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Saturday, March 18, 2006

Road to King of the Blues 3

Four more days to Guitar Center King of the Blues Competition. I narrowed it down to four choices of backing tracks and I have installed a secret weapon to my set up.

Oops, not so secret anymore...

Second Line Blues

This one is an A minor blues. It's not as inspired as the take I recorded last time.

Rockin Blues with Back Beat

Happy sounding blues in G. I like the feel.


Slow Shuffle Blues

Took me a couple of seconds to figure out the key. I mainly used B pentatonic minor scale. There are a couple of really good spots on this one.

16th Note Swing Funky Cool Shuffle Blues tk1

I handled the intro much better than last time. This one is in G. I'm going back & forth between major and minor. G is a good key to play on the guitar except when I play higher frets. 20th through 22nd frets are harder to play than some keys.

16th Note Swing Funky Cool Shuffle Blues tk2

It sounds a little better than the first take.

I have to focus on making everything I play meaningful. I didn't warm up before I recorded these, so it sounds like I'm doing warm ups as I recorded these. Some inspired moments here and there, but I should probably slow down more often. There are spots that I took some risks and landed on my feet and hopefully same thing will happen on Tuesday. I'll listen to players going before me and see how much risk I should be taking. But if you don't take chances, what fun is playing the guitar?

Check out my previous recorded practices at

Road to King of the Blues 1

Road to King of the Blues 2

5 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I totally agree with what you said about playing something meaningful... you certainly have amazing chops but this is a blues contest, and not the regular one. Im interested to see if shredding and virtuosity will win over tone and feel in this competition.

3/31/2006 3:34 PM

 
Blogger Retired Rock Star Wannabe said...

Well, I didn't make it, so I can't really say much about it, but as far as tone is concerned, everyone including myself played through this Crate tube amp even though there was options to play Marshall or Fender, so I don't think it was an issue. As far as the feel is concerned, the younger guy who was picked had a good feel but I just didn't think that he had the other stuff like technique or originality. He made some SRV like faces to make it seem like he was digging deep in his soul, but I didn’t buy it because he just didn’t have the chops. I slowed down somewhat on the day of the competition to throw is some tasty licks, but the track that I choose (16th note swing whatever) didn’t ask for so much taste because of its tempo and the feel. I don’t have any problem with the other guy who got picked because he was legit.

After all, I don't want to sound like a sore loser even though I am. I'm just happy that you at least acknowledged that I have that chops! Thank you!

4/01/2006 12:14 AM

 
Blogger monotonous said...

its ok man.u seem like real good guy so dont worry u ll having somethin nice comin 4 u.

5/15/2006 2:17 AM

 
Blogger Retired Rock Star Wannabe said...

I hope you're right!

5/15/2006 2:15 PM

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Those contests are bogus anyway. The kid who won here was doing alot of grunge powerchording and sweep picking. I think after hearing about yours I'm convinced you have to be between 17 and 22 to win these. Alot of awesome blues players never made it past the store finals and in every case I know of, a young kid without any chops or soul wins.

10/29/2006 10:49 PM

 

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