Did you achieve last years goals?

Goals-

Take up bass.

Play in a band.

Get together some solo songs I could play and sing in public with an acoustic.

Results-

Got a bass.

Am playing the bass (and guitar) in a few gigs this month and next. Had our first gigs just before xmas.

Have played a couple of songs in public with my acoustic travel guitar- a lot fewer than I wanted, but you know...

So, all in all, a good year!

Ande

Find a kick a@# drummer and start a band. Did it! And then no drummer ..... still plugging away. :roll:

I didn't have many guitar related goals last year or this year for that matter. I had some singing goals which we're to get rid of the nasal sound in my voice and get some growl. Managed to do both. This year I'd like to learn piano. I've recently listened to some Ludwig van Beethoven and found the pieces beautiful (Fur Elise especially) and want to be able to play them.

I guess I got bored doing the same thing on the guitar. I still have much to learn so there are new things to try but exploring other instruments has more appeal to me.

Did not realy have any goals last year... well other then get better. :D And that I did... wasnt so much a goal... but the fact that I praticed a LOT more. This year I have a lot of goals.... some I have allready hit.. LOT to go, and learn though.

It is motivating to see how other players have gotten on themselves and there is already a wide variety of stories appearing - thanks for the contribution to the thread - and good luck with the next 12 months.

TR - still without a drummer? ever considered playing to a dumbed down backing track - i have seen a few bands with no drummer do that to great effect over here lately?

Ande - was it a big transition moving to bass - or more like a natural sidestep?

Grungesunset - How easy is it to improve your singing, is it something anybody can do?

s1120 - sounds like you made a lot of progress last year - good stuff!

Well I don't think I really had any per se last year although I guess I should have plenty cuz the more I play the worse I get..well maybe I'm exaggerating a bit, but if you're not going forward your going backward so that's kind of the way I feel.

I know I posted in Roys thread that I want to learn 10 solo's for songs I know already or new ones and although I may be able to meet that goal and it will be an accomplishment it really doesn't do much for my overall playing in the big picture.

I need to go back to some basic stuff:

1.) I'm a bit sloppy and I have really been trying to be careful of that when I practice.

2.) I need to do similar things as Al to get my soloing to improve. I have recently begun to use the major/minor pent together to make for more "interesting" solos. Al I'd be interested in hearing how you went about this and also your soloing over chords not the key.

3.) Work on more technical exercises like double stops in all keys on all string sets and arpeggios.

It felt like adding bass to my toolkit was a natural step- at home, I still play guitar a lot more than bass, though. I find that learning both parts to the songs we play really helps me to understand the songs musically.

That said, it was a year in which I had lots of nice long breaks off from work. I don't think I could/would/should have done it if I hadn't had a good amount of free time to make it work in.

Best,
ANde

I need to do similar things as Al to get my soloing to improve. I have recently begun to use the major/minor pent together to make for more "interesting" solos. Al I'd be interested in hearing how you went about this and also your soloing over chords not the key.

Im not sure the way i went about it would be considered the textbook method - but here goes. In fact I would love criticism of the method/ maybe there is a faster way out there i could use myself.

anyway here it is
I decided i would start by learning the C major scale pattern starting from the 7th fret B on the thick E string - mainly because this got me away from "5th fret A minor thinking", and I made sure I learned the main arpeggios inside it for the chords in C major, the first i learned were C, G, G, Aminor, and F major but i eventually got onto all the arpeggios in that key that i could find in that area of the fretboard - granted some of them fell slightly outside of that box pattern, but at least i had a starting point for those arpeggio's that i could easily find.

Once i got used to that, i practiced playing over C major tracks and alternating between this one position and the blues scale which starts just one fret up from it on the 8th, making it easier to conciously switch the two - which instantly made me like what i was playing more - i also included the arpeggio's and their 7ths etc once i got used to the chords.

After that i felt i could then also include the A minor pentatonic box's starting on the 5th and 12th frets but i made sure i ended all licks on a C, G or E note to make sure i was drilling "c major pentatonic" into my head.

All this eventually gave me real familiarity with playing in C major right across the fretboard, and i no longer just thought "its just A minor". I then practiced it in other keys doing the same thing, and learned new arpeggios in different positions to add. As i already knew the blues scale across the neck it became easier to combine the two.

not sure if that helps, or confuses, like i said, i might have taken the long road and not the best way to learn it - but it was definitely the biggest bit of progress over my last 12 months.

It seems like a good approach. I think the important thing is to pick a starting point to work from and then move on from there once you get comfortable.

I'll have to print this and then digest when I am home. Another thing I need to do is organize my practice space so I am set up and ready to practice what I need quickly.

I know it sounds stupid and it's a bit of laziness but if I dodn't have BT easily available etc. I tend to just go and practice some song I've been working on rather than working on what I would call technical stuff.

Thanks for the explaination Al.

My unstated, unintentional and subconscious goal was to lose my fear of opening my songbook and diving in to pick songs at random and just play them. I've already done that with reckless abandon. I won't claim to be good at playing; in fact, I suck. However, I've gotten rid of the mental block that if I can't play a song perfectly, one I've been working on since time immemorial, I wouldn't do anything else. All or nothing. That held me back, and it's gone. If I feel like playing a song, I pick it out and work at it. This is my new methodology. Following on that is a house cleaning... like a kid in a candy store who gets a stomach ache from eating too much candy, I'm weeding out songs. Just because I like them or "everyone" plays them doesn't mean I have to play them. Sometimes less is more.

I think I did - I filled up my teaching diary with ten schools, two music schools and a small collection of private students; and I played more solo concerts.

A :-)

Grungesunset - How easy is it to improve your singing, is it something anybody can do?

I took lessons for approximately six months. It took some work but since you play guitar it will give you a leg up. Especially if you've done any ear training. It's something anyone can do. My problem and most people's problem is confidence. I used to mumble and hold back on really high/low notes. I think it's why a lot of us are fine singing in the shower but have issues anywhere else.

TR - still without a drummer? ever considered playing to a dumbed down backing track - i have seen a few bands with no drummer do that to great effect over here lately?
Well, my son absolutely hates playing with a track or machine and I must say when we were playing with a drummer there was magic. We just need to be more proactive. It's hard though cause our other drummers kit is still here.

TR that's even better beat up someone else's gear.HA :lol: