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Post by bluesbruce on Apr 16, 2023 10:43:00 GMT -6
I almost captioned this thread: "searching for signs of life here"... Been mighty quiet here. My guitars remained cased up, and we're finally moving next Friday! Hopefully, everyone has had a more productive week than I have. I hope to be back in action within the next couple of weeks.
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Post by jack1982 on Apr 16, 2023 12:09:42 GMT -6
I'm here! Life, not necessarily intelligent life, but life nonetheless  Good to hear you're moving into your new place, that'll be awesome. I had an okay week, finally gave up on "Into the Arena." I suppose if I practiced it for another 2 months, or 3, or 6, I could eventually get it up to speed, but I was getting a little sick of it. So I started on "The Trees" by Rush. It has a pretty little intro which I first attempted to play on classical guitar. I've gotten pretty used to my Jackson electric guitar with the pencil-thin neck, so switching to classical was like "What the f*** is this thing?!?!" So I switched to steel-string acoustic and I'm making some progress. Then there's a rockin' part, then a long interlude type thing with a lot of arpeggios on a clean electric, and a little solo and a rockin' outro. I'm just getting started on it so everything still sucks lol. Should be able to play it by the end of May I would hope. Hope you guys are all doing well |
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Post by grampalerxst on Apr 16, 2023 18:05:16 GMT -6
Hi guys,
I'm still around. Been meaning to drop by for a while now. As the new year rolled around I got involved in a major health restoration initiative. My annual labs were starting to show progression towards type-II diabetes, fatty liver disease, blood pressure getting high, too fat, the whole "metabolic syndrome" cluster of maladies were catching up to me. My guitar playing sort of fell off although it's picked back up lately. Working my callouses back up for the umteenth time. The good news is I've dropped about 33 lbs (to 4-5 lbs north of my high school era weight), my blood pressure is now actually pretty good for an old fart, and I'm hoping all the under the hood things revealed by the labs are improving along with the outward things. Next labs are coming up in couple weeks so I guess we'll see soon!
Jack, The Trees is a great one. You should add "Broon's Bane" ala the Exit..Stage Left version, haha. The interlude section of Trees is one of my favorite "moments" out of all the music I've ever heard.
Anyway, back to my callouses, and I hope everyone is doing well.
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Post by bluesbruce on Apr 16, 2023 20:38:53 GMT -6
Jack, sorry to hear you've thrown in the towel on "Into the Arena", but I think that sounds like a wise choice. One thing that I've learned over the years (and that I would stress to you and anyone else) is that banging your head endlessly against something that is beyond your abilities is disheartening and counterproductive. On the other hand, working on it for some period of time has benefitted you in terms of pushing your skills forward. But after some period of time, you are better off setting it aside and moving onward. I'll look forward to hearing some Rush!
Grampa, good to hear from you again! Congrats on the weight loss and improved blood pressure. I'd be amazed if your blood sugar and liver tests don't look better, too. Keep working on those calluses. Let me know when you want to take on that last chapter of BLYCU!
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Post by jack1982 on Apr 17, 2023 6:59:39 GMT -6
Grampa, good to see you back! I could stand to lose about 33 lbs. myself, but what can I say, I like my beer That interlude in "The Trees" is really cool, starts out in 4/4 and then goes to 6/8. Bruce, yeah I had really hoped to get that song up to full tempo, but like you say, working on it was a good technique builder and - hopefully - over time those skills will continue to improve. |
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Post by coolniblet on Apr 20, 2023 8:04:25 GMT -6
Jack, sorry to hear you've thrown in the towel on "Into the Arena", but I think that sounds like a wise choice. One thing that I've learned over the years (and that I would stress to you and anyone else) is that banging your head endlessly against something that is beyond your abilities is disheartening and counterproductive. On the other hand, working on it for some period of time has benefitted you in terms of pushing your skills forward. But after some period of time, you are better off setting it aside and moving onward. I'll look forward to hearing some Rush! Grampa, good to hear from you again! Congrats on the weight loss and improved blood pressure. I'd be amazed if your blood sugar and liver tests don't look better, too. Keep working on those calluses. Let me know when you want to take on that last chapter of BLYCU! We all want to be were we currently are not! The challenge is “Is what you’re doing the Bamboo Seed, or is it time to give up?” That’s what I want out of John’s BYCU; am I internalizing it enough (or how do I internalize it enough) to fluently incorporate it into my playing. Maybe the site should have a monthly challenge to stay engaged with the material. ie based on such and such a lesson in a different key created a rhythm and lead where in this measure apply this pattern in major scale and in this measure apply that pattern in minor. I love the BYCU material use them as warm-ups the my playing but find I’m not being able to incorporate it saying, “This fits and is really cool” in my everyday day playing. What do you think about this suggestion? |
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Post by bluesbruce on Apr 21, 2023 6:02:22 GMT -6
We all want to be were we currently are not! The challenge is “Is what you’re doing the Bamboo Seed, or is it time to give up?” That’s what I want out of John’s BYCU; am I internalizing it enough (or how do I internalize it enough) to fluently incorporate it into my playing. Maybe the site should have a monthly challenge to stay engaged with the material. ie based on such and such a lesson in a different key created a rhythm and lead where in this measure apply this pattern in major scale and in this measure apply that pattern in minor. I love the BYCU material use them as warm-ups the my playing but find I’m not being able to incorporate it saying, “This fits and is really cool” in my everyday day playing. What do you think about this suggestion? Ahhh! The old question: "How can I really use 'Blues You Can Use' in my own playing?" I think a lot of this depends on what your goals are: are you trying to improvise using licks from BYCU? are you trying to write songs or compose solos using licks or styles from BYCU? etc. I am intrigued by your challenge idea. Are you saying to take one of the BYCU tunes - like for example, Lesson 9, "Getting Funky". So take this style, but say change the key to something else (let's say C#) and take one pentatonic pattern (lets say minor pentatonic pattern 4), and the goal dog the challenge would be to make up and record a backing track plus a 12-bar solo using the funky style, with minor pentatonic pattern 4 in the key of C#? Or am I misunderstanding your proposal? |
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Good to hear you're moving into your new place, that'll be awesome.
