Blues in Bm Jam Take 3 w/LP

So when taking a new guitar out for a spin, it's always good to take it into familiar territory to see how it compares. When taking my new LP Standard Plus around the block, I have to say I thought "ah, yes, THIS is what it is supposed to be like". I guess I'm a victim of my influences :-).

My chops were actually better when I tried out the PRS, but there are some nice moments in this :-). It's amazing what adding a single note to the pentatonic box can do! I've been going through the China Grove lesson and find I can totally nail the tone with this guitar. For me, that's quite the inspiration.

What I find I like most about this new guitar is it has the feel of my strat (the slim LP 60's profile neck matches my strat neck along with low action) with the jazzy and bluesy tones of the LP. I still love my strat, but I can get the same playability of my strat and get LP tones!

Guess I'm a sucker for the classics - this LP is a keeper!!

For your listening enjoyment if you so care...:
https://app.box.com/s/yiwv5nt8j6bsfs0f2yn6

Enjoy!

Very nice! This is the kind of music I aspire to.
Tom

Nicely done Rich. You're right - great tones.

Thanks for listening guys :-). I loaded my 3 versions of this to listen to in the car and I have to say that the LP tones are more appealing to me. The PRS wasn't horrible, but just not totally what I was after. The strat sounds just like it should :-).

The neck on this guitar feels almost like my strat, and I love the feel of my strat neck. So it's a bit of a wierd feeling playing this guitar because my left hand feels like I'm playing a strat but the tone and right hand are all LP.

@tom1951 - keep at it and you'll get there...I promise These solos don't feature fancy technique or exotic scales. 99.99% of it is straight forward "boring" pentatonic shapes in different positions. I like to make these recordings and play them in my car and my home stereo. I listen for parts that sound interesting to me and determine why. It gives me a 3rd party perspective on my playing which I find very helpful.

The biggest thing that strikes me with these recordings is how dynamics really play a large role in making the solo appealing. When I play more softly, almost fading into the backing track completely, it draws you in. I need to figure out how to do this in a live/band setting. The difficulty there is that on stage I'm not hearing the mix that the audience is hearing, so fading back may mean they can't hear you playing at all :-).

I do have to find a different backing track though. In doing this last one, I had to be very concious of not repeating riffs from my previous recordings. For the most part, I was successful...which is a little victory in itself. It shows I have more purpose in my playing rather than just aimlessly wandering through scale patterns.

Thanks again for listening and giving some feedback!

Hey Rich, just wanted to add my thanks for posting this solo. The notes may come from basic pentatonic scales but when they are played with as much sensitivity as you do here - lovely stuff! Like you say, it's all in the dynamics - so important in the blues. Hope you don't mind but I've downloaded the piece to listen and learn from. Best wishes, Steve

Hi Steve -

Feel free to download - I don't mind at all!! :-). And thanks so much for your complement!! :-). I'm humbled that you want to learn from something I did.

Ander's, who does the blues and rock lessons here, is the MASTER to the minimalist approach. Don't get me wrong, he has some great technical chops, but his improvisational blues approach is just amazing. He's the guy that showed me this path. Well, he and David Gilmour :-).

Rich

Great job!
sounded good and dynamic!

Thanks markm0926!!

I brought this guitar to band rehearsal the other night. It's a keeper! Felt great even after playing it standing up for over an hour.

Hey rich.
Good job on your soloing.
Its gets better everytime,i like the tone u have.i been so busy havent had time to jump on gt.
How ya doin

Hi Axe!!

I'm doing well...how about you?

Thanks for having a listen and commenting. I just love this new guitar!!! The tone and the feel of the strumming hand is everything I love about my faded LP and the neck is everything I love about my strat. For me it's a winning combination. I'm still pleasantly surprised every time I pick the guitar up.

I've kind of beaten this to death, so next time around I think I will find another backing track. I have a good handle on the laid back mellow thing. I need to get some higher tempo higher energy stuff under my belt. I also want to venture out of the pentatonic box a bit more.

Stay tuned...

Hey rich.iam doin fine thanks for asking.
It's cool that ur digging ur new guitar.
Hows ur band goin? What i would like and maybe and i mean a big maybe is to buy an eleven rack it comes with pro tools,its pretty cool .
I had become a member of guitar zoom.com,free member ship. I made one purchas for $2 for a dvd of 26 texas blues licks ,and whats cool about it ur lesson is allso on their site.and they send me other dvds and tabs for free.
Not a bad deal.

The "new" band is starting out OK. I had to miss this week's rehearsal so I could go to my son's pre-school graduation. The drummer emailed me saying it was a "disaster". I'm awaiting details...not sure just what type of disaster occurred. I'm hoping it was an overreaction :-).

The guitar zoom deal sounds great! Cool.

An eleven rack is on my radar too. Anders and Douglas S. use it here and have great things to say about it. In the meantime, my Zoom G5 is filling my needs.

That sounded great! Thanks for sharing! :cool:

Thanks icebreaker for both listening and giving feedback! I'm really glad you enjoyed it!!

Adding the 9th to the pentatonic sounds great
For some that might not no off it.
In short ,box one of the min pentatonic.
1st string 7th fret
Happy playin!!

Sounds pretty good. I personally liked your first "Blues in Bm" a bit better, but this is quite good too.

I've been spending some time those past few days re-locating some stuff, so my music-room/studio/rehearsal space is a bit less chaotic, and I've gotten an iMac nearly for free that I've just installed Ableton on, so I have a feeling that I might get into experimenting a bit with Ableton again. If something good (or anything, really) comes out of it, I'll make sure to share it :)

Thanks for having a listen Kasperow. Of the 3, the one I made with the PRS is my favorite. I had made that one right after being done with the last music store band and I felt "on". With the LP one (this one), I felt like I was trying more to NOT play things for fear of repeating myself. The more I've listened to it I've warmed up to it though. As Primus says on the title of their greatest hits album "they can't all be zingers!". :-).

That's cool that you got your practice/rehearsal space cleared up. Doing that can make a big difference. I did something similar back in January and it really got me going in the right direction.

Good luck with Ableton. It would be awesome if you could post some recordings!

Originally Posted by: maggiorThanks for having a listen Kasperow. Of the 3, the one I made with the PRS is my favorite. I had made that one right after being done with the last music store band and I felt "on". With the LP one (this one), I felt like I was trying more to NOT play things for fear of repeating myself. The more I've listened to it I've warmed up to it though. As Primus says on the title of their greatest hits album "they can't all be zingers!". :-).

That's cool that you got your practice/rehearsal space cleared up. Doing that can make a big difference. I did something similar back in January and it really got me going in the right direction.

Good luck with Ableton. It would be awesome if you could post some recordings!

Yeah, the music room needed it. Really. Before, I had less than 1 square meter of empty floor, now I have at least 12 square meters, so it's a massive improvement. Now I just need to make it look inspiring too... Maybe a Stack would help? For some reason I always feel inspired when looking at or playing through a Stack (not necessarily Marshall. There are plenty of good brands out there)... They're just way too loud for home-use and I doubt I can justify buying one as long as I'm not in a band... Or maybe just a Thunderbird Bass? After all, I've been intending to learn to play Bass as well for some time now, so maybe I should try and see if I can find a cheap Thunderbird somewhere? Anything to make the music room more inspiring!

I'll try messing around with Ableton when I get the time. Just don't expect quite the same style as my last shared recording. My ideal lineup has changed in favour of keys instead of double guitars after the Aerosmith gig last month. I'll still try and make something that sounds cool, though :cool:

To make my space inspring, I have an "Abbey Road" road sign hanging over my desk. I'm a pretty big Beatles fan and Abbey Road is my favorite album of theirs. I also have a poster on the wall with Jimmy Page, Bob Marley, Jimi Hendrix, and Pete Townsend on it that I got for free from Musician's Friend.

I've never played through a stack before...just combo amps. The rehearsal space we will be using in a couple of weeks has 2 - a Marshall and a Crate. They aren't equipped with tube heads, but they are stacks with 4x12 cabs! That should be interesting :-).

Originally Posted by: maggiorTo make my space inspring, I have an "Abbey Road" road sign hanging over my desk. I'm a pretty big Beatles fan and Abbey Road is my favorite album of theirs. I also have a poster on the wall with Jimmy Page, Bob Marley, Jimi Hendrix, and Pete Townsend on it that I got for free from Musician's Friend.

I've never played through a stack before...just combo amps. The rehearsal space we will be using in a couple of weeks has 2 - a Marshall and a Crate. They aren't equipped with tube heads, but they are stacks with 4x12 cabs! That should be interesting :-).

I suppose saying I've played through a Stack is an overstatement. I've tried a few, and most of them were awesome. I can say the same thing about the Peavey Valveking combo and some of the Fender Tube Combos. Heck, right now, the most used amp model in my Fender Mustang is the '57 Deluxe Reverb, solely because of its beautiful tone. I'm not quite sure what the difference between the different Reverb amps is, though (Deluxe Reverb, Twin Reverb, Princeton Reverb and so on)... Fender FUSE doesn't exactly help me much there, even though I have all models available in my Mustang...

Right now, I just have my gear, my studio computer with Ableton and two posters on the walls. One of The Beatles, one of the cover-art to Appetite For Destruction. I'm going to see if I can get a decently sized black-and-white print of a close-up photo I got of Joe Perry at an Aerosmith gig last month and hang that up on the wall too. I still can't believe I was standing less than 15 meters from Joe most of the time!