ipod touch, amp, blues tracks interfaced!

Here's a cool thing I finally (duh!) figured out...

I use my ipod touch to get a blues backing track on youtube. i connect it to my amp (with that little 6 dollar cable from guitar center -- gotta have it!) and voila --- i've got tons of blues backing tracks to play along with.

i've gotten tired of the ONE blues loop on my fender g-dec jr. amp -- and now i have many to choose from, in all sorts of keys and styles.

I was gonna figure out garageband on the mac and make my own tracks, but now I don't have to. the ones are youtube are really nice! and in the future I can record this way, too.

playing the yamaha again

ok, i stopped playing the yamaha pacifica because the high tone of the single coil pickups got my ears ringing. i think i've found a solution. i drop the tone to zero on the guitar and the amp, and use the bridge humbucker pickup. that seems to help. so i have the tone at zero on both, and the gain at zero. the amp is still at tweed 2 and reverb 3. i will play it with this setup and see how it goes.

i'm still working on the You Shook Me song. it's an accurate transcription of the jimmy page part of the led zep song. in a sense it's kind of fragmentary, and not meant as a stand alone piece. it moves in and out of the melody --sometimes playing it, and sometimes not. it's a good technical exercise in various playing techniques, but it doesn't really stand by itself as a blues piece. i will learn it for the techniques.

this is part of the question of -- what is my goal? blues is mostly an ensemble form, or maybe a guy singing and playing guitar. i'm interested in solo instrumental stuff, and there's not much of that. This is where backing tracks come in for a lot of people. it's instrumental soloing -- useful if you're not in a band and don't sing.

airline guitar contest

just entered to win an airline guitar from Eastwood signed by david bowie. contest ends feb. 28. at guitar world. com

you shook me

the first song tom and i are working on is 'you shook me' from led zeppelin's first album. it's a willie dixon song, but we're doing the led version. it's a slow blues in E.

the tone i found

OK, so here's my tone:

guitar: volume on 10, tone on 10, neck pickup only

amp: gain 0

tone 10

Tweed 2 (mimics a fender tweed amp, a 2 out of 2)

effects: reverb 3 (0ut of 4)

volume controlled at the amp, around 2 or so.

it makes a nice rich sound, full and bluesy. no overdrive required!

one idea of blues tones

here's something from the Gibson forum discussing the es 339 and blues tone:

" I may be a one trick blues pony, but a good classic blues sound requires a good axe and amp (reverb, trem & speaker(s) to get the SOUL! ES-339 has that tone! Listen to Big Jack Johnson, Larry Garner, Eugene Hideaway Bridges, etc. to get the idea. All clean, no gain, and sustain. Solid bass, intense mids, and sweet highs. Alnico speakers with later breakup help. Soul blues is fat tone like Gospel."

so, like I'm thinking... no gain, but use of reverb instead. this guy from the forum says he is an old chicago blues player since the 60s.

my current search, since I've found my guitar, the 339, is the search for a good blues tone that doesn't set my ears ringing.

3 more guitar contests

2 contests at ultimate guitar.com:

1: an aristides 010 guitar; contest ends feb. 1

2: a Schechter guitar (Seek Irony band and ulti.com); contest ends Feb. 6

another contest for a daisy rock guitar from Allison Iraheta website; contest ends feb. 3; jfk dob.