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Post by bluesbruce on Apr 26, 2020 5:36:51 GMT -6
For the next two weeks, we'll move on to Lick 2 - another 4 bar lick that goes over the first four bars of a 12-bar blues. The timing on this one looks easier than Lick 1 (a note on the first beat of each measure), and it actually seems to line up with the metronome beat on the recording! Unfortunately, the lick demo and the backing track seem to be recorded at slightly different tempos. Anyway, put together similar demos to last time for everyone's perusal. We'll take two weeks for everyone to try to learn and own this lick, so "due date" is May 10, 2020. Again, learn it, transpose it, change the timing, use it in a 12-bar blues - whatever you'd like to do with it. Let's try to share recordings by May 10. Again, hope is that if you'll spend 5-10 minutes a day on this lick, by the end of two weeks, it'll be part of you arsenal.
Lick with metronome (JG's recording):
Lick over backing track (lick in Guitar Pro):
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Post by grampalerxst on Apr 29, 2020 5:41:25 GMT -6
Thanks, Bruce, for putting that together. Anybody besides me have sore fingers yet? I like this collection of licks better than the first. But while my digits howl in protest I'm having flashbacks to when I first started working on "Bending the Blues".
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Post by Phil on May 1, 2020 9:03:10 GMT -6
Took a first look at lick 2 yesterday. In addition to all the whole tone bends this one is a friggin' fingering nightmare. Maybe it's just me. I need to use my ring finger (reinforced by middle and index) for those bends. That means a lot of shifting the whole hand. That final phrase has my fingers stumbling all over each other and the last note has to be played with my little finger. Oh, woe is me.
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Post by bluesbruce on May 1, 2020 12:15:37 GMT -6
Took a first look at lick 2 yesterday. In addition to all the whole tone bends this one is a friggin' fingering nightmare. Maybe it's just me. I need to use my ring finger (reinforced by middle and index) for those bends. That means a lot of shifting the whole hand. That final phrase has my fingers stumbling all over each other and the last note has to be played with my little finger. Oh, woe is me. Phil, if you listen carefully to the above recording of JG playing it, it sounds like that next to the last note is kind of muffed. I've kind of gone round and round about the best way to try to finger this, too. The 11th fret bend followed by the 13th fret bend in the second measure, I've come down to playing with my middle finger (with backing of my index finger) on the 11th fret bend, followed by the "usual" ring finger (assisted by both the index and middle) on the 13th fret bend. I'll be looking forward to your video to see how you decide to finger it!
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Post by grampalerxst on May 1, 2020 12:49:57 GMT -6
Okay, I'm going to give away my premium-only Lick 2 game-changer technique secret because I'm a nice guy and not competitive. That next to last note can be played on the open G-string. Almost sounds like what John is doing. That keeps you off the A-string and gives you more choices to get a good grip on the B-string for the final bend. Phil-on the first 11th fret bend on the high E I'm using my index finger. All the rest are 3rd finger with as much reinforcement as I can muster. Thought I had pretty good callouses worked up, but am learning otherwise.
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Post by jack1982 on May 2, 2020 6:05:43 GMT -6
For that 11th fret bend at the beginning of bar 2, I've just been moving my hand down 2 frets and playing it normally, with my ring finger reinforced by the index and middle. Using your middle finger reinforced by the index finger works fine too. When I was working on those Albert King licks at the "other site", there were some bends that needed to be done with the 1st finger alone, and that's a good technique to have in the tool box as well - when I did that "Landslide" solo there was one in there that could only be done that way, so it's nice to be able to do. That last lick is a tough one, I mostly have trouble with the picking I guess, the 10th fret on the D and A strings gets messy. Guess the important thing is getting the last bend in time as it's right on a beat; if the "trailing off" bit before it isn't perfect, well expressiveness is more important than technical precision, right?
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Post by grampalerxst on May 2, 2020 9:13:37 GMT -6
... Guess the important thing is getting the last bend in time as it's right on a beat; if the "trailing off" bit before it isn't perfect, well expressiveness is more important than technical precision, right? That's my way of handling it -- just make it seem like "I meant to do that".
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Post by Phil on May 2, 2020 9:38:37 GMT -6
I'm beginning to think that my attraction to Jazz is that nobody expects you to do a whole bend. A week has gone by already and I've only taken one quick look at this lick. I'd better get busy before the coach finds out I've been slacking off.
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Post by jack1982 on May 2, 2020 15:42:15 GMT -6
^^ Make him run some laps Bruce
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Post by cunningr on May 3, 2020 11:42:45 GMT -6
Took a first look at lick 2 yesterday. In addition to all the whole tone bends this one is a friggin' fingering nightmare. Maybe it's just me. I need to use my ring finger (reinforced by middle and index) for those bends. That means a lot of shifting the whole hand. That final phrase has my fingers stumbling all over each other and the last note has to be played with my little finger. Oh, woe is me. Phil, if you listen carefully to the above recording of JG playing it, it sounds like that next to the last note is kind of muffed. I've kind of gone round and round about the best way to try to finger this, too. The 11th fret bend followed by the 13th fret bend in the second measure, I've come down to playing with my middle finger (with backing of my index finger) on the 11th fret bend, followed by the "usual" ring finger (assisted by both the index and middle) on the 13th fret bend. I'll be looking forward to your video to see how you decide to finger it! I dont bend 11 I slide into 13 using my ring finger then I bend 13 basically same thing because your bending 1 tone if you slide then your positioned for the bend on 13.
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Post by Phil on May 3, 2020 13:36:22 GMT -6
I dont bend 11 I slide into 13 using my ring finger then I bend 13 basically same thing because your bending 1 tone if you slide then your positioned for the bend on 13. That's one way to skin this cat. I'm gonna give that a try. Thanks for the tip.
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Post by cunningr on May 3, 2020 14:04:14 GMT -6
I dont bend 11 I slide into 13 using my ring finger then I bend 13 basically same thing because your bending 1 tone if you slide then your positioned for the bend on 13. That's one way to skin this cat. I'm gonna give that a try. Thanks for the tip. My instructor has me doing that, when I can’t hit the tone. I think he just gets tired of flat bends lol. But really he says its same difference and depends On situation, in this case I just don't have the finger strength or technique so doing it this way I get the sound while positioning to make the bend on 13.
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Post by blackcountrymick on May 3, 2020 17:12:54 GMT -6
I think I'm sort of getting there now with lick2, I just can't seem to get it memorised so that I can get it to flow. Trying to work in with lick 1 also. Still no video!!!
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Post by jack1982 on May 4, 2020 6:04:44 GMT -6
Sometimes when practicing trying to get bends to pitch, I'll play through something once by sliding up to the correct pitches, then play through it again with bends, trying to get them to match what I just heard with the slides (+/- 50% ). Seems to be a useful practice technique.
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Post by Phil on May 4, 2020 8:37:47 GMT -6
Last night I found another way to deal with those back-to-back bends. Instead of playing the "C" on fret 13 of 2nd string with my ring finger I play it on the 1st string fret 8 with my index finger. Then it's a simple movement up the fret board to finger and bend the 11th fret with my ring finger. Shift up 2 frets and hit the 13th fret. Wish I had some way of showing you this. You know, like a video or something.
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Post by grampalerxst on May 4, 2020 11:40:35 GMT -6
Last night I found another way to deal with those back-to-back bends. Instead of playing the "C" on fret 13 of 2nd string with my ring finger I play it on the 1st string fret 8 with my index finger. Then it's a simple movement up the fret board to finger and bend the 11th fret with my ring finger. Shift up 2 frets and hit the 13th fret. Wish I had some way of showing you this. You know, like a video or something.
I haven't tried that although I'm virtually certain that much movement would trip me up for sure. I did mess around with trying to do the back-to-back bends with my ring finger, but kept the 2X C on the second string. That was doable but I could really attack the second bend without leaving more of gap between the notes than JG does, and it was way easier for me just to bend Eb->F with my first finger, then F->G with ring.
It's interesting how we all have our little hitches to overcome in these things.
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Post by grampalerxst on May 8, 2020 19:36:00 GMT -6
Okay, I guess I'll go first this time ...
***CHEAT ALERT*** I did this in two takes. The first four bars is one and the last 8 I did in a second take--just couldn't get the last 8 going well on the heel of getting through John's licks. I could just "learn" what I played for the last 8 and do it in 1 take maybe, but I'm too lazy. At least to lazy to commit to it. I might try again for the sake of pride.
But tomorrow is my birthday, so be nice to me
This is another C+/B-. I thought I did pretty good on lick 2 (it's a relative thing), wish I would have laid back a little. Obviously need to work on bend/vibrato combos. The last 8 have some thing I like too, I kinda like how I stole from JG and mashed it up with a cliche. That longer rambly phrase in the middle of the last 8, I didn't really stick the ending like I would have liked, but I got into the cliche (I got it from SRV but it probably originated with Albert King maybe) that I finished with. I'm starting to get a little thickness out of my pick stroke which is cool. I've got a looseness/sloppyness in my playing that I'm learning to harness, but there's still something I can't but into words about the overall execution that bugs me.
My setup was similar to last time, but I used an AC15 model for the clean part this time. I also captured the direct guitar again and reamped with a overdriven Revv model and blended the two. In the hands of a real player it might be a cool tone.
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Post by jack1982 on May 8, 2020 20:17:46 GMT -6
I liked that a lot Grandpa! You played the lick pretty darned well and your own stuff was very much in the same style, and it sounded like a very nice natural jam!
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Post by Phil on May 8, 2020 20:42:19 GMT -6
Okay, I guess I'll go first this time ...
***CHEAT ALERT*** I did this in two takes. The first four bars is one and the last 8 I did in a second take--just couldn't get the last 8 going well on the heel of getting through John's licks. I could just "learn" what I played for the last 8 and do it in 1 take maybe, but I'm too lazy. At least to lazy to commit to it. I might try again for the sake of pride.
But tomorrow is my birthday, so be nice to me
This is another C+/B-. I thought I did pretty good on lick 2 (it's a relative thing), wish I would have laid back a little. Obviously need to work on bend/vibrato combos. The last 8 have some thing I like too, I kinda like how I stole from JG and mashed it up with a cliche. That longer rambly phrase in the middle of the last 8, I didn't really stick the ending like I would have liked, but I got into the cliche (I got it from SRV but it probably originated with Albert King maybe) that I finished with. I'm starting to get a little thickness out of my pick stroke which is cool. I've got a looseness/sloppyness in my playing that I'm learning to harness, but there's still something I can't but into words about the overall execution that bugs me.
My setup was similar to last time, but I used an AC15 model for the clean part this time. I also captured the direct guitar again and reamped with a overdriven Revv model and blended the two. In the hands of a real player it might be a cool tone.
Nice job on that, Gramps. I like how you took that little motif from the lick and repeated it in your part. That's the kind of thing that separates a pro sounding solo from the typical amateurish attempt. I also like how you wrapped it up with that repeating line. The tension was building and I was prepared to hear another chorus.
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Post by bluesbruce on May 9, 2020 5:39:36 GMT -6
Well done, Grampa! I'm with Phil - it left me waiting for another chorus. I thought your tone was killer, as well. Played the lick well, used it nicely in a 12-bar chorus - I think you're grading yourself kind of harshly. I think my harshest critique is that your video looked kind of distant and ephemeral... Oh, and Happy Birthday, too!
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