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Post by bluesbruce on Sept 15, 2014 18:36:37 GMT -6
Found my old copy of "Guitar Solos For Acoustic Guitar" by Johnny Norris. Been playing with trying to get a decent acoustic sound recorded. The audio clips in a couple of spots and the camera man (me) has kind of poor aim, but here it is, warts and all.
Bruce
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Post by cunningr on Sept 15, 2014 23:24:33 GMT -6
That was pretty good, still needs some polish work but better than I can do picking finger style. Are you using finger picks?
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Post by blackcountrymick on Sept 16, 2014 0:41:18 GMT -6
BRAVO!!!!!!  Good sound Bruce and I love your expansion of the tune, especially using a turnaround as an intro. |
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Post by Phil on Sept 16, 2014 4:53:16 GMT -6
Well played, Bruce. I don't have the original handy to see what you've added, but it sounds good. I think this one would also sound good on electric guitar. There are some good tunes in that book and they are not overly complicated. Looking forward to hearing some from this book. You don't even need to do a split screen. |
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Post by jack1982 on Sept 16, 2014 5:11:57 GMT -6
Very nice Bruce, I really enjoyed that. Very cool song. It could use more polish but you got the point across and it was very nice to listen to  Dagnabbit now I'm gonna have to buy another book lol. |
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Post by bluesbruce on Sept 16, 2014 6:53:11 GMT -6
Thanks for listening - I know it's not a very polished performance, but I've been playing around with recording the acoustic guitar, and was at least fairly happy with the sound I got - if not with the video or the actual performance.
Rich, that was just played with bare fingers. I've tried finger picks in the past (as well as a thumb pick to allow that good damped base sound on alternating thumb pieces), just never really got the hang of them. I also just kind of like the "softer" sound of using the fingers. You can definitely get more volume using finger and thumb picks - it's all a trade off and what you're accustomed to.
Mick, you know a turnaround will usually work as an intro, too! I had a few others I've thrown in to this. I also varied the ending, though I think I like the ending in the book more.
Phil, yes, will work on an electric as well. In fact if you'll look at BRYCU Lesson 10, sixes and nines, you'll see that it's the same basic rhythm (just omitting the bass notes which the bass would play in a band).
Jack, you don't do finger style acoustic, too! Man, you'd finish off this book in an afternoon...
I note that this book was published in 1998, not sure when I got it but it has a cassette tape with it rather than a CD, so I'm thinking it was a while back. This little type of song is sort of one of those things I almost instinctively play when I pick up an acoustic, and now I've got a pretty good idea where I got it from! I used to play quite a bit of acoustic finger style, including some blues numbers. I may just have to resurrect some of them, now that I've figured out how to record the acoustic. I'll try to record one of the simple alternating bass pieces from this book, see if my thumb still works...
Bruce
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Post by wannaplayblues on Sept 16, 2014 15:04:03 GMT -6
Awesome Bruce. Loved it
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Post by Phil on Sept 16, 2014 15:59:02 GMT -6
To T-Bone, The Hijacker Of Threads - I'll jump in 1st. Personally I don't feel I have the technical ability or knowledge of "licks" to be coming up with my own stuff yet. I'm getting there and hope to be there soon. I look at it this way - an accomplished guitarist could probably get through any study in "More Blues You Can Use" in 1 or 2 sittings. It takes me weeks. How can I come up with my own good stuff, that people won't laugh at, if I can't play this basic stuff? Having said that, I think most of us here can play a few decent licks (back in my day we called them "riffs"). I've been toying with the idea of trying to get a virtual jam going here. I've got the details worked out on how we can do it, and will be posting about it soon. (First I've got to get some good licks down. ) |
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Post by jack1982 on Sept 16, 2014 17:41:41 GMT -6
Bruce I forgot to say your acoustic sounds fantastic through the Pod Studio, only thing I'd recommend would be to use that Line 6 Insane amp to give it a little extra bite Tbone, I just play guitar as a hobby, I don't have any plans to join a band or even jam with anybody in real life. My ultimate goal is to write songs in the blues rock vein, which I suppose I should be doing right now, but to be perfectly honest as long as I'm enjoying myself on guitar that's all that matters. I'm enjoying working through the books and when I'm done with them, or when the mood strikes me, I'll start writing. If I were to learn cover songs I'd use tab. I figure out the bass lines for the songs by ear and get some benefit out of that I suppose, but there aren't enough hours in the day to be figuring out entire songs by ear and still get anything else accomplished. That's for young guys with dreams of stardom in their eyes, not old fart hobbyists like me |
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Post by bluesbruce on Sept 16, 2014 18:26:40 GMT -6
Hey Bruce, I hope you haven't already read this post before I sneaked back in to edit and re-edit it. Besides giving you a thumbs-up for your nice playing (it's great to listen to some acoustic guitar playing for a change), I also gave an uncalled for rant about how it occurred to me that it probably takes the same time to learn an original tune as it takes to learn one "in the style of" and how one could make use of the building blocks provided by the BYCU series to come up with a good repertoire of known songs. That's the food of thought I'm digesting these days myself... I think after completing BYCU/BRYCU it's okay to consider oneself a technically intermediate blues guitar player, having reached the point where one needs to develop a repertoire of blues songs. After all, this is why we picked up the guitar in the first place, isn't it? And it might come in handy during a jam session (which we should have). Just a while ago I met this guy at a jam session who said after a while of playing together: "Man, I meet all you guys who know how to do all that fancy stuff on the guitar, but how is it none of you can even play a single popular tune?!?" That hit home. So now more than ever I am interested in coming up with a list of maybe a dozen classic blues numbers that are considered necessary to be in every blues player's repertoire. I really wonder how you guys feel about this/how you go on about it? I really am interested if, when and how you guys actually tackle "original" songs (or even come up with your own)? Clearly the BYCU series provides all you would ever want to know about the blues, so we should be well equipped to tackle some originals after BYCU/BRYCU, right? How do you guys do that? Do you do it at all? Do you use transcription, videos or (god forbid) your ears? Of course this is a question that should be answered by everyone for him-/herself and probably just requires some common sense, I'd really love to hear your thought about this... As I posted somewhere else before, maybe we benefit most in presenting each other not only our BYCU progress, but also original tunes complementing the BYCU jam tracks... Sorry, man, I really hijacked this thread, but this really bugs me... Greetings, t.  Tony, Good to hear from you again, and if my poor acoustic noodling somehow begat this impassioned quest for soul searching and divine clarification, well so be it... try to grasp this pebble from my hand, grasshopper... I think you are absolutely right that at some point you've got to start building some repertoire. If you get together with some friends to play (the proverbial "jam session"), chances are no one is going to say "lets play 'Delta Child'". Now you might get some "lets do a slow 12 bar blues in G with a quick IV and let everyone solo on it". But more than likely, people are going to say, "lets play 'The Sky Is Crying'", or "Let's play 'Dust My Broom'", or "I'm Tore Down", or some such specific song. Now the good news is that lots of blues songs are 12 bar blues, so if you "know" the 12 bar blues, you already "know" a lot of blues songs, at least well enough to fake your way thru 'em. However, I think knowing the song, some of the "hooks", maybe even some lyrics, knowing the "feel" of the song is important to playing it with other people. "Man, I meet all you guys who know how to do all that fancy stuff on the guitar, but how is it none of you can even play a single popular tune?!?" That hit home. So now more than ever I am interested in coming up with a list of maybe a dozen classic blues numbers that are considered necessary to be in every blues player's repertoire. I agree with you totally, that having been thru BYCU and BRYCU, you've got the "tools" to play a lot of these "classic blues". Now you may not be able to pull off all of SRV's solos note for note or be able to create the pure emotion of B.B. King playing "Don't Answer the Door" - but guess what - most professional guitar players can't do that either. So I've kind of been trying to incorporate some repertoire into my playing and practice. I've specifically been using a tab book, and the two I've started with are "Mary Had A Little Lamb" and "Hide Away". I've also heard that a lot of guitar teachers use "The Thrill Is Gone" (a minor twelve bar blues) to teach. I'm certainly not saying that I couldn't benefit from becoming a technically better player (which I think MBYCU would help with), but just that I also feel I need to be able to play some "popular blues tunes" too. Now if by "originals" you mean writing songs myself, I don't really feel I've reached that point myself. I think I could "write" a formulaic 12 bar blues song, and even put some marginal solo together over it, but that's just not really what I'm after at this point in my musical growth. That's too much, gotta stop Bruce |
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Post by joachim on Sept 17, 2014 0:02:09 GMT -6
Bruce, thanks for sharing the video - I enjoyed watching some acoustic blues. At one point you recommended a tab book with all the classics, but I can't find the post. Which tab book are you using? Jack, I agree with you. Enjoying day-to-day practice without thinking too much about what I should learn in the end, or how quickly I am progressing, etc., is a key for keeping my practice routine healthy. Of course, the way you are blasting through John's book, you can easily afford a laid-back attitude like that  |
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Post by bluesbruce on Sept 17, 2014 6:19:24 GMT -6
Bruce, thanks for sharing the video - I enjoyed watching some acoustic blues. At one point you recommended a tab book with all the classics, but I can't find the post. Which tab book are you using? Joachim, I'm using "Blues Guitar Songs For Dummies": www.amazon.com/Blues-Guitar-Songs-Dummies-Herriges/dp/1423426231/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1410955848&sr=1-1&keywords=blues+guitar+songs+for+dummiesdoesn't have "all" the classics (no book does), but has a pretty good selection IMO (and does reference the version of a tune - "Mary Had A Little Lamb" is the Buddy Guy version, not SRV, etc). Of course, what would really be cool would be if somehow the songs could be "graded" at least roughly into how easy they are to play - sort of like the progression through BYCU. Maybe this is where a teacher or more experienced player would really come in handy... Bruce |
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