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Great story! Jake and Herb made some great music together. (So did Jake and Joe Pass.) I'd love to hear that tape someday, though I have no idea how to transfer cassettes to mp3 files.
Originally Posted by rave
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01-07-2017 12:59 PM
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Originally Posted by pants
This may be biting off more than we can chew. For one thing, some lines are well suited to a single position and will be mostly used when one is in that position. Some lines are pretty easy to shift from one shape to another but not so easy to shift to still another. One advantage of the shape system is that you DON'T (tend to) play the same lines out of every shape.
Shape 3 is the oddest one for me. But over time, I've found it useful. There are some great lines played out of that shape in "Rhythm Shapes" and "All the Shapes You Are." It's also good shape for a blues in G because you have the root on the B string at the 8th fret and the 3rd and 5th are handy on the high E string.
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Cassette to MP3 would just be a case of plugging audio out from a cassette into a PC recording software and pushing play. Then splice to tracks as needed. A bit cumbersome. But not complicated. Originally Posted by MarkRhodes
Regarding the positions thing, yeah I didn't actually mean to say that'd be ideal here. But it'd be a cool long term exercise with a choice solo to not only learn it in different positions, but also in shifting positions up and down and all over the place.
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Another possibility is to take one or two shapes and milk them. In the "Blues Shapes" book, the first blues solo Herb plays ("2 Shape Blues", I think) is all played out of just two shapes.
When I started learning the solos in "Swing Blues" I knew what the shapes were but I didn't focus too much on them while playing the lines. (Yeah, that's right, I ignored sound advice...) Now I'm focusing on the shapes and the scale fingerings that go with them. It's helping. (And they said I was beyond help! ;o)
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For listening practice...
Herb has many great blues recordings, but the album "Nothing but the Blues" features a stellar lineup and steady diet of delicious blues tunes.
In particular today I was grooving on his version of Royal Garden Blues (a Charlie Christian classic)
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I love that recording! That take of "Royal Garden Blues" is among Herb's greatest performances, in my view. The solo---and it's a long one---is transcribed in a recent book: Originally Posted by pants
Amazon.com: Best of Herb Ellis: Artist Transcriptions for Guitar (9781480383647): Herb Ellis: Books
I have this on the mp3 player I carry on walks, so I hear it at least once a week, sometimes four-five times. Never get tired of it.
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"Blues Shapes" is simpler to start with but the book is out of print, so it's hard to find. And even though I found it---took some doing---I didn't find the cassette, so I haven't heard Herb play those pieces. Originally Posted by tbone
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My Internet's been out most of the week. Repair people are out in the yard again today. Some problem with an underground cable. Hope to be back to normal functioning here soon.
Anyone else care to post a take of the first four bars of Herb's "Blues in C" solo?
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Nice start! I think you might be adding a beat in before the chord hits in bar 4. The timing on these is a bit awkward there especially without metronome or backing track. That bit and the triplet/descending arpeggio part were the sticking points for me in these bars. Originally Posted by tbone
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Nice, pants!
Glad to see more people posting.
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I'm in !!
Do we have an assignment ?
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Mark posted a proposed schedule back a bit. Doing 4 bars a week. Initially as proposed the first 12 bars would be "due" this coming Monday. For my purposes, I get kind of limited and unpredictable time, so I'm just getting in chunks when I can. Personally I'm trying to work a chorus at a time. The point is just to share and have a forum to discuss any issues or insights. Originally Posted by Doublea A
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Can someone re post the "assignments" and timelines. I would love to jump in.
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It was just 4 bars a week. Bars 1-8 would have been "due" yesterday. First 12 bars due the 23rd. The Monday thing is arbitrary, as is the 4 bar thing. Just jump in and post what you can. Originally Posted by Doublea A
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Which song ? Originally Posted by pants
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"Blues In C", the first solo in Herb's book "Swing Blues." Originally Posted by Doublea A
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Ha! Guess that'd be a minorly important detail. Be nice if we could do some kind of "sticky" post that showed at the top of each page. Put the details of the project or whatever up with some degree of permanence. But yeah, what Mark said. Originally Posted by Doublea A
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Thanks
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I'll amend the OP. I think that still shows at the top of every new page. Originally Posted by pants
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It doesn't when I use Tapatalk on my phone, which I do 99.5% of the time. It's not a huge deal, but would be helpful in threads like this with "instructions" that can get easily lost. Originally Posted by MarkRhodes
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Hhmm, I'll put the schedule in signature, updating it weekly. See how that works. Stay tuned!
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I will have my 12 bars ready for Monday
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Hi there. I have Swing Blues on order, ready to start on 23rd Jan, if all goes to plan.
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Great. Don't freak out about deadlines. It's more important to get involved / post something than it is to do it by a particular time. It's not like school where you lose points for turning in an assignment let. This gig is pointless! ;o) Originally Posted by Cjh
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Herb says to keep the shapes in mind while playing the solo. I found this pretty hard to do until I had the lines memorized to the point of playing by muscle memory. At that point visualizing the line laying on top of the basic chord shape is an interesting practice. I'm not sure it's fundamentally different from playing around a certain scale in the position, but does give a bit more focus to key tones without having to devote as much on-the-fly thinking to breakdown of the chord in a theory sense.
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