Blues practice: tiny bit of soulful soloing in A

spinland
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Fri Jul 07, 2017 6:01 pm

Okay, here's a very short bit of blues practice. I simply have not had time for making music, thanks to work stuff, but what the hell. I'm slowly learning blues soloing. Here's a brief lick in A, leveraging the Am pentatonic with blues notes. I was going for a slow, almost spiritual feel, because to me getting the feel and emotion are as important as learning the spots to put my fingers.

PRS SE Custom22 semi hollow with S-D Jazz neck pickup into a clean Fender Mustang GT100 amp. Recorded through a Sennheiser e609 mic into Logic Pro. Only effects pedals were a touch of noise reduction and my Tube Screamer with gain around 1:30.

[video type=youtube]w1xIfY9O5-A[/video]

For the morbidly curious, here's my gear for playing my Angry Angel. Turns out I hardly use any of the pedals except when I'm screwing around trying to make crazy tones.

Image


Mark


thereshopeyet
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Fri Jul 07, 2017 6:17 pm

Mark

Gee, I thought I'd logged into TotallyElectric, nice acoustic :dry: though :laugh: :laugh:

Love your blues !

B)


spinland
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Fri Jul 07, 2017 6:20 pm

Heh. I posted this in the Electric Guitar forum so it's all good. :side:

TE's forum is, well...dead. :dry:

Mark

ON EDIT: oops...no,I didn't. I posted this in Makin' Music. My bad. Still, guitars iz guitarz. :side:

Oh, and thanks for the kind words. I'm learning acoustic blues, too, but today I decided the Angel needed to sing.


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daryl
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Fri Jul 07, 2017 6:28 pm

Cool. Wanna exchange some blues licks? Privately or publicly?


spinland
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Fri Jul 07, 2017 6:30 pm

daryl wrote:
Cool. Wanna exchange some blues licks? Privately or publicly?
I'd love to. Let's do it publicly so others can share if they want. I noticed a blues themed forum here, that might be just the ticket. :side:

Mark


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daryl
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Fri Jul 07, 2017 6:43 pm

I'll see what I can do. Lots to do around here on the "farm" during the summer. But hopefully, I'll find some time for a couple/few licks. Why don't you start the thread in the appropriate area? And maybe Bill (with his beautiful PRS will join us) as well as others with their e-guitars.....


spinland
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Fri Jul 07, 2017 6:46 pm

That sounds wonderful! I'm building up a small library of short licks to leverage on my path and it'll be fun to share them—kind of like that short video above.

I know most folks here are into acoustic, but methinks there's a place for some pickup action. This isn't Totally Acoustic Guitars, after all. :silly: I'm not a hard rock shredder kind of guy but I do love the soulful sounds of electric blues and jazz.

M


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Sat Jul 08, 2017 6:14 am

Hi Mark,

Personally I wouldn't even thought of the fact that you're playing an electric guitar. A guitar is a guitar in my opinion, so I'd say post away. I'm quite a fan of being able to play both and to play so called 'electric' stuff on an acoustic as well, or sometimes vice versa. My last lesson is actually a good example of that and it sure didn't stop me from playing/teaching it on an acoustic.

As for you soloing, I would strongly suggest using a metronome, drumtrack, anything to make you fit the notes into the rhythm. It's nice what you do, but there must be a rhythmical sense. Otherwise, please don't get me the wrong way, it sounds like a bunch of notes. The music starts whenever rhythm comes in. It could be by using a track or even by you tapping your foot, just something.

Hope you can work with that. Thanks for sharing what you're up to!

Ness


spinland
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Sat Jul 08, 2017 7:38 am

Spot on, Ness. Thanks for your always-sage insight. I have a good inner sense of timing but I lose that when my mind is focused on other stuff, like what note I want next and where to find it. I'll get there.

Also, I didn't think to check my tuning until after I posted that: I was flat on almost all six strings. Note to self: tune first, record after. :side:

Mark


spinland
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Tue Oct 17, 2017 11:22 am

Hey, Daryl! Remember me? :lol:

So, about that licks trading thing...totally lost track of this thread and our talking about that. I've been practicing, slowly, off and on as time has permitted, mainly trying to get the blues scale down well enough I don't have to think about it, plus whipping my fingers into managing slides, bending, vibrato, and all that stuff that goes into blues playing. Here's my current blues rig:

Image

I just did a (rather lame) video of myself noodling around trying out some new lick ideas that include the aforementioned expressive stuff. I have so, so far yet to go, and this isn't over a backing track (yet; I'll start using one soon but that day is not today) so it's hardly musical but the licks are in there (if you can filter past the missed frets and wrong string striking). As I build my "vocabulary" I'll work up something of a catalog and record it.

[video type=youtube]btwlGsvFaWg[/video]

Limping level chops aside, this is illustrative of where I am right now and someday I'll look back on this video (and others like it) and reflect on just how damned hard this stuff really is. As a learning site this is the perfect place for me to record the steps in my musical journey.

I'll start to feel like I'm actually playing this stuff once I work with a backing track and start improvising some phrases rather than just short licks. I will get there! :side:

Mark


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