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Post by mikeherb on May 2, 2015 12:35:15 GMT -6
Wow thank you guys. I just bought a USB Mixer that comes with Audacity? Anyway I'll slow it down with that Reaper software and eventually record with the backing tracks. This is an awesome forum. Thanks again! Jack- Thanks for that exercise. I'll do it.
Mike
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Post by jack1982 on May 2, 2015 13:49:21 GMT -6
Sure Mike, I just did a Google search on "guitar arpeggio" or something like that and found that exercise. Something like Simple Man by Lynyrd Skynyrd or Highway Song by Blackfoot would probably be a lot more fun I haven't used Audacity in a long time, I think you can slow stuff down with it (can't remember for sure though). I do remember that you have to convert the MP3 to a WAV file before you can import it into Audacity though. With Reaper you you don't have to do that - just open the program, then open the folder that your Blues You Can Use songs are in, and drag and drop a song into a track. Right in the center of the screen there's a little box that says "BPM" with 120 under it - just change the 120 to 80 or 100 or whatever you want and it will keep the pitch the same.
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Post by joachim on May 2, 2015 14:09:42 GMT -6
Mike, many of the BYCU songs are really hard, at least they are for me. What definitely helps - and what John recommends in different places in some of the other books - is to zoom in on just a few measure at a time, and just practice them. Practice them really really slow - much slower than John's slow recording. 50% speed if that's what it takes to get the timing right - it sounds silly when you listen to a track at 50% speed, but I do it a lot, and then suddenly you figure out the timing and can start playing at perhaps 70-80% speed right away. I've been working at lesson 19 for a month now - but you just have to be patient with the studies that are difficult to you.
I just practice string skipping as part of my scale exercises up and down the neck (being the good student and doing what John tells us to) - the scale exercises in the last part of BYCU are much more interesting. For example, play pattern 1 down and up again, then without skipping a beat play pattern 2 but in reverse direction (up and down again), then pattern 3 reversing direction once more, etc. Or practice the scales string 6 to string 3, string 5 to tring 2, etc.
The forum is indeed very helpful, and the people here keep you really motivated!
Cheers Joachim
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Post by mikeherb on May 3, 2015 23:43:21 GMT -6
This Reaper software is amazing! I tried it at 80% and was tripping all over the place.. Which is weird because I was getting it pretty close at full tempo. Anyway I was probably being sloppy. Now I'm at 50% and see a lot more flaws so I'm just going to perfect that. There are certain notes I want to have nice sustain on and some that I want some vibrato on so I definitely don't want to cheap out on that.
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Post by mikeherb on May 5, 2015 0:08:00 GMT -6
I just played it for about 20 minutes tonight on slow. Still 50% but I notice that I'm doing the vibrato rather than just plunking the notes like I was at full speed. I think that hint of vibrato on the bass strings in the original makes that guitar sound mean and gives that tune a darker gritty leather jacket attitude.
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Post by cunningr on May 5, 2015 9:50:17 GMT -6
Yeh decent vibrato can make a difference in all the songs. I still need to work on my technic.
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