Hi Toby, I follow your blues studies with much interest, as I’m doing my first (baby)steps in that genre at the moment.
Your fingerwork looks quite tricky, but you mastered it so well 
.
I’m looking forward to no. 12 (fingers crossed that RBS takes a day or two off 
).
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Big appreciation for all the comments folks, too many to reply to individually but some interesting observations. The reference to Justin Johnson made me smile, as I’ve been listening to him a lot this year. But the origins go much deeper than that and to the Bluesmen of the 30s and 40s. Listen to them and you hear what influences JJ, all good for sure. What I like about the style most and not just the physical hands on strings feel, is just being able to pick up and muse out 12, 16 or 20 bars of Blues and it all sounds mellow and complete. Its just the recording that screws it all up.
When I complete the 20 tracks in the course, I plan to see which ones can be fused together in an attempt to build some longer songs. As they’re all solid 12BB format most of the time, the chance to lay some standard Blues lyric format over the top is a future possibility.
Manage to get my “Gilmour’esque” solo recorded today but was not happy with the camera angle. So will have another go tomorrow, then on to the Knopfler style track. So a little electric distraction. before heading back to pure acoustic fingerstyle.
Thanks to all for listening !
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It was good 
. What style, technique is this ?
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Fingerstlye Acoustic Blues, also known as Steady Thumb Blues, Dead Thumb Blues and draws a lot from traditional Delta Blues.
Where to learn this ? 
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Justin has his premium course which I am following,
which is similar to this but these are from a David Hamburger course. The first 10 tracks of the course were recorded HERE Blues Diaries Chapter One
Thx for listening.
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Hi Toby, I‘m a little late. You know, that I‘m very interested in your blues chapters , I had just a quick listen yesterday due to time issues but heard it for a second time this morning and have to say, for me it‘s far more than only „in the can“ and I didn‘t feel them as „untidy“ as you say.
Still such a newbie to blues that I can‘t offer any helpful contribution, but my ears told me about a steady thumb beat, accurate picking, great tone on the guitar and fine bluesy vibes coming out of that guitar! I liked all the three very much and wish you good luck on recording #12!
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.
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I come here for the inane ramblings of an ageing wannabe rocker and what to I get?
Actual blues guitar sounds?!?
I demand a refund! Oh, wait… 
Coming along mightily, Toby. Steady as an iceberg.
I’m tempted to say my favourite bit was hitting the harmonic on the last note, but that could be misinterpreted 
Seriously, bien fait, mon ami
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@Helen0609 Andrea, appreciate you taking a listen, especially twice ! And your kindness. I guess and have said this many times, that we are all very aware of the little errors, that are not obvious to folk who are listening. But as a player you know what went wrong and that things could have been better. Guess that is what encourages us to become better. And there is nothing wrong with that, even if we beat ourselves up a little too often !
@RadekSiechowicz Radek thanks for the classic Jake and Elwood photo, love that movie. The hat is actually an Australian Eureka Stockade style. Not sure of the hat’s history but the Eureka Stockade rebellion was gold miners in the OZ state of Victoria, kicking back against the British Administration. But regardless of the headwear I agree it sure is fun !
@brianlarsen You will still get the goober ramblings my friend but with an added side dish of some Delta Blooze. There’s no money back guarantee for these gigs, what you see is what you get. Good to hear you picking up on the harmonic, I seem to be doing that a little bit too frequently but at least I am finding the right ones now Finding them with a capo and beyond the land of frets is an experiment worth exploring. BTW aren’t the icebergs all melting ? Might explain a lot.
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That was good Toby.
I’ve recently taken my first dive into steady thumb work in Justin’s Grade 4 so I know how challenging it can be. And you did well.
It was hard to tell anything “untidy” unless being hyper-critical. E.g. some treble notes were more emphasized than the bass. But that’s super picky and probably just your mic tbh. So what did you mean by untidy? Is it that feeling that something-could-go-wrong rather than it being well and truly under your fingers? Because it sounded good.
PS Now I want a hamburger with this subliminal messaging.
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JK
Thanks for the comments JK.
I am probably being picky and more aware of the “errors” induced by elevated recording anxiety. As the recording failures mount, so does the tension and the end result is an unrelaxed performance and resultant inconsistencies. It’s similar to the OM comments. You know where you goofed but its not obvious to the listener. Across the 3 pieces here’s flavour :
- Missed Bass notes
- Extra Bass note on the +/and
- Too soft Bass note, inconsistent thumbing
- Over accentuated melody note, normally following a Bass goof.
- Muffled 5th and 4the string pinches - hate 4th string melody notes !
None of these are stand out in your face SNAFUs but things to be aware of moving forward.
So yes maybe over critical of myself but being aware and conscious of these things, should help me tidy them up in later recordings.
As to recording set up, no mic involved in these so I can’t blame that. Also I did not use the PlayAcoutsic for the Fender’s tone this time.
The Fender (has on board pre-amp) was DIed into my UMC 1820 and through Reaper onto OBS, where video and audio were recorded. At that stage I just had a loudness meter on the master track to ensure the levels were good for YouTube.
I then dropped the video back into Reaper on two separate tracks panned 7% L & R for a little width and each track was served with Waves CLA Unplugged with the Broken Leaves preset. End video was then rendered after a little tweaking of levels using ReaLimit, with a -2.5db ceiling to stop any clipping.
I’ll have to have a look at the G4 lessons, as I don’t recall them from the old IM, as they were a stand alone course back then.
Okay let’s start with the 
Don’t go hacking at your Wisteria in 30 degree heat Toby. That ain’t going to do you no good.
I thought your playing was a nice listen. A very bluesy feel to it and it moved along with a great groove.
What is RBS?
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I’ll show you this afternoon
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Recording Button Syndrome. Press record and your playing falls apart.
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Thanks Toby. I used to suffer from that so I just stopped posting that is just a joke.
I have just got in to the mindset now that if I’m not happy I just start again and it seems to remove the pressure for me. It’s not like it’s a live OM where it could all go to hell in a handbasket.
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Ding Ding Round Two.
Here is another couple of offerings from my Blues Journey. This time its back to electrics for some Blues Rock Soloing. These are from the culmination of a Jeff McErlain course, where similar to Justin’s Blues Lead course, he present as number of licks and brings them together in four solo’s at the end of the course. These two are based on Gilmour and Knopfler, the other two are in the style of The Allman Brothers and ACDC and are work in progress.
For those interested on the tech side, both LP and Strat were pushed through my POD Go and into Reaper via my UMC 1820. Then via ReaRoute to OBS. This time I simultaneously recorded audio in Reaper and audio and video in OBS. The OBS video was then exported back into Reaper for mixing but with the audio set to zero db - muting the track stops the video playback so better to zero the sound level. As I was happy with the Pre-sets I’d used in the POD, there was not a lot mixing wise on the GTR tracks but for Inhale they were panned 10% L & R, as I kicked in a Delay FX for the solo repeat and wanted it to pop a little more.
Both tracks have Scheps Omini Channel Stereo (Channel Strip) with the Billy Bush Heavy GTR preset, which gave a more rounded sound to the master mix (IMHO).
I’ll keep my own reflections to myself this time and see what folks have to say first.
Not sure if there will be anymore recordings this month but its back to the acoustic for a few days at least, then see how it goes from there.
Inhale in the style of Gilmour.
Guitar George in the style of Knopfler
Thought I’d add this for a laugh and to show what I get up to in my moments of insanity. Both these backing tracks are great to jam over and impro with and I often find myself going of piste having circled the solos a couple of time and just mess around. All the scale notes have been mapped out so you know where you need to go. Anyway today and for reason unclear, at the end of the Knopfler solos I went off on a tremolo picking fest. Not something I have really worked on as it normally turns out pants. Today was a little better.
Long Impro Warning 
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Well done Toby. Two styles which are easily recognizable, yet very different. I think you managed to capture the essence of both.
If I had to pick out one thing to work on, it would be the bends. I think some bends were better than others. Mr. Gilmour and Mr. Knopfler aren’t too bad at hitting those pitches, of course - so no blame there.
In addition, I would try to vary the volume/attack in the Floyd solo. Just to give it a nice laid back feeling.
The tremolo picking in the Knopfler solo stood out to me. Definitely not as easy as it looks to keep it in time for that long.
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Thanks for listening Jeff.
Yep have to agree a few bends were a little off but both of these had takes in double figures, before I saved both vids. No excuse though, as a couple were well short.
In hindsight I think the tone on the Gilmour solo was a little too gritty, especially when I listen back through the PC speakers and not headphones. A mellower tone would be better.
Glad you liked the tremolo impro. It was literally a “I wonder ???” as I finished the 2nd round of the solo. Thought “why not” and launched into it. Certainly unplanned and winging it for the whole 3+ minutes. All a bit of fun though at the end of the day.
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