Still beter than no stage 
Greetings
I have accidently found that I really love playing Country Music. As mentioned before in this LL I have done one country gig as ‘Dusty Roads’ and we have another this weekend. So, obviously my main practicing has been country songs.
With this new found love of country, I have managed to find an online country music guitar course which seems to be in a similar vein as Justin’s Blues course, called Country Guitar Mastery. This builds on the basic skills I have learnt from Justin and shows me how to apply it to country, i.e, country licks instead of Blues licks.
So Grade 3 will have to wait while I go through this country course 
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Ha ha, yes, here we discover completely different sides of ourselves … nice, isn’t it
now you only have to learn to dance to complete the country act 
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Ha Ha, I think playing the guitar while line dancing has to be a recipe for disaster
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This sounds nice and interesting, Tony! Being a Country fan myself, I will check it out. Thanks for sharing!
Good luck for your gig! Hopefully, all will be good and you enjoy being up stage as Dusty Roads again. I love that name, it is sooo country!
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Thank you Lisa. I too love the name, it was given to me by my guitar partner ‘Rusty Nutz’
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Well a lot has happened in the last week or so. The country and western gig went very well, we were outside in the afternoon on the rally field. It was quite different playing outside.
I have also decided that it is time to start getting into modifying my sound with pedals. I use a Katana mkII which has all sorts of effects built in, but it was a PIA trying to modify them on the fly. After looking around, I went for a 1 box fits all solution of a Boss ME-90 special effects pedal. This has more pedals/effects stored in it than I can every foresee using.
I also have become a telecaster fan. My ‘spare’ guitar was Fender Clapton Stratocaster, but I wanted my spare to be another telecaster. The Telecaster I have at the moment is rather expensive and I was not really happy just taking out at weekends to have a practice or jam on the rally field, so I needed a cheaper Tele that would not matter too much if it got chipped etc, but still good enough to be the spare guitar on set. So, today I traded in the Clapton and got a lovely red Player II telecaster (and a portable amp, strings and cables)
Still no more gigs until the new year now, so it’s back to learning licks and hybrid picking and improving the songs I already know.
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Wow Tony! You and guitar out there again! I’m sure you are very proud of yourself! I I listened to the Bad Moon Rising recording, you can sing in time and in tune so learning more and improving will be fun for you I think.
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Hi Silvia, thanks for your kind comments.
[quote=“SILVIA, post:189, topic:179361”]
I listened to the Bad Moon Rising recording, you can sing in time and in tune so learning more and improving will be fun for you I think.
[/quote] Thank you. Singing live is still not happening for me although the mic is always live when we play. My ambition is to sing at our next new year rally. On the last new year rally (2 years ago) I first appeared, miming the guitar.
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It always makes me so happy reading your updates. How lucky you are that you get to play together with your friend.
Hmm… It’s a long time until New Year’s though. Absolutely sure that there won’t be a small stage calling for you in-between? 
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When I told him that was the last until the new year that I knew of, he just gave me that ‘knowing’ smile. So we shall see. I don’t think it will be with our club as you can have too much of a good thing and people could get bored.
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Great to see Dusty Roads out in the green, Tony!
Looks like an amazing setting, but I bet it was a challenge playing outside for the first time.
Congrats on the new gear an guitar - it’s a red beautiy!
Hope you don’t have to wait too long for the next gig, though! 
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Thanks Lisa, it was fun and different. New year will soon be here and it gives me time to improve my technique.
I’ve just worked it out, in the last 6 months, I have had to binge learn 75 new songs. The shortest time I was given (last weekend) was 3 hours to learn a song he heard on the radio that morning! That’s no way to improve my technique
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Reading my comment above, fast learning sounds worse than it is Basically, With songs that I need to ‘learn’ quickly, I use the level system and play them at level 1, i.e. no frills.
These songs usually only have 2 chord progressions, chorus and verse, so I listen/ read the tabs a couple of times and note the sequences. Then I will just play a basic strumming pattern and simple chords, no 7th’s, suss chords etc. It won’t be my best performance but it will sound OK.
Just back from a great 5 days at the Debenham Country Music Festival. What a great crowd were there. We went to get a better idea on the depth of country music.
While there, Clint and I had a couple of jamming sessions on the field, it was great fun and those around us enjoyed it, even going so far to point it out to the management.
Clint decided that he wanted to play at the festival next year, so talked the management in to booking us! So we have had to suddenly form a ‘proper’ band and we are going to be called 'Freight Train A Facebook page he has created. Still very new at the moment but videos and photos will be added.
I must admit my guitar journey seems more of a runaway train then a freight train.
I have got to practice now to build up our repertoire. !
Jamming in a field - Community Recordings / Playing Live - JustinGuitar Community
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Hi Tony,
That friend of you is worth its weight in gold for your music learn curve and enjoyment,amazing
Greetings
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How great is that?!? 
Congrats 
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Thank you, I couldn’t agree more. I do sometimes wonder where he is going to take us next I have pointed out that Nashville was too far away!!!
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