matonanjin

Dan, Absolutely! Break it up! I have often heard "Take it slow to get it fast." Which, of course, refers to slowing down a passage until one gets it perfected and then gradually increasing the speed until you get it to the published tempo. I wish we had similar jargon for taking a "chunk at a time". I don't know that I have seen a lot of discussion about this but I, none-the-less, believe just about everyone does this. Do exactly as you described is my advice. Take one measure. Get it comfortable. Then take the second measure. Get it comfortable. Now play measures one and two. Then add measure three. etc. I don't know if you saw my post of Jingle Bells Blues. That's exactly what I did with it to learn it. I never did get it above 90% tempo but I'm ok with that. What follows next in that version of that song is a bluesy solo. And, again, that's the way I'm trying to learn it. The solo has about a dozen licks and I'm about half way through them. I'm not taking a measure at a time because some of the licks span a couple measures or more. But I'm still taking it a chunk at a time, a chunk being a lick. And, digressing a bit, a couple of these licks are above my skill level. One has a triplet pull off. So a couple of these licks I may have to "dumb down" for me to complete them. But I'm trying to challenge myself. But my point remains I'm taking it section at a time.

@Wim VD1 Wim, @gotto Greg, and @Nutty 1 Mandy thank you for looking and commenting.

We saw the Guess Who at a reservation casino just about an hour from here a few years ago. Great, fun show!

Thanks, Doug. I'm a BTO fan (as well as The Guess Who). Although this is not my favorite. More of a Taking Care of Business is my speed.

@Plantsman13, I saw that as well. I almost wish he had taken it a little further. But his point is well taken. So many resolutions, New Years or otherwise, or goals are, in fact, not goals. Having had a couple goal setting meetings over my career it is somewhat pounded into me. To be a goal it must Be realistic Be time defined Be quantitative Be measurable Saying, "My New years resolution is to lose some weight" is not a goal. It may be desirable, but not a goal. Saying, "My goal is to lose 12 pounds by April 15" is a goal. Realistic, time defined, quantitative and measurable. To relate it to guitar, to say, "I am going to improve my blues playing" or "I'm going to work on my strumming" are both admirable probably to any guitar player, but not goals. To say, "I am going to learn to play this, this and this blues song by April 15" or "I am going to complete this strumming course by June 15" would both be goals. One could probably state something like n number of new strumming patterns by d date. I think this sums up what Griff was saying. Now stepping down off my soapbox🙄

Consider this a progress report! I really wanted, intended to support @Nutty 1's Monthly Recording Challenge with a Christmas song. I just didn't get it done in time, sorry Mandy; this was (is) more challenging than I anticipated. So my fall back is, if I can get it done, to post it in this month's Challenge which is Blues. The title of this is, after all, "Jingle Bells Blues". I have completed the Chorus and Melody and am now ready to tackle the solo which I know is going to be very chewy. There are a couple riffs that I may need to "dumb down". And it is going to take awhile. And, my intent is to record a separate track with my playing the rhythm. It came with a couple different backing tracks. This is my playing over the one with drums, bass and rhythm guitar. I'm going to record my playing rhythm over the one with just bass and drums. Then I'll mix my playing chorus, melody and solo. And, in the interest of full disclosure this is at about 90% speed. Maybe by the time I get done I can do 100%. You'll see when I came from the melody back to chorus I struggled with the first chord. Technical stuff: PRS Pauls into a POD HD 500X. Amp sim of a Fender Twin Reverb, 2x12 cab, a little bit of distortion with tube screamer, a little delay, and a little reverb. Suggestions, criticisms are encouraged.

@Magnit, what a great way to bring in the new year, with a new guitar!! Congratulations. They do look like single coils and of course the neck is always going to sound a little more mellow and the bridge a bit more twangy. But from what I have heard that twangy bridge p.u. is especially characteristic of the Tele. If you want to know exactly what model of pickups you have send an email to Fender customer service with your serial #. They will get back to you, in my experience in just a couple days, with all the details about your guitar. This neck profile concept just has me thoroughly confused. I've become a real PRS supporter and have always been a huge Santana fan. So it follows that my next guitar should be a PRS signature Santana. Early last year I finally tried a Santana at Chicago Music Exchange. None of the stores here in Omaha carried one. I was shocked and disappointed! The neck on (what I thought would be) my dream guitar felt like a tree trunk. I played it for a very little bit and put it back. Then late last year I was looking at a PRS guitar here locally. While I was there I saw a PRS 594, which has the same neck profile as the Santana. I thought why not try it? It felt good! Different but good. So I am, as I said, thoroughly confused. 🤔 So I don't know if, as we become more experienced, we learn to accommodate different necks. Or, as we become more experienced, our preference changes. Or, if it's "different horses for different courses". I played my PRS hollowbody a couple days ago and it has a very thin neck. It felt great! 🙄 Congratulations again on the new guitar.

Great topic to start the new decade @Nutty 1 and @Wim VD1. And, Mandy, how did you find that perfect Peanuts cartoon to use?!?!😉🤣

And, since it's my thread, I will start. And, unfortunately, I should go back and find last year's resolutions and just "cut and paste"! 😡☹️ But here they are: 1) I am going to finish Learn and Master Guitar. I made some progress this last year. I only got through a couple sessions. But this year I think I can realistically finish. 2) I am going to get on stage somewhere, sometime and and play a song. I'm doing my weekly jams but those are not in front of an audience. When I do this will most like be at a jam but it will be at a jam with an audience. My neighbor has an annual birthday part with his band playing where people can join in. It may be there. 3) I am going to learn a complete song and play it for my wife. Not a song that I like but one that she likes. Maybe "Sleepwalk".

We are, everyone is no doubt aware, about to ring in the new year which means it is time for our annual tradition: Guitar Related New Year's Resolutions! And, as is also our tradition, we (meaning "I") did not post this soon enough. So we are going to keep this thread open a while past New Year's Day, but post your resolutions and soon as possible after the first of the year. And there is only one real rule here. Keep it guitar related! Yes, a weight loss goal is admirable. Going to quit smoking? Great! Going to manage your time better? All admirable, but not guitar related, What are you going to commit to accomplishing this year in your guitar learning journey? Let us know.

Ron, Ron, I'm not sure exactly what you requesting. We can't, and as mod I certainly can't encourage anyone to, send you the copyrighted L&MG course materials. If, when you say "LMG course", you asking about the book? The pdf of the main L&MG course, the manual, is available for download here. The bonus resources book can be downloaded here. Of course that doesn't get you the DVD's. You have to be considered a good Legacy customer having bought two complete sets. If I were you I would call Legacy customer service and ask what they would do in terms of a "back up" set of DVD's. I would think they would cut you a break for a third purchase. But I can't speak for them. Let us know that you get this resolved. That is going to be a great time playing guitar with grandsons. I just did a duet of Jingle Bells with my granddaughter over the holidays. What fun!

@revster, I'll bet that 12 string sounds beautiful. Enjoy it a long time.

@Cindy, I won't pretend to know what happened to those posts. Maybe there was a protocol in place that deleted posts from the Beta period. I don't remember hearing of such policy. I have several items to discuss with @Steve Krenz and I'll bring this up. We plan to chat after the 1st. I hope this won't deter you from becoming active here again. Your input is valued especially, as others have mentioned, your knowledge about theory. That's an area I need a LOT of help with.

Cindy, I can only speak for myself officially. But I feel confident @NeilES335 and @DianeB concur. None of us are fans of unwarranted censorship. I have not deleted one of your posts. I can think of no reason Neil or Diane would have. Looking at the activity log there is your post in this thread and the one Sunday regarding file sharing site at Yahoo. These are the first posts of yours since March. Those two in March are the first since May of last year. You were so very active at the old site and are a valuable resource, especially when it comes to theory. Ask Doug said, " too bad Cindy doesn't hang around any more, she had theory mastered". When I saw these posts this week, I thought to myself that I was hopeful that you would become active again. And I hope that you do.

@jvernacchio, it's great to have you back in our community. You can, as Doug suggested, get a DVD player to plug into your USB port on your laptop. I realize it's an additional expense but the USB DVD players are really cheap. What you can do then is "rip" the DVD to your hard drive and once you've done that you won't need to deal with the DVD's or the player anymore. I have ripped mine and now play the mp4 files with a player called Video Surgeon. It allows me to loop sections and slow down the video. I ripped my DVD's with software called WinX DVD Ripper. Yeah, it's a bit of a time investment initially. But I now never need to hunt for the DVD's and I've also transferred the files to my Tablet for when I travel. If you don't want to get the DVD player you should be able to find some kid to rip the DVD's for you. It's too bad your daughters aren't older. One of their boyfriends could do it for you!😉😆

@Nutty 1 thank you for posting your playing. I don't know what to add beyond what @Fretless said. I've been around this forum for a while and am also "so impressed at seeing your steady and continual improvement". Great playing and singing and, no, the delay did not at all sound "too weird". Thanks again for sharing this.

Absolutely it counts. You had the nerve to get up in front of people to perform. There is no argument here. It counts!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Congratulations on your first gig.

Wim, so would I! 🤣 Ron

As she said, Neil, it's in her sig. MikeM's file sharing site for Guitar Gathering and LMG resources.

Come on forum members!!!!! Submit your entries! Now almost 1,900 member and only 2 submissions! Thank you @Fretless and @dan0725 for submitting yours. Dan is one of our newest members and joined in! @Randy120 and @Eracer_Team-DougH provided you with Jingle Bells lessons from complimentary sources. I provided you with the link to Kelley Ritchie's lesson on O Little Town of Bethlehem and the tabs. And, of course, most importantly we had Steve's hugely educational Live Lessons on December 3 and December 10! Lessons complete with tabs. So you have lots of learning materials to choose from. Remember, the topic this month is Christmas but it is a monthly challenge. Mandy will take your submission until December 31. Right, Mandy? And it is for all levels of learning. It's called "Challenge" but it is no contest. We just want to hear you play and see how you are doing. The only challenge is that whoever Mandy picks will choose next months topic.

Thanks, @Randy120 and @Eracer_Team-DougH I am also currently working on Jingle Bells, a "bluesy" version, from yet another source. It's really fun and I'm trying to get in the spirit of the season!

Ning, thanks for this information. But before I go on I must warn you about something. I know that you are new here. But we do not allow political, religious or otherwise controversial material on this forum. Any suggestion that one can have too many guitars will just not be tolerated here! 😉😆 Seriously, I need to look at a whole house humidifier. Like Barb @K9kaos I have a small room humidifier in my music/guitar/office room. It struggles to get the humidity up to 40%. Here in Nebraska we have horribly hot, humid summers and horribly cold/dry winters. Also like Barb I have the canine issue. Clapton, our Aussie, is convinced it is his mission to constantly make sure the door is open letting what little moisture has accumulated in my room escape to the rest of the house. He takes his mission very seriously. Things are further complicated by the fact we live in the country and are on a well with horribly hard water. It ruins a humidifier in short order. So I fill one gallon water jugs at the grocery store and carry them upstairs to the room. The humidifier goes through one every 12 hours! So this is something I need to investigate. Thanks again for the information.

@BenBob! Good to see you here!

Dan, Please consider posting this in our Monthly Recording Challenge: Christmas. It certainly should be there. I tried to make a copy of your post and put it there as a moderator but couldn't figure out how to do it. 🙄 I can move a thread from one forum to another but not a single post! Maybe that is just as well since I didn't get your permission first! 😁 We're going to ignore that silly netiquette rule about doubly posting!

Marty, it is wonderful to have you back here after the year you had. And congratulations on the Blues, Jr. I love mine.