Standing At The Crossroads

So, since coming back from vacation I've been trying to make a decision about the way forwards. Do I focus on strumming and do the open mic thing? Do I lay down some demo tracks and put them out there online? Do I just go all out trying to find other local musicians to form a band?

Whatever I do, I still have to keep up the practice and make sure it's structured as opposed to just reverting to form and noodling aimlessly. Structure is good for me, though I naturally rebel against it! To some extent I feel like I've been in limbo this week. What with going away on holiday then catching up at work, I've barely touched my guitars.

I think one of the most important things for me to do right now is to start learning to play songs from start to finish. My first song selection will be... (drum roll)... a solo acoustic version of "Outside Woman Blues". I've been listening to a lot of Hendrix lately and have the urge to tackle some of his funkier stuff but I already know half of "Outside Woman Blues" (and it sounds cool and somewhat Hendrixy, using a punchy E7#9 chord) I might as well learn the rest. How hard can it be, really?

I'm giving strong consideration to attending a brand new blues jam tonight, just around the corner from Oxford Circus in London. The only thing holding me back is that I'm knackered from work. Hey, tomorrow's Friday, right? Who needs sleep when the weekend's on the way? If I do go along I'll let you know whether it was a hit or a miss. I don't expect it to be too busy (famous last words) as it's the first time it's taking place.

Venue? The Old Explorer pub on 23 Great Castle Street, kick-off at 8:30pm.

If I don't go along tonight then I'll probably try it next week.

So... what am I going to do to move The Project forwards? I'm torn between doing the 'open mic' thing and the 'record demos' thing.

For now I'm putting the 'join a band' option on ice for the simple reason that it seems to be really hard unless you run in the right circles. Open mic-ing might put me in those circles. I've been searching for band stuff on the internet recently using a number of different websites with absolutely no success. Either I'm selling myself wrong or the sites simply don't work, at least for me. They seem to be populated by 15-18 year olds looking for similar. When it comes time to look for bandmates (unless they find me!) I think I'll resort to the old school methods of posting flyers in music stores and so on.

I guess if I'm working towards open mic-ing then I can always record demos along the way as part of the process of learning songs. Let's see, I've got 272 days remaining, according to my countdown clock... that's three quarters of the year. Gotta just keep up the momentum and catch my second wind. I guess that gives me a date for the calendar: July 1st will be halfway through 2008 and hence midpoint for the project.

One More Week To Go

Well, I had my last but one session at WAES (Westminster Adult Education Services) on Saturday. Pretty neat. Went through more chord inversion stuff. I can see them being useful when composing. Had a "D'Oh" moment in class where I suddenly realised that if you have 2 bars of 4 beats then if you're picking out 3 triad notes then 3 into 8 (2 times 4 beats) does not go! Solution: cycle twice through the triad then only play 2 notes (making 8 beats) and start again.

That makes no sense, so here's an example:



While I've got the ol' microphone hooked up, here's the main riff from Cream's "Outside Woman Blues" that I was talking about in previous posts:



It was the last class for one of the guys, J, as he can't make it next week. He got to perform his song a week early! J chose to do a version of Neil Young's "The Needle & The Damage Done". I'm not a huge Neil fan, though I probably should be as I love his stuff with Crazy Horse, so I didn't know the song well.

I was actually surprised by J's performance... in a good way! It wasn't a perfect rendition by any means and J's not the most confident of players, but at times when he lost his place he managed to pick up the beat and keep going. Moreover, he sang whilst playing which always impresses me. That skill is beyond me at this time.

At the end of class we did the email exchange thing... which probably means that the more computer savvy of my classmates will find this blog if they do a search! If you do then hey! Say hi! Hopefully I've not said anything too controvertial about you guys in that past. I'm not going to go back and check as whatever I've said is what I felt at the time. If there's something you can say about me is that I tell it how I see it.

Now, this weekend I was going to do the 'hey, look at my stuff' thing and photograph my equipment (be nice) so that people know what my setup is. However, Tim took the camera with him to his residential weekend, so that ain't happening.

I did, however, run across two photos I snapped a while back... one a loooong while back. I used to want to be a photographer and even had my own darkroom. I could never find anyone to sit for me, though, so I'd do the occasional self-portrait. Judging by the guitar I'm holding, a 40th Anniversary '54 Strat reissue, I'm guessing that I took the photo below somewhere between 1994 and 1996. Do the maths. The Strat was actually a really nice guitar. I sold it. Moron.

Here's the photo, reproduced using my cameraphone...



For comparison I snapped another photo just before Christmas this year of me with my new pride and joy. May I introduce my beeaauutiful Les Paul Standard, 'Red Dog'.



I swear I will NEVER sell this guitar! Only one more week to go and I can play it again! Can't wait!

eBlurp

No time for a real post, so here's a two minute summary of the weekend:

Saturday:
WAES Guitar Improvers course. Didn't have to perform song! Yay! Two more weeks to go until end-of-term. Hopefully I'll be able to convince the other guys to stay in touch and maybe get together for jam sessions after that. Right now it doesn't seem very likely, though. Did some blues stuff, highlighting variation in major and minor soloing. Plan on practicing that! Need to do backing tracks.

Sunday:
Woke up with the hook for a tune running round my head. Figured out tune, backing chords and drum beat. Tim's going to be away on his residential course from Friday, so I should have time to work on it.

Started learning "Outside Woman Blues" as performed by Eric Clapton on the Classic Albums "Disraeli Gears" DVD (special features). Deceptively simple.

Watched "A Film About Jimi Hendrix" documentary. Not a great show but hey, I've never really got into Jimi, but if I'm gonna be a Rock God I need to study the opposition, right?!

Heard this morning that blues/rock/jazz guitarist Jeff Healey died over the weekend. I had planned on seeing his upcoming show in London. He was due to be supported by rising blues act The Oli Brown Band. Wikipedia already shows Jeff as being dead! Wow. Really... eVersion of chasing ambulances.