New Year’s Stuff

Practiced from the Swing Guitar Book today. This year I want to lose weight....get more into spirituality.....learn more about guitar playing....do more...

Gig Night Pictures

Gig Night Picrures

Gig Night Pictures

Open Mic Night

Open Mic Night

https://youtu.be/PdnT-Ba_YI4

https://youtu.be/880ybYrgJiU

Bob Dylan at The Met

Recently finished listening to all of Bob Dylan’s authorized studio releases, and here’s a ranked order of them in terms of how much I liked them:

 

1) Blonde on Blonde 

2) Love and Theft

3) Highway 61 Revisited

4) Bringing it All Back Home

5) Time Out Of Mind

6) Together Through Life

7) Modern Times

8) The Freewheelin Bob Dylan 

9) Oh Mercy

10) The Times They Are a Changin

11) Shot of Love

12) Another Side Of Bob Dylan

13) Shadows in the Night

14) John Wesley Harding

15) Blood on the Tracks

16) Tempest

17) Basement Tapes

18) Slow Train Comin

19) Bob Dylan I

20) Nashville Skyline

21) Street-Legal

22) Planet Waves

23) Desire

24) Under the Red Sky

25) World Gone Wrong

26) Infidels 

27) Christmas in the Heart

28) New Morning 

29) Saved

30) Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid

31) Self-Portrait

32) Good As I Been To You

33) Fallen Angels

34) Triplicate

35) Empire Burlesque 

36) Down in the Groove

37) Knocked Out Loaded

Also, my son and I saw him last night in concert and it’s was quite a memorable and great show. Saw him in Philadelphia at the opening night at The Met, and the venue was fantastic. Had spotlights outside the venue. Some notes: 

1)!Cry a While” was apparently set to Link Wray’s “Rumble.

2)  A GREAT highlight was a cool version of “Scarlett Town” with the kid singing it standing up holding the mic all kinds of cool ways and every once in a while holding a pose of just standing there in his silver suit striking this certain cool pose he kept doing consisting of standing there with one hand on his hip. Coolness!

3)DID take awhile to figure out what songs he was doing- because he revamped them a lot! I forget what song it was to, but I really thought he placed it to the music of “Cold Irons Bound.” 

4) He played no guitar but was at the piano. He sometimes stood up getting into it. Man, he can really play the piano! It was turned up, and he can really play!

5) Another highlight was “Like a Rolling Stone”: at some points the band just seemed to drop out and he sang lines in almost a sad way. It was beautiful and I won’t forget it.

6)  Biggest highlight for me was “Blowin in the Wind” Tears were welling up. The arrangement was stunningly beautiful including a violin

7)!Early Roman Kings” was awesome

8)?Setlist:

1.       Things Have Changed

2.       It Ain't Me, Babe

3.       Highway 61 Revisited

4.       Simple Twist of Fate

5.       Cry a While

6.       When I Paint My Masterpiece

7.       Honest With Me

8.       Tryin' to Get to Heaven

9.       Scarlet Town

10.   Make You Feel My Love

11.   Pay in Blood

12.   Like a Rolling Stone

13.   Early Roman Kings

14.   Don't Think Twice, It's All Right

15.   Love Sick

16.   Thunder on the Mountain

17.   Soon After Midnight

18.   Gotta Serve Somebody

19.   Encore:

20.   It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry

21.   Blowin' in the Wind

  

Three Amigos

2014:

2015:

2016:

2017:

2018:

Played Gig For Church Function Today

Working back into the lead guitar section of the swing guitar book. 

Sudnow

Finished (finally) with “What a Wonderful World.” So now I have two songs in my piano repertoire:” Misty” and “What a Wonderful World.” Time go move on to a song that I think I had sounding pretty good in the past: “Over the Rainbow.” 

Playing an open mic on guitar with the trio in a couple of days. Here are some possible songs we’ll be doing: 

“Havana,” “At Last,” “Why Don’t You Do Right,” “I Want You Back,” “Summertime,” “Over The Rainbow,” Smile,” and What a Difference a Day Makes.”

Sometimes I get the urge to just play some electric guitar blues and rock & roll!

Looks like our band is gearing up to play Christmas shows for charity.

Guitar / Piano

Looks like our trio is gathering some traction. Four days ago we played at an open mic night. Looks like we will be pushing this trio thing.

Continue to practice scales from the Arbersold Book 1 for guitar. Putting chord melody on hold for now (at least temporarily!).

Good piano practice too. Practiced closed voicings as well as continue to work on “What a Wonderful World” Sudnow style. 

Sudnow

Back yet again to the Sudnow Method. Working on closed voicings. Can somewhat play “Misty.” Working on “What a Wonderful World.”

To a lesser extent, still learning guitar chord melody and some soloing stuff.

Playing a charity gig with the band this weekend.

Playing at an open mic a week from today in a jazz trio (the bassist in the other band, our main vocalist, and myself on guitar).

Bought Led Zeppelin I the other day / of course I used to have it years ago.

I like the new Paul McCartney album: “Egypt Station.”

National Dog Day

Here’s our relatively new puppy: Oliver Rocco

College Move In Day

Moved my second child into college two days ago.

MARTIN D-35

My new guitar (a 50th anniversary) Martin D-35:

Update

A few things going on musically:

1. Playing fingerpicking guitar style a bit. Here’s me doing the old Fleetwood Mac song, “Never Going Back Again.” Lyndsey Buckingham gets such cool sounds from the guitar. Here’s a version I recorded yesterday: 

https://app.box.com/s/a8ow9mlrf9ncgn4k1ahiae5s11ns7c1p

2. Playing a gig soon with the band of Christmas songs. We call the show “Christmas in July.”

3. Got a free piano and just paid for the moving of it. Will eventually have to get it tuned. Where I go with piano is now at the stage where I just want to incorporate inversions in a number of songs (with left hand playing root only).

4. Playing some jazz standards with a woodwind player and our bassist.

5. What I’m mostly excited about is a new book I got: 

“Beyond Chord Melody” by Martin Taylor with Joseph Alexander. I’m up to page 16 and really liking it.

What a Wonderful World

It’s been awhile since I posted here. Here’s what I’m up to:

Back to the Sudnow Piano Method, but this time I am really taking my time. I got “Misty” pretty much under my fingers, and I’m working now on voicing and learning one of my favorite songs: “What a Wonderful World” (the Louis Armstrong one). 

I just keep coming back to Sudnow. 

Figured out what’s mostly a guitar chord melody solo arrangement of “What a Wonderful World,” also. Here’s how that recently sounds:

https://app.box.com/s/iw6bt8562m8fqvfxc4vm09kj89p47xn7

I’m still on the Keto diet, though I messed up a couple of days. Continue to lose weight!

Happy Birthday to Me

Turned 56 today....going to celebrate it this weekend.

Pentatonic Thursday

Still on the keto diet and lost about eleven pounds. Hanging in there! 

Bought a cool book about chord melody solo guitar by Martin Taylor. Interesting; from what I gather, he’s taking a different path than just using established chord forms. Intriguing to me because there are soooo many chord forms..... He covers other stuff like playing bass during the solo, 

Worked tonight mostly on “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore.” Interesting using some pentatonic stuff. 

Every Night

Practiced some guitar tonight; learning “Meditation” chord melody style for our jazz duet. Still doing some stuff with the Silver book. Took out my acoustic and this happened; made a recording of my version of Paul McCartney’s “Every Night.” Use headphones if possible:

https://app.box.com/s/zpidgoi4cda5l9cahlio9kdsktxrokqd

Keto Diet / Day 3 / May 2, 2018

Keto Diet / Day 1

Musically I want to get back into the Silver book. And of course, there is the piano. Here is a picture taken today. Hopefully in a year my face will be thinner:

Update

Haven’t posted in awhile and here is an update without going g into too many details. Currently:

1) Still in the rock and roll / jazz band playing guitar and doing a little singing

2) Currently in a jazz duet with another guy who is in the band above 

3) The Fewell Book is a focus.

4) Still there, but less of a focus: chord melody on guitar, and the Sudnow Method on piano

Fewell

Decided to just s l o w d o w n and try to learn material in the Fewell book slower. Trying to get it. It or nothing else can be an easy method when it comes to learning how to improvise. I would like to have more than scales as tools.

One of my main issues remains what to do when keys change in songs; like when it goes from one key to another every few bars.

CONGRATULATIONS TO VILLANOVA UNIVERSITY FOR MAKING IT TO THE CHAMPIONSHIP GAME !!!!

I attended there when they won their championship against the Georgetown Hoyas.

Garrison Guitar Sunday

Getting back into Garrison Fewell’s “Jazz Imlrovisation for Guitar: A Melodic Approach.” It’s making sense to me. I played jazz with our bassist yesterday and my solos weren’t satisfactory to me. 

Snow & Music

Snow today !

A kind of surprising day of accomplished music practice. Getting into “Over the Rainbow” Sudnow Method style on the piano. Also went over some popular music method material. Reviewed some soloing guitar stuff as well as working on getting used to notes on the 5th position on the guitar. 

When I just play and not get into self-criticism of my playing, it really is interesting how much I accomplish.

Sunday

Learning those pentatonic boxes all over the guitar neck has been very helpful in my guitar soloing. I know I should probably work on how to read music for the guitar (at this time I can read passably in the first position only - and not counting always reading rhythms correctly there). Reading music can help me play the melody in our jazz songs.

Yes, still struggling somewhat with what to do with Piano. The Sudnow Method offers sounds so beautiful, but my ability to memorize songs is not fantastic. I have a past method that I restarted today that might, if I’m patient enough to work through it, lead to a more rounded ability to play from fakebooks/lead sheets. 

Here are some recordings that we made yesterday. They are me on guitar, an app playing piano and drums, and our bassist. The recordings aren’t great, but the music is cool: 

Satin Doll:

https://app.box.com/s/x8ku2agyewrh5e3mkkvbogndq4pfi5bh

Over the Rainbow:

https://app.box.com/s/sm3pj84tah8hz6tpg0s8kzgk0wwqcspi

Meditation:

https://app.box.com/s/orfjchu8t5gebooa445t5j67md7g50wb

52

Learning the Pentatonic Scale and Blues Scale all over the neck of the guitar. Went to see Billy Joel’s past band The Lords Of 52nd Street and I thought they were awesome. The talent! The songs!

Came home and recorded my version of Simon & Garfunkel’s “Mrs. Robinso .” Here it is:

https://app.box.com/s/judn7i6ogndghhzv0ez2rgba0v68qt94

Guitar Fingerstyle

Got into some Paul Simon today and tried learning “Mrs. Robinson” with help of YouTube. Also, been listening a little to a band on YouTube that has something of a cool rockabilly feel. Listening to Frank Zappa is cool too. Parts of me really likes to play jazz and acoustic guitar / other parts want to blast electric blues with a Stratocaster / another part wants to play beautiful solo piano....

Soloing

Using a couple  of different materials to help me improvise on guitar.....a very helpful book I used in the past as well as a book of cool riffs....one review of the riff book said that using the riff book with the major scale is a good idea and I’m beginning to see the value of that. 

Satin Doll

Here’s today’s version of “Satin Doll,” utilizing a bass on an “app” and me on guitar:

https://app.box.com/s/k3zqm9thfhj013m9p4ic3mym0glansga

Piano Guitar

Played some piano. Liked it. Played some guitar. Liked it. Learning Conti’s Assembly Line dominant chord shapes. 

Chord Melody

Decided to go back to a tried method that has worked for me with regards to chord melody guitar: Robert Conti’s “Assembly Line” material. Today I worked on the various chord shapes for the dominant chords. 

Would really like to be able to do a performance of songs where I can play the melody as well as improvise over my friend playing bass. Also, he could do some soloing as I play the chords.

Almost forgot to add that I’m working again out of Jamie Aebersold’s Book 1 for guitar. Just about finished with the major scales. Selling myself short in that before I even started again, I’m telling myself that the other scales and exercises will be too difficult.

Guitar, Piano.....Piano, Guitar

Regarding guitar, I think that I am getting somewhere and may even go further if It keep up with my current chord melody studies using my book.

Regarding piano, I really like the sounds, and I practiced some of that too today.

The problem remains. Which do I focus on, guitar or piano? I don’t think that I have time to continue with both. It’s a complex dilemma. 

I like them both; I love the sound of solo piano more than the sound of guitar; I have more experience with the guitar and might get farther with the guitar than I would with the piano if I keep sticking to it....

Maybe trumpet!

Gig Night

Had a really good gig tonight with the band. It started this morning with a good practice session. Adding songs to our repertoire is keeping things from being monotonous. Added “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow,” and I think it sounds really good. 

Also continue to practice from the chord melody book. 

Chord Melody Casino Coupe

Getting back into Chris Standring’s Chord Melody teaching material for guitar. Here’s my Epiphone Casino Coupe:

Jason Kelce

The Eagle Of Eagles ! 

Ladies and Gentlemen! Mr. Jason Kelce !!

EAGLES VICTORY PARADE !

Me at Eagles Victory Parade

EAGLES VICTORY PARADE !

In South Philly today at Broad & Snyder for the Eagles Victory Patade! Almost got to touch Jalin Mills’ hand as he ran through the crowd!

E A G L E S EAGLES!