I want to spend at least 1-2 hours/week doing focused practice of bends. I may not continue that all year, but it is one of the more glaring things I need more work on.
*I'm going to pick one song of the "classic rock" variety to learn as completely as I can. Good chance it will be "Limelight", but there are several other candidates still under consideration.
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Post by Phil on Dec 28, 2018 11:12:24 GMT -6
I guess 2018 was pretty good year. I stuck to the fingerstyle solo guitar Jazz stuff. Now I listen to and enjoy music that I never listened to in my life. I guess I'm hooked. The big attraction for me is being able to play a complete song by myself. I can also get together with another guitarist and play tunes because there are a core of standards that most Jazz players know.
However, I don't consider myself a Jazz guitarist because at the moment I have little interest in improvising. Too many more important things to work on. I'm happy to play pre-arranged stuff in a somewhat "jazzy" style.
Some 2018 highlights for me were: I got comfortable with walking bass lines. I can do it without much thought on common progressions (ii-V-I; I-VI-ii-V). I forced myself to read standard notation. Didn't do much of it, but still I did it. It came in handy last week when I found a progressive multi-step approach to creating a solo from a song's melody written by a saxophonist. I seriously worked on playing "harp harmonics" for several weeks. Still can't do it worth a crap. It requires a lot more practice.
I learned a lot of basic music theory. Especially regarding chords and progressions.
Disappointments:I jumped around too much. As a result I have 7 songs in various stages of unplayability. I never got more than 4 pages into the 2nd half of the Mickey Baker book. I had planned to finish it way back in 2017. I didn't record myself hardly at all - maybe twice? I didn't transcribe anything from recordings. My goals for 2018 (No resolutions. Just concrete goals.)1) Learn 1 new song every month. I have a list written out for the year. This is the primary goal. Everything else will be secondary. The plan here is to learn the melody, chords, and a simple solo guitar arrangement. Scales, arpeggios, walking bass, licks, techniques, books, courses, etc., will relate directly to the song of the month. 2) Finish the Baker book. 3) Record myself monthly even if it's just a work-in-progress.
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Post by joachim on Dec 28, 2018 15:00:52 GMT -6
My biggest goal for 2018 was to get better at improvisation, but I failed to work on it consistently. So my biggest goal for 2019 would be to make tangible improvements in that area.
But all in all I feel I made some decent progress, where the biggest change from earlier years is that I didn't pace myself, but took the time to learn the stuff properly - or at least better than before. I also noticed I don't have to make lots and of lots of recordings to get a take I am happy about, and I don't freak out to the same degree is someone happen to watch my playing.
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Post by jack1982 on Dec 29, 2018 13:17:49 GMT -6
My 2018 didn't start out all that bad, I actually got "Tales of Mystery" and "Wanted: Dead or Alive" recorded with all the guitar parts. Guess I got the solo for "Stairway to Heaven" recorded which, except for the weird guitar sound, I was fairly happy with. Really lost my motivation towards the end of the year though. I did several of those "challenges" at the other site and although they did get me to practice somewhat, it wasn't enough. 2019 - My main goal needs to be to just pick up the guitar and play every day. I'd like to work on some classic rock solos, or perhaps full songs. Jamming along with backing tracks is fun too. I'm counting on Phil's monthly recordings to keep me motivated
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Post by cunningr on Dec 29, 2018 18:20:02 GMT -6
Well I hate to reflect on 2018 albeit best thing I did was start lessons.
So my 2019 goal is continue lessons and maybe go play an open mic night at least 1 song.
Also, continue steady and regular practice.
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Post by bluesbruce on Dec 30, 2018 11:55:05 GMT -6
Well, I think my guitar playing kind of died on the vine as 2018 wore on. Looking at Youtube, the last video I put up was April 1, 2018 (it was Lazy Day Blues from BYCU). I think I need to copy Jack - just pick up the guitar and play every day. Got a new laptop for Christmas! Now I can actually run all my music programs (my old laptop was not robust enough to run Logic and didn't have enough memory to hold all the BIAB audio tracks). I've got a lifetime worth of educational material to work on, what I really need to work on, way more than anything else, is consistent, every day playing. It sounds like everyone has some good ideas I'd like to copy: Grampa - learn some songs; Phil - work on some finger style playing; Joachim - work on blues improvisation; Rich - steady and regular practice.
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Post by Phil on Dec 30, 2018 16:02:01 GMT -6
Well, I think my guitar playing kind of died on the vine as 2018 wore on. Looking at Youtube, the last video I put up was April 1, 2018 (it was Lazy Day Blues from BYCU). I think I need to copy Jack - just pick up the guitar and play every day. Got a new laptop for Christmas! Now I can actually run all my music programs (my old laptop was not robust enough to run Logic and didn't have enough memory to hold all the BIAB audio tracks). I've got a lifetime worth of educational material to work on, what I really need to work on, way more than anything else, is consistent, every day playing. It sounds like everyone has some good ideas I'd like to copy: Grampa - learn some songs; Phil - work on some finger style playing; Joachim - work on blues improvisation; Rich - steady and regular practice. Last week I took a good look at all the courses and books I have and uncovered some real gems buried in them. Man, I have stuff I didn't even remember I had. Apparently, I was accumulating Jazz stuff long before I had any real interest or could even name a single Jazz standard. I have more learning resources than I could possibly get thru in 10 lifetimes. However, that probably won't stop me from buying more in 2019.
Those are all great ideas. In fact that's essentially my plan for 2019.
I think you'd do well to focus exclusively on 1 particular style for a while. I remember a time when I was trying to learn flat picking, finger style, hybrid picking, Travis/Atkins style with a thumb pick, and the associated musical styles all at the same time. I actually had all that stuff worked into my practice plan. Needless to say, I didn't accomplish much with any of them.
I haven't touched a pick hardly at all this entire year. I want to get back to using it, but I'm controlling my urges at least for a couple of more months. I've finally gotten over worrying about the opportunity cost of focusing on 1 thing.
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Post by Phil on Dec 30, 2018 21:30:32 GMT -6
I'm counting on Phil's monthly recordings to keep me motivated Thanks, man. Now the burden is on me. I'll do what I can to help keep you motivated, but you're going to have to listen to my half-assed versions of Jazz standards.
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Post by grampalerxst on Dec 31, 2018 7:30:49 GMT -6
Since it is New Year's Eve day I thought I'd add a little to what I put up above. That list is sort of a tactical list with a lot of "what" and "how" and not so much "why".
I've noticed with the repping process that most of my errors are with my right hand (picking hand for me). All the work I did with the metronome and rhythm studies improved my ability to play in time significantly--and accurately so long as the picking is pretty straightforward like with a basic boogie shuffle (spread rhythm in BYCU lingo). But there's a lot I need to do to improve my skill at sounding the strings.
Five of the items in my list lend themselves pretty well to solidifying my RH. Working on bends is more of a ear and LH exercise.
What I think I need to do is pretty simple to state. I have to develop more consistent awareness of what my RH is up to.
From the beginning through late 2015 or so I always focused on looking at my LH when playing. When I finally started focusing on rhythm I started feeling the beat more and developed enough RH awareness to at least sync it to the beat consistently. That morphed into a better overall awareness of what else was going on while I was playing, typically either my metronome clicking away or some backing track. I still feel like that awareness is in a relatively nascent stage, but it's growing. As it grows the increased information gives me a more solid idea of how to fit in, which leads to a more detailed picture of what/how I want to play. In order to dial in on that I need more out of my right hand. I need more out of the left too, but I'm much better at keeping track of what it is up to than I am my right.
Doing the repping thing sometimes has meditative qualities, and every once in a while I truly surprise myself with what comes out of the guitar jack. Eventually I determined that one of the characteristics of those moments was that I would drift into a mental state where for a few seconds what my right hand was doing had locked in with what I was hearing. So I know there's something out there to strive for plus I have an idea what it feels like. I guess you could say the goal is to make it an "on-demand" feature.
Playing along with slowed-down artists' recordings is a lot of help with my RH too. With a sufficiently slow tempo I can hear a lot of nuance that otherwise I wouldn't even know was going on. Trying to imitate a competent picker seems to improve my vocabulary for articulating with a pick attack. Plus it does the same for LH articulation at the same time.
2018 wouldn't be complete without me tossing out some over-thought theory about some really basic aspect of playing a guitar in an attempt to give myself hope, right? So there it is, barely in under the wire.
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Post by Phil on Dec 31, 2018 10:05:44 GMT -6
This is the first time since Aug 10, 2014 that we didn't do a thread titled "Weekly Update". Wannaplayblues suggested it a few days before. I hope we get back to it in 2019.
I also hope we pick up some more active members in the new year. We haven't had a new active participant in over 4 years.
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Post by jack1982 on Jan 1, 2019 6:27:07 GMT -6
This is the first time since Aug 10, 2014 that we didn't do a thread titled "Weekly Update". Wannaplayblues suggested it a few days before. I hope we get back to it in 2019. I also hope we pick up some more active members in the new year. We haven't had a new active participant in over 4 years. I'm afraid I didn't have much to report, other than maybe an hour of jamming along with backing tracks I signed up for another challenge at the other site, playing unaccompanied in the style of Little Wing, so hopefully that will get me inspired.
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Post by blackcountrymick on Jan 1, 2019 8:26:06 GMT -6
Happy New Year guys. I didn't do much playing over Christmas, just enough to work on re-conditioning my fingertips, its amazing how soft they get when you take a guitar break. Going forward into 2019 I have a plan of lessons I would like to work through, which are more rhythm biased. Like most of you guys I have an absolute pile of learning material which has remained largely unused, so I have selected a few to get me back in the saddle again and hopefully show some progress.
Cheers, Mick
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Post by cunningr on Jan 1, 2019 8:39:06 GMT -6
Hey everyone! I wish you all a very happy new year 2019 and good luck with all your endeavours! I'm not sure who's still around these days as I didn't follow the forum's discussions for the last few months, but to those who posted above I probably don't have to re-inroduce myself. As for anyone else: I'm a longtime member of this forum who took a long hiatus for such reasons as the usual real life obligations we all have to care about and other distractions as other interests etc. After having finished all the studies in BYCU and BRYCU (thanks to the encouraging support in form of further input and feedback on progress by the means of per review), I endangled myself in some other musical project to more or less avail. After returning to work on the BYCU series and starting to plough may way through the first chapters of MBYCU, JtB, RnBYCU and BYCU, I decided that I needed more focus to reach my musical goals, so I decided to start to take online lessons with JG who helps me to work through the books. I made the decision after learning that one of our past forum members who was also an accomplished pianist and singer worked with a teacher which partly explained the tremendous progress he made in a comparatively short time - so I followed the given example and never looked back! Given the fact that I'm working fulltime and do night-classes while trying to be a good father, I realized that I had to juggle too many balls at once, especially since I also do try to accomplish other musical tasks like many others around here... not having the time to spend with other musicians is a very bad thing for any aspiring guitar player, and the lessons with John not only are most helpful, they are also great fun (even if i didn't manage to be as prepared as appropriate because I didn't manage to do my assigned homework). I'm not sure whether time will permit to continue with some of the great projects we did here together a while ago (you know who you are ), but let's wait and see... Hopefully I'll be able to post some progress vids every now and then - only time will tell. At least it felt good to drop by and say hello, I'll probably catch up with you guys later. Gretings, T. Hey man was thinking about you the other day wonder if you were still around. Good to hear from you, happy new year.
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Post by Phil on Jan 1, 2019 8:56:51 GMT -6
T-Bone,
It's nice to hear from you. You must be psychic. Yesterday I was wondering what you've been up to when I was thinking about who's left on this forum. Hope you stick around and post some recordings or videos.
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Post by cunningr on Jan 1, 2019 9:55:55 GMT -6
Hey Rich, hey Phil, good to hear from you guys Well, given yesterday's usual procedure, I feel a little hung over today, but I'll give you this (although it's not ready yet):
This is some of the stuff I was working on over the past year...
See you guys soon! Greetings, Tony Nice stuff, I really like the tone on the first video!
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Post by Phil on Jan 1, 2019 11:42:29 GMT -6
Hey Rich, hey Phil, good to hear from you guys Well, given yesterday's usual procedure, I feel a little hung over today, but I'll give you this (although it's not ready yet):
This is some of the stuff I was working on over the past year...
See you guys soon! Greetings, Tony Well, that is certainly more videos than I did in all of 2018. Nice playing. Stay in touch.
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Post by bluesbruce on Jan 1, 2019 11:42:59 GMT -6
Hey Rich, hey Phil, good to hear from you guys Well, given yesterday's usual procedure, I feel a little hung over today, but I'll give you this (although it's not ready yet):
This is some of the stuff I was working on over the past year...
See you guys soon! Greetings, Tony1! Sounding good, T. Good to hear from you again. Hope you have a great 2019!
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JohnG
Full Member
Posts: 193
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Post by JohnG on Jan 1, 2019 16:24:04 GMT -6
grampalerxst, ambitious goals can be hard to achieve (I know from lots of experience). I would suggest starting with maybe two, and see where that gets you. You can always add to the list.
Phil, you've always been pretty solid, as I recall. Jumping aaround isn't always a bad thing. Any practicing you do helps all areas of your playing. with the theory you've learned, improve may be more fun than you think.
Joachim, well, you've done very well this past year. Keep up the good work.
Jack, cunningr and bluesbruce, you're on to something. A good friend of mine, who was a great player used to say "touch your axe every day."
Mick, sounds like a good plan. Ease back in and stay steady.
T-bone, great performance on "Big Bends." Solid playing and great tone. All with feeling. Very nice.
To everybody, Happy New Year. I hope it's for good you all.
Peace.
JG
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Post by Phil on Jan 1, 2019 18:28:51 GMT -6
grampalerxst, ambitious goals can be hard to achieve (I know from lots of experience). I would suggest starting with maybe two, and see where that gets you. You can always add to the list. Phil, you've always been pretty solid, as I recall. Jumping aaround isn't always a bad thing. Any practicing you do helps all areas of your playing. with the theory you've learned, improve may be more fun than you think.Joachim, well, you've done very well this past year. Keep up the good work. Jack, cunningr and bluesbruce, you're on to something. A good friend of mine, who was a great player used to say "touch your axe every day." Mick, sounds like a good plan. Ease back in and stay steady. T-bone, great performance on "Big Bends." Solid playing and great tone. All with feeling. Very nice. To everybody, Happy New Year. I hope it's for good you all. Peace. JG Thanks, John. I should mention that with the over abundance of learning resources I have "BYCU,", "MBYCU," and "Jazzin' the Blues" are the only books I ever worked thru cover to cover. Just thought I'd mention that.
Hope you have a prosperous 2019.
Now I've got to get thru that damned Mickey Baker book.
,
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Post by jack1982 on Jan 2, 2019 6:16:06 GMT -6
Happy New Year to all you guys! Great to see some folks checking in who we haven't heard from in a long while Hope you all stick around. Good stuff there Tbone, you got a lot more recorded last year than I did.
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