(RL) Guitar Players

[KWood@lightbridge.com]

I'm interested to hear any guitar-related (or any other instrument for that
matter) work done by members of this list.  Even if it's just some 4-track
noodling to illustrate some idea you're working on now or have in the past.
*Especially* sketches and noodles!

I don't have anything right now to illustrate what I'm working on now,
which is mainly building chords and then breaking them up into arppegios
and scales.  I'm trying to see the scales in the chords and the chords in
the scales, all the while focusing on seeing, hearing and feeling the
intervals.  Beyond that, I look for riffs and little melodies, using notes
outside of the scales to lead to notes within the scales.  All very slowly
and methodically at this point.  My ability to do this 'real time' is still
laughably inadequate.   I'm listening to a LOT of bebop old and new,
because that seems to be the gist of what they are doing.

I'm working with Richard's exercises as well as with some basic chord and
play-along jazz books.   I try (more successfully now than ever before) to
play every night, even if it's just for a quick run through of Richards
scale patterns/mode exercises, and when I'm using the books it doesn't
bother me like it used to to spend a week and a half on a single page.

The race is over, along with my old desire for some sort of rock 'stardom'
(to be honest, it's still there to a degree, but in a drastically less
urgent and anxiety-inspiring form - I want to be a star to myself, my
friends and my family - anything else is extra).  Right now I'm just
enjoying the feeling of moving forward at any pace, and side-stepping the
usual demons that like to rail on about all the things I presently can't
do.  When I can't side-step them, I sit and let them have their say a while
while I run through scale patterns and chords that don't require a whole
lot of judgement or creativity but are enormously benificial all the same.
Gotta get that stuff into our neurology...

I do have some stuff from an old surf band of mine called the Projectiles,
with one link to originals on mp3.com and another link to a secret stash of
covers.

I'm the dirtier-sounding of the two guitars on most of the songs, and in
the few moments when I do escape from the standard 'blues box' riffing,
it's with (was with - the band is long defunct) a lot of help from our bass
player who was a Berklee-trained player with a very open mind and generous
spirit when dealing with musical punks!  In other cases, like 'Slaughter on
10th Ave' (my favourite Ventures song of all time,) I'm just copying what I
heard on the record whether I understood a note of it or not.  All the
songs were done in a studio (Cold Room - anyone remember?) and there's no
midi rhythm tracks or anything like that (not that there's anything *wrong*
with that... ; ).

To play the songs you might have to right-click and save (or whatever the
Mac equivalent of that is).  I haven't figured out how to write a tag for
mp3's that will load them with a single click.

I intend to put forth some short tracks of the more personal and
noodly/sketch variety, and am looking forward to seeing and hearing what
others on the list are doing and have done.

Maybe Richard will do the same!  (wouldn't it be cool to get a taste of
what he does when he puts on the headphones and plugs into his POD?)

http://projectiles.brennick.com

Endless Fridays and Happy Joy,

-kent



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