who wants to join a friendly "learn an new song" challenge?

[DavidWhitehurst]

Originally Posted by DavidWhitehurst

I'll post it with mistakes but you can get the general idea. I learned it when I was about 15 and I've always tried to be as true to Doc Watson's version as possible. If you like it, I'll try to figure a way to get you the MP3. I've been learning a song by a very good Greek classical guitar player and he actually sent me his music score to it. That's what I would love to see done with American music. Mark O'Connor has been trying but he's having a really hard time with it because of the classical crowd is overwhelming and doesn't give the fiddle player the respect he deserves. I'll post a SoundCloud link in a couple of minutes.

David

Here's the fastest recording I've ever done, LOL.



David

[TBman]

It sounds like a similar chord progression going down, but different emphasis/timing of the part with the "lead" and more hammer-ons. Cool version David!

Originally Posted by DavidWhitehurst

Here's the fastest recording I've ever done, LOL.



David

Hi David,

for some reason I can't access the recording right now.

Originally Posted by TBman

Ok, here is a recording of the 2nd part of Deep River Blues. I practiced it for about 15 minutes (both parts) and actually got this recorded on the first try:



I'm now going to practice this song daily to get a good groove on it and record it for here and Show and Tell. Now I'm going to concentrate on Mississippi Blues and Toby Walker's Long Tall Mama and Hideaway arrangements. Long Tall is a couple of pages, but Hideaway is several and a pretty quick pace so we see how that goes. I can play the first two pages of Mississippi Blues pretty decent and now I am concentrating on the last few pages. I might post the first half soon here.

Nice work as always Barry. Do you use fingerpicks? Your sound has a nice attack to it.

[TBman]

Originally Posted by J-Doug

Hi David,

for some reason I can't access the recording right now.



Nice work as always Barry. Do you use fingerpicks? Your sound has a nice attack to it.

Thanks Doug. No I don't use any picks, I'm trying to palm mute and pluck the strings with emphasis. Its a technique I like, but I haven't mastered it yet. I will be working in a thumb pick over time. I tried it for a few minutes today. It will take some getting used to.

David had a nice tune there, I don't know why it pulled it down so fast.

Originally Posted by TBman

Thanks Doug. No I don't use any picks, I'm trying to palm mute and pluck the strings with emphasis. Its a technique I like, but I haven't mastered it yet. I will be working in a thumb pick over time. I tried it for a few minutes today. It will take some getting used to.

David had a nice tune there, I don't know why it pulled it down so fast.

I had ONE DAY where fingerpicks worked for me. I just tried them again a few minutes ago. Yikes! I know they require a lot of practice but I just don't feel I need them. I'm happy with my tone right now. Y'know it's one of those grass being greener on the other side of the fence things so I try occasionally.

[TBman]

Originally Posted by J-Doug

I had ONE DAY where fingerpicks worked for me. I just tried them again a few minutes ago. Yikes! I know they require a lot of practice but I just don't feel I need them. I'm happy with my tone right now. Y'know it's one of those grass being greener on the other side of the fence things so I try occasionally.

I did the thumb pick thing for about 3 minutes today, but I had a bunch of things to get done before we went to my son's first college basketball game today.

I'll try again a little each day. My first impression was that my thumb was playing too loud,

[DavidWhitehurst]

Originally Posted by J-Doug

Hi David,

for some reason I can't access the recording right now.



Nice work as always Barry. Do you use fingerpicks? Your sound has a nice attack to it.

J-Doug:

I added back the track. It wasn't what I called production ready, so I took it down. It's probably okay to leave it up. Anyhow, I put it back.


David

[DavidWhitehurst]

Originally Posted by TBman

I did the thumb pick thing for about 3 minutes today, but I had a bunch of things to get done before we went to my son's first college basketball game today.

I'll try again a little each day. My first impression was that my thumb was playing too loud,

Guys,

The thumbpick for me works best with the Chet Atkins, Merle Travis style things. I do allow the thumb strike to be a little harder and yes louder, but I also mute the top strings with my palm and it tends to be more percussive than musical (actual tones). But, when I play nylon string guitars, I play more formal in a classical style without the thumb pick. I actually like it all so I change up a lot. I like to be be comfortable with different styles of playing. To me it's all fun.

Originally Posted by DavidWhitehurst

J-Doug:

I added back the track. It wasn't what I called production ready, so I took it down. It's probably okay to leave it up. Anyhow, I put it back.


David

Very nice David!

Well here's the medley finally. Too slow with some mess ups but it's the best I could pull off. One day I'll get it up to Stefan Grossman speed but not today.

[TBman]

Originally Posted by DavidWhitehurst

Guys,

The thumbpick for me works best with the Chet Atkins, Merle Travis style things. I do allow the thumb strike to be a little harder and yes louder, but I also mute the top strings with my palm and it tends to be more percussive than musical (actual tones). But, when I play nylon string guitars, I play more formal in a classical style without the thumb pick. I actually like it all so I change up a lot. I like to be be comfortable with different styles of playing. To me it's all fun.

Thanks David. The whole key to jumping up my playing level is the palm muting. The thumb pick I guess has to be used with the right tunes. I used to be a flatpicker way back when so I'm curious to see what happens once I get used to the feel and the spacial relationships going on.

[TBman]

Ok, here's a pretty clean full version of Deep River Blues:



I'm going to continue to practice this every day, but concentrate on Mississippi Blues, Hideaway and other shorter blues tunes I recently got the tab and videos for.

[000JB]

Nice job !

[TBman]

Ok, here's pages 1 and 2 of Mississippi Blues, I actually have the two pages almost memorized:



I can play the whole song, but it isn't all memorized yet. This one was harder at first than Deep River, but once I got the tempo down, it actually is easier, fretwise.

[DavidWhitehurst]

Originally Posted by TBman

Ok, here's pages 1 and 2 of Mississippi Blues, I actually have the two pages almost memorized:



I can play the whole song, but it isn't all memorized yet. This one was harder at first than Deep River, but once I got the tempo down, it actually is easier, fretwise.

Barry:

I like this tune. You did a good job. You mention pages 1 and 2. Pages of what? I'm interested if you have sheet music in finding myself a copy. Let me know what title if this is from a songbook or similar.

Thanks, and great job! My next piece to finish is "The Claw" by Jerry Reed and I think I may break it up into its pieces and post "Sections" of it on SoundCloud. Some people think that you should only post your best work on SoundCloud. I disagree because whether you are limited (free account) or have unlimited storage, we should be able to post things for others to "use" or learn from. To me, this is what sharing on the internet is all about. I have a really good plan in the works for guitarists like us that I'll share soon. When I say like us, I mean guitarists that are amateurs by trade, but still very serious about playing and sharing the music they love. More to come on that soon.

Let me know the title of the book or what you meant by pages 1 and 2?

thanks,

David