matonanjin

Very nicely played Amy. Thank you for sharing it.

I was searching for a lesson on a song I want to learn (by Santana, of course). In my search results a backing track was listed. I glanced at this guy's channel and it appears he has a lot of high quality backing tracks for a lot of popular songs. All free. I am only offering my opinion on the quality of his tracks based on a statistical sampling on 1. So, as we say so often, YMMV. But "I Love You Too Much" seems well done. He has a playlist that he calls his "Cover Series". There he has backing tracks for 189 songs including Guns N Roses, Led Zeppelin, Clapton, Aerosmith, Rolling Stones, Prince, AC/DC, Black Crowes, Hendrix, Eagles, and, most importantly, Santana, and many more. Enjoy.

Well said.

Magnit, that Spark does look really interesting. We had a brief conversation about it earlier this year. It seems to have so many tools for a practice amp. I just don't know what else they could have added for an at home practice amp. Autodisplay chords, jam tracks, audio interface, the list goes on. But I think that they have been shipping and I don't see any user reports yet.

PRS has their weekly "Play at Home" challenge. And it offers backing tracks for this. There are 5 tracks 1 each a different genre. Free Download. I think, not sure, they change weekly.

It probably doesn't need to be repeated that I am a huge Carlos Santana fan. It is largely because of him that I am here in this forum and trying to learn guitar. What many not know is Carlos' brother was a very talented guitarist in his own right. But many of you may remember him from the band Malo. Or at least you remember some of the band's songs. And I remember several occasions of Jorge on stage with Carlos, the most notable being Santana's South American Tour. Beyond that I've always wondered about Carlos and Jorge's relationship. I don't recall Carlos addressing it much in his autobiography. Being Carlos' brother or not, Jorge was a great guitarist and his passing should be acknowledged. Guitarist Jorge Santana, brother of Carlos, dies at 68.

@pkotof, Phil, if you want to learn to set up guitars yourself think about getting the best instruction on doing so, Learn and Master Guitar Setup and Maintenance with Greg Voros. The people that have this that have reported back rave about it. (Don't follow my lead. I bought it and haven't taken the shrink wrap off yet!) The cost of the course is about what one setup and your local guitar shop would cost. And Steve has Greg on Live Lessons from time to time.

But even SRV went to lighter strings. Here, in this video I had posted in the other thread, Dave Onorado, who is Rick Beato's guitar tech, talks about SRV's guitar tech describing his going to 10's not long before his death. It is at about 3 minutes in the video: And Doug, I have had just the opposite experience. As I have mentioned before, I went to 9's on 3 of my electrics. I did this just to make it easier to bend while learning that technique. I fully expected "thin and tiny" and figured I was just going to live with that while developing the finger strength necessary for bending. But I just don't feel I've given up the tone. I'm sticking with 9's and even thinking about 8's on at least one guitar. Part of it is, admittedly, just the fun of trying something different!😎😉

Anyone else gone lighter strings? It was somewhat by accident. And I'll try and not make this too long of story. My granddaughter's little parlor guitar had a broken tuner peg. And she just reported she would like to take it up again. So, of course, Papa took it in to get that fixed! I thought since I'm going I will get strings changed on mine. Donning my mask, I took the guitars in, handed them to the guitar tech at my local store. As I was taking my guitar out of the case I found a set of "RARE" 10-48 "Extra Light" DR Phosphor Bronze strings in my case. I have no idea where they came from or how they got in there. I don't remember ever buying them! I asked him if he knew anything about them and he just said that he has put them on before. His response could probably be distilled down to "Why not?" BTW, I had 12's on it. I just started up the practice session this morning and tried them out. I like them! Going lighter, my first impression is I haven't given up any tone. I know it doesn't make sense. But maybe, just maybe, the tone was even a little fuller?? And I thought that I had pretty good callouses built up. But I have been playing acoustic a lot lately and the fingers are a little sore. The lighter strings will maybe give me a little break there. I just finished up about 30 minutes with the acoustic and another 30 minutes with electric and they aren't as sore as I might have expected. Anyone else tried these strings? Or a similar pleasant experience trying new, different strings?

In @Eracer_Team-DougH and my defense, Mike did say he was also considering a PRS. And he later said he is considering a CE 24 or a 594 SC. So Doug and I perhaps took it a little bit tangential with the web broadcasts but still relevant. So let's not get the moderators (site police) involved. I'm sure that you have figured out the mods on this site are real jerks!

Very nice, Wim. Very nicely done. I never did get Canon in D mastered.

And then earlier in the day, Corey Congilio, David Grissom and Tony McManus are going to talk about PRS guitars in a TrueFire live stream. It is at 3 PM ET. I received this in an email from Corey the day b4 yesterday: "Hi all! I’ll be performing on no less than 4 livestreams this week! I host my own Lunchtime Lessons livestream on my YouTube channel every Thursday at 2pm EST. This week I’ll be focusing on "Blues By Yourself!" I’ll give you some tips on how to play rhythm and lead ideas while performing solo. Immediately after my broadcast, be sure to jump over to TrueFire.com’s YouTube channel to catch me for a special PRS Guitars edition of their livestream. I’ll be joining other PRS artists David Grissom and Tony McManus to discuss what we’re up to and our love of PRS Guitars! "

I'm thinking this is a very intersting topic/potential discussion for a new thread, Neil. Beyond the scope of just tonight's Live Lesson? In any case, you first?

Mike, I can't answer about Gibson QC. I haven't dealt with Gibson for a couple years now nor really heard anything. But if you are considering a PRS I can not rave about their QC enough. And if you want the closest to a LP in tone and similar feel look at their model called a McCarty 594. Ted McCarty actually left Gibson and consulted with PRS to design the guitar. The 594 refers to the 24.594" scale length, a nod to LP scale length, and the pickup selection switch has been moved to horn to be more familiar to LP players. I don't own one and it will be a while before I buy another guitar, just buying the Santana. But if I look at another one the 594 will be the top of my shopping list. Every review I've read raves about them. One I read said the 594 is the guitar Gibson would make if they had continued improving the Les Paul. Enjoy shopping!

On his Blues Cruise last year JB has a one hour session with Norm of Norman's Rare Guitars. Joe has sold guitars through there, probably most notably his prototype signature Les Paul. Joe talked about the collection and a lot of the ones he played on stage during his two shows. He spent quite a bit of time talking about his (not sure what year) Gibson Flying V "Amos". With all the Les Pauls Joe owns it seems he has a real soft spot in his heart for Amos. On the stage with him and Norm JB had two of those bursts, one of which was a '59. Norm valued it at about $425,000. As you said Doug, he has quite a collection of those old Les Pauls. They're not all worth 400K but valuable. And he has a lot of old Strats, Teles and 335s. To put a pencil to his collection and try and add up would make one pause. But JB plays them. He's not afraid to take them on the road (and on the ocean) and up on stage. They are not in a glass case.

Hi everybody! I'm here. Officially, legally?, I'll be here in a couple days. I'm finishing up the play along songs at the end of 16 over the next couple days but since I had logged in thought I would pre-announce🤔 Like Neil, I am doing some review. I've gone back and am restudying pentatonic scales. I have the patterns down but just can't seem to get the location of the root note for each box ingrained. I'm going to keep reviewing until I do. And many of us have used Hal Leonard's book on Barre Chords to complement our studies on that. I have found that book and am working the exercises. I am going to go through all of those until I get through "Layla" toward the end. But I digress. Wish me luck on getting up there in the "dusty" area of the fretboard!

Thanks for posting. Keeping in mind Keith's slogan is "helping you get the most music with the least gear", he did make some very interesting points. Most such videos encourage us to get one each from the familiar food groups: Strat, Tele, Les Paul, 335, etc. Keith, on the other hand, made some valid points for not doing so. There is one point that I think he made that is undeniable. With one guitar one becomes forced to "Knowing the guitar inside and out". I am so guilty of not doing this. Probably the one guitar that I have owned that I learned the best was my Les Paul. And I sol;d it. Another one was, "When shopping for guitars we are not practicing guitar". But...............have you seen the new Martin SC-13E?!?! Gotta go!🤔😁😉

I've been a fan of Keith William's 5 Watt World for sometime now. I'm not even sure how I found out about his channel. His "Short History of..." is really interesting. He just put out a video "10 Channels to Watch Right Now 2020". Some of his recommendations are probably familiar to you. Some probably aren't. One of them (I can't remember his name now) Steve recommended on here. Anyway, if you have watched everything on Netflix and Prime, like my wife and I have, here are some suggestions. The guy and the end of this, from the First Nation's Reserve, is awesome and I am going to check out some of his albums.

Since I first heard about it, to attend the Chicago Blues Camp has become one of my bucket list items. And it is fairly high on the list. A week of playing guitar and learning blues in my favorite city?!?! How could it not be high on my list? Predictably, the camp has been cancelled this year due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Since the camp can not take place the organizers are offering video lessons by the camp instructors. One chooses which of their instructors you want to get video lessons from and then you receive lessons on such Chicago Blues Classics as Big Boss Man, Killing Floor, Key To The Highway, Stormy Monday. Dust My Broom and others. I won't offer any more details; just click on that link for more information. Other than I will add that a portion of every tuition goes directly to the Blues Foundation Covid-19 Blues Musicians Emergency Relief Fund. All I have to do now is decide which musician I am signing up for. I'm thinking Johnny Burgin. No, maybe Billy Flynn. No. Wait! I saw Joanna Conner on the blues cruise and she is awesome. But she is teaching slide, so no. Well, but wait. I've thought about starting slide maybe now is the time! But what about Dave Spectre?!?! Maybe I'll eventually decide who I'm going to get my lessons from. Go take a look and let us know if you sign up.

@Limatje great job on getting this far in L&MG! Steve has said before that after one gets past session 10 it's appropriate to start "specializing" and bring in outside learning materials in whatever genre is your passion, be that fingerstyle or jazz or blues. "Specializing" is my word, not Steve's, but you know what I mean, I'm sure. So the short answer is "yes". Since Blues is your interest, and mine, it would make sense after finishing 13, the blues session, to start the Blues Spotlight course. My only very minor concern is that bending, and a few other techniques such as sliding, hammer-ons, pull-offs, etc., are a big part of blues. Especially bending. I haven't started the Blues Course yet so I don't know how much of this he covers in the beginning of the blues course. But this is covered in your next session of L&MG, Session 14, "Giving Your Playing Some Style". But this is a very minor concern, as I said, and if you are going to continue working session 14 in L&MG concurrently I would say "go for it"! Good luck and keep us posted on your progress!

As Greg ( @gotto) said, one can never have too many backing tracks. In that spirit, I thought I would share one. I'm doing so because #1 this one is, IMHO, really cool, and #2 it's in Eb minor that you don't see very often. (although most of us have software to change the key) Want to get out of A minor blues for a change?😉 Guitar Techniques Magazine provides 4 free backing tracks every issue and this is from the March issue. It's not a copyright infringement! Jacob Quistgaard provides the jam tracks every month. You can go to YouTube and download most of his jam tracks. You can get this one here. The one for download on YT provides some tasty soloing by Jacob at the beginning and, of course, you need to either stream YT to jam to it or convert to mp3. Here it is for you ready to go. I've subscribed to Guitar Techniques since shortly after starting to learn guitar. So you can imagine how many I have collected. Plus many others I've acquired. If there is a particular genre, key, speed, etc. you're looking for let me know. Maybe we should think about a jam track exchange, of non-copyrighted of course, of some sort? Enjoy! GT292_01_BluesJamEbm.mp3

Greg, you are correct: One can't have enough backing tracks. I shudder to think how many I have. I know I have hundreds, probably far more. But I think, I'm almost certain, at some point I'm supposed to do something with them. Beyond just collect them😮😉😁

Get them free here. I have not downloaded them yet myself or sampled them yet so I can't comment on their quality. But coming from Sweetwater I have to think they would be fairly good. Nor do I know genre, speed, keys, etc.

@Linders, welcome back and good luck to you. Keep us posted on your progress.