What you been playing/learning lately?

I'm going through a bit of a fuzzy period now. If I keep learning the rhythm and riffs to new songs it's usually pretty straightforward but I'm not really going anywhere with the soloing.
We've chatted about our soloing approaches before. I have an update on my approach and why I do it my way. The reason I cannot do note for note. The ear and more importantly, the head injury (?) apparently has toasted short term memory and learning capacity. I got the test results back last month. Bottom 10%. A direct opposite of pre 2007 or maybe even earlier. I think that explains why I rely on the minor pent scale so much. It is what it is. I can retain chord progressions if I work at it, so all is not lost. If we ever get together, I get rhythm. :)

I finally got back to learning songs instead of just practicing technique/improvising! :wink:

Iron Maiden - The Trooper:

Unbelievable song to learn in my opinion. It really has immense energy and really creates a great atmosphere for me when playing it. When playing with others it only gets better. I love the diversity in how it's played, some parts feel like pure rhythm and others as pure lead guitar in just the right proportions. I normally pretty much solely play lead, but this makes me want to play rhythm. The timing and accents are really, really awesome to figure out through playing, recommendation for everyone.

Eric Johnson - Cliffs of Dover:

Surprised me a lot. It's a pretty light song in terms of sound, and I find it hard to classify in a genre. The intro is undoable for me at the moment, but the rest of the song (barring a few small parts) are very playable when trying them a few times. Anyone who wants to play lead: this entire song is a solo. Great to practice by ear and correcting/adapting tabs to fit your playstyle more, or fix some things you don't think are right.

Eric Clapton - Layla (Unplugged):

I find it a song which is great to try and put more feeling in your play. I compensated this with just adding more notes in my play, but getting this one right has been a major improvement to this. Easy to play by yourself or with other instruments. There's also a lot of material available, which helps when trying to find tabs/videos!

Other notable mentions:
Dire Straits - Sultans of Swing + Lady Writer, John Mayer - Slow Dancing in a Burning Room, Aerosmith - Walk This Way, Bon Jovi - You give Love a Bad Name, ...

I get way too enthusiastic about this, it can't be healthy ... :lol:

Roy, I noticed you were interested in trying out Wicked Game . . .

here's a link to a backing track for it . . . Bm A E

http://www.guitarbackingtrack.com/play/isaak,_chris/wicked_game.htm

Sean I checked out his Myspace but can't listen at work is he a shredder?

I'd classify him as an amazing guitarist that can do it all tastefully and skillfully.

Check out YouTube for examples.

Sean

Roy, I noticed you were interested in trying out Wicked Game . . .
Awesome BT, KR2. Yup, I downloaded the chords and went to town. I was going to try to make a decent BT myself to mess with, but this takes the cake. Thanks. :D

My current list is pretty eclectic. I'm only learning a couple of new pieces for myself for gigs coming up in the next few months, but I'm working with a lot of new music for my students - mostly jazz and classical stuff.

For guitar technique, this year's project is picking accuracy. You'd think after all the years I've been playing, I'd have this down pat... but I still see my right hand as a bit of a weak spot, and I'm determined to make it better. So I'm taking things that I can play well in a 'standard' picking strategy, and going into them with non-standard patterns. If I usually do a string skipping exercise in alternate picking, I'm practicing it with DDUD, UUDD, all downstrokes, all upstrokes, etc. My ultimate goal is to be able to hit any string at any time, moving in any direction, at any reasonable speed (roughly eighth notes at 200-240bpm). Although it's slow going, I'm making progress.

In broader terms, I'm working on improving my skills in score reading and conducting. I'm also composing a large scale choral/orchestral work that will probably take me a year or more to finish - I'm about 5 weeks into it now - and toward that end I'm studying choral masterworks (Bach's passions, Palestrina's masses, etc). I'm also trying to put in 5-6 hours a week on piano; a year or so from now when I'm finished, I'll have to rehearse singers to do a recording, so I want to be able to accompany in rehearsals. And I figure that's good for me anyway - otherwise the thousands of $ I spent on piano lessons over the years will go to waste!

Also on my list is ordering some cork and doing minor repairs to my flute ... if I can find the time, I want to get some woodwind chops back. And in between I'm reading a couple of books on the psychology of music.

Last - but certainly not least - I've got a few ideas for lessons for GN. I'd originally sketched out a dozen or more for the series on sight reading, but opening the school took all my time (and our continued growth won't seem to give it back yet!)