More Minor Blues Extended by Phil

Thanks for the feedback, Bruce. That's the kind of thing I'm looking for. You mentioned that my choruses sound "busier." This is a good observation. You should have heard my earlier ideas before I cut out half the notes. It's difficult for a wannabe like me to not fill up every space with notes. I think it's one of the (many) things that separates the pros from the rest of us. Hopefully, it's something that will come with maturity in playing. On the next one I'm going to try to do more with less notes and leave out my attempts to play flashy runs and cliche licks.

Yeah, those were octaves and they do give it a jazzier sound which is kinda what I was after. They didn't come out on the recording as "up front" as they sounded in my headphones. It's probably due to me not being in total control of picking dynamics. I also should have put new strings on. I noticed that my strings tend to go out of tune when they get old and I sound a little out of tune in spots on this tune.

Of course there were still some flubs even after dozens of takes. The Clapton-like "twiddle" lick in the 2nd chorus didn't come out very well on this take. But, since most of the rest finally came out OK I didn't feel like doing yet another take.

I would like to take a crack at a video one of these days. Right now I think it would just be even more frustrating to get a good take with having to start the recording of both audio and video over and over again.

The most frustrating thing about recording is making little minor mistakes on the easy parts after I've got the hard parts down. Things like a missed or a dead note or even losing my place in the song. I really envy the session guitarists who could probably come up with 2 good interesting choruses in about 15 minutes of studio time.

One question: do the choruses flow well? In other words do they sound like a collection of licks strung together willy-nilly or does everything fit together well?

Once again, thanks for the feedback.

Phil

Yeah, I think wanting to throw in every lick we know is something we all have to fight against.  If you cut out half the notes, I think you were on the right track.  Sometimes less really is more.

Phil, I'm the master of never changing strings.  I've always kind of thought it's a waste of good practice time.  I got that Ibanez for my birthday in March, and haven't changed the strings on it.  Was noticing just the other night how it wouldn't stay in tune worth a darn.  Go figure.  I'm going to put some new strings on it this weekend...  really, I swear.

That particular "twiddle" lick in the second chorus was part of the "busier" sound.  It also serves to increase the "energy", so to speak, where the basic chorus (your 1st and 4th) is pretty much a lesson in laid back, sparseness (is that a word?).  I think it works because you kind of want to "take it up", then bring it back down.

What I'd encourage you to do (with video or audio) is to record one single take.  If nothing else, I think this really forces you to ask yourself "can I actually play this?"  It's kind of humbling.  You don't have to post it if you don't want to, but just watch it and listen to it.  Gives you a real appreciation for people out playing live.

Now session guitarists are true professionals, and they've probably played for hours every day for many years, probably a lot of them have music degrees and way more training than you or I will ever have.  I don't play golf, but if I took it up, I wouldn't have any hope of competing with the PGA players - especially if I was just doing it as a hobby.  That doesn't mean that a golf hobbyist can't get enjoyment from the game, can't work on improving their game, can't buy new clubs (the equivalent of GAS), or that they should be forbidden from playing does it?

As to your question about flow, I think it did flow and avoided the dreaded "collection of licks strung together" thing that we all must combat.

Bruce

I'm with you on this. I hate changing strings and usually only do it when I break one. The problem is that since I've gone to cheap generic strings that Jack recommended they never break! However, I think they should be changed at least once a year whether they need it or not.

Well I tried ripping my shirt off but I just ended up with one of my arms stuck through the neck hole and then I had to yell for somebody to help get me untangled, but...anyhow    Totally agree about this being a great learning exercise;  I'm so lazy about writing because it can be so frustrating - it's not uncommon at all for me to spend a whole evening "writing" and at the end of the night have absolutely nothing to show for it, or get half of it written and then decide I don't like the beginning, or write three bars in five minutes and then spend two hours trying to fill the fourth bar, etc.  So this is great as far as "forcing" me to do it and hopefully as we do more of it I'll get more efficient and organized.

Thanks, Rich. Glad you liked it.

John G. is around somewhere because he updates the lick of the week on the main page regularly. And, I might add, he puts up some very interesting licks there. When I get through MBYCU I plan on going through those. However, he doesn't show up on the forum very often anymore. He used to drop in from time to time.

Thanks for stroking my fragile ego.   You guys are very kind.

Phil, were you adding in chord tones to the pentatonic minor scale? 'Cause whatever you did you really got some great moody stuff and I want to know how you did it