Bending Lead

I think I've mentioned the pentatonic scales.  If you want a definition, you'll have to look it up.  But I have been practicing them and though I'm not very fast I've gotten some faster.  More importantly, however, is practicing the down and up string strum technique.

Stringstrumstringstrumstringstrum.  Hahaha!!  That's hard to say.

Anyway, John wanted me to practice listening to the relationship between the notes so he could start teaching me "lead."  Now, the nephew Conner, achieves this seemingly without effort.  He's all up and down the scales, bending strings and filling in the blanks with good licks.  Me?  Not so much.  Again, I will attribute this to the difference between a "musician" (that would be Conner) and a "technician" (that would be me.)

Eric Johnson

Knowing what a fan of Eric Johnson I am, John told me that he plays a lot of his leads in these scales so that afternoon as I chopped vegetables with the stereo on in the background I was able to hear EJ playing lead within those scales and I thought, Cool.  It's sort of the way a writer begins to read differently because they're not only reading the story, they are also able to pick out particularly good or bad writing.

I recorded myself playing a blues phrase over and over and then played it back to practice lead scales on, but I didn't feel I was very successful and honestly, the whole idea doesn't interest me that much to begin with.  I'll leave that to the true musicians.  I can bend strings pretty well, but my rhythm-deficiency limits my success with that too.

I am, however, making some progress with "Johnny B. Goode."  The epiphany I had while writing a previous post of this blog related to the string-strum method mentioned above.  The last three notes of the second bar (and the same phrase thereafter) were being executed neither with rhythm nor skill.  And then I realized I should be strumming down and up instead of just down.  It's made a lot of difference.  I'm still not very good at it, but it's coming along.

Chuck Berry

I also changed picks for "Johnny B. Goode."  I looked for my Joe Bonamassa picks because I knew they were small and heavy but I only found one.  WTH?  I know I gave Conner some, but did I have to give him nearly all of them?  Sheesh!

Horses and Harmonics

Souvenir guitar from
Virginia Beach

John introduced me to the pentatonic scale--Gm and A (or is it Am?) to be specific.  This takes a good deal of coordination just to play it as in "scale exercises," nevermind trying to improvise a lead phrase of my own.  So one night during practice, my husband asks, "What's  that you're playing?  It sounds like 'My Girl.'"  Yes, that's right.  The Temptations song from 1964.  I was like, "What?"  I couldn't think of anything I'd practiced that sounded like "My Girl."  I kept trying to hear it, but as far as I could tell, it wasn't there.  I asked John about it at my next lesson and he showed me the phrase I was listening for.  Okay, maybe I could see how they were related.  And now I can play it for my husband.  He's my biggest supporter.  (:grin:)

I continued (and continue) to practice "Funk 49" and scales.  Then John added in harmonics and the galloping horse sound, as in the beginning of Heart's "Barracuda."  Admit it, you can hear it in your head right now!  He was pleased that I even knew what he meant by "harmonics" and I think he's been pleased with my execution of them, but the galloping horse sound was a bit more difficult for me to master.

Now, I know all you real guitar players out there are probably laughing out loud at my clumsiness, and I felt like an idiot trying to get my small, heavy pick to do this.  I thought, Hmm . . . maybe I need a more flexible pick.  I looked through my pick dish and found a nice, medium Fender pick that I've had forever and  -- voila! -- there it was!  Yea!  John told me I'd have to use one pick or the other, though.  I couldn't be changing picks out to suit the song.  I'm back to a heavy pick, but it's larger than the original one.  Hahaha!!  You should've seen the look on his face when I reached into my pocket for the other pick. 

The next stop on the harmonics train was the first few bars of "Roundabout" by Yes.  It's mostly recognizable when I play it and I'm proud of the harmonics work but, as usual, my rhythm execution leaves much to be desired. (sigh)

We all know what the musician says when asked how to get to Carnegie Hall . . .

Next up:  New chords, "Purple Haze" and "Melissa."