Wim VD

Also from my side a big THANK YOU to @Steve Krenz. Being part of this guitar family makes learning guitar even more fun. I get much inspiration and motivation from you, this forum and its members. Wim.

Thanks, Greg and Ian. Baby Elephant Walk is nothing like Texas, Delta or Chicago blues, although it uses the 12 bar blues format.

Thanks, @UncleHammy, it somehow makes me think of old school animated movies.

I learned and recorded Baby Elephant Walk about one year ago when I was in Session 13. It's a song from the L&M Song Hits course. Wim. http://soundcloud.com/wim-van-damme-401299565/baby-elephant-walk

Thanks, Mandy. I had a song list with ascending intervals, but not with descending ones, so now I have both. To test myself, I am using the app "Ear Trainer" from Justinguitar on a regular basis. It takes a while indeed. Wim.

Thanks, CapM. I did not know Rick Beato and just subscribed to his YouTube channel. Wim.

@Texaspackerfan, Thanks for your reply. I realize that at some point, I will need to get out of my practice room and look for opportunities to play more in a live setting and with others as well. At this moment, I am probably focused too much on learning new skills and too little on applying them. Finding the right balance is part of the learning, I guess. Good luck, and have fun!

@NeilES335, Thanks for your nice comments. Concerning my progress, I still find it difficult to maintain skills and knowledge. Taking the chords from Steve's Jazz Chords fredboard workout as an example, even though I spent 4 months on that topic, I have the feeling that after shifting topic and working on soloing for 6 weeks, I have lost about 25% of my Jazz chord knowledge already. So making a good practice schedule including learning new skills, maintaining existing knowledge and learning some songs is difficult. But on the other hand it is a nice problem to have. Regarding the other continent, I have spent some time in the Ottawa area 15 years ago. There was a merger between my company Alcatel and the Canadian company Newbridge, and I was working with the project team in Kanata. I had a great time there and plenty of good memories. I like Canada a lot. Wim.

@Texaspackerfan, how are you doing in Session 19?

@IanD, very nice recording. Do you play for an audience sometimes?

Great guitar, Neil.

I started Session 19 some 6 weeks ago and today I managed to play through Steve's chord tone exercise from the bonus materials ("Building a solo from the ground up" ) for the first time without having to stop the DVD :-) This exercise goes through a chord progression several times, and the task is to play the root, 3rd, 5th or 7th of every chord in the progression. My initial approach was to try to use my memory and theoretical chord knowledge in order to find the right note to play, but that involved too much thinking and slowed me down so much that I could not keep up with the video. This approach was not going to work for me, so I had to look for another way. On this guitargathering forum, @matonanjin then recommended the book " Chord-Tone Soloing" by Barret Tagliarino to me (Thanks again for this, Ron.) This resource is full of exercises on major and minor scales, arpeggios, modes and the CAGED system. For some weeks now, and out of this book, I have practiced major and minor triad arpeggios in the 5 CAGED positions, in combination with 2 modes (Ionian and Dorian). This approach of memorizing note patterns using the muscle memory is really effective and beneficial. Knowing the position of the root note of the chord is now sufficient for me to find the 3rd and 5th without further thinking, and get me through Steve's exercise. Over the next weeks, I will start to put the 7th chord arpeggios and the Mixolidian mode my practice routine as well. All of this really feels like a huge breakthrough to me. I thought soloing was for people with a special talent, but now I figured out that I can actually learn this and get a long way by using the chord tone approach. I realize it is going to take months of practice to get all of these arpeggios and modes under my fingers, but it has started to pay off already. Wim.

I had one like these. It works well but it gets easily damaged. You need to be extra careful when you put your guitar in a stand to not hit the ground with the little amp sticking out. I broke the plug in this way. I did not buy another one but replaced it with a Zoom G1 on.

@rkl312 Thanks for your nice comments. The chords were recorded on the first track, and the melody was added later on the second track.

Thanks Greg.

@V7#5b9 Gerard, I would love to hear some of your Jazz tunes! Wim

Thanks Mark, and congrats on your Marbella Wedding Guitar Song. The Spanish environment must be offering great inspiration. Wim.

@matonanjin Ron, Both rehearsing and performing with her was a wonderful thing. She got the task from her violin teacher to put together a small performance with friends or family. Back then I was 1 year into the L&M course and she was in her 5th year of learning to play violin. So her musical backgroung was already much stronger than mine. We picked a traditional Scottisch folk song with only 2 chords and a nice violin melody line, so I could do the accompaniment and she could do the melody. It was my first time playing for an audience. Great experience indeed. Wim

Thanks Gerard. I indeed posted a link on the old forum end of last year.

Some weeks ago, I recorded an accoustic version of Misty. So I thought this would fit here as well.

Greg, it means a lot to me to play music together with her. I truly cherish those moments.

Last year, my daughter and me played a folk song at a school concert.

@Steve Krenz Thanks for your reply, Steve. I think I will combine them I my learning routines, starting by playing the arpeggio without the 7th a couple of times and then include the 7th. Wim.

@Steve Krenz Steve, Thanks for the great lesson. I am currently learning chord tone soloing and have a question on arpeggios. Should I learn triad arpeggios first, and then learn 7th chord arpeggios? Or should I skip learning triad arpeggios as the notes are anyhow part of 7th chord arpeggios? Wim.