Your musical challenge to yourself for 2016?

jpfamps

I want to learn all the songs from Bobby Bland's Two Steps From the Blues.

Rowby1

To get back to playing as well as I could 6 years ago.

Sambostar

More singing basically.

english_bob

Sporky said:

I have enough stuff, and it is good enough.

This is what happens when you stray from the forum flock. You start talking this kind of bollocks.

 

I want to improve my lap steel playing (tuning and  L&R/H muting, plus general "vocabulary") and get my guitar parts for my band's songs nailed down in advance of recordings sessions. I want to push myself to write the best parts I can. I'd also like to find more time to play guiitar generally...

RocknRollDave

Been playing guitar in a band for years, never been a frontman...until now.

Singer has left, I am taking on the challenge of fronting the band.
Prior to all this happening, I had taken lead vocals on a grand total of two songs, and even then only on rare occasions, so to step up to doing the whole gig, every gig, is a major challenge.

I did one gig (i.e. with me fronting) towards the end of last year - went very well - but the gigs for this year don't start until March, and that is when the real challenge of doing it week in, week out will begin!

Sporky

english_bob said:

This is what happens when you stray from the forum flock. You start talking this kind of bollocks.

I did buy a cello stand, and a music stand, and a stool for playing cello and a shaker-egg thing for some exercises my teacher has prescribed. So going really well on the not-buying-stuff front.

GuyBoden

I'd like to learn legato properly, at the moment I pick nearly every note.

Cabicular

GuyBoden;952816" said:

I'd like to learn legato properly, at the moment I pick nearly every note.

At least you've chosen the easy way round
Much harder teaching people with a legato style alternate picking
They always struggle with the co-ordination

Snap

Same as last year - learn to play the banjo better.

I would like to have a full album's worth of material recorded.

I'd also like to do 2 covers - Remedy (Black Crowes) and GMF (John Grant). For the first, I certainly need to up my game with Addictive Drums.

I reckon I will achieve none of the above, lol

PolarityMan

octatonic;947532" said:

I'm teaching myself to play drums in odd time sig's.

Such as this: (my transcription)





The idea with this is to take small excerpts of sings that use odd times, and loop them, building up a library of 'words' that I can use to build phrases and then paragraphs.Having learned to play guitar pretty well and now progressing drums, I can tell you that drums, is way, way harder.

You should checkout Gavin Harrison videos on this. I found it really helpful. He basically boils everything down to small patterns of 3 and 2 describing the accent patterns then builds up complex meters from combinations of these building blocks.

Your example is a 3 and 2 combination, I know 5 and even 7 are easily "feel-able" but once you get to really weird stuff or rapid time signature changes like every other bar a compositional approach like that can sometimes help the overall groove flow better.

Catthan

Cool thread! My main 2016 resolution is branding myself as a remote/ online session player. 

This involves:

-Practice layering guitar parts: Basically get better in studio performance and become fast and efficient (using the DAW too)

-Make a promo/ showreel/ porfolio demo'ing my playing 

-Register with remote session  portals/ agencies. 

-Maintain a regularly updating youtube and social media profile uploading session work excerpts and transcriptions

-Transcribe more and learn as many cliche licks as I can in rock, blues and country

-Listen to a lot of contemporary music  and get a feel of what's hip and required of guitarists nowadays. 

-Be a bit more careful of the commercial aspect as currently there's plenty of work that started as a favour but somehow made it to small labels and I am not credited and therefore can't advertise.

For the band which is my main music income at the moment:

-Improve my standing up chops as currently there's a lot I can do sitting down that I can't do standing up when playing live

-Transcribe loads of Paul Jackson Jr and incorporate more of that sesh funk-pop-rnb vibe into my playing

On the admin side:

-Maintain an up to date spreadsheet of gigs, dates, fees, miles, expenses etc so that next Jan. I'm better prepared for my self assessment.

Then, for my own indulgence

-Maintain a consistent jazz practice regime and not get so distracted

-When practicing jazz, get my brain and ears more involved 

-If there's time left, work on more contemporary techniques like tapping, modern legato and hybrid picking 

Quite a lot it but there's no rush. 

axisus

@catthan Very ambitious!

Catthan

axisus said:

@catthan Very ambitious!

Oh yes,

although I worked out I can devote 5-6 hrs/ day around my main job to music.

I don't expect to achieve any certain level of accomplishment but the key for me in all this is consistency. I defs need to get the session thing up and running this year though.

AustrianJohn

My musical challenge for 2016 is to write and perform (in public in our 3 piece band) an instrumental guitar piece that holds the audience's interest throughout. My inspiration for the style of track I'm talking about are the self titled tracks by the Dutch band Focus in the early 1970s.

Rocker

To learn the rudiments of bass playing.  And to learn a few signature intros and licks of well known rock tunes [such as AC/DC, Dire Straits etc.]  My ongoing attempts to play the intro of  Johnny B Goode 'correctly' is still ongoing.  My recent illness has set me back a bit but hope springs eternal.....

axisus

I've changed my challenge. I will still tackle Pendragon's Breaking the spell at some point, but right now I'm more inclined to sort another track of theirs that I love - Excalibur. Drums will be a problem, but I'll work on everything else first and see how it goes.

axisus

axisus said:

I've changed my challenge. I will still tackle Pendragon's Breaking the spell at some point, but right now I'm more inclined to sort another track of theirs that I love - Excalibur. Drums will be a problem, but I'll work on everything else first and see how it goes.

UPDATE!!!! I have the guitar parts 95% sussed and I'm about a third of the way through the keyboards. This is a major thing for me, at 53 I have never attempted to transcribe anything more than about 20 seconds before, and even that would be a very rare thing. To get through 6 minutes of guitar playing really feels like a big thing! OK, nothing difficult there but I'm feeling a bit chuffed with myself.

roberty

@axisus that's great man well done