General Music Chat

I spent a few hours chainsawing and clearing up brush at my mom's on Saturday, so my hands were pretty useless by the end of the day. Skipped a jam party because of it, but practiced bass for half an hour in preparation for Sunday
yesterday - band practice, with the 'Scrambled Eggs' as we prepare for the annual benefit show. Doing a full set of songs this year, and added a drummer. We've got 2 more practices (including full dress rehearsal) before the May 20 show. Some people may think Beatles songs are easy to do, but we work on harmonies - often have 4 parts going.
Hardest part for me is playing bass for a dozen songs - many of the songs are in the key of G and use the same 'basic chords', but throw them in different orders (specially in the bridges). "Which one is this one again?" I'll be playing acoustic guitar for 4 songs during our 'unplugged' set, as well.
And we've got a second gig at a local college 2 weeks after, sharing a stage with a bunch of other bands (we'll just do a half hour set), headliner is Tom Rush for that show.

I had a fan recognize me and said he was astonished by my playing in the past at the swap meet.yesterday, my head swelled up like a balloon, or like some members here when they post their videos and get a positive comment..LOL...had a Global strat copy sitting in a Fender Squire hardshell case for $100.00 and he asked me to play for him, but too many customers hovering around looking at my stuff to do so.. he bought a matched set of ROYAL WORCESTER horseshoes for pitching nonetheless.. had a 15 year old girl take a photo of me demonstrating the same Global guitar for a potential customer earlier in the day..she asked permission first and I obliged her.. sold a Maestro acoustic guitar by Gibson for $40.00..

I spent the weekend listening to really good musicians on Youtube. For the most part I was looking to find all I could about Kyoji Yamamoto and Hiroaki Tagawa, a couple of incredible guitar players. Kyoji Yamamoto has technique, and taste beyond measure. Evidently Kyoj was a Hendrix fan and it shows in his playing. Personally I wasn't much of a Hendrix fan, but Kyoji Yamamoto and Hiroaki Tagawa captured my attention with their overall skills. Generally I tire ofr shredders, but these two are masters at blues, rock, fusion, and jazz. They perform it all skillfully. Hiroaki is blind and plays with his hand above the neck and does things that seem impossible when playing like that. Gotta love 'em if you appreciate skilled musicians..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5ut1RuJoEQ

Americans become interested in music at later ages and develop their techniques playing in garage bands and the likes , while the Japanese, who are study oriented send their kids to schools to seriously study music at an early age. Not saying that all Americans do not. It is no wonder that Japan has the highest number of musicians (and a lot of great ones) in the world. .

Four pc PJAZZ gig on Fri that was a blast.....we played a three pc gig earlier in the wk w me carrying all the freight on gtr/vibes (playing all the heads and doing most of the soloing)...that's always fun but then it's nice when we have our sax/clarenetist there and he takes over the role of playing the heads...i do love to accompany.

Saturday was a night off and got to kick back at home w the mrs. and watch our Spurs get beat by the Clippers.

bring on the playoffs!