Sounding good, David, and pretty relaxed with your new guitar. I like the idea of limiting the number of notes, there’s less to think about when making music 
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Happy belated birthday to your wife, Toby, I hope you both managed at least a wee celebration for that milestone! 
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It’s interesting how the same few notes can have such a different feel depending on how they’re played. Very nice Shane.
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Really enjoyed that, Phil, rock on! You’ve got some very cool techniques going on, and those few notes are blazing their own trail with you 
I ran across mentions of this exercise, and I’m not closer to figuring out what you guys are doing, then I was.
What’s all the rules with the bend… This here thingie seems to be the most important part of this mystery exercise…?
Btw what’s a loodle? A drunken noodle? A little noodle? 
Either way, nice job. Nice new guitar too!
Back to what I’m apparently doing everything in my power NOT to do…
No real rules Rebecca but the non-Justin lesson that David shares in his lead piece, advises bending the 4th interval to the 5th. So the notes are A C & D, so you are bending from D to E. You do whatever you want with the rest of it, so curling the C towards C# will work but C# itself may clash, so maybe only a 1/4 semitone bend/curl. The same will work on the D to Eb which being the 5b is the “blues note”. Hope that helps !
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Ok need to find out why you’re calling me Rebecca, first…lol ?
I finally saw the link. Gotta watch it one more time. Tried briefly with a Dorian 2 chord vamp but I keep using 4 notes lol. Had better luck on a D7 only track, using 3 I liked, but I have to slow it to 75% to do anything that sounds comfortable-ish. I’ll try again later to probably procrastinate transcribing again.
This just popped on my notifications thought it might be handy here. It helps me to hear a bunch of explanations of the same thing. It fits anyway.
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Sorry Becky 
Becky, I see @TheMadman_tobyjenner answered your questions bar this one. This was my little word game. A loodle is when I make use of my looper pedal to record a loop over which I then noodle.
Thank you, I am impressed you noticed. I am enjoying it.
It does indeed. He advocates that same thing. Pick a few notes … 2,3,4 … and make music by getting into the groove (my word for his ‘pulse’) and varying up the patterns of note lengths. And implicit in that is the rests where you play nothing to let it ‘breathe’ (I have to work harder at my ‘breathing’).
As Toby said, in our 3-2-1 we are playing three notes from the minor pentatonic and using a full tone bend to sound a forth note.
It is an excellent exercise and has certainly made a difference to me in terms of exporing more lead technique, being more expressive, and getting into the groove.
Give it a go … why not …
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@Socio thanks James, appreciate the listen and positive feedback. Now if you find it inspirational then be inspired to have a go. You can take this up without having to (try to in my case) bend up to the forth note. Just getting into the groove and mixing up note lengths, phrases, rests is a beneficial exercise and surprisingly great fun.
@TheMadman_tobyjenner you got it Toby, baby steps to the Simple Bluesy than going all in to one of your funkier shares. Listening back to both, I think overall the second was better but I got a little carried away in the last 40s and played longer phrases with less breathing space, after I think doing better initially. I think one can also use this to try and get a call and response thing going.
Something I have noticed is that your touch with the left hand influences the bend to hit the pitch. Not surprising given that heavy touch can cause a note to sound sharp even if the guitar intonation is spot on. So lots of moving parts to get the bends right and I feel I have made progress and know I have a long way to go. But as you say, the journey is great fun.
@Mari63 thanks, Mari. I think not worrying about finding the ‘right’ notes frees up the mind to give attention to things like bending and vibrato as well as being more expressive, getting into the groove more. Certainly that is my experience. So I’m most definitely not done with this exercise … yup there’ll be oodles more of these loodles and noodles 
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Yowser, for sure !
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Np Toby. Lol. Unless you’re yelling at me about using 4 notes. That could qualify, but you didn’t know that at the time.
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This is not an easy exercise. I’m just saying …
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Ding Ding Round Two 
So when this all started and I saw the 3 notes involved, it immediately got me thinking of an unfinished project, again instigated by our man in Alberta. So it just so happens Stitch and I love a bit of Southern Rock and just a touch of Skynyrd. So the plan was to borrow part of the intro to I Need You but I just could not get it to fit with the backing tracks I created.
Realising that the original is in 3/4 and all the BTs are in 4/4 solved the mystery, it was the just a matter of creating a suitable backing track using the Am and D7. A quick lift of the opening bars from Jacksonville’s finest that was already in GuitarPro and a new track was built on 20 bar cycle using our 2 chords (yes there is a C in the intro but don’t tell anyone!)
So a couple of days noodling around adapting licks and chewing the fat with Rick via message, I finally got the “Inspired By Skynyrd” impro recorded. I had loads of issues with ASIO losing sight of my Audio Interface in Reaper (which hosted the BT) and it took way longer than it should have done and could have been better, as the tech issues started messing with me head. 
So here you go. Oh I couldn’t resist a little blague at the end 
This BT is just 1:49 in length which I found restrictive but used to target 3 positions.
I will upload that and the others I created, which are 2:19, 5:19 and 10:19 into the shared folder who’s link appears earlier in the thread.
Usual comments and feedback welcome.
Cheers
Toby
PS anyone who does not have a clue what I have been rambling on about, this may help !
Edit : It was 45 years ago last Thursday Those that know know.
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@TheMadman_tobyjenner
Where to start Toby the end and work backwards
I thought I knew and and could put 2 and 2 together. A quick check and yes I sort of knew but not the exact day, month, and year.
What a fabulous intro. Multiple guitar players plus the keys, so much rich texture and delightful tone. As I oft say, it is thse that can really rock that do the best job when going all slow and ballady … not those poppy folk that specialise … just my 2cs worth.
Those waggling eyebrows and delightful homage to one of the all time legendary lick maestros to wrap it up.
Loved the solo, much more than just an exercise to be musically creative with limited notes. Fabulous tone. Especially liked the slide from the first position up to the octave.
Great post all-round!
And I too am back again for Round 3.
It’s another loodle. 2 layer BT recorded in the looper. Amp tone based on the Blackstar warm, clean voice, with some reverb. For those that were asking, @Rossco01 in particular as I recall, turned the gain up on the overdrive pedal, and got a hold of the whammy bar for extra fun. Unfortunately all a bit too hot for the phone mic to handle, so those with good ears may hear some clipping.
Some ok moments and a few not so OK, but again lots of fun while I continue to work at getting back to where I was with the NYLSB solo before the inconvenient intervention of that op.
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Good to see you rocking out on this one, certainly giving the whammy some wellie !
You are obviously having fun exploring different options and got pretty busy at times. What I would say it that the bends seemed much better and more consistent to my ears. Watch that vibrato at the top of the bend and make sure you go all the way back to the 5, a little short here and there but moving in the right direction. I have a tip using visual references rather than just using your ears, if you are interested ?
The Skynyrd homage ? Yeah had to be done when I saw the notes, just took a while to suss out I needed a 3/4 BT. Very impressed with the virtual instruments in GP8. Tasty.
Feel there are parts that could have been better and I completely missed one lick I’d fabricated, as the ASIO issues were wearing me down.
As to slow bluesy rock solos, you will not get any finer, even nearly 50 years on. Check out Tuesdays Gone and lets face it they ain’t burning up the fretboard at the start of Freebird !
Thanks for the listen and comments.
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@TheMadman_tobyjenner
Thanks Toby, slowly slowly I progress on the lead techniques. I hear you on the business, playing phrases that go on a little too long. I’ve noticed a couple of habits that may be worth breaking.
I was also paying (trying to) attention to visual cues on the bends, noticing how far to bend to reach the the right pitch, And that is more or less since I don’t think my technique is consistent which makes the bend vary a bit.
As for the whammy, fair to say I probably over did it a bit but was enjoying the fast vibrato and how it sometimes ended in something that sounded a little like feedback.
As for Skynyrd, I have listened to a couple of the studio albums, but my go-to when the mood takes me is…
Fabulous stuff. One of my favourite live albums, and I do like live albums, especially when the songs are played a little differently, not just replicating the studio version note for note.
A good topic for a list …
One more for from the road
Made in Japan - Deep Purple
Get Yer Ya Yas Out - Rolling Stones
Live and Dangerous - Thin Lizzy
Live After Death - Iron Maiden
Live Era '87-'93 - Guns n Roses
Live 1975-85 - Bruce Springsteen
Guess I am showing my age, colours to the mast on that list
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That’s a great album
As for the list for sure
MIJ
L&D
Iron Maiden - En Vivo! Live
Aerosmith - A Little South Of Sanity
I’ll GnR a pass !
I’d also add 1998 - Live - Lyve From Steel Town for Skynyrd, its a great mix of the old and new once the band reformed with Jonnie on vocals.
As for strike outs two of these ~ either side of the text.
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