Thursday, September 19, 2024 turned out to be one of the best days of my life.
My wife left that morning.
For a 5 day trip-to-the-mountains with her sister and our nieces.
I looked forward to "working on guitar".
I've had decent electric guitars for almost 50 years.
Never had a clue what to do with them.
Put 'em away and get out the acoustic.
Recently, I had been teaching myself electric-rock-rhythm.
While watching a video (on rhythm) a guy put up all 5 pentatonic patterns.
I've known about the main/first pattern for a long time (figured that out myself as a kid).
I could always noodle around with that. It was barely serviceable. Boring, no real feeling, no "music".
But I can do the backup leads and fills if ya want to play a few Jim Croce songs (did a duo act in bars). Just memorization.
I also knew there were other patterns, but I never paid much attention.
Occasionally, I've gone down the "guitar hero solo monster" rabbit hole.
Always a huge waste of time.
I still always suck.
Seeing all 5 patterns at once, it occurred to me (duh) that they fit together. (that's how clueless I was)
I decided to see if I could actually memorize them, figuring I would fail and then be able to put this away forever.
Forever.
Besides, I've realized that being a rock rhythm player is really where all the fun is anyway - and I've always got Brent to do all that soloing stuff.
So I started playing the first "box" over and over.
Then I added the 2nd box and worked at remembering that - and bouncing between those 2 boxes
- etc., etc., blah, blah..add...add...add...
....going over and over and over that. All day.
At some point, it started sounding like music.
I went to bed at 2 AM, after 10 hours of this.
On Friday, I went at it again. This time, just.... playing.
After 8 hours of that, I thought I would see if I could actually record something.
BIAB. Another hour of playing/recording.
I could not touch anything with the fingers on my left hand for 3 days.
That's the story. This is what popped out.
....what I recorded for my first attempt, that second day.
My first-ever instrumental.
Although it's really just noodling. No real song structure.
I'll call it my first journal entry of "walking a new path".
(While continuing down those others)
RealTracks in song: ~684:Bass, Electric, PopHalfNotesSync Ev 120
RealTracks in style: 1262:Piano, Acoustic, Rhythm PopShiningHeld Ev 120
RealTracks in style: 2929:Guitar, Acoustic, Rhythm PopFunkyJoe Ev16 110
RealTracks in song: 2905:Guitar, Electric, Rhythm BrightBluesyPopColin Ev 100
RealTracks in song: 1399:Guitar, Electric, Rhythm Soul70sBrightSync Ev16 100
RealTracks in song: 4249:Guitar, Electric, Rhythm BluesFunky Ev 120
RealDrums in style:PopRock16ths^01-a:Snare, HiHat , b:Snare, Ride
Shaker loop from Studio One
Two tracks of Addictive Drums
I played guitar. Fender Strat ('94) through Amplitube 5 (a preset I created)
DANCING IN OUR SOCKS Say something.
fj