First Live Sit ins
Hey guys, I've been playing for a little over a year and a half now. I didn't play a musical instrument before I signed up for this site. I wanted to share the youtube videos with you. There's a lot of room for improvement but I'm really digging into the Accompaniment Studies. Are you? ;)
For "Mind Your Own Business" with The Shivering Denizens, I just winged it. I tried to play some catchy simple rythms (I got from studying The Rocker by Little Walter). I also tried to play repetitively. I noticed that SOMETIMES when you make a mistake, it is better to repeat that mistake a few times than to quickly correct it. I also amped up my volume during the vocal fills and tried to play quieter while he was singing (See Dave's Accompaniment Book and Accompaniment Study 4)
For "Wish You Were Here" with Jamie Nova of Hell's Bells and Witchburn, I knew I was going to do it before hand so before leaving the house I just googled the song on guitar tabs. It showed the chord change above the lyrics. I decided to just play the root octave chord changes under the vocals (moving up the range as the verses progressed) and then meandered around in the blues scale during the solos, trying to stay true to the melody and hook.
Good for you! Got it going for sure!
i give you alot of credit for a year and a half playng, smart laying back on the first one ,you stretched out a little on the second one stayed right with the tune ,
Good work here, fella- gigs like this (Wish You Were Here) are not always easy to weave credible harp work in to but you have managed to do it! Personally, I often find arrangements outside of the usual 12 bars are tricky to deal with but always good fun and a challenge. Great dynamics on that number and good 'winging' on"Mind Your Own Business" as well.
One positive criticism is that you might want to look at your 4-5 shake speed. On "Wish You Were Here" it would have been better (to my ear) a bit slower (@2.44 and 3.55). I say this because I've seen footage of myself doing the same thing. I think it's easy to get carried away with the shake when it could be better served at a slower pace. Small criticism and overall a thumbs up :O)
Sweet. Thanks for the advice guys! I was thinking the same about the shake. It's quite a challenge to to play improv outside the standard chord progressions but that's what 90% of what my friends play. The music theory lessons have really helped in writing accompaniment and soloing for the songs outside the 12 bar blues. It's a little extra work but sound night and day different.
Also, I wanted to throw in that I am playing through the PA. I just told the sound guy to "turn the bass all the way up and the treble all the way down". If you're playing a whole set it's more important to dial in the sound perfectly but I feel like it's a little pretentious when you spend a bunch of time doing that when you're just called up to jump in on one or two songs. Keeping your mic handy with the guitar cable jack adapter makes it easy to jump up, plug into the PA. Turning the bass all the way up and the treble all the way down will give you an acceptable enough sound without too much feedback. I had to remind myself I was sitting in on country and ballad rock. One genre that doesn't always have the best harp playing, and another that, well, let's face it, has historically had pretty horrible harp playing. The audience wasn't made up of blues purists either. Things would be different if I was playing at the Tuesday Blues Jam Session.