Hey ya’ll.
Here’s a Blues Rhythm Guitar set piece from this grade 4 lesson. Quite fun to learn, a few variations in there. It’s all picked notes to a swing rhythm.
Drum track I laid down in EZ Drummer, thanks to the advice from the people that pointed me in the right direction for that one. Was actually super easy given I knew the sound I wanted.
I’m hoping to get back into recording regularly and sharing a few more vids.
Click me:
All feedback welcome (positive and negative).
Swing dem blues!
Sounding good JK.
I’ve always wondered how much shaking the head does at the end of things? But it does seem to be a thing 
I watched the video again to see if I shook my head, was it relief that I’d finished?
Lol, no, the guitar head! 
Shaking the head by itself doesn’t do much, I’m bending the neck back and forth. Right arm is bracing the body as a counter. It adds a vibrato.
I picked it up in one of Justin’s lessons 
. And now do it without thinking!
Indeed, I ought to have chosen my words more carefully. That said, I wonder how audible that is in general or just one of those subtle sublimal things 
Or maybe it just looks cool and is the done thing.
Well done JK. Sounds good. I am looking forward to getting to the blues part of the lessons as it closely resembles the rock and Roll style that I love.
Some nice shuffle groove going on there, JK! 
Well done, I really enjoyed the listen. Great tone as well and cool drum beat! There were some nice twiddles in it, sounded lick flick-offs to open strings?
Regards the shaking (guitar-)head: I also do that a lot on ending chords after having watched the vibrato-lesson. Good to know I’m in good company here. 
Thanks for sharing this one, JK! 
Nice, smooth, relaxed, and in the groove. Well done JK.
Cheers, Shane
Super cool JK. I love how you just move around the fretboard with such ease. Nice Work!!!
I liked that JK. Seems like a worthwhile excercise. I’m struggling navigating the JG courses. I can follow your link to the study but can’t follow that “up” to a root blues course. Clearly I must be dense.
Sounding very good, JK. Maybe worth checking out the song ‘Papa Ain’t Salty’ by T Bone Walker. It won’t take you long to have the rhythm and the solo nailed. Might be a nice little short learning project for you consolidating the skills you have under your fingers all ready. Well done mate.
Sounding smooth and bluesy to me JK, very cool little slides in there and impressed by the steady picking going on. I’ll look forward to the next installment, may be fun to put this into a looper and build a multi layer piece?
Bravo
It is totally audible and you can do it on acoustic too. Try it out, letting a chord ring out vs letting it ring out with some neck vibrato. If you get the neck vibrato right it makes a difference.
Totally Tony, just play it a lot faster and there’s rockabilly I think . Maybe add the 6th. In truth I can play this faster too but there ends up being a couple of dud notes in it.
Thanks Lisa. Yeah, there is a twiddle near the end. I didn’t program the whole beat, just found a kit I liked and pieced together pre-programmed beats/fills/grooves for the right number of bars. I used to play drums so knew what I wanted, just had to find it . Sometimes I think it would be easier just to have a kit and lay down a beat without fiddling with the tech.
Thanks Shane, one day in the distant future I might learn some licks and chip in on that improv stuff
Thanks Eddie! Yeah I feel in the last few months the fretboard has started to open up a lot, I’ve been doing lots of scales and learning a bit of lead stuff. Still a mission to keep a steady groove going without mess ups though.
Hey John, Yeah it’s fun to do, a bit to learn but not too hard, worthwhile for a few skills - alternate picking, string skipping (most of the riffs are 3 strings), and swing beats. I know what you mean about finding this in the course, I almost skipped over it! It’s in Grade 4, scroll down to “Blues Guitar Studies” and there are 4 of these set pieces. A step up from beginner stuff but not as hard as the solo blues guitar courses.
Hey James! Thanks man, had a listen to that song and sounds cool. There is actually a song I plan to learn that uses a groove similar to this (slight different but similar enough pattern) but not sure if it’s reachable yet.
Glad you liked the slides Mark, was wondering if anyone would notice them . Was quite fun to slide into notes, I hadn’t learnt anything else where that was a thing. tbh I probably won’t multi layer it, I’ll just move onto the next thing 
Nice one, JK! Sounding good and playing looks tight 
Inspires me to go check those lessons out. Also, will need to hit you up for some tips on creating interesting drum grooves! I (sort of) know how to use the technology and where to find the pre-programmed beats, etc., but have little idea how to make anything decent! 
Great job again mate! Keep it bluesy! 
Thanks Jeff! If there’s one thing I can do fortunately it’s play in time
EZ Drummer (and for that matter the free MT Power Drum Kit) have loads of built in grooves. Makes it easy! If you need help, yeah, just hit me up. I only have about 30 minutes of experience with those programs though But do know how to make drums sound good.
Hi JK,
Nice one
Don’t lose sight of this one, later with more aggression you can get a lot more out of this,
and it’s about time I do some more with it…and that ending is definitely one of my most favorite blues endings,nicely done
Greetings
Like @notter, I noticed your slides and thought they were cool. Also, around the 1:00 marker, was that the hammer technique? Anyway, I liked it all. I listened a couple times. Quite impressive!
It sounds very good Jk, smooth and relaxed. I also liked the guitar tone very much!
In the groove there JK. Well done. I’d be worried about overdoing the head shake/neck bend thing. Won’t it eventually weaken the neck/body joint? I’m talking about the guitar of course.
Thank you Rogier, yes it’s fun to play, love the blues ending, and yeah I do go quite a bit faster but with the occasional dud note so avoided that for the AVOYP!
Thanks Pam, the slides are super fun. Hammer on, well, if you hammer on hard enough it does matter if you miss picking the note, right? Although I think what you’re hearing there is the transition from the D string ringing to muting, and then a quick palm muted pick. If I’m picking the right spot. That riff is part palm muted and part not.
Thanks Silvia! Yep I love this tone too, I’ve settled on it as one of my standard bluesy tones for practice.
Thanks Gordon. Oh I’m not too worried about the neck bend thing. Seeing as both you and David were interested in it, here’s the direct link to the spot in Justin’s lesson on it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9yDenSMpJk&t=1042s. It is super fun, and quite easy! I also did it in my Hurt cover on the livestream to make the Am ringing sound a bit more eerie.
Hi JK, oh, that was a nice tune. Very smooth and bluesy . I’m listening to quite a lot of blues guitar music at the moment, and your recording gave me a little idea of what it will be like, when I finally start to go down that rabbit hole .
I’m really curious to follow your progress on that 
.