Weekly Update 12-04-15

I managed to get in 6 days of practice (3 MBYCU/3 Jazz) for a total of 9+ hrs.

MBYCU - I'm still working on "Big Bends" and "True Trem Blues." These may turn into a life-long endeavor.

I re-recorded "Cheap Runs" again, but wasn't satisfied that it was significantly better than what I've already posted so I didn't upload it to the forum. As fate would have it, the parts I didn't focus on because I thought I had them down sounded crappy.

On the Jazz front I worked on a Jazz Melody Course and completed Lesson 3 in Jazzin' the Blues - "Blues for Charlie." I might record that this week. The lead is simple, but very cool. It proves that you don't necessarily have to play something complicated to sound good. In JtB I spend a good amount of time on the exercises (scales and arpeggios).

I also did something I haven't done since I transcribed "Sweet Home Chicago," I started working on Dicky Betts' 1st solo from the Allman Bros. version of "One Way Out." It's one of my favorite solos of all time. I need to dedicate more time to this kind of thing. I also need to make time to improv over backing tracks. I'm also working on finding a way to extend the 24 hour day.

I started setting weekly goals last week. As I expected, I set them too high but I reached most of them. This is something I will definitely continue to do. It really helps to keep me on track.

Overall it was a good week.

I bought a brass slide - great minds think alike Rich    

I had a good week of practice - 15 1/2 hours on guitar and 2 on bass.  And I did my ear training every day.  That stuff is so weird;  a couple of times, while guessing an interval every 5 seconds or so, I went for about 4 minutes while only getting one or two wrong.  But by the end of 15 minutes I was back to my usual 70% - 80% right.  So apparently there is something inside my head that can hear that stuff, now I just have to learn to use it lol.  I also found this site www.miles.be/software/34-functional-ear-trainer-v2 where you can download a free ear training program, so I've been using that as well as that other site I gave a link to a few weeks ago.

I worked quite a bit on Groovin' Easy in More BYCU.  Spend about half the time playing through the whole song, and the other half just working on bars 10-16 (the hard part) at very slow tempo, trying to get those slides smooth and the bends to pitch.  As far as the rhythm part, I'd previously recorded it with a swing feel, but decided that wasn't right and re-did it in straight time.  I think I've got a good recording of the rhythm guitar part but the bass still needs some work.  

Worked a bit on D Minor Blues in the Rhythm book, I think I'll give up on writing a solo for it as it would just be too time consuming (after several weeks I'm still in the "gathering ideas" phase).  Once I get a good take recorded along with the CD track I'm anxious to move on to the next song.  Also worked a bit on Lazy Day Blues and Minor Blues from BYCU, I'd like to make some updated recordings of those one of these days.  Both have a lot of bends up to the 5th, and I always have trouble hearing that pitch - a little flat, a little sharp, I can't tell when it's right.

I worked a lot on improvising this week, along with my usual half hour jamming along with backing tracks on YouTube I also got a couple of TrueFire courses, "Power Play Dominant" and "Power Play Minor", which cover the scales you use while soloing over dominant chords (major pentatonic, blues scale and Mixolydian mode) and minor chords (minor pentatonic, Aeolian, Dorian and Phrygian modes).  I'm just working on pentatonic major and minor right now;  I'l move on to the others eventually.  You get some backing tracks that change key every 8 bars, so for instance you'll play in one pentatonic box around the 5th fret, then the key changes but you stay in that same general area of the fretboard but switch to a different pentatonic box.  You get some really nice fretboard diagrams showing all the box positions and intervals of the scale, and I'm very slowly working towards memorizing that stuff all over the fretboard.

On bass I just worked a bit on Groovin' Easy and Bass Aerobics.

Last weekend I was having a few beers and listening to Stairway to Heaven, so now there's an alto recorder on its way to me 

That's too small for me to see, is it giving you a virus warning or just saying that it's from an unknown publisher?

Anyhow I haven't had any problems with it.  At least not yet