What songs/pieces/ techniques are you all working on this week?

Littlejonny

I'm practising:

Bluegrass
King Wilkies Run and Wheeling by David Grier, Old Ebenezer Scrooge by Sierra Hull, these are 80% there

Classical
Bach Violin Partita in Am BWV1003 - this is 90% but I’m having some lessons from an early music specialist next Monday so I’ll report back

Jazz
jazz blues chords adding inversions to get more harmonic movement, aiming for Freddie green big band style
soloing in the style of Charlie Christian
take 5 - single line version in Ebm (I find this v tricky, especially the B section!)

you can see why I’m a jack of all trades! 

JonnyBgoode

Littlejonny said:

I'm practising:

Bluegrass
King Wilkies Run and Wheeling by David Grier, Old Ebenezer Scrooge by Sierra Hull, these are 80% there

Classical
Bach Violin Partita in Am BWV1003 - this is 90% but I’m having some lessons from an early music specialist next Monday so I’ll report back

BWV 1013 maybe?  1003 is a Sonata.  Hats off to you in any case, even short Bach pieces are tough to memorise. Who is your teacher?

viz

^ nice. Are you playing it as a solo instrument or with the added accompanying part? 

Barney

Iv been working on using the trem to make it sound like a slide and also glide into and out of notes 

Littlejonny

JonnyBgoode said:

Littlejonny said:

I'm practising:

Bluegrass
King Wilkies Run and Wheeling by David Grier, Old Ebenezer Scrooge by Sierra Hull, these are 80% there

Classical
Bach Violin Partita in Am BWV1003 - this is 90% but I’m having some lessons from an early music specialist next Monday so I’ll report back

BWV 1013 maybe?  1003 is a Sonata.  Hats off to you in any case, even short Bach pieces are tough to memorise. Who is your teacher

right - it’s 

Littlejonny

Sorry - delete that last attempt. I was trying to write:

yes I’m sure you’re right…sonata not partita. It’s deffo 1003 in Am. Actually very playable on the guitar, even with added bass notes a la Barrueco. Great plectrum piece as-is. If you’re intimidated by Bach, go for the violin or cello stuff - the Lute Suites put a lot of people off I think because they are so bloody difficult. There’s no accounts of anyone actually attempting them until the late 19thC I believe?

The lesson is with my colleague Liz who is a violinist and early music specialist. She’s pretty big time I think. I just want to know more about authentic phrasing. There’s an art to it I believe, elongating notes that fall on the 1 and 3 or something like that…will find out.

don’t know why I try to learn all this stuff…just obsessive I guess

Take 5…I can play a solo arrangement in Am but I’m working on duo arrangement in Ebm to play with my mate Rory Evans

JonnyBgoode

Littlejonny said:

Sorry - delete that last attempt. I was trying to write:

yes I’m sure you’re right…sonata not partita. It’s deffo 1003 in Am. Actually very playable on the guitar, even with added bass notes a la Barrueco. Great plectrum piece as-is. If you’re intimidated by Bach, go for the violin or cello stuff - the Lute Suites put a lot of people off I think because they are so bloody difficult. There’s no accounts of anyone actually attempting them until the late 19thC I believe?

The lesson is with my colleague Liz who is a violinist and early music specialist. She’s pretty big time I think. I just want to know more about authentic phrasing. There’s an art to it I believe, elongating notes that fall on the 1 and 3 or something like that…will find out.

So are you learning all of it? It has four sections (Grave, Fuga, Andante, Allegro) - about 20 minutes in all. I used to play some sections of the lute suites, and the Prelude from Cello Suite no.1 was good for wedding gigs. Always found his work tough to memorise though.

musteatbrain

For about a month now nearly all I have done is practice Deep Purple the Well Dressed Guitar. 

I can play every bar cleanly and up to tempo, but I just can’t put it together. It’s insanely hard to not accidentally double pick notes on some of the outside the string changes when up to tempo. If I can eventually play it I think it will feel like I’ve completed guitar

Littlejonny

JonnyBgoode said:

Littlejonny said:

Sorry - delete that last attempt. I was trying to write:

yes I’m sure you’re right…sonata not partita. It’s deffo 1003 in Am. Actually very playable on the guitar, even with added bass notes a la Barrueco. Great plectrum piece as-is. If you’re intimidated by Bach, go for the violin or cello stuff - the Lute Suites put a lot of people off I think because they are so bloody difficult. There’s no accounts of anyone actually attempting them until the late 19thC I believe?

The lesson is with my colleague Liz who is a violinist and early music specialist. She’s pretty big time I think. I just want to know more about authentic phrasing. There’s an art to it I believe, elongating notes that fall on the 1 and 3 or something like that…will find out.

So are you learning all of it? It has four sections (Grave, Fuga, Andante, Allegro) - about 20 minutes in all. I used to play some sections of the lute suites, and the Prelude from Cello Suite no.1 was good for wedding gigs. Always found his work tough to memorise though.

I’ve played through the whole thing but really I’m just practising the Andante and Allegro. I’m going to ask Liz how to count the rhythms in the Grave as I find reading that kind of thing quite difficult.

Littlejonny

Stuckfast said:

I'm trying to come up with a half decent guitar accompaniment for a traditional song called The Coast of Peru.

This sounds interesting…

guitarjack66

Stuckfast said:

I'm trying to come up with a half decent guitar accompaniment for a traditional song called The Coast of Peru.

Wouldn't something from South Pacific work well?

CaseOfAce

Took delivery of Jazz Ballads - by Jeff Arnold chord melody Hal Leonard book at the weekend and am now working on the first piece (Blame It On My Youth - an old Nat King Cole song) - which is stretching my fingers into all sort of new shapes... 
I think I might finally have found my "way" into jazz...there's many vids and books out there on the theory...but to actually see it being applied in the context of songs is making a lot more sense to me here.

hollywoodrox

musteatbrain said:

For about a month now nearly all I have done is practice Deep Purple the Well Dressed Guitar. 

I can play every bar cleanly and up to tempo, but I just can’t put it together. It’s insanely hard to not accidentally double pick notes on some of the outside the string changes when up to tempo. If I can eventually play it I think it will feel like I’ve completed guitar

You’re going to have to find what speed you break down in the particular string change bits & make an exercise of it  that is loopable  then approach that with a view to playing it 5 bpm faster .

a good one for me too is finding the faster speed , then say the idea is to play it in 16th notes at The fast speed  play it in quarter notes at the fast speed  and then at the end do one rep in 16th notes . It’s usually possible to play faster than you can if it’s just for a few notes  doing this slow then fast thing helps you to get used to the feeling of playing fast and playing it perfect . You can then add more reps of playing it at 16th notes the better you get . I’m not very good at explaining it but someone here might see what I’m getting at and be able to explain better 

allen

The Andy Timmons Bohemian Rhapsody arrangement.

It's taken me 2 weeks so far and I can't remember all of it, but can play most of it albeit not up to tempo (couple of bits I still can't play). 

Really enjoying it, but I think it's likely to take months to really nail it. Some of it is really satisfying to play.

musteatbrain

hollywoodrox said:

musteatbrain said:

For about a month now nearly all I have done is practice Deep Purple the Well Dressed Guitar. 

I can play every bar cleanly and up to tempo, but I just can’t put it together. It’s insanely hard to not accidentally double pick notes on some of the outside the string changes when up to tempo. If I can eventually play it I think it will feel like I’ve completed guitar

You’re going to have to find what speed you break down in the particular string change bits & make an exercise of it  that is loopable  then approach that with a view to playing it 5 bpm faster .

a good one for me too is finding the faster speed , then say the idea is to play it in 16th notes at The fast speed  play it in quarter notes at the fast speed  and then at the end do one rep in 16th notes . It’s usually possible to play faster than you can if it’s just for a few notes  doing this slow then fast thing helps you to get used to the feeling of playing fast and playing it perfect . You can then add more reps of playing it at 16th notes the better you get . I’m not very good at explaining it but someone here might see what I’m getting at and be able to explain better 

We think alike.
On the 4 note arpeggios from the intro, it’s on the way to the 4th note which is an upstroke on the d string after the downstroke on the b string.

I can play it faster than the record and clean. Just can’t  yet pull it all together. I think I’m not consistently getting enough distance from the b string after I pick it.

It’a a stubborn fix. Think I just need more time at it.
Or to sell my soul.

allen

It usually takes about 10 takes to record something, but this one was just hit record and bam! and it shows. I can play it fairly fluidly normally, but the stress of the recording makes it all fall apart!

roberty

Sounds good @allen well played. It's a bloody tough one for sure

Alexlotl

This week I’m working on Le Freak by Chic. I’ve never played anything like this before, but I’ve always loved Nile Rodgers’ playing. Interesting how much thought needs to go into the dead notes.

Had to cancel my lesson this week as my son has Covid, so I might use the extra time to revisit Animal Nitrate by Suede, as a way of getting to know the Telecaster ‘72 Deluxe that’s arriving on Thursday. 

what

I'm still working on the first Holy Wars solo. The opening is loads of sweeping which I can just about do very slowly, so I'm trying to build up speed now.

Other than that, working through Paganini's 5th Caprice (from Crossroads)

JonnyBgoode

what said:

Other than that, working through Paganini's 5th Caprice (from Crossroads)

My pet gripe, and I'm sure you won't care as most of the internet doesn't seem to, is that Paganini's 5th Caprice doesn't appear in the Crossroads movie, its Eugene's Trick Bag, a Steve Vai composition that took inspiration from (steals about 4 bars)  the caprice and that's it.

Here's the actual 5th Caprice, you'll hear the famous intro to the arpegio section in Eugene's trick bag @ 33 secs in, but as you can hear, whats comes before and after is quite different.



Nice picking exercise though (the Vai one and also the classical version an octave lower that appears early in the movie when Macchio is practicing in his bedroom).