jayswett Fishin' Blues guitar lesson review upload

rapsidy
Posts: 0
Joined: Thu Feb 18, 2010 4:44 am
Status: Offline

Thu Dec 30, 2010 12:13 am

Great Jay

your playing is inspirational, I always wondered why you didnt sing when you fingerpicked songs and added vocals after. I am practice a FP song now and totally understand why :blink: it is so difficult. Now to watch you play and sing so well at least it shows it can be done. somehow :S

please share with us your experience of open mic night, how many songs, what songs, nerve levels, crowd appreciation. you must share


thanks for this enjoyable song. although its 40 degrees celcius here watching you in the jumper was making me sweat more lol


Brad


cosmicmechanic
Posts: 0
Joined: Sat Apr 04, 2009 8:39 am
Status: Offline

Thu Dec 30, 2010 3:32 am

Fish of the world, be forewarned ... Jay is goin' fishin' (his baby too) !

Very nice. Jay. The last time you got me most worked up was with Ralph McTell's "Streets of London", which took you only a couple weeks to sing and play ... it's been over a year and I'm not there yet (but having fun getting there).

Now you do John Hurt's style ... it will be interesting to see how the picking from McTell's tune helps me with this (time allowing).

The charm is that you make it seem easy. Hope you catch a whole lotta them fish.

Pierre


jayswett
Posts: 31
Joined: Sat Apr 04, 2009 9:44 pm
Status: Offline

Fri Dec 31, 2010 11:01 am

Hi All,
As always, thanks for the comments. The missed notes that I mentioned were in reference to the singing portion for the most part.

Regarding the open mic night, the story is this... I live in a fairly small New England town, and a local bar decided to have an open mic night. Wanting to see this venture succeed and possibly become a regular event, I attended and brought my guitar, intending to play only if they needed volunteers. It turns out that they did, so I did in fact get up on stage and play six songs. I did come away from this experience with some learning points that I will mention in a moment.

The first performer was a guy named Wayne who was very good and obviously had performed in other venues. He played a left handed 12 string Ovation and played Old Man, The Weight, and Down by the River, and one other song that I can't recall. He was, as I said, a very good player. I was next and played three songs which included John Prine's That's the Way the World Goes Round, Can't Find My Way Home, and Pancho and Lefty. I was very nervous and it showed with the first song, but I did quite a bit better with the 2nd and 3rd songs. I then came off stage but an hour and a half later got back on stage for a few more songs since there weren't alot of people clamoring to get on stage. For the second round, I played Freight Train, Is There Anybody Out There, and Brain Damage. Wayne, the guy who played first, joined me on stage to sing Brain Damage, and I must say the result was satisfying.

This experience was very enjoyable, and I am glad to have done it. I NEVER would have done this without the encouragement of many here on TG, and quite frankly, I am looking forward to the next event which is the second Thursday of January. The acts ranged from really, really good players (I didn't tell you about the bartender of this place, who got on stage and was unbelievable), to beginners. It wasn't all musical acts. There was a dancer, and several comedians. but regardless of one's experience, the atmosphere was positive and supportive, and just alot of fun all around. For the next open mic event, I will likely play 4+20, Streets of London, and maybe Fishin Blues. Not sure yet.

Several learning points are these. Some may disagree with them, but others might find them helpful.

1) Memorize the lyrics and don't plan on having a music stand on stage with you. I made the mistake of assuming there would be way to read the lyrics as I played, but alas, there was not, which made my setup and overall peformance a bit awkward

2) The really good players stood as they played, whereas the beginners sat in a chair. My sense was that it looks more professional to stand while performing rather than sitting. A bar stool would be OK as well, but this was not available.

3) If you aren't accustomed to standing in front of a microphone, don't spend much time with chit chat between songs. Introduce the song and the artist, then get right into playing it.

That's all for now. I don't have a video of the evening, but I do have a grainy photo that I will post if I can figure out how do to that


User avatar
neverfoundthetime
Posts: 48
Joined: Sat Aug 01, 2009 2:14 pm
Status: Offline

Sat Jan 01, 2011 9:08 am

Hi Jay, thanks for sharing the story with us, I think that it's really really great that you did this event, much fun and great for your experience!

And I think you've named a few very good learning points for any of us!

As far as professional goes, I also think that memorising the lyrics is part of that. I mean performance is also about your presence on stage. It'll built your confidence as well if you can sing it by heart instead of being depended on what's written in front of you..it'll make you more lose (?)..you can even look around, see how the people react and respond to that etc....that might be scary, but it works very well, an audience usually likes to be in contact with the performer, so really people will definitely like that!

Well Jay, great work, am glad for you! APPLAUSE :cheer:


jayswett wrote:
Several learning points are these. Some may disagree with them, but others might find them helpful.

1) Memorize the lyrics and don't plan on having a music stand on stage with you. I made the mistake of assuming there would be way to read the lyrics as I played, but alas, there was not, which made my setup and overall peformance a bit awkward

2) The really good players stood as they played, whereas the beginners sat in a chair. My sense was that it looks more professional to stand while performing rather than sitting. A bar stool would be OK as well, but this was not available.

3) If you aren't accustomed to standing in front of a microphone, don't spend much time with chit chat between songs. Introduce the song and the artist, then get right into playing it.


User avatar
neverfoundthetime
Posts: 48
Joined: Sat Aug 01, 2009 2:14 pm
Status: Offline

Sat Jan 01, 2011 9:30 am

Fantastic Jay! Really pleased for you that you had the courage to go for it because, as you found out, it pays off big time.

You are so right on memorising the lyrics. in fact, its better to be able to play the song blind and tied as you will feel much more confident. Once you're up on stage in front of people, it's an uncomfortable place to find out you can't see the song sheet or can't play the song standing up. The best way is to prepare for the exact circumstances you may have at home when practising... then it will feel more comfortable. I like sitting on a barstool to play but also practice standing up a lot. Having said that, I just watched Neil on stage playing sitting down and it didn't look beginner-like to me ;-).

Great Job Jay... just take the video cam and an assistant alone next time, we'd love to see that.


willem
Posts: 5
Joined: Fri Mar 20, 2009 7:53 am
Status: Offline

Sat Jan 01, 2011 10:14 am

Thx Jay,,,i know a litlle from being nervus(for me it was more dieing) but never regret i done it,,,hope i can do it one more time and more if i can find the song i wanna do,,,i would sit on a musicstole,,and must know the lyrics out memory and then go for it and hope i do better then the first time..goodluck on your mic/yourney.


Post Reply Previous topicNext topic