WAES Rockschool, Week #3 (I Think!?!)

We're coming into half term, so we have a break next week. That's probably a good thing, given how my work life is killing me at the moment. REAL LIFE SUCKS! If you get the chance, learn guitar young, become the mysterious sexy one in a band, act like an delinquent a-hole and ride that ticket all the way. Seriously. It's the best advice that career officers won't give you at school.

Anywho...

Rockschool! I have to say I'm liking Teach's style more and more. He has this insightful 'cut to the punchline' kind of methodology. You're there to learn music but look, there's a guitar in your hands, let's use that to figure this stuff out.

Case and point: last night was about starting to look at song structure with a view to writing our own material. First up... what's a major key and how do you find the basic chords within that key?

Did he start with the whole interval thing as most do? Nope. His approach was basically to say that if you want to play the major chords in a key, find the E-shape barre chord with that root note. Easy. That's your I. Directly below it is your IV chord in the A-shape. Two frets up from the IV is the V, again in A-shape. What's the I-IV-V? Basic structure for many, many songs. Now, anyone who's played for a while could tell you that, but what about the minor chords? Well, without going into the ins and outs of relative minors, modes and all that he basically said 'don't use your brain, use your guitar'.

To find the minor chords, start from the I, move down 3 frets and in the Em shape, that's your VI. Follow the same procedure of playing the Am shape beneath it then moving up two frets and there are your II and III chords. So, if you're composing, you have 6 of the 7 fundamental chords in that key. How about the VII? The diminished one? Not writing a jazz song? Don't worry about it for now.

So, in the space of 5 minutes he gave us budding songmeisters the tools for writing a song in any major key, using the guitar as a kind of 'magic decoder ring' type affair. For me it was a great revelation. I knew all the theory already, but having it circumvented to get people writing songs right off the bat? Very cool.

Over half term we have to each write a simple song using that technique... chords for verse, bridge, chorus, the rhythm and a melody. Next time we'll pair up, teach our partner our song, learn theirs and then perform them.

It may all seem very rudimentary, but sometimes getting back to basics is a great way of moving forward.

Rockschool Week #2

Okay, so the 'situation' with Rockschool became a lot clearer last night. From what I gathered, for WAES to get funding from Rockschool themselves (or the study materials, accreditation etc at a reduced rate at least) they needed the numbers. Not enough people? Sorry... pay full price per student. With two new folks joining in this week we have a full compliment and we are ready to ROCK!

Rockschool isn't specifically about rock, though. It's more about popular music of any type... y'know, giving you the building blocks to play and write songs. Funding is available up to the Grade 3 level, so that's the exam we're shooting for at the end of the school year in June. To get to Grade 3, we'll quickly run through the other grades, too.

Here's a more detailed guide:

Grade 1
These should be played at 80 beats per minute (bpm) in a straight feel: quarter notes.

Group A Scales 1 octave
• C major scale
• A natural minor scale
• E & A minor pentatonic scales

Group B Chords:
• Power chords: B5, A5, G5 Two note chords to be played as a continuous sequence
• Major chords: A, D & E
• Minor chords: Am, Dm & Em

Group C Riff. The riff is played over a four bar backing track. The initial riff pattern is given and candidates are asked to complete the riff by playing the same pattern over a different chord in the subsequent three bars.

Grade 2
These should be played at 100 bpm in a straight feel: quarter notes

Group A Scales 1 octave
• C & G major scales
• E & A natural minor scale
• C & G minor pentatonic scales

Group B Chords:
• Power chords: B5, A5, G5 Three note chords to be played as a continuous sequence
• Major chords: C, F & G
• Minor chords: Am7, Dm7 & Em7

Group C Riff. The riff is played over an eight bar backing track. The initial riff pattern is given (two bars) and candidates are asked to complete the riff by moving the same pattern on to the indicated root of a different chord over the subsequent bars.

Grade 3
These should be played at 60 bpm in a straight feel: eighth notes

Group A Scales 2 octaves to be prepared in the keys of G, A and B
• Major scales
• Natural minor scale
• Minor pentatonic scales
• Blues Scales

Group B Arpeggios 2 octaves to be prepared in the keys of G, A and B
• Major arpeggios
• Minor arpeggios

Group C Chords:
• Barre chords: G, Am, Bm to be played as a continuous sequence
• Dominant 7 chords: A7, C7, D7 & E7 to be prepared in open position or in barre chord form

Group D Riff. The riff is played over an eight bar backing track. The initial riff pattern is given (two bars) and candidates are asked to complete the riff by moving the same pattern on to the indicated root of a different chord over the subsequent bars.

Right, so... I should already be good to jump into a Grade 3 exam and pass with flying colours. When you list it out, it sounds like a lot of stuff, but it really isn't. Similar patterns in different places on the neck.

BUT... that doesn't mean I'm jaded about the whole thing. Oh no! First thing to say is that "Teach" is really good. I was impressed with his style last week, and this week he continued to move the group along at a pace yet zone in on individual difficulties. He's got a great attitude and has ready answers for all our questions. He's basically said that he's going to teach us the syllabus but also give us lots of extra useful stuff on the side.

The biggest thing I learned last night was that my right hand technique sucks! I learned to play in isolation, back in the days before YouTube... in fact I started even before the internet was born! How scary is that?!?!

Anyway, so I started off playing by anchoring my right hand to the guitar using my ring and pinkie fingers, placed on the pickguard (I had a Squier Strat) below the high E. That's not bad per se, but it means your hand is doing all kinds of stuff it really doesn't need to. If I needed to palm mute I'd move it back and down onto the strings pretty haphazardly. In the fullness of time I taught myself to lift my fingers off the guitar body and use the inside of my forearm as a location point instead, with my hand hovering over the strings. Again, not bad but in sweaty situations it kind of leads to positioning mistakes. My view on playing an instrument is that as long as you're consistently getting the sound you want out of it then that's fine. There are things that you can do to help yourself, though.

Teach suggested that we use the bridge (or at least the strings between the bridge and the tail-piece) as a locator, then if we needed to mute, just pull our right hands forward. Sounds good. Feels weird, obviously, as it's something 'different', but clearly gives much more control and positional accuracy. Put that on the list for homework! I think my wayward right hand technique probably explains why I have difficulty getting up to speed when picking as I invariably lose accuracy. I'm now keen as mustard to get back into practicing scales etc so that I can unlearn that particular bad habit.

The next thing on 'homework' was a repeating pentatonic exercise. Play first 4 notes in box position 1 then loop back to note number 1. Repeat 4 times then start on note 3 and repeat up through 2 and a bit octaves. I know a few pentatonic drills but somehow I missed that one. Obviously when you get the the high E-string you turn around and go back down in reverse.

Oh, and strumming/muting! I've always relied on my left hand lifting off pressure to mute when strumming. Teach explained that you really want it to be a combination of right and left hand muting, so to practice both techniques. I'm really crap at right hand muting when strumming, so I need to practice, practice, practice!

That's the thing about playing guitar... you think you're getting good then BAM, you realise that in some areas you totally suck! You also realise that small changes can make a huge difference. Frankly, if I manage to change my right hand technique and it improves my picking then the course will have been worth the price of entry just for that!

It was one hell of a busy day yesterday. Work then two hours of class then an hour at the gym. In my few spare minutes I managed to look into The Band songlist a bit more, checking out YouTube vids, tabs etc. "Strange Brew" is really turning me on at the moment. I'm dying to try the rhythm part on the electric. "My Generation" looks deceptively simple but I've not had the chance to actually try it yet... oh, and I found a neat video lesson on how to play "Jumpin' Jack Flash" in standard tuning and still make is sound roughly like the Stones' studio recording. It seems like originally it was probably played in an open tuning (G?) and that's how Keef does it live these days. The Band had already discussed whether we should consider doing any covers in open tunings at the meeting on Wednesday and decided that we'd try to avoid them for now as we don't want to be screwing around tuning up guitars onstage...

Onstage...

Hmmm... let's ponder on that a moment...

Let's hope we get that far, eh? I started wondering whether we may actually get out there before the New Year after all. Jo's (the singer) other band have been booked all over the place and she seems to think she'd have no problem getting us in somewhere at very short notice if we can get our crap in a sock (pardon my French!). God, I so hope we can all actually play! It'll totally bite if we're all really keen but we can't get it together. I guess we'll find out what chance we have in under a week!

On that subject, there was a funny moment at the meetup. Bo, the other guitarist was saying that he didn't know what open tunings were, which set off alarm bells as that's pretty basic stuff. I started to wonder whether he knows what he's doing... then we started talking songlists and he expressed a preference for "All Along The Watchtower" over "Foxy Lady" as he could 'already play it'. If he can already play some Hendrix then baby, youse in da band! Hell, you can even stand right up front if you wanna!!!

Other 'Band' news. Rich (bass) says he's been writing loads of lyrics this past week. Will they be good? We'll see! He seems fired up about them, which is great. Him and Jo also seem really keen to choose a band name sooner rather than later. Seems like early days to me, but hey, if they're out there buzzing with ideas then that's a good thing, right? Creativity isn't something you should put on the backburner.

So, this weekend's likely to be pretty guitar intensive. Gotta nail those riffs. Can't be the one who lets the team down.

Band Blurp

Apologies! No time for long post today!

Last night: band meetup. All good. Everyone there. Whittled down songlist to top 5 for first rehearsal next Wednesday as follows:

Wild Thing (The Troggs)
I Wanna Be Your Dog (The Stooges)
Strange Brew (Cream)
My Generation (The Who)
Supersonic (Oasis)

Top two are easy. Just need to get rhythm down. Never tried "My Generation" or "Supersonic" before, so we'll see how they go. I think I'm supposed to be learning the backing part to "Strange Brew", which is cool. I like the Cream stuff which uses a repeating riff for the rhythm. Have to learn it, though. Only ever tried the lead on it before.

So. We're focused. We're set. The SET is SET! Plus we're all keen to bring our own ideas to the table to kick around and see whether we can come up with 'a sound'

Side note: very strange last night. Met at the Royal George, just off Charing Cross Road. It seems that every Wednesday they have a ukelele club night and the basement is packed with players, all jamming along at the same time to stuff like "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and "YMCA". SURREAL!

Oh, and WAES 'Rockschool' (or not) class number 2 tonight. Should be fun, though I do kind of wish I were just going home to wail on some Cream, as it were!

Weekend Transcriptions

Well, finally got the time to sit down with the guitar and transcribe some of the tunes from the new band's songlist.

Obviously "Wild Thing" (The Troggs) and "I Wanna Be Your Dog" (The Stooges) were pretty much no-brainers. "Lola" (The Kinks) wasn't too hard once I'd pulled out a YouTube of the band playing it. I'll admit that I didn't manage to get a good sound from the electric for the strummy bit, though. Sounded much, much better on acoustic.

"Hungry Like The Wolf" (Duran Duran) was surprisingly easy to get some decent licks going with. Let's face it, most of the song relies on the vocalist doing his/her bit.

Of course, it wasn't all playing with the guitar. I did have some other household duties to take care of... such as making sure The Boss was happy...



I actually did spend some time on my WAES Rockschool homework, such as practicing 'rigid pentatonics' with the metronome (which felt good) and learning the notes on the A-string. I don't know why I waited so long to get those down. Pretty much I figured out that the three first dots were C, D and E and that F and G straddled the one on the 9th fret. Bingo. The rest just falls into place. I need to keep reinforcing that by playing chords in E-form, A-form and open, but it's really not hard to learn the notes!

What else? After learning the songs I was 'supposed to' for band, I spent some time with "Sunshine Of Your Love" by Cream. I remember learning the first bit of the intro years ago, but I never bothered with the bit where Eric starts playing barre/power chords rather than single notes. It really isn't difficult and it sounds good when amped up.

Oh, and the other thing that suddenly clicked at the weekend was how you could get a warmer sound and more sustain by rolling off the tone controls. Eric did it. Slash did it. Now I'm doing it...

Are You Ready To Rock???

Rockschool class number one tonight!

I'm looking forward to it but at the same time I'm wondering what level the course will be pitched at. As I understand it, 'Rockschool' is a formalised syllabus for learning to play guitar/bass/drums (pick one!). You measure your progress by working towards exams. I guess it's similar to the 'Registry of Guitar Tutors' courses, only focused specifically on rock/pop bands.

From their own website:

"Rockschool was set up in 1991 to bring the best in pop and rock into mainstream education. We do this by providing exams, publications, advice and support to teachers and educational bodies."

All sounds good, right? Well, obviously if you're getting one-on-one tuition it can be tailored to the individual and hence within the group setting it's not clear which standard will be taught.

According to the syllabus guide, Rockschool teaches 9 grades as follows:

Debut:
In Debut Guitar you will be concentrating on playing tunes. A player of Debut standard should be able to play up to 20 bars of music in 4/4 time, using simple first position melodies composed of whole, half and quarter notes and associated rests, as well as a range of basic first position chords. The pieces very often use open strings and melodies move mainly between adjacent strings.

Easy stuff. Nothing to see here.

Grade 1:
A player of Grade 1 standard should be able to play up to 32 bars of music using first position chords and melodies composed of whole, half, quarter and eighth notes and associated rests, tied notes, and dotted half and quarter notes. Performances should include basic legato and staccato playing where marked.

Still nothing too challenging...

Grade 2:
In this grade you are beginning to acquire a range of physical and expressive techniques, including palm muting and the use of double stops on adjacent strings, simple legato and staccato and slides, as well as simple dynamics. In this grade you will also begin to work on your stylistic appreciation.

Ah, okay, now we're moving forward... 'stylistic appreciation'! Can't say I remember The Stylistics too much, but iTunes has most everything now, so I can download some of their tunes...

Grade 3:
This grade continues the foundation work started in Grade 2. As a player you will be encountering syncopated eighth and sixteenth note strumming as well as developing the palette of expressive techniques to include fretting hand vibrato, hammer ons and pull offs, slides and simple bends. The pieces of music are now longer, covering two pages and you should be developing your stylistic awareness, taking into account amp and pick up settings for each song.

WHAT? Amps have more than one setting??? I'm starting to see the learning curve arc upwards towards the lofty goal of musicianship!

Grade 4:
In this grade you use a range of physical and expressive techniques with confidence, damping and the use of double stops and adjacent strings, legato and staccato, slides, fretting hand vibrato, hammer ons and pull offs, and accents, and you are experimenting with a range of dynamics from very quiet to very loud. In this grade you are continuing to develop your ability to play with stylistic authority.

Okay, sounds like Grade 3 only more so...

Grade 5:
You will be confident in a range of physical and expressive techniques. You will be able to demonstrate your abilities across a number of styles and have control over tone and sound adjustments to suit the playing style of your choice. Please note that some of the tunes may now be written out over three pages.

Right, joking aside I'm guessing that I'm hovering somewhere between Grades 4 and 5. That would put me somewhere around a Karate blue belt, right? Watch out, I'm more dangerous than I first appear!

Grade 6:
In this grade you are developing the confidence of the advanced player across the range of physical and expressive techniques. You will start experimenting with a range of techniques across a number of musical styles. There is a greater emphasis on personal expression and you will display your own musical personality through ad libbing and soloing. Please note that some of the tunes may now be written out over three pages.

Hey, I might stretch up to Grade 6 on a good day after a few espresso shots. Ever closer to black belt!

Grade 7:
In this grade you are now confident in your abilities across the range of physical and expressive techniques. You will be experimenting with a range of these techniques across a number of styles. You will also be comfortable with a range of rhythms and time signatures other than common time. Your solos will be musically expressive and you will have the confidence to apply modal ideas in a number of soloing contexts. Please note that some of the tunes may now be written out over three pages.

Well, I know what modes are and I use a few of them them on occasion but I don't know that I'd say I'm confident using them.

Grade 8:
You will play effortlessly with a wide range of physical and expressive techniques at your command. You will be able to use these at will across a range of styles and musical contexts. You will be comfortable playing pieces employing a number of different time signatures (including changes from bar to bar) and you will display mastery of a number of musical styles. Your solos will be highly musical and employ techniques across the range. You will also be highly sensitive to all aspects of musical presentation. Please note that some of the tunes may now be written out
over four pages.

Whoa! Grade 8 sounds great, doesn't it? Having said that, when I first read it I kinda thought it sounded like a horoscope. You know, "you will play effortlessly with a wide range of physical and expressive techniques at your command" sounds a bit like "you will have difficulties in the workplace but they will be resolved by an unexpected event". No? Oh, okay...

There's a lot more specific syllabus stuff on the Rockschool website in a pdf document here.

Looking at the theory side, I'm probably punching a couple of grades above my technical playing level. Having said that, 'knowing' and 'doing' are two very distinct things when it comes to playing guitar.

So, what do I expect to get out of the course? Well, when I turned up for Week 1 (actually, I think it was, like, Week 3 that I joined in!) of the acoustic course I did with WAES I initially felt that the material was old hat to me. Nevertheless, I persevered with it and what I found was that while I knew lots of what was being taught I was also having huge gaps in my knowledge filled in, not least of which was stuff like 16th note strumming patterns, chord inversions etc. After the final lesson I really felt like I'd benefited.

Now, if we start out on 'Debut' then it's not going to be much fun!!!! The course blurp said that it was going to be pitched at folk who already play guitar, so I can't imagine they'll go that far back! I guess we'll see. I did discuss my 'level' with the course administrator and she seemed to think it'd be fine for me, but then again, she'd obviously been looking to get more bums on seats...

Oh, and as an aside, I'd originally planned on taking my old LP copy to class, but I didn't manage to get it out of storage in time so I'm turning up at the first lesson brandishing Red... Maybe I should sit at the back...

Last Call For Rockschool

I've just heard that Rockschool is definitely going ahead on Thursday. I'm 99% certain it's a good thing, though Thursdays would have been an ideal day for band practice. Shit happens. Can't be helped.

The course administrator sent me the flyer (above) to circulate to anyone who might be interested. I'm not certain of its artistic merit (does it scream 'ROCK' to you?) but hey, it's a government run initiative, I guess, so what do you expect?

Apparently it's still just 5 people who have actually enrolled on the course, but another two have 'promised' to sign up. So, although I'm following through on my 'promise' to post the flyer... I DON'T CARE if anyone else signs up. Ha-ha!

'Small class' equals 'better' in my book. 5-7 plus Teach sounds about right to me. Not that I'm greedy, but I WANT ONE-ON-ONE ATTENTION! Initially I'd looked at this course as another networking possibility, but really, finding guitarists in London is not a problem. Finding bassists and drummers, there's the tricky thing.

So, here it is, last chance to enrol before the course starts. Take it or leave it. Yes... I'll still make good on the 'free beer' offer from before... hrmph!

Rockschool... Places Available!

Okay, so this sucks.

The new WAES (Westminster Adult Education Service) course "Rockschool - Electric Guitar Skills" was supposed to start last week, but it was postponed until tomorrow. I just heard that it's been bumped by another week. Why? Well, it seems that in order for it to be viable from a budget point of view they need 8 students and so far they only have 5 people signed up. I just spoke with Hilary Robinson, the music department Course Team Leader as WAES, and she said that she's working to get a couple more people in so that they can run it. They've printed up some postcards. Have you seen one? Me neither. I figure I'd post something here to see whether I can drum up interest myself.

So, if you read this blog and are interested in getting cheap instruction in a group setting then please, please, please, contact Hilary (Tel: 020 7641 7891) and sign up. If you want more info then feel free to contact me and I'll tell you what I can. I've been on a WAES course before and it was pretty damn good. You can check out their website here.

"This course is designed for people with a little previous experience of playing the electric guitar who would like to develop their skills and prepare for a Rockschool Electric Guitar grade exam in a year of lessons. Rockschool syllabus materials and exam fees are included in the course price."

You basically get weekly 2-hour group sessions, 6-8pm in Pimlico/Victoria for a 28-week academic year at a cost of around £280. Do the maths... that's professional guitar teaching by Alistair Pope (his website is here) at £5 an hour. You also get to play in a small group setting, meet other guitarists, interact, exchange ideas... all good stuff.

Plus, you get to improve in a structured fashion and take an exam at the end. I'm certain they'll give you a certificate which you can frame and hang in your bathroom, too...

C'MON! WHAT MORE DO YOU NEED?

Ok, look... FINAL OFFER. If you sign up and the course goes ahead... I'll buy you a frikkin' beer, alright?

Metal Update

After a few weeks of uncertainty I've managed to clarify what the position with me and the metal band is... or at least I think I have.

The party line is that I'm more than welcome to learn the songs, come along and play at rehearsals as and when I can/I want to. 'The band' per se is still in an emergent state and so it's not really a case of who's in the band and who isn't right now, it's predominantly a handful of musicians getting together, shaking the tree and seeing what (if anything) falls out. I made it pretty clear that I don't currently see it as a permanent thing (though who knows... maybe I'll have an untapped talent for it!) but for now it's better to be playing with other people than not, right?

I've not had the chance to practice many of the tunes on their songlist, so I need to get back on the horse and dig my heels in. The other guys are clearly way ahead of me as far as learning the songs goes, which seems to concern me more than it does them!

I still have other feelers out there. Still waiting for some callbacks [cough]. I actually do think that in the long run that the only way things are going to happen the way I want them to is for me to take the wheel and put a band together myself. In the meantime, though, I'm gaining experience of how studios work etc, which is all valuable stuff. None of it's hard, but when you don't know stuff, you don't know stuff, right?

What else..?

Erm... the WAES Rock School course should be starting next Thursday. Really looking forward to that! I just spoke with the head of music there and she said that she expects the course to go ahead, though they currently haven't reached the required minimum number of students. D'Oh! SO... anyone out there who's interested, check out the WAES website here. The course is from 6-8pm on Thursdays in the Victoria/Pimlico area.

Evening update:

OW! ARMS HURT! BACK HURTS! EARS BLEEDING! METAL FATIGUE... AGAIN!

"Seek & Destroy" sought me out... and destroyed me!

Wicked...

Yes, I know, hardly Rock & Roll lifestyle but...



...went to see "Wicked" last night. Surprisingly good show! Can't remember most of the songs but I don't think that's the point with this kind of narrative musical. The performances were great, especially by the two witches... Es... Esmer... Esmeranti? And... [cough]... Blondie?

Anyway, names aren't important. The important thing is that it was a good night out. A veritable spectacle!

I'm not going to go into details, but "Wicked" is actually the reason that I have less than six degrees of separation from BRITNEY! It's your typical family to friend to room mate to celeb type of thing. Maybe I shouldn't have said that. I'll come home to find the place overrun by paps...

Just heard from my Heavy Metal crew that band practice is on Saturday this week. Not only am I supposed to be at a rugby match in Reading (of all places) but I should also have houseguests that evening. Scheduling conflict! Something's going to have to give... Note to potential bandmates: PRACTICE DURING THE WEEK, PLEASE!!!!

...except Thursday nights, that is. I decided that I got so much out of the last guitar course I took in terms of keeping me focused and progressing that I'd sign up for another one, organised by the Westminster Adult Education Service (WAES). It's on Thursday nights and is basically a Rock Techniques class. We'll see how it goes... right now I'm not 100% sure that they've got enough people signed up to run the course, so it may be a non-starter. It's supposed to kick off next week. Watch this space!

Big Day... Yesterday!

Well, I did it. I did my recital of "Taylor". Nobody died. No tears were shed. I made it through alive!

Frank of understandingguitar.org supplied some top tips (see comments from previous posts)... I really wish I'd seen them before performing. In hindsight, they were good ones.

My preview performance for Tim on Friday night didn't even get through the intro. I couldn't hit a note! Incredibly frustrating considering how much practice time I put in this week.

On Saturday morning there were three of us in class: me, G and E. Names commuted to protect the innocent! G jumped in first (smart guy) and did a version of "Before You Accuse Me", taken from Clapton's "Unplugged" DVD. He made it count. Sounded good.

E stepped up to the plate second and put in a rendition of "Hallelujah" by Leonard Cohen. After a couple of false starts she picked out the intro then strummed whilst singing. Again, surprisingly good! The girl can sing!

By this time, my hands were shaking and my palm sweaty. My fingers didn't feel like they would do as instructed. Brief pause. 3 -2 - 1... GO!

Once the ball was rolling I gained some confidence... and speed! Too much speed! Slow down! The performance wasn't stellar, but there were no major screw ups. I fluffed one of the chord changes, going to a G instead of a C, but managed to front my way through it. Like I said, my timing was all over the place, but hey, gimme a break.

Afterwards, Teach said I did okay. He felt the groove in the intro, which was good, as I don't think he actually knew the song. Deconstructed my technique a bit, focussing on how I was strumming whilst anchoring my index finger through the changes. With the pressure off I played parts from the song again, getting it out much better than before. Typical, eh?

So that was that, the recital and the end of the WAES course. Teach suggested that the best way for me to continue improving (other than just putting a band together) would be to take private lessons... an hour once or twice a month. He said he'd be willing to take me on as a pupil. I'm actually going to consider it as a) it'll keep me close to 'the music industry', b) He may have other pupils who want to jam and c) it'll keep me focussed and moving forwards. Oh, and d) he's actually a good teacher who can 'do' as well as 'teach'. Finding a good teacher is not easy!

Apart from that, what next? I guess I'll check my action plan and update it this week. One thing I know is that Red can come out of his case. Neighbours, expect some noise!

I also spoke briefly with G after class, who said he might be interested in collaboration, jamming etc. I said I'd email him about it. We'll see how that goes, I guess. He's on another WAES course right now: songwriting. Maybe I'll be able to pump him for top tips.

Anyway, I'm done for now. I never have to play "Taylor" again if I don't want to... though something tells me I will.

Finally, on the what-seems-to-be-weekly celeb-spotting front, we nearly bumped into London mayoral candidate Boris Johnson outside Waterloo station on Saturday! Not exactly rock 'n' roll, but hey... Much shorter than I expected him to be...

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.

Stormy Monday Blues

It's Monday. Ugh!

The weekend was a real mixed bag of highs and lows. This blog entry may reflect that somewhat. I'll try to stick to guitar stuff as much as possible, but not exclusively. What sucks is that 'real life' is so incredibly stressful at this time that its influence seeps into everything.

I had my second Guitar Improvers class on Saturday morning at Westminster Adult Education Services. I arrived 15 minutes early, much to my surprise. My brain arrived about half an hour late. My stomach never made it out of bed. I was hung over. Do you ever have those nights, where you're not going to drink but you have to go to a dinner party and you're not even through the door before a cocktail has been shoved in your fist. Next thing you know it's 5 hours later and you're finishing off the last of the brandy because no-one else wants it?

Hung over, but happy. Bloody gorgeous morning. A beautiful Spring day in February. For once climate change was working for the UK.

Covered a lot of ground in class, but the two things that I'll be taking away and working on this week are:

A second extended pentatonic run. The first picture is the one that everyone knows, using the G minor pentatonic in the example... the thing that I need to focus on is changing position at the best time, which is usually by sliding with the index finger as shown



The second run has its first root in the 4th box position on the 5th string.



Again, I need to make sure I focus on the best moment to shift position during practice.

The other thing I'll be working on is both playing chords and also noodling around them to add interest to songs.

I think I've settled on Jack Johnson's "Taylor" as the song I'll learn for the end of term. "Teach" wanted to know whether I'll be singing it as well as playing. I said no. No, no, no, no... NO!!!

"Teach" had to cut out early this week, so I coerced one of my co-learners into going for a coffee after class. He's obviously the best of the other players and it turned out that he plays piano, does sequencing etc in addition to learning guitar. It was very cool to swap musical perspectives with someone who knew what they were talking about... at least as much as I do!

At around 1pm I dropped Blackie back home and headed into town. Ran some errands, grabbed a latte from Cafe Nero on Old Compton Street and parked myself on a bench in Soho Square with a copy of February's "Acoustic Guitar" magazine. As I sat there, basking in the glorious sunshine I made a pact with myself that over the summer months I'll bring the guitar with me on such trips and jam. Looking around I saw that a couple of other folk had already had the same idea, which gave me heart.

Saturday night was a low spot. No details offered. Relationship stuff. The sun rose on another beautiful spring-like morning and Sunday was a brand new, better day.

Sunday didn't really start until lunch, which was a full roast dinner at the local pub, washed down with a couple of pints of Stella. I hadn't eaten since lunchtime on Saturday and even the small amount of alcohol in the beer laid me out. I'd planned on taking Blackie into the churchyard next to the loft to practice under the trees. Instead I wound up flat out on the couch, watching the "Classic Albums" DVDs that I bought recently, occasionally jamming along. All the shows were okay, but the stand out for me was probably Cream's "Disraeli Gears", which was a bit of a Ginger Baker love-fest, but included interviews with Eric Clapton in which he talked about how he'd taken inspiration from old blues songs, straightened out the shuffle rhythms and then just played them loud.

The show that was probably the most disappointing was the one about U2's "The Joshua Tree". I'm not a U2 fan, but I respect the impact they had. I just couldn't get my head around how simple some of the stuff they played was. I mean, The Edge was showing how one rhythm track was just him strumming an open D chord then lifting his finger off the high E making a kind of A sus chord (I think). Repeat ad nauseam. Hit song! I mean, it made that bing-bong-bing-bong "Chasing Cars" song by Snow Patrol look complicated!

Grrr...!

(that's an envious growl, by the way, not a dismissive one!)

As I rode the train to work this morning I couldn't help but think back on the events of the weekend. As I did, the following idea for a lyric popped into my head. Thought I'd better write it down before I forgot it.

How many times
Will we reach the end
Turn around
Look back again
Down the path
We came along
Smile inside
And carry on

You know, sometimes you listen to a song and it hits you right where you're at and you get this overwhelming feeling of emotional resonance, like the artist is singing directly at you, about your life. I get that all the time, but it has never happened to me in reverse before. I've never been feeling a certain way and been hit by lyrical inspiration. Okay, so we're not talking great art here, but it's a start...

The Ten Percenter

I realised today that 10% of 2008 has already passed. In fact, it passed a couple of days ago. There was no fanfare, no fireworks... just another day at the office.

Do I feel 10% of the way towards being a Rock God? Not so much, but I have made some progress. I've done some networking, which may not lead to anything right now, but at least I've overcome my fear of talking to people about music and about wanting to be in a band. I've had some affirmation from the teacher on my guitar course. He said I'm good enough to play with other people. I'm also on the course (next installment tomorrow) which means I'm progressing both in terms of practice and in terms of jamming with people.

The date that's scaring the crap out of me at the moment is the 15th March. That's the last day of term at Westminster Adult Education Services. After that I'm on my own. After that I take a leap of faith into the void. I need to find people to play with and that means growing some balls and risking looking like a loser if they totally outclass me.

By then I need to:

1) Be confident in my own playing
2) Look the part/have presence

Number 1 will simply have to happen. I'll have to work on number 2. Some guitarists can pull off the 'stand still and play' routine. Look at Derek Trucks. He barely moves onstage apart from his hands, which are a blur, rarely smiles, usually plays with his eyes closed. He looks like he's channelling Buddha.

I can't get away with that. Right now when I play I tend to either stand still, in which case I look bored, or I rock backwards and forwards on one foot... in which case I look like a complete moron (apologies to those morons who ROCK... I don't mean YOU!)

I mean, I can play and I can dance. I need to combine the two... though not like Pete Townshend... he scares me!

Mary..?

I managed to get out of bed early on Saturday morning and headed over to the Westminster Adult Education Service centre in Pimlico. I was expecting the journey to be a shag, but in fact it only took me 40 minutes door to door, including a necessary detour to fill up on coffee. I was the first person there, so I took Blackie (the Ovation 1861 Balladeer) out, perched on her case and set to practicing. Since getting Red, I’ve really been focussing on playing electric, so I expected it to take a while to get the feel for the acoustic back. It didn’t. That’s the neat thing about Ovation guitars: their necks are nice and narrow so the transition from electric to acoustic and back again is relatively painless.

After about 10 minutes of jamming, the teacher, Gerald, arrived. Had a chat with him about the course, what I wanted to achieve and so on. He really put me at ease and said that I really was good enough to play in a band already. He said that I might actually be a bit too advanced already for the ‘intermediate’ course. I told him that really any structured learning would be a good thing for me right now. I need focus. I kind of see the course as being a driving force to keep my momentum going. There’s a fixed schedule which means I can’t afford to fall behind. I’m already hoping that there’ll be a follow on course in the summer...

The other four people on the course were pretty diverse, both in terms of personality and skill level. None of them were the cookie-cutter shredders from the course at Morley. Not that there’s anything wrong with shredding, but if you’re in a class that’s trying to do a scale exercise, what’re you doing trading metal licks with the guy next to you? Gee, when did I become a conformist? I’m going to have to work on being obnoxious if I’m going to make it as a Rock God.

We started off the lesson with a finger-picked version of "Mary Had A Little Lamb". Now, I know what you’re thinking! I’m better than that, right? And yes, maybe I am, but even so, sometimes going back to basics is a good thing. Hey, I’m still going to be practicing it, in case I’m asked to perform it live in front of the class.

The next two hours were actually pretty packed. We covered a couple of different pentatonic boxes and the extended pentatonic run up the neck across positions 1 and 2 (starting on a single note from box 5 on the low E). Pretty basic stuff, huh? BUT, one thing I’ve always done when moving up the neck using a pentatonic scale is to fret with my index and third finger then slide up using the third. I often get in trouble as I tend to overshoot on the slides. Gerald suggested that a better, more 'correct' thing to do is to fret with the index finger, then move position and use index and third. When you come to use one pick per string, that equates to playing the first note, sliding then hammering on. Likewise, when you descend you pull off then slide down using the index finger. I have to tell you, realising that it was possible to slide with the index finger was a real "D’Oh" moment for me. Just goes to show that however much you think you know...

We also covered 16th note strumming patterns with muting, such as the intro riff from George Michael's "Faith" (and pretty much everything by Jack Johnson).

Add into that another "D’Oh" moment when Gerald pointed out that strumming full chords on the first beat of a bar then partial chords at other times was one way to accent the rhythm, rather than just trying to play the first strum louder. I mean, I do that a lot of the time, but I never actually thought about focussing on that technique.

I guess the main other thing we did was to take a look at improvising with the pentatonic, sticking to the 3 highest strings moving from Box 5 to 1 to 2. Limiting the number of notes to 6 in each position really helped me to lock onto a position and express myself within that framework as opposed to trying to get a huge range of different notes in. If it’s good enough for B.B. King, it’s good enough for me, right? Sometimes I try to keep myself open to all the possibilities of running up and down the neck and across the fingerboard and I end up not seeing the wood for the trees.

The last main thing from the lesson was that Gerald has asked each person to pick a song they’ve never tried playing before and to try and learn it by the end of the term. He’s suggested that I have a go at "Little Wing"! presumably the version by Hendrix. Eek! Stretched target alert! Since I’m already 2 classes behind and about to miss the 4th as we’ll be in Amsterdam next weekend I’d best get down to learning it! I may actually back out of "Little Wing" and shoot for something else. I always wanted to learn "Come & Go Blues" by Gregg Allman, but the alternate tuning he uses scares the bejesus out of me.

Oh, and the first DVD from the "Classic Albums" series arrived over the weekend: "Who's Next" by The Who. I'll let you know what I think about it when I watch it sometime this week.

Broken Teeth...

The bullet has been bitten. I’ve signed up for the remainder of the catchily named Guitar Improvers Intensive course with the Westminster Adult Education Service. There are 7 more lessons to go (I’ve missed 2 already), but I can only make it to 5 of them, starting on the 9th February... that is unless I can get my tail out of bed bright and early tomorrow morning.

There are currently only 4 other people on the course and it’s acoustic-based, so I don’t know whether it’s going to fulfil my requirements, but y’know, a step forward is a step forward, even if it’s just a small one.

Other than that, I’ve ordered a number of the "Classic Albums" series on DVD. The shows take, well, classic albums and dissect them, looking at how they were recorded and all that good stuff. I’ve ordered the following:

Cream, "Disraeli Gears"
Steely Dan, "Aja"
The Who, "Who's Next"
Fleetwood Mac, "Rumours"
The Grateful Dead, "From Anthem To Beauty"

I caught half of the "Rumours" show the other week and it was fascinating, showing how simple the creative process was in theory, but how complex it was in practice. I keenly await their arrival.

Oh, I also put an eBay bid in on U2, "The Joshua Tree" from the same series. Not really a U2 fan, but hey, variety is a good thing, right?