December Acoustic Jam

The Sunday before Christmas was our fourth monthly session of the Downingtown Area Acoustic Jam group that we found out about through meetup.com.

We've come to enjoy and look forward to these monthly sessions, and this one promised to feature holiday songs. The songs we played, as best I can remember, are as follows, and the one we chose is marked with asterisks.

• Philadelphia Lawyer (Woody Guthrie)
• Hey There Delilah (Plain White T's)
• Happy Xmas (War is Over)*** (John Lennon)
• Angel from Montgomery (John Prine)
• Go Tell It on the Mountain
• Christmas in the Trenches (John McCutcheon)
• Torn and Frayed (Rolling Stones)
• Christmas Time's A-comin'
• Winter Wonderland
• Jingle Bells
• Holly Jolly Christmas
• What Child is This
• What Child is This (to the tune of "House of the Rising Sun")
• Auld Lang Syne
• Mele Kalkimaka
• The Way You Do the Things You Do (The Temptations)
• Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree
• Good King Wenceslas
• Even Santa Gets the Blues
• We Wish You a Merry Christmas

Bugera V22 Amp

I must have been a good boy this year, as Santa brought me a new guitar amp (somehow fitting it down our chimney.) I now have a Bugera V22 two-channel tube amp. Apparently 22 watts in a tube amp is the equivalent of much more in a solid-state amp. I'm not sure about that, and I'm not really interested - the goal isn't loudness, it's good tone.

I've grown more and more dissatisfied with the sounds I'm getting out of my Line 6 Spider amp. It does a lot of things, and has a lot of built-in effects, but it seems to me that it does a lot, but nothing well. I'm thinking that I'd rather have an amp that does one or two things really well. Doing some reading of reviews and message boards, the Bugera amp was highly recommended by a number of people as a great value for a low-end tube amp.

I've only had a little time to play with it, but it sounds like a dream, and I can't wait to get better acquainted with it.

November Acoustic Jam

This afternoon was our third straight monthly session of the Downingtown Area Acoustic Jam group that we found out about through meetup.com.

It's a good group of people, and we play good music, and it's a lot of fun. The group organizer limited the session to 15 people, and all slots were taken. Everyone sits in a big circle, and we go around selecting a song. You're supposed to bring sheet music (guitar tabs) for two new songs every session, but you can also pick a song from the group of standard songs from the group website.

Here are the songs we did this afternoon, as best I can remember, and in approximate order. The ones we chose are marked with asterisks.

• Knockin' on Heaven's Door (Bob Dylan)
• If I Fell*** (Beatles)
• Dublin in the Rare Auld Days (Peter St. James)
• Hot Buttered Rum (Tommy Thompson)
• Enjoy Yourself (traditional?)
• Big Red Sun Blues (Lucinda Williams)
• Paradise (John Prine)
• Grandma Got Run over by a Reindeer
• Nights in White Satin (Moody Blues)
• Wild Horses (Rolling Stones)
• Wagon Wheel (Old Crow Medicine Show)
• Moondance (Van Morrison)
• Don't Think Twice It's Alright*** (Bob Dylan)
• Star of the County Down (Irish traditional)
• Hotel California (Eagles)
• You Ain't Going Nowhere (Bob Dylan)
• Lonely People (America)
• Bad Moon Rising (CCR)
• House of the Rising Sun (Animals)

Acoustic Zeppelin

My love affair with the Seagull acoustic continues unabated. I'm still working on finger-picking, my Simon and Garfunkel songs, and various songs from the acoustic jam meetups (the next one being this coming Sunday.)

I finally decided to tackle two acoustic Led Zeppelin songs that somehow I always thought were beyond me. Both turned out not to be that hard - once you get the guitar in the proper alternate tuning.

• "That's the Way": this YouTube video isn't a lesson, but it gives the tuning (Open G), and I figured most of it out from watching him play. Then I Google'd for the guitar tabs and got the rest. I *love* this song, and could just play it over and over. And it sounds *fantastic* on the Seagull. When you hit an open chord, the strings just ring.
• "Rain Song": a gorgeous gorgeous song that I never thought I'd be able to play. It's in a tuning I never heard of before (DGCGCD), which doesn't even have a name (that I know of). As with "That's the Way", I looked at the guy playing it on the YouTube video, Google'd a tab, and the basics of it aren't that hard. It's hauntingly beautiful, and very fun to play.

I resisted alternate-tuning songs for a long time, mostly because it was too much trouble to re-tune the guitar. I felt like I had enough trouble keeping it in tune in standard tuning, so why just give myself more headaches by intentionally changing things around. But now I have an electronic clip-on tuner, so it's trivial. Thanks to that, plus the power of the Internet, I'm now playing songs I never thought I'd play.

Simon and Garfunkel Songs

I've had the Seagull for about a month now, and I think I love it more every day. It plays great, and sounds fantastic. It rings like a bell when you strum an open chord, and the ladies in the house have made unsolicited comments on its sweet sound.

As a result, I've been playing a lot of acoustic guitar. I've been playing songs from the Acoustic Jam Meetup (We went to the October jam session and had just as much fun as we did the first time), and also practicing finger-picking.

I've been working on two of my favorite finger-picking songs, both by Simon and Garfunkel:

• "Scarborough Fair": this is an old traditional song, but in my mind, the S&G version is definitive. The chords are easy, but the right hand is a little tricky. It's coming along nicely, but still needs a lot of repetition to get to the point where I'd like it to be.


• "Feelin' Groovy": a very simple and very beautiful song - also probably the happiest song I can think of. The whole song is made up of one repeating phrase. It's not hard, but it also takes some repetition to get the right hand working smoothly.

Hopefully there won't be a Simon and Garfunkel mutiny in the house, because I really do need to play these songs over and over to get the right-hand picking patterns down cold. I think that when I do, I'll have made some good progress on finger-picking in general.

Seagull Burst Coastline GT

I've been playing a lot more acoustic guitar, and enjoying it. The Downingtown Acoustic meetup jam was great fun, as was Tuesday's open mic. I've also been doing some finger-picking (following a series of YouTube lessons that I'll post about separately.)

I got the idea in my head (yes, always dangerous, and this is the point at which Darling Wife rolls her eyes) that maybe I could upgrade my acoustic guitar without breaking the bank. I have a Yamaha, probably considered a little above entry-level, which is a nice-playing and nice-sounding instrument - but I started reading some discussions and reviews, and looking through the Craigslist "musical instruments for sale" classifieds.

I found an interesting ad for a Seagull Burst Coastline GT acoustic guitar. Seagull is a brand I'd heard specifically recommended a number of times as a good instrument and a great value, so I responded that I'd be interested in taking a look. The ad stated that the guitar was in mint condition, and the seller confirmed that in e-mail ("virtually unplayed.") We arranged to meet yesterday at noon.

Assuming the guitar was actually in the condition he stated, I wanted to see if it felt like an upgrade from my Yamaha - because if it didn't, then there would be no reason to spend money on it, as I'm not unhappy with the Yamaha. But if it did feel like an upgrade, then I would be interested.

It really does look to be in mint condition and does feel like an upgrade, so we agreed on a price, and it's now sitting next to me. It's beautiful and sounds great and plays like a dream.

Darling Wife was happy to find out it's Canadian made - slightly less happy that it's from LaPatrie, Quebec. She's afraid I'll start playing with an accent. Accent or no, I'm already coaxing some sweet sounds out of this French-Canadian beauty.

Acoustic Open Mic

The leader of the Downingtown Acoustic Jam meetup e-mailed the group that there's a new opn-mic on Tuesday nights. It's in an old barn that's currently a carpet store, and the owners are into music and want to support the local music scene. I talked to my aikido- and band-mate Eric, and we decided to go check it out last night.

We brought our acoustics with us, but left them in the car, as we weren't sure how big the crowd would be, and if we'd want to get up and play. We got there at the posted time of 7:00, but things were running late, and it was probably after 7:30 before anything started. There was a small, friendly group of maybe 15 people, and most were from the meetup group.

With such a small group, we didn't hesitate to sign up for a slot to play, and we ended up going third (after the owner, who went first, then a guy who played a scorching electric guitar - he had a tiny amp and a recorded backing track, and did a great job on Eric Johnson's "Cliffs of Dover.")

We did two songs: "Crossroads" and "Bring it on Home" - two songs we know backwards and forwards, and had actually played together on the acoustics last weekend. We weren't perfect, but I think we did a creditable job. Most of all, it was a lot of fun.

We both had to get home, and weren't able to stay until the end, but I hope to get back there again on a Tuesday evening, and I salute the people who are trying to make this happen. If I find a website, I'll post the URL.

Addendum: the open mic facility is being called "The Rock", located inside the Exton Carpet & Rug Company at 160 Park Road, Downingtown, PA 19335 (Corner of Route 100 and Park) by Pearls Market. Here are the details:

Occurs every Tuesday
Sign Up at 7:00 PM
Performance starts at 7:30 PM
Admission - $3
BYOB – wine or beer only

 

Downingtown Acoustic Jam

I discovered the meetup.com website last week. I forget where I heard about it, but it sounded interesting - you can find groups of like-minded people for all sorts of hobbies and activities. I went to the site, typed in my Zip Code and "guitar", and immediately found some interesting local groups.

The first was the Downingtown Area Acoustic Jam Group. It's a group that gets together once a month on Sunday afternoons and plays folk and acoustic rock songs. It sounded great, and there was a meeting last Sunday. I signed up, and Darling Wife wanted to come along and watch/sing.

We went, and it was great fun. Everyone was very friendly. This group limits attendance to 18 people in a meetup, and 18 signed up and were there (they said they usually get around 12-15.) Most people had guitars, some also had 12-string guitars, one guy also had a mandolin, one guy also played flute, one guy just played harmonica, and Darling Wife was just there to sing along. Everyone sat around in a big circle.

I had printed out the tabs (lyrics and chords) to 26 songs that they sent around. It went around the circle, people taking turns picking the next song (and if it wasn't from the set list, the person distributed tabs.) It sounded good, and the songs were pretty standard acoustic stuff - Dylan, Crosby, Still & Nash, the Eagles, Beatles, etc., etc. And we played for three full hours! The surface of my left-hand pointer finger felt like hamburger - I've been doing a lot of playing, but I guess I've never done three solid hours of chords on the acoustic, and I was sore.

There were players of all levels. A couple of the players were really good, most were good enough, and some were barely keeping up - but it's okay, there were enough people that no one person would make or break the sound (which overall was just fine.)

Looking through my tabs, here are the songs I can remember playing, and there may have been more (and in no particular order):

• Lemon Tree  (unknown - traditional?)
• All I Want is You  (U2)
• Pay Me My Money Down  (Springsteen, from "The Seeger Sessions")
• Johnny B. Goode  (Chuck Berry)
• Bad Moon Rising  (CCR)
• Dark Hollow  (Bill Browning)
• If Not for You  (Bob Dylan)
• Moondance  (Van Morrison)
• Old Time Religion  (Arlo Guthrie and Pete Seeger)
• Peaceful Easy Feeling  (The Eagles)
• Smackwater Jack  (Carole King)
• Can't You See  (Marshall Tucker Band)
• Your Cheatin' Heart  (Hank Williams)
• Old Time Rock and Roll  (Bob Seger)
• Blowing in the Wind  (Bob Dylan)
• City of New Orleans  (Arlo Guthrie)
• Country Roads  (John Denver)
• House of the Rising Sun  (The Animals)
• Knockin' on Heaven's Door  (Bob Dylan)
• Let it Be  (The Beatles)
• Teach Your Children  (Crosby, Still, Nash & Young)

Getting My Keith On

Being housebound on a rainy pre-hurricane Saturday has some advantages - one of which is time to play guitar. I recently finished Keith Richards' autobiography, which I liked a lot. He goes into a lot of detail about his guitar playing, and talk about open-G tuning, which I discovered last year (and wrote about on my other blog.)

I've simulated open-G tuning by just playing 3 string of the guitar, but today I decided to actually tune my Telecaster in open-G. It's so easy, and sounds so good, and I started playing Rolling Stones songs, and looking at YouTube lessons of Stones songs.

It's so easy it feels like cheating. I think I'm going to leave the Telecaster in open-G for a while.

Here's some of what I've been playing:

• Brown Sugar
• Can't You Hear Me Knocking
• Happy
• Tumbling Dice
• Honky Tonk Women

Dunlap Crybaby Wah Pedal

Darling Wife and the kids wanted to get me something guitar-related for Father's Day.  No matter how mortifying the idea of me playing guitar is (to the teenagers), they do recognize that it's something I really enjoy and spend a lot of time at.

Having admired Eric's wah pedal at band practice, I asked for one of my own (and ordered it myself at their request.)  Some of these pedals come with significant bells and whistles, but I just wanted a very basic model, and ordered a Dunlap Crybaby Wah Pedal.

It couldn't be simpler - when you step on the pedal and hear the click, you then move your foot up and down and get a varying "wah" sound.  I like it a lot, but I still need to really get comfortable using it in a solo.  I'm thinking about my hands so much that I need to be able to use my foot without thinking about it.

I'm not ready to bring it to band practice yet.  But with more practice, hopefully soon.

SRV and String Muting

My favorite YouTube guitar teacher is Marty Schwartz of GuitarJamz.com.  He's personable, funny, and both a good player and a good teacher.  He's also prolific on YouTube - he must have hundreds and hundreds of video lessons, ranging from scales, to blues licks, to funk playing, to song tutorials.

Marty posted tutorials on two Stevie Ray Vaughn songs this week that I've spent a little time working on (and have bookmarked to make sure I dn't lose track of them):  "Cold Shot" and "Couldn't Stand the Weather".

Going through the two songs, the notes and the chords just aren't that hard - the hard part on both is the string muting.  The pick (right) hand moves up and down across all six strings like a metronome - back and forth, hitting all six strings.  The fretting (left) hand has to finger the notes you want, and also mute all the strings you don't want.  Marty shows how to do it, and it really does sound like SRV.

It's not easy to do, at least at first.  I can now kinda sometimes do it, and it's a great feeling to actually hear it come out sounding right, but I need a lot more practice before this will feel natural (and really sound good.)  The key, as with most things, is to start slow - really slow - painfully slow - no, even slower than that - and not go faster until you can play it right at that speed, every time.

"Walk This Way"

Last night, while Sarah saw her Owl City concert at Baltimore's Inner Harbor, I had a chance to see some live music myself. First I saw a few songs by a country band in front of Phillips Crab House, then a good classic rock cover band in front of the Hard Rock Cafe.

I was particularly interested when the cover band launched into one of my all-time favorite songs, "Walk This Way." This is not a song I've seen very many bands attempt - for the reason that it's really damn hard to make sound right. And the band last night didn't really do it either. They were good, and got a nice groove going, but they didn't capture it.

It's not that the chords are hard. A and C. And the opening riff isn't hard either, though it does required a fast picking hand. But the verse is tricky, and I've never seen a cover band get it right.

I finally stumbled on a YouTube lesson that shows how to do it. Justin Sandercoe, who has some great lessons and song covers, nails it. As he says in the video, this is an easy song to play badly, and a really difficult song to play well.  All hail Brad Whitford, who plays it every night without a second thought.

"Sara Smile"

I've never given Hall and Oates much thought one way or the other.  They had some decent songs, but also a lot of schlocky pop stuff, and I was never a real fan.  But I saw a lesson of their Sara Smile from one of the YouTube guys I follow (who gives fantastic easy-to-follow lessons on a lot of good songs.)  So I watch the lesson, played along, and was *very* pleasantly surprised.

It's not only a beautiful song, but it's made up of interesting, almost jazz-type chords.  With my Tele on a clean setting, it sounds fantastic, and I often go through the chord progressions just for the pleasure of hearing it.

It's a song I'll never play in a band, but one I'll play often by myself.

Adding to the Set List

With lots of time to rehearse, and our alleged gig retreating before us like a desert mirage (June 24 became June 25, and now looks like it won't be then either), we're adding songs to our set list.  It's not that we don't have plenty of material, but it's fun to rehearse every Tuesday, and we need to keep ourselves interested.

In terms of time, our original goal was to put together a 45-minute set.  Which we did, easily.  Then we were told we'd need to do two 45-minute sets.  Also no problem.  We played every song but one at the seminar party, and we played for more than 90 minutes.  But we're playing around with a few new songs:

• Gimme Three Steps (Lynyrd Skynyrd): a deceptively difficult song.  Yes, it's only three chords, but the leads and fills are not that easy.
• Foxy Lady (Jimi Hendrix): let's just state up front that I'm not taking the lead on a Hendrix song.  Nope.
• Cinnamon Girl (Neil Young): a classic - pretty easy and sounds good.
• American Woman (The Guess Who): on the theory that you can never have too much Canadian music in your set.
• Another One Bites the Dust (Queen): Machine Gun Joe wants to sing this one.
• Tush (ZZ Top): classic crunchy blues, and I can take the lead on this one.  And oh-so politically uncorrect, which will fit in perfectly with a number of other songs we're playing.
• Can't Get Enough (Bad Company): another one (along with "Mississippi Queen") that was in the Axys set list (how many years ago?  No, don't tell me....)

Playing with Eric

Yesterday afternoon, returning home after a morning of aikido, I was pleasantly surprised to find Eric and his family visiting with Lori.  I showed Eric my Epiphone Les Paul (even though I've had it for a while, I didn't think he had ever seen it.)  We made plans to go to his house for dinner, and he mentioned in passing that I should bring a guitar with me.  He has a beautiful Fender Strat, and we've talked about playing, but never actually have.  So I took my Tele and my amp with me just in case.

And we played.  We messed around with some simple three-chord songs, and then worked on The Moody Blues' "Tuesday Afternoon", which is a bit more complicated.  We also just jammed some, with Eric playing a chord progression and me doing some improv over top of it.  Since that's what I'm really working on now, it was a lot of fun.

I had fun, and I hope we'll do it again soon.

Eric's take on the evening is here.

How to Boost?

With one successful house party under our belts, we're feeling pretty good about ourselves and our set list.  We weren't perfect, but we have more time to get better - and we're playing for non-critical observers (i.e., friends who want to hear music and have a good time - not record company executives.)

Technically, everything went well too.  Our amps were plenty loud for any small room/bar or backyard party.  But there's one issue that Eric and I, as the guitarists, are wrestling with - and that's how to boost the volume for a solo.

We're playing at one level during the song, but when it comes time for the solo, you need to be louder to be heard above the band.  I know some amps have foot-switchable channels - so the guitarist steps on a switch, and gets a boost for the solo.  We don't have that.  Instead, we've been fumbling with volume knobs, which just doesn't cut it.

Actually, I may be able to get a foot-switch - I'll have to investigate.  Eric, at last Tuesday's rehearsal, had another possible solution - this equalizer pedal.  I haven't had time to pick his brain and see how it worked for him.

We need to get this worked out.

Hiatus on Lessons

I'm sorry to say that I'm now on hiatus with guitar lessons.  There's just not enough time in the week to give it proper attention.  It had just become too much, so I finally e-mailed my teacher and told him I had to stop for now.

I'm very grateful for what I've been able to learn, and I've picked up a number of good fundamentals that I had never gotten from my self-teaching and YouTube learning.  I now know the basics of how to solo, the scales I need to practice, and the exercises on how to get faster.  I can continue to practice this on my own, and I intend to.

If things get less hectic down the road, I will happily resume taking lessons.  I have to say it's hard envisioning that at the moment, but I won't say that it couldn't.

Back to 10's on the Tele

I mentioned that I had put 0.09 gauge strings on both my electrics, for easier string bending.  I liked how they felt, but there was a side effect on the Telecaster.  There was a buzzing on the D string when played open that was annoying.

I didn't immediately pick up the correlation that the buzzing started when I put the 9's on.  Or if I did, I figured I hadn't put the string on correctly.  Then I remembered a post on a message board, saying that changing the string gauge on a guitar sometimes means the neck tension will be different, so the neck will need adjusting.

Since I don't want to take it into the shop for an adjustment, I re-strung it with 10's.  The D-string buzzing went away.

I'll keep 9's on the Epiphone, as that's how I asked for it at the setup.  But it will be 10's for the Telecaster.

Joe Perry's Gear

Just wow....

Playing Bass

Tuesday night at band practice, our bass player wasn't able to be there.  So I took both my bass and a guitar (the Epiphone L.P.), figuring I could play some of each.  I ended up playing bass on the majority of the set list, switching to guitar for just the couple of songs that I really drive on the guitar.

It was more fun than I would have thought.  While I'm loving the whole process of getting competent on the guitar, I really do love the bass.  Maybe it's just that I'm a better bass player than a guitar player.  I'm not a virtuoso by any means, but I could step into a cover band today and not feel the need to apologize for my playing.  I can only play guitar with friends who understand that I'm still getting my feet under me.

More than that, I just have a rhythm player's mindset.  I like playing with the drummer and setting the beat, driving the song.  Soloing over top of that is fun too, and I'm trying my best to learn it, but at the end of the day, I want to be part of the rhythm section with a good drummer.

I wish there were enough hours in the day that I could make an effort to get better on the bass, as well as learn guitar.  At the moment there isn't, so my emphasis will be on the guitar.  But I won't pass up chances to play bass.

Stray Cat Strut

Stray Cat Strut is a song I've like a lot since it came out in the 80's.  I can't say I was a huge Stray Cats fan in general, but they had a couple good songs, and this one great one.

I learned the basic chords to it a number of years ago from an Internet tab site (which are sometimes a big help on learning a song, but more often no help at all, as anybody can submit what they think is right.)  But the solos and fills always seemed beyond me.

Well, YouTube to the rescue again.  I found a video lesson on the chords (which I already knew), the intro, solos, and ending.  And what do you know, I can play them.  Not good enough to play it live, but with enough practice and repetition I could probably even do that.

It has a number of patterns that are very different from the normal blues 1/4/5 progression that so many songs are built from - jazzy sounding and very interesting.  And when the guy on the YouTube lesson gives the names of some of these chords, it's enough to make your head spin.

That repetition turned out to be a little problem though.  After a bit of time working on the solos, Darling Wife asked if maybe I wanted to play some other songs.  I took that hint and understood - you need a lot of reps to get something down, but that's not fun for someone else to listen to.  Fortunately both my amps have headphone jacks for just such an occasion.

Anyway, the song is fun to play and sounds great.

YouTube links to the song and the guitar lesson.

Fat Bottomed Girls

As everyone knows, they make the rockin' world go round.

We've added one final song to our set list - Queen's Fat Bottomed Girls.  I don't remember who suggested it, but we all loved the idea, and it was unanimous to add it.  There was some thought that maybe our significant others wouldn't appreciate this song, but they're fine with it.  The reaction I got was something along the lines of, "Play it, it's a great song.  But if you dedicate it to me, you're a dead man."  Warning taken.

I did some YouTube research and found that it's easy to play - basically a three-chord song in D, and in drop-D tuning, which I've never done before.  Drop-D just means tuning the low E string down a whole step to D.  This lets you play the two bottom strings open as a D power chord.  It's not hard, and sounds great.

Since we have three singers in the band, they've worked out the harmony to the beginning "Aaaaare you gonna take me home tonight", etc.  Also, Eric has decided to just sing, which means that I'm alone on the guitar.  That's a different (and very cool) feeling.

Sarah heard me practicing this tonight, and her reaction was sheer horror.  I believe her words were, "That's wrong on so many levels."  I could only laugh and apologize for mortifying her.

YouTube links to the song, and the guitar lesson.

Lesson, 3/29

I had another guitar lesson Tuesday evening, and it's still a lot of fun - even though it often feels like drinking from a fire hose.  Here are the things we talked about, and that I'll be focusing on for the next two weeks.

Tremolo Picking: I made decent progress with this, and there's plenty more to work on.  He wants me to hold more of the pick, which should give me more control.  I'm to keep working at it with the metronome, getting faster as I can do it while hitting every note cleanly.  I'm also to do tremolo picking with the four-finger exercises of the right hand, which will work on getting both hands faster and coordinated.  I also have exercises with open-string tremolo picking, and then two-string open-string tremolo picking, which is wickedly hard.

Guitar Vibrato: I currently do right-hand vibrato in what he calls "violin-style", or twisting the fretting finger back and forth while you hold the note.  It does add some tone to the note, but it doesn't have the effect it does with a violin since a guitar has frets.  What he calls "guitar-style" vibrato involves moving the string itself up and down, like mini-bends.  It sounds great when he does it, but it's really hard to do and feels incredibly awkward.  I think it will take a lot of repetition to feel somewhat natural (i.e., to the point where I could do it without thinking while playing.)

Music Theory: I knew this was a big question, but I asked how, when looking at a song, you know its key, and what scales are appropriate.  I knew some of this, but we talked about theory for a bit, and he gave me some charts to study.  I already know a decent bit of theory, and I'm interested to know more.  But this is a subject that can get as complicated as you care to go with it.  I now know all the basic scales needed to play in any major or minor key, but I have to get them smoother and more natural.  This will be an ongoing process.

Band Practice and Soloing

Last night was band practice, as all Tuesdays have been recently.  It's still a blast, and we're getting the songs in our set list down pretty well.  I think we sound decent, and am pretty certain we'll be able to do a creditable 90 minutes.  We have more time to rehearse than we originally thought, as we had to cancel the April 2 gig date due to band member travel.  We're trying to reschedule, and it seems likely that it will be in the May timeframe.

I took both guitars with me last night, but played the Epiphone exclusively.  I wanted to see what it felt like and played like over an extended practice.  We played for two hours and did every song in our set list, and it felt great.  I'm still not entirely happy with my tone, so I'm playing with amp settings - but that's unrelated to the new guitar, I've also been playing with amp settings and trying to find the right tone with the Telecaster.

My ability to take a solo is coming along.  It probably rates as "almost at the minimum acceptable level."  But that's significant progress, as three months ago I basically couldn't do it at all.  Now, given any key, I can do *something.*  Probably even enough that a friendly audience would say it was fine.  But I need to get better, and I intend to.

The first thing I need to do is expand my repertoire of phrases or licks.  After practice last night I realized that in the five songs where I have a free-form solo, I was doing the same basic thing in every song.  I need to listen to songs and watch YouTube to get ideas, and plan this out better.  I realize now that it's not the quantum physics I thought it was.

I also need to be able to bring a solo to a definite conclusion.  It now basically just peters out, and I nod to the guys to get on with the next verse.  It should be obvious when it's ending, and I need to figure out how to do that.

Our next rehearsal is in two weeks, and I intend to have improved by then.

Final anecdote: discussing the Les Paul, Eric noted that I would look more like Jimmy Page if I had it slung about a foot lower (basically playing it off my thigh.)  I answered that I would also need satin dragon pants.  But seriously, how does he play it that low?!?

Playing the Les Paul

The story of my eBay win of the Epiphone Les Paul is told elsewhere.  But I got it back from the shop on Sunday and can finally talk about actually playing it.

Cleaned and set up, it's a beautiful instrument.  The only thing that was wrong with it was the high-E tuning peg, which I thought was broken, as it couldn't hold the string in tune.  According to the repairman, It was easily fixable, and now works fine.  A badly-needed new set of string completed the setup.

I've been playing it exclusively for the past two days, and I love it.  It gives that nice fat Les Paul sound that I could try to get with the Telecaster, but never with complete success.  I've been doing some finger exercises and rehearsing some band songs, and the feel doesn't seem much different.  I guess from reading message board posts, I was expecting that the feel might be different.

Also, it just looks so damn cool.

Going forward, I'm sure I'll play both guitars, but it remains to be seen in what proportion.  More details and impressions as I play it more.

Tremolo Picking

My main picking exercise for my next lesson (thankfully not this coming Tuesday, but 10 days from now) is tremolo picking.  In other words, moving the pick quickly back and forth across the string.  Basically, as fast as possible but hitting every note cleanly and in time.  This will build picking speed and accuracy, and is also designed to burn in good habits.

The focus is almost entirely on the right hand.  Once picking basics are established, the next step will be coordinating faster left-hand movement with the faster picking.  But for now it's four 16th notes on the same fret, then moving to another fret.

I'm using the metronome to keep myself going at a steady pace, and one that I can hit every note accurately.  For now, that means 76bpm, where I'm playing four 16th notes every beat.  The idea is to slowly increase the speed.

I'm doing a lot of simple finger exercises, and the scales I already know pretty well (minor pentatonic, blues, and minor), going up and down, trying to keep the picking steady.

I can't say it's loads of fun - and it's undoubtedly even less fun for the folks in the house to listen to.  But it's a basic skill that has to be learned, so the sooner the better.

On Slowing Down

I had another lesson Tuesday night, and I asked a couple questions that led to us switching gears.  We're by no means done with the minor scale and working that into improvisation with the blues and minor pentatonic scales, but I also have some right-hand picking exercises to work on.

I started doing the picking exercises last night and was getting frustrated - I couldn't do it smoothly, kept flubbing, etc., etc.  Stepping back to think, I realized I was going too fast and need to start slower.  Immediately after realizing this, a number of very emphatic quotes from people on the message boards popped into my head - guitar teachers saying that their primary advice to students is SLOW DOWN.  Everyone wants to play fast, but you can't lay fast until you can play slowly.

The rule of thumb is to play at the speed you can play it perfectly.  Then slowly speed up.  And the way to track this is with a metronome.  I have a metronome and intend to start using it to keep myself playing in a steady time.

So the current mantra is "slow the f&^% down!"

String Bending and 9's

My other assignment (besides the minor scale) is to do a lot more string bending.  I thought I was doing plenty, as it is a cool technique and sounds great (done properly.)  But apparently I could be doing plenty more.

Most of the bending I've been doing has been half-tone bends (i.e., one fret.)  But now I'm also supposed to be doing whole-tone (two-fret) and three-fret bends.  I was able to do whole-tone bends in the lesson (more easily on the upper frets than on the lower), but three-fret bends were near impossible.

Part of the reason was finger strength, which I can work on.  But part of it was string gauge.  My Tele had standard 0.010 gauge strings.  I've been reading debates on the message boards about the pros and cons of going to thinner strings (0.009 gauge, or "nines.")  Since I was due for a string change anyway, I decided to try a set of nines.

I re-strung about ten days ago, and I can tell the difference.  Whole-tone bends are easier, and I can manage the three-fret bend, although it's still not easy.  I guess finger strength is the other part of the equation.

I haven't seen any downsides to the thinner strings.  But we'll see.  When I took the Epiphone into the shop 10 days ago, I asked them to re-string with nines also.

Beyond the details of how to bend, there's the question of when (i.e., which notes.)  And that comes back to the scales.

Learning the Minor Scale

I've been going for a lesson every other week, and one of my assignments for the last two lessons has been to get the A-minor scale down cold - all five positions up the fretboard.  Actually, according to this page, what I'm learning is the "natural or relative minor scale."

The first week or two was just leaning the positions - lots of slow repetition until they start to get burned in.  I have that down pretty well now (not perfectly, I'm still doing repetitions every night), so the assignment two weeks ago was to start improvising using the minor scale.

Actually the assignment was a little more complicated.  I've been improvising over the blues scale, so the assignment was in a couple parts:

• Improvise over the blues scale, throwing in a few notes from the minor scale.
• Improvise with an even mix of notes from the two scales.
• Improvise over mostly the minor scale, throwing in some blues notes.

Learning the scale positions and playing something that sounds interesting are two very different things.  My improvisation is still *very* rudimentary.  I also get stuck in one position, and the idea is to be able to move fairly seamlessly from one position to another up and down the fretboard.

Then of course there's moving to a different key.  Once you A-minor, then B-minor is the same thing two frets higher.

It's not easy.  I can see little glimmers of progress, but there's still SO far to go.

A New Guitar Blog

Yes, a new guitar blog.  As it says in my profile, I've had an off-and-on, more-frustrating-than-not relationship with the guitar over the past 30+ years.  In the last year or two, I've finally starting making some strides in learning how to play.  The result of making progress is that it's more fun to play, which means I want to play more and work harder.  A nice positive feedback loop.

I've also had a chance to play with some people of similar ability, and we've had some fun jam sessions, and we're currently rehearsing as a band, and may even have a gig lined up a local bar.  More on that as it happens.

I know I'm just scratching the surface and have a lot to learn.  I hope to use this blog to write down my thoughts and experiences.

I've also played electric bass over the years, and am fooling around with the mandolin.  These instruments may find their way into the blog too (which is why I put "fretboard" in the blog title instead of "guitar.")