What Are You Working On Right Now?

TSJMajesty said:
So I can play the Innocence Faded solo at 75% tempo, and it feels SO fast for me! Just as I get at btw 75 and 80% of pretty much anything of JP's that I've been working on, I feel like, Am I ever gonna be able to get even 1 or 2 of his solos up to speed??!! I've been putting in the time!!

Dammit, it gets so frustrating. Right now, and for years now, this is what I want to be able to do, but it still feels like maybe I'm just not capable.

Either that, or I need professional intervention re how I practice. Idk... sigh
Click to expand...
Do you practice at a tempo that allows ZERO tolerance for the smallest mistakes?
Practice does not make perfect…practice makes permanent..so if you allow mistakes…
 
TSJMajesty said:
So I can play the Innocence Faded solo at 75% tempo, and it feels SO fast for me! Just as I get at btw 75 and 80% of pretty much anything of JP's that I've been working on, I feel like, Am I ever gonna be able to get even 1 or 2 of his solos up to speed??!! I've been putting in the time!!

Dammit, it gets so frustrating. Right now, and for years now, this is what I want to be able to do, but it still feels like maybe I'm just not capable.

Either that, or I need professional intervention re how I practice. Idk... sigh
Click to expand...
I’m kind of lucky I guess, I messed my left hand up REALLY bad with a router, I needed hand surgery and 50 stitches (this is why I quit woodworking lol). I couldn’t use my hand for 3 months at all before I started physical therapy and started working back my muscle strength. I was able, miraculously, to get back about 98% hand function - pain gets in the way and sometimes I can’t get past it if I’m trying to shred. It was nice to build fresh muscle memory with a smarter mind though, and I became a better guitarist in the end, I just really don’t think I have it in me to get shredder fast and I came to terms with it.
 
I’m working on playing in time and hitting a few well placed notes over a variety of songs
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Mikael Dez said:
I’m kind of lucky I guess, I messed my left hand up REALLY bad with a router, I needed hand surgery and 50 stitches (this is why I quit woodworking lol). I couldn’t use my hand for 3 months at all before I started physical therapy and started working back my muscle strength. I was able, miraculously, to get back about 98% hand function - pain gets in the way and sometimes I can’t get past it if I’m trying to shred. It was nice to build fresh muscle memory with a smarter mind though, and I became a better guitarist in the end, I just really don’t think I have it in me to get shredder fast and I came to terms with it.
Click to expand...

Wow, sounds like you are VERY fortunate---all things considered. :beer

Maybe a blessing in disguise, as you seem to suggest. Real musicianship is
a deep well where we can cultivate a wide range of skills and abilities. Speed
is not even the most useful, or essential, of those either. :idk
 
Mikael Dez said:
I’m kind of lucky I guess, I messed my left hand up REALLY bad with a router, I needed hand surgery and 50 stitches (this is why I quit woodworking lol). I couldn’t use my hand for 3 months at all before I started physical therapy and started working back my muscle strength. I was able, miraculously, to get back about 98% hand function - pain gets in the way and sometimes I can’t get past it if I’m trying to shred. It was nice to build fresh muscle memory with a smarter mind though, and I became a better guitarist in the end, I just really don’t think I have it in me to get shredder fast and I came to terms with it.
Click to expand...
Glad you can play after that! That had to be difficult. It crosses my mind on occasion since I use routers and all manner of saws frequently during the week. But you just take the precautions you can take and learn to trust the tools, and mainly trust yourself. Like Maverick said, "if you think, you die." :grin
 
FuzzyAce said:
Glad you can play after that! That had to be difficult. It crosses my mind on occasion since I use routers and all manner of saws frequently during the week. But you just take the precautions you can take and learn to trust the tools, and mainly trust yourself. Like Maverick said, "if you think, you die." :grin
Click to expand...
It was my fault. I was routing a cherry bookshelf top and I only had one clamp, too lazy to go across the shop to get another one. I clamped the left side of the piece and held the right with my hand, only holding the router in one hand. That mf hit a knot, got caught up, kicked up and landed plunge bit down on my hand 🤚 my boss was white as a ghost and if it weren’t for the spray room guy idk what would have happened that day lol
 
I love taking tiny licks and figuring out how many different ways I can play a 3 to 4 note sequence.

Slide up. Slide down. Hammer on. Pull off. Pick them all. Full on legato. Play them in different areas
of the neck. Bend up. Or pre-bend and then release downward. It's an exercise in expanding my
vocabulary and the ongoing realization that there is no one right and proper way to play anything.

Leading with your pinky, or leading with your index finger is not about better or worse, but about
differences. Differences are what makes Life and Music interesting. Even as we try and squash and
collapse both into conformed uniformity.
 
I’ve got parts to write for 2-3 more songs from the band and I’ll have gotten all their songs down. This might be the longest stretch I’ve had of playing this consistently in quite a while, almost 2 months of playing daily. My fingers are in good shape right now, so I want to hit these last few songs and get somethin’ tricky in there that’ll force me to stay in shape to play it in the future!
 
I have been working on my new album titled "Knock Knock Knock" which I hope to release some time in May. Like my last album "Real Notes", this album will have the same format. Approximately one hour, played in a single sitting (using guitar, cajon via foot pedal and voice), no overdubs, no studio trickery or magic (just chorus on the vocal choruses and pumping up the cajon sound), no additional instruments added, no mistakes removed, no auto-tuning and no regrets. I am doing my stuff this way for several reasons. One of them is the idea that I can play live what you hear on the recordings. No figuring out how to reproduce live that cool effect I made in the studio. Another one is I want my music to be very "human". Matter of fact, one of the songs is called "Human Genre" as I believe that in short time we will have just that, a genre of music that is segregated as human.

I did take 12 of the album last night. I would not be embarrassed to have performed 13 of the 15 songs in that take (but I know I can do WAY better and will do so). The two I am still having problems with I have not fully absorbed and am still trying to figure out the bridge and endings on those two. Today will be take 13 and maybe 14 if I have the time. I am expecting a take somewhere around the late 20's or early 30's to be a take that I am comfortable with releasing (though it did take me till take 82 with the last album). Here is a track list of "Knock Knock Knock" (subject to change on artistic human whims):

Knock Knock Knock (title track about opening your door of creativity)
Human Genre (a song written from the songs perspective, stating it's human nature)
Chin Up (a song about the passing of Taylor Hawkins)
Helio Orbit (a song about David Bowie being buried in space)
Dream Pillows (from 2001 a song about laying your head on your dreams pillows)
FunkCountryRockFolk (some of us like it all)
Happy Birthday 2025 (a birthday song for this year)
I Like Tequila (need I say more)
InfiniZoo (the infinite zoo of the universe)
My In-Laws Is Outlaws (slack jawed with a long drawl, can you hear their lips crawl)
Sexecution (written in 2000 on my first cross country motorcycle tour)
Songstramentalist (the primary instrument I play is the song and the other instruments are just supporting characters)
Tattooed Brain (inspired by the Tattoos thread started a few weeks ago and Alex Kenivel's response in said thread)
Richard Craniums Treasured Taints (a song about the Richard Craniums of the world - plenty of mirror time in this one but others inspired as well)
21st Century Blues (what is giving you the blues? here's a short list of mine)

If anyone is interested in providing feedback on this material prior to release, PM me and I will send some stuff when ready for review ;~))
 
Schon speed bursts - Stone in Love
  • fun to listen to
  • easy chord progression
  • sucks to get hands synched up at tempo for speed bursts during solo breaks.
  • First solo - about 95% there
  • Second solo - this is taking a while and I'm stuck at about 65% tempo on the speed burst section
  • Outro - haven't even started yet, out of concern of the speed burst there -, the majority of it is straighforward, w/some whammy bar stuff thrown in.
 
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I just did a poster for a friend in Atlanta who hosts an open mic night. I did not plan and was not asked to do this, but apparently he and the cafe owner like it enough that they are going to have it professionally printed and framed! The odd thing is, this fell out of the sky as I was generating artwork for a song on my new album and this piece popped up which looks exactly like my friend so I had to turn it into a poster for his 70th birthday jam! Not only that, but the colors match the color scheme of the venue (thank you Matrix)! If you are in or near Atlanta (actual address is in poster below), this guy (Greywolf) hosts the open mic every Wednesday (and this event is an open mic night but you need to reserve a spot if you want to play) and he is a very cool Cat!

Greywolf_70th_02_1200x1636_72dpi.jpg
 
I did NOT want to go to sleep last night! :rawk

I was having an awesome time of it till after 1! Shit was coming together, I was ripping..., had a few things a little closer, a little cleaner...

My right hand still can't pick quite fast enough for a couple things I've been eying for years now, so I throw this riff from Technical Difficulties into the mix, and last night I cracked 130 bpm. :p

(That's the speed I'm aiming for, but applying that tempo to parts of certain solos. Which is a whole nother mountain to climb!)

Although when I do manage to push past a certain point, I then have to go back and clean things up. And I don't get all the notes. But just being able to keep up at that tempo, is motivating for me.

It's actually @ 120, but like I said, I use it just as an exercise to try to bolster my pick-hand speed.

I only copied this section of the riff to make it easier to read (if anyone's interested), but it starts on E/7 (meaning E chord on 7th fret), then

1746052758969.png


then A/12, C/15, D/17, then repeats. It sounds fucking cool as shit when played tight.

Here it is cued up:
 
And so how this ties in to what I'm working on atm....

Every time I break a teeny bit of new ground, the next time I pick up my guitar, it takes me an hour or 2 to get back to that same place. I'm still at the point where I have to be fully warmed up to be able to push my personal envelope, and it takes months before I can start to "seal in" those gains.

I guess it's what you get when you try to learn this kind of stuff starting in your mid-50's! Lol
 
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