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Post by grampalerxst on Jul 26, 2020 5:02:32 GMT -6
I've decided to add a measure of picking drills to the routine--seems once again by RH is not up to the task. So far it's mainly been working on a single string, almost like tremolo picking, intended to bring the mechanics under control at moderately high speed. I'm also rebuilding my technique to make it more of a consistent wrist-centered motion versus it's current disorganized state that ranges from finger-centric to elbow-centric depending on the situation.
BLYCU 8/9 coming along, but slowly relative to the time allotted. Ideally by this weekend of the cycle I'd be switching over to playing them in context of the backing track and starting to connect them with other ideas to round out a chorus. Instead I'm still limping to get them up to tempo, especially #8.
Still spending a little time every day with Electric Gypsy intro and a few other back burner things, but the RH drills are taking up a good chunk of my non-BLYCU Challenge time.
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Post by bluesbruce on Jul 26, 2020 5:27:43 GMT -6
Been still working BLYCU 8 & 9. Have been revisiting some of the later studies in BYCU which I never recorded (that is, never really learned). Have been working some songs from one of my Beatles books. On vacation this week, staying at the lake - should equate to more playing time, but I guess we'll see.
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Post by jack1982 on Jul 26, 2020 6:08:33 GMT -6
I'm still working on "In the Sweet By-and-By" - Grampa it's funny you should mention picking because I'm kind of un-learning the way I normally do things and maybe getting a bit more picking from the elbow into this song. I normally have my picking hand resting lightly on the bridge which A) gives me some idea of where my hand is in relation to the strings and B) forms a pivot point for picking from the wrist. But this song has all kinds of chord strumming mixed in with the melody notes and to get the chords to sound relaxed and add a pretty heavy swing feel to them, I pretty much have to just have my right hand floating in midair - and then try to figure out where the hell the strings are when it goes to the single-note melody line lol. It's on acoustic guitar and I guess I normally pick that harder then with electric, and it seems to help if I try to pick lightly and just concentrate really hard on where the strings are located - because my pick certainly isn't finding them all by itself  The second half is much more single note lines, with of course a bunch of chord fragments on the top two strings that need to be strummed - just to screw me up. Oh well, 5 whole days left to get it to a point where it's presentable; wish me luck lol. |
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Post by grampalerxst on Jul 26, 2020 7:29:04 GMT -6
I'm still working on "In the Sweet By-and-By" - Grampa it's funny you should mention picking because I'm kind of un-learning the way I normally do things and maybe getting a bit more picking from the elbow into this song. I normally have my picking hand resting lightly on the bridge which A) gives me some idea of where my hand is in relation to the strings and B) forms a pivot point for picking from the wrist. But this song has all kinds of chord strumming mixed in with the melody notes and to get the chords to sound relaxed and add a pretty heavy swing feel to them, I pretty much have to just have my right hand floating in midair - and then try to figure out where the hell the strings are when it goes to the single-note melody line lol. It's on acoustic guitar and I guess I normally pick that harder then with electric, and it seems to help if I try to pick lightly and just concentrate really hard on where the strings are located - because my pick certainly isn't finding them all by itself The second half is much more single note lines, with of course a bunch of chord fragments on the top two strings that need to be strummed - just to screw me up. Oh well, 5 whole days left to get it to a point where it's presentable; wish me luck lol. Complicated, ain't it? For good or ill I've lost some weight during the pandemic, and especially while seated that messes up how the guitar body sits (I use semi-classical position w/strap while seated most of the time). I have been working for a while at floating my hand and tend to rest my forearm across the guitar body. Problem is now there's no gut to counteract the weight of my arm and I tend to push the guitar in to lean it against my stomach. With either doing that or leaning it against a larger, rounded gut the guitar sits with a lateral angle to the floor (like how TBone Walker held a guitar, but less exaggerated). That messes up strumming and using my forearm to pin it at that angle caused a lot of picking problems moving string-to-string. So I'm doing two things--focusing to make sure their is no force on the guitar body from my arm above it's weight, and when picking single notes, using my wrist to attack the strings and a combined elbow movement and sliding of my forearm to move between strings. When strumming I try to used combined motion from the elbow and wrist--elbow to keep the rhythmic motion and wrist to tailor attack. I do let the heel of my hand touch the guitar body sometimes when picking the lowest strings relatively fast, but otherwise keep it up above the strings (I almost always pick just aft of the neck pickup.
All of that's blatantly in fanboy imitation of SRV. When I first saw the El Mocambo video back I was blown away by his right hand (once I got over being irritated by how often they showed his right hand instead of his left, haha).
All that maybe sounds like a brilliant foolproof strategy, and that I should be driving it out of the park. Nope, I still suck at picking (and strumming). |
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Post by Phil on Jul 26, 2020 7:54:44 GMT -6
I just realized that I missed last week's update for the first time since it started.  I've played a little most days but haven't focused on anything in about 3 weeks. Things on the home front are back to normal now, and I hope to get back into it with a little more focus this coming week.
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Post by Marc on Jul 26, 2020 10:36:38 GMT -6
I just realized that I missed last week's update for the first time since it started. I've played a little most days but haven't focused on anything in about 3 weeks. Things on the home front are back to normal now, and I hope to get back into it with a little more focus this coming week. If it makes you feel any better, I missed last week too. I am usually pretty late to update, but this week got away from me.
I've been working more on repertoire and rhythm guitar than anything. One thing I know I lack is learning songs and not just etudes. I decided to buy the all access to truefire. At first, I was a little intimidated there is a lot of stuff there. I settled on a blues fake book course and have really been enjoying it. Some of it is coming across pretty easy but some are really challenging but it's been a lot of fun which is all that matters.
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Post by cunningr on Jul 26, 2020 15:26:20 GMT -6
Not much to report, class was pretty laid back just some improv. On vacation this week with no guitar.
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Post by blackcountrymick on Jul 26, 2020 15:36:19 GMT -6
Not much for me to report except family and health issues have got in the way the past couple of weeks so I have some catching up to do re the licks challenge. I am still very much onboard and hope to get something done by coming weekend.
Cheers, Mick
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Post by bluesbruce on Jul 26, 2020 18:40:48 GMT -6
Not much for me to report except family and health issues have got in the way the past couple of weeks so I have some catching up to do re the licks challenge. I am still very much onboard and hope to get something done by coming weekend. Cheers, Mick Mick, I hope you and your family are all right. I'm glad to hear you're still on board with the BLYCU. Let us know if we need to slow it down some - I think everyone will be cool with that. |
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Post by joachim on Jul 27, 2020 0:33:48 GMT -6
I've been on vacation with my family in Norway - cold and rainy all week. We're staying another couple of days then heading home. So no guitar for me, and maybe I'll be late - again - with the next BLYCU challenge.
Mick, best wishes to you and your family. I am also glad you're back on-board.
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Post by wannaplayblues on Jul 28, 2020 3:31:05 GMT -6
Well, a few things happened last week that changed plans - they were somewhat out of the blue. Guitar playing was less than I'd hoped for 
Like jack1982 I'm spending this week recording "In the Sweet By-and-By" for the monthly submission this coming weekend. I've got an idea that I hope will work well. As it's a video submission, you can look forward to it next Sunday  |
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