Weekly Update 14-10-19

I appear to have hit a bit of a brick wall with MBYCU, mainly with the rhythm and chord changes so I am going to back burner it for a while and concentrate on Blues Rhythms book again. Lesson 9 should be ready for recording this week hopefully. I'm having loads of fun with my acoustic blues playing, lesson 5 from the Johnny Norris book is also nearly ready to record, and then its moving on to alternating thumb bass lines .

Phil are you looking for a backing track for Blues A La Chord or Sweet Home Chicago? I can't remember if I ever posted my backing track for Blues A La Chord, I'll check and post it later today if I haven't. For Sweet Home Chicago there are some backing tracks for the Blues Brothers version over here: www.guitarbackingtrack.com/bts/Blues_Brothers.htm I don't know if those would work for you or not. I could post a drum rhythm - it would just be the same boring rhythm from beginning to end, but better than nothing I suppose Just tell me how many bars long you want it.

I'm still working on True Trem Blues. Got it up to 83% or 87% of full tempo, depending on if I'm having a good day or not. That pedal tone lick and the other fast one after it will take a while to get up to full speed. I can play the rhythm part okay along with the CD but when I play along with my own backing track I tend to start making up my own phrasing after a few playthroughs lol. That will take some some practice. Got the bass line figured out and I'm practicing that.

Working on Crescent City Rhythm in the R&B book. Still haven't gotten the rhythm part smoothed out; it's kind of laid back and I tend to play it too aggressively. Most of the chords have you playing the low note with your thumb, which puts your hand in a different position, so I've got to work on fingering the upper notes of the chords cleanly. Got the solo going okay, practicing that at full tempo. Been working on the bass line too.

Also doing some improvising along with backing tracks. I'm trying to memorize where the root notes of the scale are, all over the neck and in all keys. Then I'll move on to memorizing the other notes of the pentatonic minor. I want to get that stuff memorized to the point where I don't even have to think about it, so that's a long term project.

Kind of an okay week of practice, played a lot some days and not so much others. Got a lousy cold so I don't feel like I made as much progress as I would have liked, but I did get a few things accomplished.

Got some books; I've only listened to the CD's while skimming along in the books but I'll give my initial impressions:

Soloing Strategies For Guitar by Tom Kolb - this is broken up into 7 chapters: 1) pentatonic scale applications 2) Pentatonic variations 3) Blues scale applications and pentatonic substitutions 4) major and minor scale soloing 5) modes and chord/scale relationships 6) other scales and modes, arpeggios and chromaticism 7) jam tracks with soloing suggestions. Each chapter is broken down into several sections, with a bunch of licks and a couple of full solos in each section. I'd say it's for intermediate / advanced players due to the difficulty level of the solos. A brief description of the theory behind each concept is included, but you better know your theory pretty well to understand it. This is all aimed at your improvising, so you can pick a section that interests you and work on it until it's second nature to you, because if it's not second nature to you then you probably won't use it in your improvising. The solos are mostly in a rock style with quite a few in the jazz style as well, and there's a smattering of other styles. Probably the coolest part is the last chapter, it's got 16 jam tracks on the CD, and they're laid out chord-by-chord in the book, with 7 suggestions on how you might approach soloing over them, from pentatonic scales to modes to triads and arpeggios, telling you which mode or scale to use over each chord. Doesn't tell you what to play, just what concept to use and you have to create your own solos. I think I'm going to be working with this book for a loooooooong time Really fascinating stuff in here.

Rhythmic Lead Guitar by Barrett Tagliarino - he basically plays guitar (slowly) while counting 1-and-2-and or 1-e-and-a-2-e or 1-and-a-two-and-a etc. Also covers the time value of notes and rests, so by the time you're halfway through the book you should be able to play a song you've never heard by following the tab and notes. There's a whole ton of text I haven't read yet, he probably covers a lot of other stuff as well. If you want to be able to count out every imaginable rhtyhm, this will make you an expert.

Chord-Tone Soloing by Barrett Tagliarino - I was hoping this would be more blues oriented but it mostly deals with triads and arpeggios, starting you out with playing the root notes of the chord progression you're playing over, adding pick up notes and a few notes afterwards, and advancing on to full-blown arpeggios and stuff. Tons of text I haven't read, I'm sure it's packed full of cool concepts. The diagrams for what notes to play for each arpeggio look especially helpful.

Whew, better plug in my keyboard now because I think it needs recharging lol.

Wow, I feel like I need to start timing my guitar time. I'd probably find out that it's not nearly enough to keep up with you guys...

Played some acoustic this week mostly, shaking some serious rust off my alternating bass technique. Made a video of it.

Also played some "Blues Solos for Acoustic Guitar" on my semi-hollow body. May have to make a video of that, just to see how it sounds.

Phil, I'm going to make a Band-In-A-Box backing track for "Sweet Home Chicago" for you. I'm at work today, so might be a day or two...

Bruce

Phil I'm using my 15-20 year old Zoom RT-123 drum machine.  I see they still sell the RT-223 www.amazon.com/Zoom-RT223-Rhythm-Trak-Machine/dp/B000P3WE60/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1413748642&sr=8-1&keywords=zoom+rt-123 which looks identical to mine except I think it's got more presets and more drum sets and stuff.  I'm planning on getting that EZ Drummer 2 (or maybe it's 3, can't remember) software in a few months.  That's supposed to be super easy to program.

Here's 72 bars of ba-boom-ba-chick ba-boom-ba-chick soundcloud.com/jack-c8/sweet-home-chicago-drums
Should keep you busy until Bruce comes up with a proper track

Here's that Blues A La Chord backing track  soundcloud.com/jack-c8/blues-a-la-chord-backing-track

I couldn't hear the bass on the CD well enough to make out what was being played so I just made up some simple little thing instead.  As usual with my bass playing it drifts a little ahead of the beat at times, and a little behind the beat at times.  I think that adds a nice bit of variety