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So here's my take on choruses 1-5, done at about 130 bpm/85% published tempo. This is about the top speed for me at this point. This 5th chorus is vintage Raney.
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09-02-2019 03:59 PM
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Sweet! I may have to rethink my fingering on chorus 5, sounds great the way you played it. In general, I think, you are shooting for a more legato interpretation with a smoother sound than I. Middle of the neck fingering aids in that goal.
Is that your 12" Princeton we are hearing? Sounds fine whatever it is.
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Originally Posted by Michael Neverisky
I do tend to stay in the middle of the neck and the legato is more the result of hitting a ceiling on how fast I can play picking every note. I have tried to develop a "harder" hammer and slur so that the sound is still definitive, but the truth is that above a certain tempo my RH and LH have a very hard time working together. So legato is for me, I hope, a virtue dictated by necessity.
This is really fun just being a study group of two brave souls!
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So I decided to record the solo using the old 60s Silvertone head. I'm playing it through a 4 Ohm 10" speaker, so it's not quite the same as playing through 2x12. Still, this amp has a quality that I enjoy a lot. It has 2 6L6 power tubes, which I guess puts it in the Twin Reverb family though I have no idea how all the other components in there affect things. I'd love to find one of these in really immaculate condition, maybe updated capacitors and such. This one still has the original factory tubes.
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I'm a newbie to the world of electric guitars and amps. Thanks to my "enabler", a locally owned shop that sees a lot of used gear, I've cycled through a handful of guitars before coming to rest with this old 125.
Now I'm kicking the tires on amps. This weekend I plugged a $200 Chinese solidbody into a Princeton '65 and thought "what a great sounding guitar!" Then I plugged it into a SuperChamp, which is what I have at home, and it sounded... not so good. Learned something that day. The shop also had one with a 12" Jensen , which sounded very good too. Maybe I'll go back with my guitar. What could be the harm?
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I probably shouldn't post this because the 16th note runs are pretty much missed... but today I survived the current 5 choruses at the full tempo without getting lost. Actually, the 3 hard fast runs were missed, but not really any worse than at slower tempos. I felt pretty happy about cranking through this at the full tempo several times. I'm thinking when I dial it back to 130 or so again, maybe it'll seem easier???
Anyhow...here is the solo. Note the somewhat surprised and bemused expression on Jimmy's face...
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Swinging right along! The timing on that 4th chorus 16th lick sounds ok to me, and that is more important than precisely the right notes. That is, I think errors in time stick out more than a "wrong" note. It's jazz after all.
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As we circle in on the final lines of this solo, which btw look absolutely impossible to me, I'm pondering another matter. This is just a set of solo choruses on the blues, but it needs to be wedded to a head.
I"ve been hunting around for jazz/bop style blues heads in F that are in the 150 bpm range. At the moment, "Now's the Time" and "Billie's Bounce" are the two I can think of. I never liked the head "Now's the Time" so I think I will play "Billie's Bounce" as the head leading into the solo.
I like ending these Raney solos by putting together a head and the solos, using backing tracks from some source other than the one we're using. It gives me a sense that I've learned something I could conceivably play for others. All the subs in this solo might make that hard, but I'm hunting!
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I read through the last chorus yesterday, slowly of course, and it may be that the bulk of those 16th figures are executed by sweep picking arpeggios. Not sure if that's the right term... playing all the arp notes in one right hand stroke. And then a pull-off.
In a recent video on style, Jens Larsen makes the example of someone... I forget the name, who makes the most of his inability to execute fast, well articulated lines with alternate picking by refining his skill in the opposite direction of smooth, legato lines. We take what we can from Mr Raney, and in our limitations maybe make something new. Jimmy got away with a few things in Blues Groove I would not, prior to this study, have thought of myself.
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Heads up, I think the notation in the second measure of the chorus isn't quite right.
The fourth measure... that diminished scale is a good example of what must be a reflex lick. So I ask myself what is the likely way a guitar player would practice dim scales and then use that fingering. Which happens to be a nice set up for the arp that follows.
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I'm posting this as a kind of update, still on choruses 1-5 though I'm working on 6 as well.
I have made two changes in the way I'm playing this since there are some parts that keep falling apart. First, the 16th note figure at measures 4-5 has driven me crazy! But I have discovered that actually, it's just ONE NOTE that is killing me, the second Eb. I have found if I just omit that note, the figure plays okay for me. Now, it's a very nice boppish kind of note, and I hate to drop it, but it has become a tripwire for me that I just want to bypass. I will keep practicing with it at slower tempos, but life is too short to keep slamming my head against the wall.
The second change is my fingering in mm 10-12. I have stretched that one all over the fingerboard, but decided to keep it more in one position. So I'm posting this clip just to get those adjustments up for any who might find this a really interesting topic!
Also: it looks like chorus 6 is not as bad as I'd feared. Most of the fast 16th note runs are indeed rather simple arpeggios--but what's hip is that they are for substitution chords that I likely would never have used. Funny how a very basic run, done over a very not-basic chord sub, can be really hip.
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Excellent! You have a swinging, relaxed feel at that brisk tempo. I've be woodshedding at 75% which is much slower. Because...
I am finding the timing in chorus 6 to be a real challenge. Those arps. Playing along with Jimmy's solo, one of us keeps goofing up! This sort of time shifting thing he does is at the heart of his style, as far as my awareness goes, and he was really, really good at it.
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Originally Posted by Michael Neverisky
I do.
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OK Professor Stone, I'm turning in my full reading of Jimmy's solo. It's at 85%, so I don't expect more than a B+ on the assignment. But it's the journey, not the destination that matters most and this has been an enlightening expedition!
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Originally Posted by Michael Neverisky
Thanks for traveling this road with me. I hope to move on to another solo pretty soon when I have finished with this one. Maybe I'll see you again!
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I was able to make some progress on those knuckle busters by first getting the precise notes under my fingers at a very slow tempo - then treating them more like the licks they really are and just kind of feeling where they need to go, focusing mostly on where the last note needs to be and trying, trying, trying to lock in with the sound of the cymbal.
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Originally Posted by Michael Neverisky
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So here's me hacking though the entire chorus at about 85% tempo. I hear so many time issues, and so many clams, I almost didn't post. But hey, if we only post the perfect clips, it creates a false impression. This is a learning process, and this clip shows what I've learned and also highlights lots yet to learn. I am pleased that I more or less made it through, but hope to work on this for another week and post something better next week.
there is a "stutter" at about 1:25. My iPhone now does this periodically on recordings through the Lightning port. I think it's time to switch to a dedicated digital recorder for the audio.
On another note, I think this Aria PE180 and the Fender Princeton Reverb were just made for each other!
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High Five!
This solo is so familiar by now that I hear the entire thing in my head at various times in the day. I find, in such cases, that I nitpick details when the truth is the overall result is good.
Love the sound of that Princeton. My local shop has one with a Jensen 12" in Brown Western finish. Not sure how I feel about that, but it sounds fine.
So, congratulations and thanks for camaraderie and support.
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Originally Posted by Michael Neverisky
I'm loving that Princeton also. Today, however, I went direct from the DVMark Micro50 to my A/D converter and was shocked at how good the result sounded. I generally prefer to play everything through speakers, sending the backup direct to the box and the guitar via a microphone on the cabinet. I hate the headphones thing. But this AM I wanted to shed on this some and didn't want to disturb hall mates, so I went through the DV to the box, backing track to the box, and monitored on the headphones. It turned out really nice so maybe I'll try that again.
I am working on a better "final" clip. Today I did it at 90% and it was maybe 90-95% clean. that might be plenty good enough for "mission accomplished, what's next?"
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So here is the best take I could do today with the whole solo at the set tempo of 150 bpm. I actually never thought I'd get this up to tempo, or even close. It still isn't the clean playing I'd like, even the sweeps are too muddy and there are some clams. But... on the whole, I'm pretty happy that I got it this far and up to the expected tempo.
I had fun recording this. Just got the Quilter Interblock 45 so I played into that and ran the DI line direct to the A/D box, with the backing track going into the other channel of the A/D box. EQ is pretty much flat, the "Vintage EQ" option chosen and Cabinet Emulation rather than FRFR. I like this little amp-in-a-pedal thing.
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