My Progress on YouTube
Add me to the list of YouTube hacks trying to play SRV.
I had an idea. What if I upload videos of my progress on the songs I'm preparing for my LAMA scholarship demo? They won't be up to speed at first, and they'll have plenty of mistakes, but it might be interesting to see my improvements over the next couple months.
It's a good way to expose the flaws in my playing. Publishing something I'm not satisfied with makes me really uncomfortable. But maybe that's what I need. I could keep waiting until I'm better, until I can play the songs up to speed correctly, but I may never be satisfied with anything if I take that route.
So here's the first in what could become a series of published attempts at these songs. Let me know what you think of the idea.
Maybe I'll talk about each video when I post it.
I have Med/Heavy strings (.011-.056) on that one, tuned to standard pitch. I use Amazing Slow Downer to slow it down a bit and shift from Gb to G. I wasn't taking this run seriously, so I missed a few lines screwing off before the solo; I wasn't planning to upload it at the time. Aside from that, there's a handful of mistakes to work out, some bending problems, and a few Johnny Hiland eyeball moments. And that's my guitar rag, an old pair of undies. I use it to wipe the grime off the guitar and the sweat off my hands between lines.
Stephen (26 Feb 2008 at 1:35am)
"Publishing something I’m not satisfied with makes me really uncomfortable. But maybe that’s what I need."
This is an important point, and I think it's one of the best ways the internet can help an artist improve. When you force yourself to put something out there on a regular basis, you get both insight into your flaws and strong motivation to work them out.
Jason (26 Feb 2008 at 6:39am)
Keep up the good work!
IGBlog just had an interesting article on guitarists posting on YouTube and the flames that "can" ensue. (link below)
http://igblog.wordpress.com/2008/02/20/bad-youtube-comments/
Keep posting these, would love to see how you progress.
Dave (26 Feb 2008 at 11:10am)
You certainly have the notes. The one thing that comes to mind is that your guitar is behaving itself. You're playing clean, and you're playing the notes, but as you know, when you turn up, the guitar-amp combination take on a life of their own. The notes died instead of singing out, and some of that's in your hands, but a lot is in the volume.
You can't turn up to the cool tones all the time. I understand. But that's the way you can get your guitar to meet you halfway.
To reiterate, I can see why you aren't satisfied. I am still impressed and I'm glad I got to see this.
You didn't need to tell me those were your undies, by the way.
Joe (26 Feb 2008 at 12:18pm)
> You can’t turn up to the cool tones all the time.
Very true. Forgot to mention that in the post. I'm doing what I can to improve the tone as well as the chops, but so much of that is just taking my amp to a place where I can turn it up. My apartment is not such a place, so I may not get a chance to do that for a while. I dug up my cheap Tube Screamer, which should help next time.
Ovidiu - GuitarFlame.com (26 Feb 2008 at 11:26pm)
One f the best things you could do. I think this will also grow your blog reader base.
Ed (27 Feb 2008 at 3:49am)
Great strength on those bends! Nice one...