Things You Have Accomplished Recently

I bought an uber tasty Ibanez Iceman - Dragonforce signature model.
I've learned a little harmonics, need to get some serious practice in on pinch harmonics though.
I can play Mother and Comfortably Numb, while singing! (woo, just need to learn Comfortably's 2nd end solo).
I just learned the solo for Crazy Little Thing Called Love - Queen, its fun!
I'm learning new positions for the minor pentatonic scale, and practicing moving up the neck.
I just got a Boss Micro sound studio, cant use it for two months though, my birthday :(
I made my friends smile with my music! 8)

jwmartin,

Yes I know that it's from their cover album. What I should have said was I was learning GNR's version of Ain't It Fun. To be honest I never heard the original but I like GNR's.

...I made my friends smile with my music! 8)

You should be very proud of this one. I'm still working toward that goal. ;)

Okay so I didn't really have a fear of performing in front of crowds. However I have come to the realization that more guitars doesn't make one a better player. I'm selling off at least half of them in the next few weeks.

I made my first collaboration on bass (and also I played my first funk style song).
I finally understood the diminished chords (and now I appreciate them).

Got together with a friend and jammed with somebody else for the first time.

Figured out how to make & post a video to YouTube. Learned it's a lot harder and takes a lot longer to post one than to make one!

I went backwards. Doh! No biggie. I'm not in any sort of race. I was finally getting around to learning some lead, expanding my chord playing with a bit of Jazz (Girl From Ipanema) and trying to get singing & playing at the same time down better. Wqs even gonna work on a couple of little projects. Alas, that got delayed. Things feel like they are on the upswing, so I should be back to it soon.

I getting the hang of video editing finally.
That's a good thing because I have 2 performance projects
in the works and we are shooting another tomorrow night.

Busy,busy,busy

John

Wrote a song about Hurricane Ike - played it in front of my whole department at work at a barbecue last week and got a great response.

So, for the United Way we have a silent auction and I am offering a three hour gig. It's up to $22.50. There is a cheese cake being auctioned that's going for more than that, for Pete's sake! Surely I've got to be worth at least as much as a cheese cake, wouldn't you think?

I dunno man, cheesecake's great stuff!

You're up around the minimum wage, at least. Lots of buskers would be thrilled with that!

Let's see, I've done a couple of things recently
1. Wrote and recorded my first original song with the help of a good friend
2. Got a great response to aforementioned song and working on my first collaboration
3. Bought my first keyboard (Wednesday), and can actually understand what I'm playing and why

Good strides for me I guess, the next goal I'm setting is to be able to read music at a halfway decent speed.

I was tempted to reply along the same lines as Blueline - I never really accomplish anything, there's always something new to conquer.....

Until I got to thinking.....

This year, I've.....

1 - Written my 100th song in the Sunday Songwriters Group. That's apart from any "normal" songs I've written - every SSG song has been written around a specific theme, or topic.

2 - Written a song using a diminished chord! That's a biggie for me - I've never really gt the hang of them, but after reading a D. Hodge article for the umpteenth time, something finally clicked....

3 - Written (and recorded) a song using the chord progression Ab --> Eb-->G--G7....Ab as a barre chord at the 4th fret, Eb as a barre at the sixth fret, G as the normal open 320003 chord and G7 as 320001.....doesn't sound terribly difficult on paper, but try doing it at around 140bpm consistently!

4 - Participated in a couple of jams AND been happy with what I've recorded - on one jam, I played a normal solo on one team, and filled in for someone else who backed out on another team and played slide in standard tuning - I was pretty pleased with that one.

5 - Learned - or worked out for myself, which is ALWAYS more gratifying - a few songs I've always wanted to play - songs like Under The Bridge, Behind Blue Eyes, A Touch Of Grey (have you ever tried any tabs for that from the 'net? Seems like every single one is the same tab - and they're all so far out, they must have been originally written in Chinese by a non-Chinese person and translated to English via Japanese, Korean, ancient Greek and Latin and experienced many varied and exotic adventures along the way!) Black Magic Woman, Roadhouse Blues, Riders On The Storm, Light My Fire....

6 - Jammed with Dan and Laura Lasley and Scrybe at Scrybe's house in Liverpool when Dan and Laura were over here on holiday. That was a real high point for me - met them all for the first time and we just seemed to click - we played for hours. Dan brought a Riverside Jam songbook - 99% of the songs we played were from that. Quite a few songs I didn't know, but managed to muddle through - but I think I managed to hold my own on the songs I DID know! Brilliant day, though, a real pleasure to meet and jam with some genuinely nice people, and fine musicians to boot....

7 - Being asked to join the moderating team here on GN was a real honour for me. I've heard - or seen clips - of nearly all the other mods play, and someday I might get up to that standard. With a lot of practise, a lot of hard work, and a lot of luck.

8 - I finally realised, there's no such word as "can't." Well there is, but not in my dictionary. OK, pages 337 - 395 are missing ("cable" to "character") but that's besides the point. If I can't do it today, after eight hours of trying, I'll get it tomorrow when I'm fresh. Or Friday, by the latest. Well - I might have to put it on hold for a while, but I'll get round to it eventually. Someday. Maybe.

9 - I finally grew up. OK, I lied about this one - but hell, I'm only 51 - there's plenty of time to act resposibly later, when I'm old and grey. OK, I'm old and I'm grey - but I've still got lots of hair, and it's all mine. Still got most of my teeth, too - and still got both brain cells working, although somewhat erratically at times.

So I think I've accomplished a fair bit this year - it's sort of sneaked up on me, though. I don't look for day-to-day progress. Of course, the corollary to this question would be "What do you want to accomplish in the near future?"

My answer to that one would be the same as always....

Get better at guitar.
Write more songs, and write better songs.
Keep the fun factor where it is - set just below "maximum."

And - something for next year - finally get some kind of UK get-together, well, together. We've been talking about it for about four years now - the circumstances and the fates have always conspired against us. I tried to organise one this year, but my organisational skills begin and end with booze-ups in breweries....hey, that's what I was trained to do! Maybe 2009 may be THE year?

:D :D :D

Vic

I dunno man, cheesecake's great stuff!

You're up around the minimum wage, at least. Lots of buskers would be thrilled with that!

At least, I am told that the cheescake being auctioned is of particularly exceptional quality. And, I saw a co-worker the other day who commented to me that he was going to up the bid on my gig. The question is, will the cheesecake also get bid up even higher?

I haven't accomplished much on guitar lately. As I posted in the Bass Player's Forum, I've mostly been playing bass the past month. I feel like I've accomplished quite a bit for a bass virgin. I've learned Cream's Sunshine of Your Love and White Room (although I haven't learned the variations Jack Bruce throws in the last verse and the outro) and ZZ Top's Tush. And I've purchased a gig-worthy bass amp & cabinet. See my other post for details