Weekly Update 14-06-15

I had a decent week, about 12 hours on guitar and 2 1/2 on bass. Still working on Makin' Changes in More BYCU, which is coming along satisfactorily. I sort of made up my own bass line for it which I'm happy with and I think I've got an okay recording of it. I've got an okay recording of the rhythm guitar part too but I'll keep practicing it; that one chord change is still giving me problems. It's a chord I've only seen in one other song before and you have to hit it instantly. As far as the lead, I was having a hell of a time with some bends on the 8th fret high E - when John does them they sound terrific, when I do them, even on those rare occasions when I hit the right pitch, they sound piercing and practically ruin the whole song. I finally moved that section down a string and up 5 frets, so now those bends are on the 13th fret B string. It sounds too sweet and loses all the bite it has when John plays it, but it's better than the terrible sound I was getting before.

I also did a little improvising and on bass did some Bass Aerobics.

This week I'll add Lazy Day Blues to the practice routine, assuming it wins the poll.

I think this may be the 1st time I got in 7 days of practice for a total of 7 hrs. 2 of those were for only 25 minutes each, but 25 minutes of focused practice is better than no practice.

I'm bringing study #4, "Jazzin' the Blues," slowly up to speed and I've been working on "True Trem Blues" and "Tremblin' Tremelo" from MBYCU. I hope to have 1 or 2 of these recorded by the end of the month. I'm also working on a Jazz chord melody course.

That's a lot for me to be working on at one time, but I've got them divided into little chunks of the most difficult parts and I work on those "little" things daily. In other words, I'm not playing whole studies, just the hard parts.

I'm looking forward to getting started on the "Challenge." It looks like it's going to be "Lazy Day Blues" unless more people vote today.

Not a bad week, about 10 hours guitar time and I hour bass working on the aerobics book.
I've been working on "Cool Shade" from Jazzin', I've pretty much got the lead section but the rhythm part still needs work to smooth out the chord changes, hoping to record this week.
I've got a couple of rock guitar grade pieces on the go - Grade 5 "Money", and Grade 4 "Iron Man".
Recorded lesson 6 from Troy Stetina's Rock book which is in a 12 bar rockabilly style, and will be starting lesson 7 from his Rhythm book next.

Here's a link to the rock lesson if anyone interested. I lose the comping rhythm at times, probably because it takes a bit more concentration and stamina to play a longer song, apart from the fact its just a little bit too quick for me to be comfortable.

I'm trying to save up for a guitar here, don't be telling me about albums that are jaw-droppingly fantastic 

Nice playing, Mick. The dog seemed to enjoy it too. It looked like he was bobbing his head in time. I've never seen him move so much.

Man, you've got a lot going on. Good to see you're staying with "Jazzin' the Blues." There are some really cool studies that I'm chomping at the bit to get to, but I plan on moving slowly through this book. There is a lot of useful theory stuff to be absorbed in each lesson.

I have some Guy/Wells stuff, but I was not aware of this acoustic album. You hear some short samples from it here: www.allmusic.com/album/alone-acoustic-mw0000677150   This sounds like something worth getting. Thanks for posting that, Bruce.

Junior Wells is great and at his best when is just being himself and not trying to be James Brown, which he tried to do all to often.

Mike,

coincidentally I just bought a Ibanez S series guitar, which is also branded for metal.  Actually it feels very much like at strat, but it has hotter humbucker pickups - I really love playing it, and I think it could easily be a main guitar for blues/rock/metal, but I bought it specifically to have a hard-rock guitar.

I also used to do Guitar Aerobics, but I probably wasn't ready for it at that time.  The same author also published a rhythm book using the same recipe, and that book is even better, in my opinion.  I'd like to get back to them one day,  but I don't have more space in my practice schedule. 

Ratt man I saw those guys play before they had the hit, I sat on the stage and drank a case of beer. Pretty cool guitar also, I was in my 20s when the hair metal craze hit.