All Your Love | John Mayall & The Bluesbreakers | October '23 AVOYP

[Jeff]

It occurred to me I’ve been following along Justin’s blues rhythm & lead modules like a good boy, but never practiced it in the context of a real song. Time to change that, before @Richard_close2u starts giving me the evil eye.

I’ll be honest, I practically never listen to the blues and I don’t aspire to be a great blues player either. But, I’m hoping it will help develop the skills I need to play the genres I do love, so I started listening to some of the albums Justin recommends. The John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers album stood out to me, with this this track in particular. The tempo change halfway through is pretty cool.

Although I think I did ok, I’m not too happy with my vibrato. I have a feeling my technique is not quite right. The vibrato is coming from my fingers, rather than from the wrist (which I think is the proper way to do it?). Any input would be greatly appreciated.

[DavidP]

Thoroughly enjoyed that Jeff. Beyond me to offer tips on vibrato and your playing in general.

[Notter]

Sounds mega to me Jeff and way beyond my pay grade and experience to offer you any advice on technique I’m afraid but let me just say “so good I listened to it twice!”

[Lisa_S]

Cool stuff, Jeff!

I enjoyed the listen. Never heard the tune before, but you made me like it.

Only thing for me, the guitar tone had a tad bit too much overdrive for me. But that’s probably a matter of my personal taste only and as I don’t know the original, it’s maybe supposed to be exactly like that.

Nothing wrong with your vibrato from what I could hear, it sounded good. If I recall it correctly, there are multiples ways to play it, either more from the wrist or more from the fingers. So no right or wrong, I guess. I think it was this lesson, I have in mind:

Introduction to Vibrato Techniques

That’s pretty much all I can add here, as it’y beyond my play grade to offer any helpful advice. But the more experienced blues lovers and players will catch up on that, I’m sure.

Kudos for the great overall production. I liked you played the 2 guitar layers on your own and also the different angles for filming. Great work on that, as always!

Thanks for sharing.

[HappyCat]

killer playing there Jeff!
Love yer tempo change at about the 3 min. mark.

First, I’m no vibrato pro by any sense of the word. I’m getting much from Justin’s lessons on this skill, that I don’t have yet.
But from what I see in yer vid. You are using your wrist to make your bends. From the lessons (from my memory), I think this is correct.
Agreed. Your using your finger for the vibrato.
I’m thinking that bending and vibrato are similar. Just that the vibrato is making them bends rapid and repetitive. Therefor, you seem to already have the technique, it just needs to be applied to the vibrato.

I may be thinking incorrect, but that’s how I’m looking at vibrato. Myself, I need to become better at it myself.

Also, keep in mind, from my memory of Jusitn’s lessons, there are at least 3 different ways to do vibrato (again, from my memory of the lesson).
1, like a violinist. Kinda moving your finger up and down the neck rapidly.
2, using the wrist as the lever
3, I can’t remember three. Shrug. Maybe it’s pushing the string down hard and then light. You can adj. pitch by pushing the string down hard for #, then return to proper pitch by lessening pressure on the string to just fret the note. Don’t know if that’s 3 or not, but doing that does change pitch, just not very much.

Myself, I do best at 1, but I don’t think it’s the best way (it seems like too mild of vibrato to me). 2, if I remember from Justin’s lesson is the way to go. Both of us got the idea, we just need to practice it more perhaps. I know I’m working on it, but I aint there yet.

Your playing is great man, I enjoyed your rendition of that song.

Well Done!

Lucky for us. Looks like @Lisa_S has posted up the lesson. That should refresh ‘my’ memory anyways. I’ve not looked at it yet for ‘my’ refresher, but I’ll be interested in finding out what #3 is for method…

[sclay]

Nice one Jeff. Love m’self some blues, and you delivered there.
Re the vibrato. I find that much of my vibrato is wrist-based, with all the same mechanics as a bend. Depending on the passage though, I’ll also use finger based vibrato, particularly in tighter places, and/ or faster runs, and in faster vibratos.

I think that once the general mechanics are sorted, it does become a bit of an idiosyncratic/ feel thing. For example, sometimes I’ll push up and come back down to neutral. Other times, I’ll pull down and release up to neutral.
As suggested, revisit that great lesson from Justin for a refresher. You’ll have it sorted in no time.

Cheers, Shane

[jkahn]

Nice playing Jeff. You’ve got the skills.

[Jeff]

Thanks all. I’m definitely going to revisit the vibrato lesson.

I can relate to your comment @sclay wrt using different techniques for different styles. My feeling is that I can kind of get away with this finger driven vibrato for higher gain pieces like this one.

If I apply the same mechanism to slower, mellow pieces (think Brothers in Arms), then it all falls apart because I lack the control for subtle vibrato. It sounds somewhat like the unwanted seagull effect you get with unmuted bends.

Using the wrist as a pivot point should give me more control. The problem is that I revert back to the finger vibrato instinctively. Need to unlearn that asap, so that’s one for the learning log.

[twistor59]

Sounds awesome to me Jeff!

About the vibrato, the first one I’d try to nail is the bend to E on the G string at about 20s in your video. It’s probably easier to concentrate on one instance at a time, rather than working on it everywhere at once. Listening to the original, EC gives that one a lot of welly The only way I can do that is from the wrist.

[SgtColon]

That was real sweet, Jeff. Sounded really bluesy and I also enjoyed the change of tempo.

Good luck with your brain reprogramming.