Singing and Playing the Guitar

I been working on Man on the Moon since the guitar part is pretty simple. I got the verse down until it's pretty much automatic and singing over it wasn't too bad. I originally try to sing before the guitar part was automatic and that was tough. The last guitar part int the pre-chorus was tought to sing with and I'm pretty sure my singing syncopation is a bit off. I still make the most mistakes during the chorus, but that's probably cause I been playing that part the least.

I got Leadbelly's Black Girl down pretty good now playing in the key of E instead of D. I need record myself on this one to see if my timing is good when I sing.

I been playing and singing CCR's Who'll Stop the Rain for a while now. I'll add some fills between the verses to make it a bit interesting. I may go back to Bad Moon Raising and do the same later.
I need to go back to Bo Diddley. I've found that without listening to the song for a while, it's hard to get the jungle rhythm down. I added a rotary speaker effect and it sound more like the record.

I'm getting sloppy on Hoochie Coochie Man and Stealing. My finger picking doesn't seem to be improving much so I'll need to gave it some attention.

I started on Danzig's Mother. The only trick here is getting used to playing the syncopated chords with a down stroke. That messes up my foot tapping if I'm not careful. I'll imagine it'll take a week or two to get this down until it's automatic so I can start singing. The solos seems easy and it appears to be in B pent-minor. I'll see if I can find some time to transcribe it and I haven't transcribe anything for a couple of months now.

After Mother, I plan to go back to Back in Black. There's still one section I'm not good at and I think I should be able to sing it at the same time, too. I didn't even consider that a few months ago. Plus, I didn't do anything with the solo since I haven't learn all my minor pent positions at the time.

I been messing with Fade to Back's acoustic part now and then. I think it's becoming automatic now so that's a good candiate to sing over later.

This may be my music pipeling from now. Stage 1 is mastering the guitar part, and stage 2 is singing over it. This lets me keep 2 new songs in my pipeline at any given time.

Simple Bass Fills

When progressing to a new chord, walk up or down the scale to the new chord. Also useful to make the exising chord interesting if playing it for many measures.

Ibanez AG86

I just picked this guitar up from a store during lunch. It's a hollow body guitar that looks and sounds great. Amazing what you get for the price these days. I won't even bother to get it setup until the season changes.

Relearning Blues You Can Use

I started to record the first 4 songs from Blues You Can Use. For some, I play over a backing tracking and others a lead over the original material.

For the first two lessons which I use as the original material as rhythm tracks, so I pretty know where I am in the 12 bar progression when I play each part. The thing to work on there is listening and adding meaningful fills based on the underlining chord and which chord is coming up next.

For the second two songs, I play a 12 bar progression and then add the original material over it. I'm able to do just focusing on the drum beat, because I've internalize the songs. But I want to listen to the rhythm guitar too. So I'll break the original material into sections or phases. I'll listen to the chord changes and add sections as appropriate. I believe this will allow me to integrate the stuff I learn into my own playing.

Blues on My Own

I stop taking lessons for about a month now. I been working through Blues You Can Use(BYCU) and transcriping some old Blues songs. The songs and scales in BYCU are very simple, but I'm taking my time and making sure I'm getting all the lessons. I transcribed the first 4 songs, then went back and learn the actually songs from tab and make sure I got the timing down. I can play them with the CD, but I want to record with the drum machine and make is sound good, too.

I'm also writing my own songs based on these lessons to get some more mileage out of the lessons and just cause it seems like the thing to do.

My two new amps are a '73 Champ and a new Songworks 3350LT. The first one is clean until you crank it and pick hard. The latter starts on dirty and goes into all types of great power tube distortion zones at room volumes.

I also build up a pedal board, but haven't used it much since getting the 3350.

Even my wife said my playing is better, and my kids don't seem to mind it much either.

5 Month Update

Damn, it's been 5 months already and I still suck. The guy I jammed with never call back, but that may be a good thing. I wasn't too interested in playing those songs right now. I did tighten up on my rhythm for Back in Black, learn most of Fade to Black, and play with two CCR songs I know with vocals.

I was getting pretty frustrated with the Blues and improvasation. I couldn't really get it without playing licks, which makes it sound force. Last night, I started going with chord tones and focus much more on listening to the chord progression. The results were much better. I was really sloppy since my mind was doing 2 things at once, but it's starting to resemble music as oppose to some guy running scales or patterns.

I trascribe the first lesson in "Blues you can use" on the drive to work last week. I mostly transcribe the 2nd lesson on the drive this morning. I also transcibed the rhythm section for Albert King's "Matchbox Blues" and started working on the solo.

Try to Get Out

I threw out the old practice plan. I posted on craigslist and found some guy to play with. So I learned Back in Black and For Whom the Bell Tolls to jam with him. Turns out Bell Tolls doesn't work with 2 guitarist(too boring but worked well when I had a 5 piece band), so we're moving on to Fade to Black instead. Hopefully he'll call me for another session, but who knows. I'v also contacted some guy who wants to start a CCR band, but he's still waiting for a drummer and singer. Phil gave me a good suggestion for singing practice. Sing the chord tone for a chord. Eventually, take 2 or 3 chords and build a melody with the chord tones and sing over the corresponding chords. Also don't bother to use a tuner to check my singing, it's rock and not opera. I'm actually surprise how well I did, but I guess my ears has gotten better the past 3 months.

Short term goals:
1. Fade to Black (new)
2. Lesson 1 for Blues you can Use. Still need to load the CD and master that E7 with the streched pinky fingering. I already know the scale and the other chords. I'll try to sing the scale and transcribe the Texas Blues song by ear.
3. Polish up Back in Black rhythm
4. Who'll stop the rain with vocals
5. Bad Moon Raising with vocals