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Post by joachim on Jan 10, 2021 7:41:38 GMT -6
I spend my time on RnBYCU and the licks, and a bit of chord practice from my jazz guitar when I had some extra time.
I spend too much time playing around with recording with the Raspberry Pi platform - it's easy to get side-tracked by such toys...
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Post by bluesbruce on Jan 10, 2021 7:52:55 GMT -6
Similar to Joachim - worked on R&BYCU (need to try to record some of these - that always lets me know what I need to work more on), also on the BLYCU challenge. Yes, very easy to spend way too much time on "tech toys" - I've got an almost mind-boggling array of amps, mics, cabs, and pedals on my computer, as well as an entire band, and a compete recording studio! and that's before I even connect to the inter web! LOL
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Post by Phil on Jan 10, 2021 8:39:49 GMT -6
Not much to say this week other than I can't believe we're already 10 days into the new year. I'm still sticking to my overall plan for Jan. We'll have to see how long that lasts. I did a little experiment yesterday. There was a transcribed 4 bar lick online that I tried. I scrolled it up on the screen so I could see the notation but not the tab. I tried to figure out the most logical positions. The way I figured it out required 3 or 4 position changes. After I was able to play it I looked at the tab. I played the same strings/frets except for 1 note. Of course, I have no idea about the actual original fingering. There wasn't a video. The moral to this story is there's usually a logical way to find the best position when reading standard notation. You don't have to be spoon fed every step of the way. This was a good morale booster.
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Post by jack1982 on Jan 10, 2021 8:58:27 GMT -6
I had a pretty good week, worked a lot on Stairway to Heaven - the solo is getting there, the outro bit with all the unison bends is less awful than it was a week ago  Did a little jamming along with backing tracks, and I've been fiddling around with various songs trying to decide which one to work on next. Maybe "Godzilla" by Blue Oyster Cult, Buck Dharma has that whole thing filled with cool licks. |
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Post by cunningr on Jan 10, 2021 14:29:58 GMT -6
I have nothing to add was not productive this week. Did get some time in but mostly playing some old stuff to refresh the brain.
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Post by jack1982 on Jan 10, 2021 14:39:57 GMT -6
Kinda hard to resist posting the "More Cowbell" skit now... That's Don't Fear The Reaper  |
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Post by Marc on Jan 10, 2021 16:27:24 GMT -6
I had a pretty good week of treading practice. Just kind of did my thing but did not really feel like I got anywhere. I did do some riffin' in honor of the riffs book and experimented with some more creative goofing. I did come up with some thoughts I might want to pursue later.
I think what this week has told me is it's time to really get to work on some stuff. I'm moving on to "All Of Me" on the jazz front and BYCU Minor blues.
This guy came last night. I'm really pretty impressed in just having less than a day with it.
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Post by grampalerxst on Jan 11, 2021 5:55:11 GMT -6
I wrote an entry yesterday, but I must have neglected to hit the button. It was the most profound thing I've ever said here, but I forgot it so here's a mundane substitute. Not a bad week except I didn't get to play as much as I wanted.
The BLYCU Challenge stuff at midpoint of the cycle is going better than the last iteration did. One tricky spot on lick 36 I'm iso-ing.
I've decided to put the scale sequence exercises on a two week rotation instead of one. Working on scales and scale patterns has always vexed me so I've generally been a shirker with them. I've decided to give it my best shot for a year in 2021. I suspect you will here me complaining frequently in the Weeklies.
After about two months of segmenting the Electric Gypsy intro for isolated practice, I've started reassembling bits moving towards working on the entire intro again. At this point my top conclusion is that it was very naive of me to think it was a good thing for me to try to tackle.
Otherwise, just grinding away.
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Post by joachim on Jan 11, 2021 7:06:20 GMT -6
Similar to Joachim - worked on R&BYCU (need to try to record some of these - that always lets me know what I need to work more on), also on the BLYCU challenge. Yes, very easy to spend way too much time on "tech toys" - I've got an almost mind-boggling array of amps, mics, cabs, and pedals on my computer, as well as an entire band, and a compete recording studio! and that's before I even connect to the inter web! LOL Bruce, those were really nice R&BYCU recordings. Maybe it's too much trouble, but it would be wonderful if you'd attach your MP3 backing-tracks for the different lessons as an MP3 to your submissions or just as a reply to the existing discussion threads. We ought to have them collected somewhere like with Phil's MBYCU tracks. And all the first lessons R&BYCU lessons would be awesome for practicing improvisation over simple progressions and refreshing simple licks over different positions. For example, the latest Active Melody study is very much in the spirit of one of the early R&BYCU studies. And ditto for the Stitch Guitar lesson linked to a while back. It's a pity we don't have more control over the forum, so we could make sticky threads. |
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Post by bluesbruce on Jan 11, 2021 7:22:09 GMT -6
Thanks, Joachim. I hate to seem like a tech imbecile, but I don't really know how to attach an mp3 to a message here. I can take the guitars out and post just the drums and bass on Youtube, but it'd be nice if the mp3 could be downloaded. Of course, so far I've only got 3 out of 18 lessons (plus that quick BIAB backing for lesson 7 that I sent you). I'll have to ponder how to do that, or if anyone has some good ideas, I'm happy to hear them.
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Post by joachim on Jan 11, 2021 7:34:05 GMT -6
When you edit a message, there's an "add attachment" button in the upper right corner, but there is a size limit of 1MB, which is probably too low. E.g., the backing-track you send me for lesson 7 is 3MBs.
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Post by bluesbruce on Jan 11, 2021 8:55:43 GMT -6
When you edit a message, there's an "add attachment" button in the upper right corner, but there is a size limit of 1MB, which is probably too low. E.g., the backing-track you send me for lesson 7 is 3MBs. Thanks for that "add attachment" pointer. I would expect that mp3 file for lesson 7 that I sent you would be a pretty typical size for these. Even if I made it a lower resolution mp3, I doubt I could get it below 1 MB size, but I'll play around with it and see what I can do. Seems like these backing tracks need to be posted somewhere on the web that could be linked to (and where they could be downloaded). I'd be happy to add a message to my posts saying: "PM me on this forum if you'd like an mp3 of this backing track". I guess I'd have to hope that hundreds or thousands of people wouldn't request them...LOL. Since these Youtube videos rarely garnish double digit numbers of views, that seems unlikely. My backing tracks for these first three R&BYCU recordings have been MIDI tracks, which I edited in an attempt to re-create some of the track-specific patterns from the CD. I won't claim they are a "direct transcription" (I won't even claim to be good enough to begin to transcribe a drum track). It would be very easy to post a Youtube video with the backing track (all I'd have to do is silence the two guitar tracks in my DAW and make another mp3), but unless you can download it from Youtube, I don't think that would be very useful as you'd have to sit through so many ads, and you wouldn't be able to slow it down or just loop a section like you can if you can import it into your DAW. |
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Post by bluesbruce on Jan 12, 2021 7:55:30 GMT -6
Joachim, after some experimentation, here's what I've come up with: the mp3's I had been making were encoded at 160 kbps. If I decrease this, the resulting files are smaller. To stay under the attachment size limit, I can encode a backing track for "Slow Dance Dreams" at 64 kbps (I suspect mp3 file size will also be dependent on the length of the song). Anyway, let me see if I can attach this mp3 backing track here. RBYCU 03 BT 64 kbps.mp3 (875.02 KB) So, if you wouldn't mind, listen to this and see if you think this audio quality would be of any use to anyone. Doesn't sound too bad on my computer speakers, but I suspect if I got out the headphones or played it over my monitors, the sound quality would be rather poor. |
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Post by joachim on Jan 13, 2021 8:27:35 GMT -6
Joachim, after some experimentation, here's what I've come up with: the mp3's I had been making were encoded at 160 kbps. If I decrease this, the resulting files are smaller. To stay under the attachment size limit, I can encode a backing track for "Slow Dance Dreams" at 64 kbps (I suspect mp3 file size will also be dependent on the length of the song). Anyway, let me see if I can attach this mp3 backing track here. View AttachmentSo, if you wouldn't mind, listen to this and see if you think this audio quality would be of any use to anyone. Doesn't sound too bad on my computer speakers, but I suspect if I got out the headphones or played it over my monitors, the sound quality would be rather poor. I think the high compression is quite audible, but it's still valuable. You could keep high quality versions as well. It's funny that the compression is so audible, because I remember back in the days when 128kbit compression was the standard for MP3 compression. |
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Post by bluesbruce on Jan 13, 2021 9:02:56 GMT -6
Joachim, after some experimentation, here's what I've come up with: the mp3's I had been making were encoded at 160 kbps. If I decrease this, the resulting files are smaller. To stay under the attachment size limit, I can encode a backing track for "Slow Dance Dreams" at 64 kbps (I suspect mp3 file size will also be dependent on the length of the song). Anyway, let me see if I can attach this mp3 backing track here. View AttachmentSo, if you wouldn't mind, listen to this and see if you think this audio quality would be of any use to anyone. Doesn't sound too bad on my computer speakers, but I suspect if I got out the headphones or played it over my monitors, the sound quality would be rather poor. I think the high compression is quite audible, but it's still valuable. You could keep high quality versions as well. It's funny that the compression is so audible, because I remember back in the days when 128kbit compression was the standard for MP3 compression. Another thought I had is that I could post this as a midi file. These files tend to be very small, but the sound quality is entirely dependent on the midi synth it is played through. I think most DAW programs these days come with some passable synthesizers, but if you just play it on a default Windoze midi synth, it may sound like poop. I could probably post it as both low quality mp3 AND as a midi file (looks like I can attach up to 3 files), then people could use whatever they want (people may also modify midi files if they would like). I've got to head to work now, but I'll play around with exporting as midi after work this evening. |
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Post by grampalerxst on Jan 14, 2021 8:36:13 GMT -6
What about sticking stuff up on Soundcloud? I believe things can be downloaded from there, and with a free account you can have up to 60 minutes worth of tracks uploaded (independent of format). Dropbox is another file sharing app that lets you have about 2G of data up with a free account. Seems a lot easier than trying to use a discussion board for file sharing.
There are online conversion utilities that will take a Youtube "mp4" and give you a downloadable mp3. I do that with the BLYCU challenge stuff each time. Having Youtube open while I'm practicing would probably slash my practice time by 2/3rds.
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Post by Phil on Jan 14, 2021 9:01:02 GMT -6
What about sticking stuff up on Soundcloud? I believe things can be downloaded from there, and with a free account you can have up to 60 minutes worth of tracks uploaded (independent of format). Dropbox is another file sharing app that lets you have about 2G of data up with a free account. Seems a lot easier than trying to use a discussion board for file sharing. There are online conversion utilities that will take a Youtube "mp4" and give you a downloadable mp3. I do that with the BLYCU challenge stuff each time. Having Youtube open while I'm practicing would probably slash my practice time by 2/3rds. Which one do you like? |
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Post by cunningr on Jan 14, 2021 14:36:01 GMT -6
What about sticking stuff up on Soundcloud? I believe things can be downloaded from there, and with a free account you can have up to 60 minutes worth of tracks uploaded (independent of format). Dropbox is another file sharing app that lets you have about 2G of data up with a free account. Seems a lot easier than trying to use a discussion board for file sharing. There are online conversion utilities that will take a Youtube "mp4" and give you a downloadable mp3. I do that with the BLYCU challenge stuff each time. Having Youtube open while I'm practicing would probably slash my practice time by 2/3rds. You posted my thoughts too, also google has file shares if you use gmail. |
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Post by jack1982 on Jan 14, 2021 18:13:51 GMT -6
What about sticking stuff up on Soundcloud? I believe things can be downloaded from there, and with a free account you can have up to 60 minutes worth of tracks uploaded (independent of format). Dropbox is another file sharing app that lets you have about 2G of data up with a free account. Seems a lot easier than trying to use a discussion board for file sharing. There are online conversion utilities that will take a Youtube "mp4" and give you a downloadable mp3. I do that with the BLYCU challenge stuff each time. Having Youtube open while I'm practicing would probably slash my practice time by 2/3rds. Which one do you like? I use this a fair bit: ytmp3.cc/en13/When you tell it you want to download the converted file, it opens another browser tab with advertising and crap (when I used to use Avast antivirus software it would give me a security warning and prevent the tab from opening, but now I'm just using the Microsoft antivirus that comes with Windows and it doesn't say anything). Anyhow I just close that extra browser tab and it works well. Anyhow, probably "use at your own risk" type of thing but my computer hasn't blown up yet |
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Post by bluesbruce on Jan 14, 2021 20:37:37 GMT -6
Man, I learn so much computer stuff from you guys! Probably Soundcloud or Dropbox is the solution. I used to have a free Dropbox account that I think I used maybe one time, but they deleted it for non-usage. That's probably the best solution to post R&BYCU backing tracks. I'll maybe have time to look into this weekend. I also learned that the midi file is a mere 4 kB, so midi files wound not even come close to the 1 MB file size limit, and could easily be attached to a post.
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Did a little jamming along with backing tracks, and I've been fiddling around with various songs trying to decide which one to work on next. Maybe "Godzilla" by Blue Oyster Cult, Buck Dharma has that whole thing filled with cool licks.
