I have my guitar lesson today so it’s as good a time as any to reflect on what I’ve been doing the last few weeks!
Solos:
- While My Guitar Gently Weeps - Coming along! Right now the challenge for me is keeping the bends clean where there’s a pre-bend on a string next to another bend. I also need to work on the vibrato. I am having a hard time doing vibrato on notes I’m bending.
- Stairway (still) - I might put it aside for a while. I don’t know what my blocker is. I can play the individual licks at speed but now when I put it together I trip up over a couple of spots. Might just need some space.
- Gravity - I think this is in a good place. I really had to use my ears and listen to the recording to get this one right.
- Still Got the Blues For You - I think this one is in a good place, too. I really like learning and playing these solos that are subtle and articulate.
Rhythm:
- Learning to Fly
- Fade Into You - This surprised me because I have heard the song so many times but when I sat down to learn it I realized that the strumming pattern wasn’t what I assumed.
- American Girl - Keeping on with this. I can almost play it up to speed but when I do it doesn’t sound as musical as I like. I also saw a video of Mike Campbell talking about it and the use of the Bo Diddley rhythm. When he demonstrated, he didn’t play all the 16ths, but just hit the Bo Diddley rhythm. But listening to the isolated guitar, I am pretty sure there are 16ths.
- Last Nite - This feels like an easier version of American Girl.
- Bulletproof… I Wish I was
- What I Like About You - Focused mostly on the rhythm guitar part in the verses but might look at the rest of it, too. It took me a bit more effort than I expected to get the strumming and changes down.
- 1979 - Fun one, but have to really focus on muting strings where required!
- Refugee - Also a fun one. I find there’s a bit of a stretch that’s challenging when playing the chords in the riff.
I also got a new bit of kit. I wanted to give amp models a try so I got a used TONEX One on Reverb. Funnily enough the guy selling it turned out to be someone I knew who actually played at my wedding but later moved across the country! Small (guitar) world. I haven’t really had much of a chance to play with it yet but we’ll see how it goes. My son keeps encouraging me to buy a new amp (so he can have my Boss Katana) and I might at some point but I don’t know if I want a tube amp or if I want to go down the modelling route. I feel like my bedroom playing space is just to small for a legit tube amp…
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Spent a few days messing around with different amp tones and things like that. I am still debating where I want to go for amplification. I don’t think I am going to get a tube amp at this point—the cost and the volume are overkill for me, and I think I might value the versatility more than the tube mystique.
But I am still torn. I got that TONEX ONE pedal and I have been playing with it. I ran it through some studio monitors I have. They’re not great speakers, and it sounded a bit thin and weak to me. I tried running it through the Power Amp In on my Katana, and it sounded fuller but still not great. Then I just plugged some headphones directly into it, and I really liked the sounds I was getting. So, I wonder if I had a legit FRFR speaker I’d actually like the modeler. I appreciated that it sounded like an “real” amp. The Katana tones sound okay, but they don’t quite capture the distinctive sounds of, say, a Fender amp or a Vox.
I’m not sure what to do. I might see if there is an FRFR speaker I can rent nearby for a week and give it a try.
Anyway, I think I’ve been spending time tone chasing because I am feeling a bit frustrated with my playing. Just in one of those funks where I feel like I should be better than I am, given all the hours and hours I put in. I don’t expect to be as good as a lot of other guitarists I hear but sometimes it feels like progress is so slow that it feels nonexistent. Just a lot of things I feel like I should be able to play okay by now that I still struggle with. This week it’s the Tom Petty song “Refugee.” I’m learning the rhythm guitar part and it doesn’t look or feel so challenging but I tried playing it along with a backing track (with the speed cut back a bit) and my playing was so sloppy.
I’m just impatient and I’m sure I’ll get over it in time but after years of playing I guess I assumed I’d be further along! Oh well. Don’t mind me.
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I’ve been making some progress on Refugee and the second solo to Shine On You Crazy Diamond.
With Refugee, I’ve seen different approaches to the E5 chord in the main riff. One is 02245x, and the other is 022x00. The latter is much easier for me to grip. I find that sometimes when I try to move my pinky finger in place for the former grip it’s very uncomfortable and I feel something weird in my elbow. So, I am sticking with the easier version for now. I’ve also been focusing a lot on only moving what needs to move for the verse chords and that’s helped, as well.
With that getting to a good spot, I’ll continue on with my rhythm guitar study of Tom Petty classics, looking at Last Dance with Mary Jane and You Wreck Me. My guitar teacher says he thinks you can learn just about everything you need to know about rhythm guitar from Tom Petty songs and it’s been a productive way to spend my time so far so I may as well keep going. They’re good, recognizable songs that are a lot of fun to play.
Shine On is going okay as well. There are two licks that still give me trouble. There’s a slide down into them and they require string skipping and I think the combination of those two things is tripping me up a little. It’s getting there, though.
I’ve also started to look at the first solo in Comfortably Numb. There are a couple of rakes and that’s a technique I haven’t quite got under my fingers yet. It was giving me trouble when I was learning Still Got the Blues for You as well.
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