IanD

Coming along very nicely @Wim VD1. Well done! Ian

Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas! Ian

Superb Danny @Texaspackerfan. The reverb rich tone works beautifully with your arrangement! Ian

Doug, it's a Mac App called Superstring. Available in the App Store at about 50 USD. Ian

Harry, coincidentally that song was just 'Highly Commended' by the judges in the UK Songwriting Contest. I have to admit that I'm a little cynical about these things (do they stroke your ego so that you enter again next year?), but from googling it does seem to be one of the most well-respected international songwriting competitions out there.

Hey everyone, I don't have the ability to play difficult pieces (yet), so spend quite a lot of time trying to play simple pieces well. This song is fairly simple, but I wanted to work on maintaining an even fingerstyle arpeggio tempo (without a 'nome) whilst maintaining a gentle, but controlled vocal. I usually record at least some of my attempts, because I find the instant feedback really helps me to learn and improve (even/especially if it sounds really bad). Anyway, I was quite pleased with how this session went. This is one, continuous 'live' take (one of about 6, the others were not so good!) that I simply recorded on a Zoom portable recorder and then I uploaded it into Logic just to add a bit of compression and gain to bring the levels up. Ian

@Wim VD1 Fantastic! You have developed a great blues feel and tone. The timing and interpretation were both great and leave me wanting more. Ian

Thanks guys! Ian

Thank guys. Yes, I’ve been to USA many times, but only ever to one city at a time except for once when a colleague and I hired a car to drive from LA to San Francisco. I wondered if there might be a plane, bus, or train option from Nashville to Memphis. Ian

Hey guys, I'm so excited... I'm one step closer to joining you at next year's gathering. I ran it by by my wife and she is ok in principle, but I recently went self employed and have to convince her I'll have sufficient work to fund it first (should be ok). More seriously though, if I'm coming over to Tennessee then I really want to pop over to do the music tourist thing in Memphis while I'm there. I thought I'd try to book a flight, hotel, car package. However, one of my wife's friends has just sadly lost her husband in a tragic car accident (rental car) whilst he was working away in USA. Bad timing, I'm sure time will help but at the moment my wife doesn't want me to drive a rental car if I go to the gathering. Can I just ask those who know... how feasible (and safe) would it be to attend the conference and/or visit Memphis using just public transport/taxis? Thanks Ian

Great Neil! I have a Focusrite Scarlet interface and find it much better than the previous Line 6 UX2 that I used to use. Ian

Mandy, you've created and captured a great tone there, your recording skills have come on a lot! Keep 'em coming. Ian

Neil, Congratulations on posting your first recording! That is a really nice piece, with a very sophisticated sound. All of the chords rang out very cleanly, well played! Ian

Well done @Eracer_Team-DougH, I enjoyed listening a lot. I hope you'll post up recordings of your progress more often, I'm sure it will help you and I'm sure we'd all love to hear it. Ian

I've been working on Steve's latest course on 'Money Chords' and trying to move away from the default open position simple chord shapes. To apply what I've learned, I'm trying to build a chord progression/song structure incorporating some of the money chords and other slightly more sophisticated chord voicings than usual, such as a Cmaj7. Here's where I'm up to so far. Draft title for the song is 'Don't Let Them Break You' and you'll hear me humming the start of a melody at the beginning. Ian

@Wim VD1, that's wonderful! Brought a real smile to my face. Ian

@Texaspackerfan that sounds really smooth and professional. Is that you singing? If you need any help with recording, then post specific questions on things you'd like advice on and I'm sure you'll get loads of suggestions. Ian

Welcome back Dan, it's great to hear from you. Ian

Just for info, I'm not Wim obviously, but I 'blocked' the floating bridge on my Strat a few years ago. I'd read that Clapton does it with a block of hardwood, so I asked Greg Voros for advice on the old forum. He said to try just pulling it flat to the body with the two adjusting screws you can see in Wim's picture, so I gave it a go. I did it because my heavy-handed fretting was pulling the intonation out. It did solve that problem, but what surprised me most was an incredible increase in sustain. Ian (disclaimer: I'm no expert!)

That was great Mike, good job. I'd love to see more as you continue to progress. Ian

Doug, Please don't. There will always be someone we think has better skills than each of us. Try to be inspired by them and judge your own progress against where you used to be. I do think that documenting current ability through this monthly thread is a great way to improve... through the support and encouragement of the community and simply through practice. The improvement I've seen in some of the regular posters has been staggering. Take care Ian

Beautiful as ever @Randy120, thanks for posting. Ian

@Wim VD1 Well done. I'm sure it'll just be a case of practice now; play more of these and the melodic themes and the connectivity will start to flow with ease. Ian

Ah, great... thanks! Attending a GG, visiting Nashville and visiting Memphis are all on my bucket list. Maybe 2019 will be the year it happens! Ian

Hi everyone, There is a very good TV drama in UK called 'Keeping Faith' (I don't know if it's aired in USA). Anyway, I've fallen in love with the theme song 'Faith's Song', written by Amy Wadge (she co-writes with Ed Sheeran). I had a go at playing it yesterday, and just recorded it using 'Voice Memos' on my iPad. I was surprised how well it came out. Here it is if you're interested (but I'd highly recommend looking up Amy's version on YouTube). Ian