So what tune/song is beating you up a little?
 

My current torture is the "easier" second page of Al Petteway's "Dogue Creek."

I know what I have to do to defeat it, put parts of it between repeat bars in GuitarPro and just go on forever, :D I'm just having a hard time getting my head around the different finger patterns. I'm playing the "harder" first page below, not quite up to performance speed yet....

I had to cut the bass post-recording as was booming, not sure why, the end result is the guitar sounds like an old AM radio, lol.



This is what it's supposed sound like, lol...

And the "easier" part starts at 0:47ish:

Some of my own tunes give me fits as I sometimes compose pushing the boundaries of what I find comfortable.

Yep, I can compose some really cool riffs and solos in my head, but can't play them. [emoji23] that's why all my songs are years of work in progress.

This is what writer's block sounds like: [emoji23]


https://soundcloud.com/1neeto/never-done-update

Clarence White's cover of Django's Sheik of Araby. I have the chords mapped out and all, but not his slippery chord voicings and fills. Wish there was a vid of him playing it. :(

At least I figured out Texas Gales
https://soundcloud.com/joelbluesguitar/texasgalestake1

I started on Cherry Wine by Hozier which looks and sounds fairly straightforward but for some reason it spanked my bottom and I had to retreat for a little while. So now I'm working on nice versions of Summertime and Killing Me Softly, which luckily have both gone much smoother. I think a small part of it comes down to desire, I'm more excited to learn the ones I'm working on vs the Hozier song.

I know I'll have to go back to Cherry Wine soon though.... just hate letting a song defeat me.

Jeff

Funny you should ask. We recently picked this one up, and the timing was beating me up for a few days. I wanted to smack that guy on the left.

Beautiful song and playing. Yah, the timing would be a real challenge for me.

Stuart

A Map of the World by Pat Metheny. It'll probably require another year to get it down mechanically and another 2 years to play it musically but I'm enjoying the ride and it's improving me as a player.

I've always struggled to learn and develop new pieces, even fairly simple ones. Last May, I got a mandolin for the first time in over a decade and was surprised at how easily I was picking up new tunes and how easy it was to find variations for repeats. Average guitar tune takes me weeks to work out, mandolin tune of similar complexity takes days. Very surprising as I never made much headway on mandolin in the past.

I'm struggling through a solo guitar arrangement by Glenn Roth of Aerosmith's Dream on. Most of it isn't too difficult, but getting the feel and flow right is my issues

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVcFf2vXnis

I've been reading through Ralph Towner's Oleander Etude every morning this week. Started off like a root canal, but it's already up to being like standing in line at the DMV... Should be good by Monday. :)

Fiddle tunes. I started to "really" learn some and they are strict scores. So okay I can learn them, and like the sound of them when some people play them, but I find them to be strict and boring to play. I don't see anywhere to express myself if I play them in classic way that seems to be the norm.

Couple of things I do.

Move the melody to a different range on the guitar.

Look for places to add full or partial chord strums

Fill in pauses with arpeggios or cross picked passages

Actively look for places to hammer, pull, or slide instead of picking notes

Hey Mr Jelly. I have a new page on my website about fiddle tunes at http://ericskye.com/fiddle-tunes Towards the bottom of the page I wrote quite a bit about bringing them to life. Maybe it would helpful check it out :)

I've finally decided to head back
 

...to Lindsey Buckingham's NEVER GOING BACK AGAIN for a 3rd time. This time I'm going to get it, ****it.

Here's the lesson I'm using.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rLZ-LIx09I