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Post by jack1982 on Apr 14, 2019 9:05:45 GMT -6
I think I practiced every day last week, for an hour or more a day. Yay! I worked on the first two-thirds of the main solo for that "challenge" song, it's coming along. I made a video but after watching it, decided it hadn't come along quite that far just yet lol. Bends need lots of work and there are a couple of quick parts that don't sound right. Learned a neat trick - turn up the gain on the amp pretty high and then turn the volume on the guitar way down; that creates a cool sound and you can keep increasing the volume a little at a time as the solo builds intensity. Got the Sheraton II all shined up and a fresh set of .011's on it. The next webinar is Wednesday so I've got a few more days to practice before I submit something. Then we'll learn the last third of the solo, and with the last webinar not being until the 29th, hopefully get the intro solo, rhythm part, and main solo in some (semi) presentable form by then.
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Post by Phil on Apr 14, 2019 14:41:39 GMT -6
Haven't touched a guitar all week. I'm traveling and won't be home for another week. 2 weeks of not playing is not too hard to recover from. After a few days of practice I'll be back to my same level of mediocrity.
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Post by bluesbruce on Apr 14, 2019 17:25:30 GMT -6
Wow, Phil, I was thinking that I probably played for at least a half hour to an hour every day this week, but I don't think I made any progress.. oh, yeah, there's that consistency thing! I probably ought to put together a recording of some of these Stetina "Total Rock Guitar" songs. I know several of you on here have played with these (Mick, Joachim, and Jack, I think). I think I recorded the first two songs several years ago, but now probably have the next ten or so in various stages of playability. I seem to have an immense lack of focus in my life right now.
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Post by cunningr on Apr 14, 2019 22:39:26 GMT -6
Well got lots of home work assigned from class, working specific licks Albert King, and BB King. practice time has been an issue, maybe 30 minutes a day most days with some longer sessions. Bruce add me to the stetina rock group, started it 2 times but never finish.
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Post by grampalerxst on Apr 15, 2019 2:00:23 GMT -6
Another scant week for me capped off by a bizarre accident with the metal cutting edge on a box of aluminum foil that's taken finger 3 of my fretting hand out of the game for a while. So I won't be doing much this coming week except maybe trying to come up with some RH exercises to work on rhythm and dynamics.
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Post by bluesbruce on Apr 15, 2019 6:46:44 GMT -6
Bruce add me to the stetina rock group, started it 2 times but never finish. Didn't mean to leave you out, Rich! It's a really well done book, but the studies definitely ramp up in skill level pretty quickly, and it ends up at a pretty darn high level of playing. You know, I've finally realized (after maybe 30 years) that books like this really aren't intended to take you from start to finish straight through by themselves. You'll run into a wall in your skill level, which is where you get "stuck" - which leads you to bog down, become frustrated, and eventually put it aside. Hopefully you don't just quit guitar entirely (I've done that a few times in my "journey"), but maybe move on to something else within your current skill level. WHAT YOU REALLY NEED TO DO is to go ahead and move on to something else, BUT TAKE WHATEVER YOU'VE RUN INTO THAT'S GOT YOU FRUSTRATED AND BREAK IT DOWN AND WORK ON A SMALL PART OF IT FOR MAYBE 3-5 MINUTES EVERY DAY. As an example, I was trying to play the solo in "Southern Comfort" from Total Rock Guitar, and just failing it miserably. It's only an 8 bar pentatonic solo, for goodness sake! So on the computer I took one bar at a time, slowed it down to where I could play that bar (would usually be about 50-70% full speed) and just looped that one bar over and over and over. After a couple of minutes, I could up the tempo a bit. Then repeat this with the next bar. Then you either move on to the third bar or go ahead and put the first two bars together... the next day, rehash this and maybe add another bar. Over the course of a few weeks, I'm confident I will have this solo down. So maybe you need to work on multiple songs from a single book at a time, or multiple songs from several books at a time. I just think that the mindset of "I'm going to work my way through this book and leave everything else alone" is actually probably counterproductive - especially if you just reach a point where the material is really beyond your current skill level, leading you to become frustrated. Take MBYCU, as a good example. I don't currently have the technical skills to play those songs. So rather than pound away at it, I need to apply the above advise: take something in it and break it down to a manageable "chunk", slow it down, and learn it. Spend a couple of minutes a day on it - but don't make it a single minded, do this and this alone project. I think I'm finally seeing some light into how to progress with this. Same applies to R&BYCU, and to Jazzin' The Blues... Wow, sorry to get on a rant... Grampa, sorry to hear about your injury. Let it heal, spend some time with the right hand or doing some ear training or venture into some harmonica (I spent some time like that with a hand injury a couple of years ago...)
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Post by Phil on Apr 15, 2019 12:58:49 GMT -6
Another scant week for me capped off by a bizarre accident with the metal cutting edge on a box of aluminum foil that's taken finger 3 of my fretting hand out of the game for a while. So I won't be doing much this coming week except maybe trying to come up with some RH exercises to work on rhythm and dynamics. Those damn freak accidents with objects you handle everyday are real pissers. No way to avoid them. Imagine something like this happening to a pro with gigs lined up.
Guitarist Mike Stern tripped on the street where some construction was going on, broke his collar bones, and suffered permanent nerve damage which affected his picking hand. Fortunately it didn't end his career, but it almost did. If you watch recent videos you'll see that he has a strange way of holding the pick.
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Post by wannaplayblues on Apr 16, 2019 6:54:19 GMT -6
This past week I set a goal of 5 days a week practice - any 5 within the 7 'cos life happens. I also set a smaller more fun based practice routine.
I hit 6 days and averaged over an hour each of those days. Hoping it continues as well. Am tracking it all on a sheet too!
I did my recording of SlowBlues (which I posted for you all) and worked on some other bits. Am now starting on the next track called "Organ Blues" - a slow-to-medium shuffle in E.
I think I should probably also work on reading music - but I find this the least compelling/exciting.
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