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What Are You Currently Working On?

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(@urbancowgirl)
Reputable Member
Joined: 18 years ago
Posts: 428
 

I don't have a lot of time for practice and I'm starting to feel like maybe I'm just not going to ever be any good because I have been in the same place forever. But I did take a long break from the guitar for pretty much the entire time I was pregnant and for the first few months after my daughter was born (practice + no sleep = not good).

I have 3 songs I am working on:
Tequila Sunrise
Long Trip Alone
and House of the Rising Sun
I am also trying to learn some barre chords and some scales.

It's hard to fit much else into the free half hour or so I end up with at the end of the day.

All my life I wanted to be somebody. Now I see I should have been more specific.


   
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(@rparker)
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Joined: 20 years ago
Posts: 5480
Topic starter  

I don't have a lot of time for practice and I'm starting to feel like maybe I'm just not going to ever be any good because I have been in the same place forever. But I did take a long break from the guitar for pretty much the entire time I was pregnant and for the first few months after my daughter was born (practice + no sleep = not good).

I understand what you're saying. You-Time is very rare and precious and sometimes you just need to collapse rather than work at a musical instrument. Just remember, this is fun. If you only learn three songs by the end of next year, you still win if you are still having fun. No pressure, m-kay?

Roy
"I wonder if a composer ever intentionally composed a piece that was physically impossible to play and stuck it away to be found years later after his death, knowing it would forever drive perfectionist musicians crazy." - George Carlin


   
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(@the-dali)
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Joined: 18 years ago
Posts: 1409
 

A couple of things I'm bouncing around with:

1. Imagine, finger style. I may try strumming also (chord, bass note). **
2. Heart of Gold. Also working on the harmonica solo w/ chord/melody note.
3. House of the Rising Sun, finger style and chord arpeggio. Can't decide which I like better. **
4. I Hear You Knocking, 12 bar blues. Trying to work out the intro and middle solo. *
5. Proud Mary. Trying to work out the middle solo. * **
6. Dust In The Wind, the intro: getting my fingers to work properly. Using really as a finger exercise. Not ready for the whole song yet.
7. Sundown. **
8. Working Class Hero. * **

* I play the rhythm of these with the recording, all the way through.
** I'm working mainly on making my chord changes properly.

I'm sure this is probably too much for me to be working on at once, but I chip away at them. I'm almost ready to play Heart of Gold all the way through by myself (can't play that one with the recording... that darn Neil Young! :lol: ).
Dude, is that really a picture of you on the right?? If so, you need to start playing some Danzig...

-=- Steve

"If the moon were made of ribs, would you eat it?"


   
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(@the-dali)
Noble Member
Joined: 18 years ago
Posts: 1409
 

Just grabbed the chords for "I Love Rock n' Roll" to play for my kids (3 and 5). They DIG that song!

Also working on "Brown Eyed Girl" so we can all sing "Sha la la la la la la la la-te-da" together.

Hey, its a compromise. The kids are happy and daddy gets to rock out a little.

-=- Steve

"If the moon were made of ribs, would you eat it?"


   
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(@jwmartin)
Noble Member
Joined: 17 years ago
Posts: 1435
 

starting to bend them and actually sounding like a nashville gutiar player.

If you start sounding like this nashville guitar player, you are doing something wrong. :D

Bass player for Undercover


   
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(@minotaur)
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Joined: 16 years ago
Posts: 1089
 

Minotaur: I like playing Neil Young songs. Some I do nicely, and some not so nicely. I do entirely strumming on Heart Of Gold. The House Of The Rising Sun song I do too, but an entirely different way. I started the arpeggio using the GN lesson by David Hodge. One day a couple months ago I just started wailing on the LP on some light gain setting and it kind of took off on me. A very hard strum is probably the best way to describe it. Three minutes later, my ear was throbbing and I was in a pretty good sweat. Rock & Roll Rules!!!! (The closest thing I can come up with in comparison to describe it might be Metallica's version of "Turn The Page")

I saw a video of Neil Young doing Heart of Gold by himself... no backing, no slide guitar. Just the acoustic guitar and harmonica. Very simple. I could probably follow that. There's just something about the recorded version that is hard to follow. It may also be my inexperience.

Yes! I think I know what you mean with the strum on House of the Rising Sun. Siggi Mertens does a lesson video on it, playing it classical guitar style, but he also demonstrates a 6/8 strum... D D D D D D pattern. It's not bad, and I gotta tell you, I'll bet it would sound pretty good to do the intro arpeggio, then the verses as strum. Hmm... let me try that... :lol:

It is difficult to answer when one does not understand the question.


   
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(@greybeard)
Illustrious Member
Joined: 21 years ago
Posts: 5840
 

Currently working on:
Iko Iko
Mbube
Summertime

instrumental versions, that is

I started with nothing - and I've still got most of it left.
Did you know that the word "gullible" is not in any dictionary?
Greybeard's Pages
My Articles & Reviews on GN


   
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(@billyboy)
Estimable Member
Joined: 16 years ago
Posts: 91
 

All my heavy lifting lately has been reading and playing with all the pedals I bought recently. Never having done it before, playing with all kinds of variations has been a real eye opener. Spent more time reading Dave Hunters Understanding Tube Amps than playing.

Since I recently got my analog man TS9, been working two songs the past few days that suddenly sound much better.. :) Hey Joe and Sweet Home Alabama.

"In my dreams your blowin' me... some kisses" - Lets Duet - Dewford Randolph Cox


   
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(@wes-inman)
Illustrious Member
Joined: 20 years ago
Posts: 5582
 

I work on our bands songs, anybody that heard our songs in Hear Here can tell we need lots of work. But that was not a paying gig, I knew we weren't really ready, so it was OK, we also need to get out in front of a crowd. Sometimes taking on a gig like this will push you to practice and improve faster.

I just play our songs over and over, if I sing I practice that. Our current setlist is:

Back In the USSR
Born To Be Wild
Mustang Sally
We Gotta Get Out of This Place
Can't Get It Out of My Head
Jumping Jack Flash
Comfortably Numb
Roll Over Beethoven
Evil Ways
I'm a Believer
Secret Agent Man
You Really Got Me
1000 Miles from Nowhere
Hold Your Head Up
Saw Her Standing There
The Breeze (Mr. Breeze)
Sweet Caroline
Cocaine
White Room
It Don't Come Easy
Surrender
Knights in White Satin
Gotta Get You Into My Life
My Girl
Riders on the Storm
Can't Get Enough of Your Love

There's more, but can't remember right now.

So, I just play them. I practice the solos, I practice my vocals.

I still try to practice Speed Techniques from Troy Stentina each week. These lessons have help me a lot, not just playing lead guitar, but rhythm too. If you can improve your accuracy on single notes, it carries over to chords too.

We have another gig in a few weeks, this one for pay. So we have agreed to really work hard in the next few weeks.

If you know something better than Rock and Roll, I'd like to hear it - Jerry Lee Lewis


   
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(@jase36)
Reputable Member
Joined: 17 years ago
Posts: 247
 

I'm still working on Ziggy Stardust, I can play it through with the recording but still needs tidying up a bit. Also finally getting close to playing a barre chord version of Thats entertainment by the Jam. The chords have been in place for a while but the strumming has taken a lot of work for me but I'm almost staying in time now. Just learnt the intro/riff to handle with care by the Wilburys,I now need to fit it in with the rest of the song. I've actually started doing a little bit of scale work on the A minor pentatonic, I really shouldn't of left it so long to practice scales.

http://www.youtube.com/user/jase67electric


   
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 Nuno
(@nuno)
Famed Member
Joined: 17 years ago
Posts: 3995
 

Recuerdos de la Alhambra - Tarrega
Very nice! :)

I'm working on:
- Tears in heaven.
- San Francisco Bay Blues.
- Big train in a collab although I already finished my part.
- Hotel California, the solo, in another collab.

I'm reading a great book that I'd like to recommend to all of you. It is called The Complete Idiot's Guide to Playing Bass Guitar. Sorry, I forgot the author name... :roll:

And I'm shopping for a bass, you know, reading reviews, listening records and demos, viewing some DVDs, playing lots of bass guitars... and all those boring things. :lol:


   
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(@trguitar)
Famed Member
Joined: 17 years ago
Posts: 3709
 

Well, you want actual songs Roy.... OK:

Johnny B. Goode
Taking Care of Business
Schools Out
Born to be Wild
Day Tripper
Come Together
Fortunate Son
Proud Mary
Crazy Train
Paranoid
Tush
Purple Haze
Strutter
Ball Room Blitz

On the horizon:

La Grange
Crazy Little Thing Called Love
Jumping Jack Flash
Born on the Bayou
Pinball Wizzard
My Generation
Godzilla
Jailbreak
The Boys are Back in Town
Hot Blooded
Summer of 69
Detroit Rock City
Rock & Roll all Night
Don't Fear the Reaper
We Gotta Get Out of This Place
and a bunch more

Gonna take the above one at a time and work out the arangements, we actually know how to play them but need to smooth out the changes with the backing drum tracks.

"Work hard, rock hard, eat hard, sleep hard,
grow big, wear glasses if you need 'em."
-- The Webb Wilder Credo --


   
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(@mikebfg)
Active Member
Joined: 16 years ago
Posts: 7
 

Crazy Train
Stockholm syndrome
Welcome to the jungle

Finding it hard it find songs I want to learn at the moment


   
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(@ignar-hillstrom)
Illustrious Member
Joined: 21 years ago
Posts: 5349
 

I don't use a practice schedule anymore, I just noddle around I guess. I'm working mostly on, as I said elsewhere, getting my songs properly produced. That means taking the finished songs I have and taking them apart, track by track. Then I have to evaluate each track and redo every singe one that isn't good enough. Mostly vocal tracks but some guitar tracks as well, mostly rhythm tracks that were played with some sloppy errors somewhere etc. The rest of my time goes towards writing/recording new songs, a few of them were uploaded to my myspace page over the past weeks and others still in the pipeline, and going back-forth with the producer over how stuff should end up.


   
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(@chris-c)
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Joined: 19 years ago
Posts: 3454
 

I don't use a practice schedule anymore,

Well, that makes me feel a whole lot better. :D

I never did get around to being able to to work out, or stick to, any kind of practice schedule. I've noodled my way through right from the start. I like to try and pretend that some of it is 'Improvising', which sounds more dignified, but noodling is what it is. I either noodle around in fairly manic bursts of interest that focus on a particular aspect, area or skill, or I just noodle in a general way... :)

Guitar Noodling:

It sounds a bit ambitious to say that I'm actually "working" on something, because playing around is always nearer to the truth. But the group I play with on Wednesdays has been playing a few Ragtime style songs, so I've been messing around with some of them. We also got hold of a fairly detailed arrangement of O Sole Mio (also recorded as It's Now or Never) so we've been playing that a few different ways.

Drum Noodling:

I've been having a few drums lessons too. Only a couple so far, but the teacher (a long time pro drummer) refuses to listen to my protestations that I don't really want to be a drummer - just to learn enough about the theory and feel of drumming to be able to write drum tracks, and then get my drum machine to play them. He insists on trying to make a drummer out of me - an uphill battle that's still a lot of fun though - and we compromise on how it all goes. :mrgreen:

Piano Noodling:

Still working through a few beginner books, but mostly I go through each little piece once or twice and then hit the Noodle button. Sorry, I meant "Creatively re-arrange the piece, and improvise on the theme..." :roll:

Singing Noodling:

This is the one that I'm most looking forward to. I found an oldish rocker who still sings and plays locally, but has a mini studio in his shed and takes a few students. He has the slight air of a dude who partied rather too enthusiastically in the 60s, and who occasionally slips off into personal parallel universes, but it's looking promising. I was supposed to start this week, but I got a call 15 minutes before lesson time, saying he was in hospital with gallstones. :( Ouch. I hope he doesn't die of natural causes on me before we get started..

And I joined a choir too. Some guy is touring Australia trying to get community choirs going on the basis of "Everybody can sing, and should do so, no matter how bad they think they are". His choirs will take anybody, as it's for fun not to impress people or win competitions. But some of them have sung all around the world now. Often they get only 5 or 10 locals show up to his start-up talks, but we got 100+ which he was pretty amazed at. He gave us a funny, informative and motivating chat, and then we all sang a bunch of songs. Some standards, but also Beatles, Cat Stevens, Neil Diamond, etc. We should start in earnest in a couple of weeks. The women outnumbered the men by about 4 or 5 to 1, so I shall have to behave myself... :wink:

Cheers,

Chris


   
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