here's a saturday morning version of willie dixon's "you shook me"

you shook me

video is gladys knight and the pips, midnight train to georgia, 1973.

here's a video i made today:

blues in A nov. 26

it's a bluesier version of the piece I performed at my first recital.

a-ha moment with I IV V

so it hit me today after watching a video on using 6th and 9th chords in the blues. the I IV V form works with any sorts of chords with that relationship. 7ths, major chords, 6ths, 9ths, etc. It's the relationship between the three, the I IV V thing that makes it the blues. The chords themselves can be of any (I guess) form. So now I see how to use 9th chords that we studied in my lesson.

the youtube lesson was a good one; here it is:

youtube lesson on 6th and 9th chords

and here's my own 12 bar in A6:

A6 12 bar

epiphone dot is home & new video

the epi dot is back, and it's the house guitar now. the yamaha pacifica is resting quietly upstairs.

also, a new video:

alternate 12 bar pattern in A

videos of Hong Kong & the blues

some more videos:

339 blues in E cut short

Lake of Fire Blues

alternate blues pattern in E

beeen busy!!!

Decided that the best way to get better with videos is just to make videos, mistakes or not. Just work it out of the system. Somehow catching the spontaneity of playing is hard. Once the 'record' button is hit there are mistakes and hesitation. Just gotta get over it. So be prepared for a batch of mediocre playing! Also, the universe is a tautology. Isn't it?

2 new videos

vg strat blues in E with 12 string acoustic modeling.

vg strat blues in A with 12 string acoustic modeling.

OK, here's 2 videos to show the 12 string modeling. my playing is not so good, but I just sat down and recorded -- no warm up or practice!

Also, I suspect my strings are not 9 gauge like they should be. They feel stiffer than my 10's on the Gibby (if they are 10 -- they are the originals). I don't like them and I gotta get some 9s!

major and minor pent together

my guitar teacher has me practicing major and minor pentatonic in my improvs this week. In particular, I'm to look at first position for major and minor and work with them in G. I even get to use some paper with a guitar neck printed on it to mark out the fret positions, red for minor and blue for major. We tried a little improv in the lesson today and I like the sound. More color and variety than just minor pent alone. So in the same area of the fretboard I'm moving between major and minor phrases and licks.

Also had a breakthrough with the Lake of Fire solo; now I understand the phrasing more clearly.

all steel

going all steel is working out just fine. the nylon acoustic has done it's job and is back upstairs. I can do everything with gibby, fendy, and yamaha. It's really fun to go back to fingerstyle playing, to augment my pick playing.

Now I really feel that I need no more guitars. I've got enough. The whole range of needs. Those three and the epiphone dot in the office. That's enough!

so, my guitar teacher has me working on "lake of fire", a song by the meat puppets. We're using the Nirvana version from the MTV unplugged session. The solo is all a first position minor pentatonic thing in G. It's a good piece, and I've transformed it, parts of it, into a classic blues piece, GCD.

Maybe this weekend I'll post some sound samples from the VG strat on youtube, just to get a sense of how the Roland synth works in it.

acoustic put away

OK, I solved the problem. I found that I can play fingerstyle on my electrics -- my fingers have toughened up enough. So I don' t need the nylon acoustic. Note that my fingerstyle playing is a little ragged and untrained. I'm not very systematic or smooth; I more like claw at the strings! But I like the rough quality of it. It's more like plucking with five fingers, or fewer if needed. And then strumming downward with the back of my fingernails. I like it so far.

I've got the yamaha pacifica out as my "cheapie" guitar to play when I don't want to be so careful. I can grab it at a moment's notice and play -- unplugged of course.

hearing and nylon guitar

oh, that little classical guitar is so much fun to play. I play better with it than with my gibby or fendy. But -- there's gotta be a but -- its acoustic qualities do a little number on my damaged hearing. Just a little, but it's noticeable. I stuffed the guitar with t-shirts today to muffle the sound, and that helps, but I must admit to myself that it still, in the lower range, is not too good for me. I am super cautious about hearing. A few nights ago, after a day of intense nylong string playing, i could tell at night that the ringing was more pronounced. So I gotta lay off the acoustic.

Well, semi-hollow electrics are just made for me! Not too loud, not as quiet as a solid body. Just perfect for my hearing issues. Funny, but I like electrics because they're not too loud!

I still love the easy playability of the nylon strings -- so maybe someday I'll get a chambered semi-solid nylon stringer. Epiphone makes one for like 350. There are other brands too.

I've gotten requests to put some music online at youtube (1 request, you know who you are!). yeah, I wanna do that sometime. Probably at thanksgiving break. The weeks just pass by, and with grading on the weekend, etc. etc.