Minor Blues in G

[VikingBlues]

Hi Guys - Hope you're all doing great!

I've been in the creative doldrums for a few weeeks and getting very depressed about it since my collab with Strummer. Playing guitar has not been going well (even keeping in tune has been bad) and attempted recordings have just been a sick joke. And I've been desperately needing my usual guitar medicine to make me feel better from my 9 to 5 weekday joys at work.

In desperation I turned to a basic minor blues backing track tonight and picked up my favourite guitar. Well - it might not be special or of much musical merit but it's given me hope there's light at the end of the tunnel - far better than I had hoped it would be.

I've tried to take a basic 12 bar run through and play variations on it to give it some structure, rather than just make it all up as I go along as usual. Bear in mind this recording has followed days on days of real tripe, so I'm more than happy it's even half-OK.

Hope you think it's OK.

http://soundclick.com/share.cfm?id=10645430

[MikeJackal]

Going back to basics can really help you get on track, I know I always try to play this kind of song to keep my mind focused on what it's all about. Very competent playing throughout and some neat phrasing, my kind of blues, thumbs up.

[2WheelsOfBlues]

Well VB,

I like it a lot, it's a good blues song and to me it not half, but a full OK....

[Blindboy]

Sweet playing!
I'm sorry to hear that you are in a musical slump... that's always a drag! Sometimes going back to basics will help me, sometimes trying something new, sometimes only time helps...
Sounds like you were successful in keeping a coherent theme and variation going through the song. That can be a challenge... I usually just "blow and go", but I will occasionally try to keep coming back to a theme. Sometimes it works, other times...

[VikingBlues]

Thankk you all for listening and commenting.

It's been a really frustrating last few weeks musically - and I am so used to using my music as an emotional cure for the brickbats of life that I feel really out of sorts and adrift when the slump happens - I find myself thinking down very negative roads. It's been a while since I'd used the VSA590 and it felt quite odd to play for the first 5 or 10 minutes which was worrying - then things started to flow like they used to - I just love what that guitar does to my playing.

I thought too it was time I worked on the blues again - it is a blues forum after all and I should do more than just post recordings of modal stuff etc. I hide a bit with playing leads over these modal BTs because there's so much colour and musical variety in those BTs it's much easier to make your lead sound any good. I'm very aware I have a huge amount of learning to do to get my blues playing to sound even vaguely authentic. The trouble with coming to the blues music later in life is that it's not had time to seep into my subconcious and become ingrained.

It's the first time I've really tried to get a basic 12-bar outline of various typed of phases or note clusters at different areas of the fretboard and try to play variations around them each run through. I'm quite pleased that it's worked OK and it probably benefits from not just being 100% made up on the spur of the moment by a player who's still trying to learn so many of the basics. I think it's a technique that's worth working more on.

[12bar]

Playing guitar has not been going well (even keeping in tune has been bad) and attempted recordings have just been a sick joke.

Well, I know this pretty good and you did find the right way.
It hasn't to be always something special, sometimes a good old minor Blues is just right - and this one is!
I too started something, but still having problems with the recording. Windoze 7 and my toneport just don't want to work together like it did with XP.
I'll see

[VikingBlues]

Playing guitar has not been going well (even keeping in tune has been bad) and attempted recordings have just been a sick joke.

Well, I know this pretty good and you did find the right way.
It hasn't to be always something special, sometimes a good old minor Blues is just right - and this one is!
I too started something, but still having problems with the recording. Windoze 7 and my toneport just don't want to work together like it did with XP.
I'll see

----------------------------------
Thank you - I do appreciate the comment.

Shame about your recording problems. I do like to hear your playing when you've found what little time you have to spare to post something here. There is with your playing (and this applies to quite a number of other members here too) a blues integrity which I find makes for great listening - players so familiar and in tune with blues playing that the spirit of the blues is channelled through them.

I don't know if others have this worry too, but I'm very nervous about buying any software / interface that involves music recording on a PC - I just know that it's most likely it won't work at all or will need a long struggle to iron out the flaws and inconpatabilities.

[HalfBlindLefty]

Sweet stuff VB. !
Now to the next step, play sooooo much you don't have to think about the next lick or note, just let your fingers flow.
Playing should work just like speaking.. you don't think about it ( how to, not what about) it just is a expression tool.

[losaavedra]

I don't know if others have this worry too, but I'm very nervous about buying any software / interface that involves music recording on a PC - I just know that it's most likely it won't work at all or will need a long struggle to iron out the flaws and incompatabilities. :

Same feeling about computer software so I ended up with a BOSS BR900CD ... but I find even then that I 'm using it in a very basic way and I find resorting to the 230 page manual to do various things where I've forgotten 'how to' a bit of a pain sometimes. The most inspiring (to me) stuff I do is with a guitar into a cheapo RP50 with headphones off the output socket ... with the gain cranked up to a possibly dangerous level. Capturing that sound into something that records it ain't so easy, something always gets lost. I'm experimenting with a small box device, with holes in the sides to fit the cans, and a microphone inside, to see if I can get a recordable sound more like the cans attached to my skull produce. Don't know yet if anything useful will come out of that.

By the way I've listened to all 40 of your tracks. Clearly you know your way around a guitar, have some decent gear and are able to produce well thought out tunes. My only comment is that I feel you should 'rough it up' a bit for some more basic blues, if indeed that's what you want. I would be very interested to hear what you might produce on top of a single-chord repetitive riff as backing (not a nice clean BT) and how far you can get off the tempo and resolve it all back again, play fewer notes sometimes, see how far each 'verse' can vary from earlier ones, and so on. Also, if you feel a need to get off that one chord, change key to another one somewhere along the line in the same 'tune' ... but don't bar count, let any chord changes come as a surprise which will greatly improve impro on the fly. And, of course, most of all make it fun!

That's all. I hope the above is taken as constructive comment not just a load of criticism.

[VikingBlues]

Sweet stuff VB. !
Now to the next step, play sooooo much you don't have to think about the next lick or note, just let your fingers flow.
Playing should work just like speaking.. you don't think about it ( how to, not what about) it just is a expression tool.

Many thanks HBL. I'm much further ahead in the "not thinking about it" when it comes to general melodic guitar playing, and recently have been getting the ability to get close to replicationg previous lead lines when I revisit a piece. I need to know more about the way the blues works and the way genuine blues phrases work best I think to make the leap to not thinking about it when playing blues. Unfortunately I've not yet listened to enough blues to be able to hear and make up melodies / phrases from inside my head.

I think what I'm trying to say is that I can "make up" some notes to play over a 12 bar backing that will sound OK for being in the right key and relating to the chords, but ... it will not sound like genuine blues. Learning new things is good though - I'll keep working at it - and I'm on the right place on this forum to hear more and learn more.

Same feeling about computer software so I ended up with a BOSS BR900CD ... but I find even then that I 'm using it in a very basic way and I find resorting to the 230 page manual to do various things where I've forgotten 'how to' a bit of a pain sometimes. The most inspiring (to me) stuff I do is with a guitar into a cheapo RP50 with headphones off the output socket ... with the gain cranked up to a possibly dangerous level. Capturing that sound into something that records it ain't so easy, something always gets lost.

I can identify with all of those things. I had a Tascam digital recorder - every time I used it I was having to dig the manual out again ... and the built in fx were pretty ghastly.

Yes - that difference between the sound of what you play and the sound of what appears on the recording .... very frustrating indeed ....

By the way I've listened to all 40 of your tracks. Clearly you know your way around a guitar, have some decent gear and are able to produce well thought out tunes. My only comment is that I feel you should 'rough it up' a bit for some more basic blues, if indeed that's what you want. I would be very interested to hear what you might produce on top of a single-chord repetitive riff as backing (not a nice clean BT) and how far you can get off the tempo and resolve it all back again, play fewer notes sometimes, see how far each 'verse' can vary from earlier ones, and so on. Also, if you feel a need to get off that one chord, change key to another one somewhere along the line in the same 'tune' ... but don't bar count, let any chord changes come as a surprise which will greatly improve impro on the fly. And, of course, most of all make it fun!

That's all. I hope the above is taken as constructive comment not just a load of criticism.

Many thanks.

Don't worry - it's very much taken as constructive criticism, and thankfully received too. I'm filled with awe at the thought of someone being willing to listen to my entire collection - that's way above and beyond the call of duty. You've hit the nail on the head with "tunes" - I can hear them OK and my fingers can play them for me. I am pleased about that as a couple of years ago I couldn't manage that at all. Worryingly a lot of my pieces I most enjoy hearing back again are the jazz tinged ones - I have this mental picture of me in 10 years time with a big arch top jazz guitar and a blanket over my knees!

For blues to work I think you're right about my needing that rougher edge and as members of the forum will know from me whinging about it, I get very uncertain and start yelling for advice and support as soon as the overdrive kicks in - it's partly a confidence thing, and getting a better knowledge of what I'm needing to do should help boost that confidence.

A single chord backing is a huge challenge for me - it highlights even more my (as yet) less than adequate skill at blues lines and blues playing. I love listening to those that can play and get such an amazingly massive pallette of sounds and expression from a single chord. Like the wonderful John Lee Hooker on a one chord extended boogie.

[SteveB]

VB - As others have said, this is a dang-enjoyable listen. Well done.