@Clayton, thank you so much for your encouraging words!

It’s incredibly fun for me to work on – and I will continue.

It’s also important for me that I finally start jazz blues comping. Robert’s course « Jazz Blues Guitar 1 » is a perfect start for me and I highly recommend it for jazz beginners.

The chords are slowly introduced and expanded over the course and illustrated with a bit of music theory. Great. And the shell voicings are so beautiful. 

I have one more question about the tempo of the solo. Christian plays the solo at an, for me, unbelievable tempo of 198 bpm.

I just got really comfortable with 110 bpm. I think that’s ok when I think about my abilities. I still have fun. But do you think that – with a lot of practice – I might be able to get up to, maybe, 130 or 140 bpm?

Already at 120 bpm, I have the feeling that the swing rhythm suffers and I play too choppy. I probably have to take a lot of time for that too – or I have to acknowledge that it’s too demanding for me.

I would be interested to know if you have had similar experiences regarding approaching the tempo of a song.

Birgit

@bluesiline Speed will come with time, its accuracy and feel of the groove/swing that must be set first.  How much time?  Maybe never, maybe close.  I'll never hit the speed (let alone feel) of the solo rock Gods that I admire: Page, Trower, Hendrix.

But that limit is where your style picks up and really blossoms.  My creative work comes from fitting my skill and knowledge to a performance or task.  Necessity becomes the mother of invention, and what you find as your special way to play a piece is what makes it worth listening to.  Vive la difference!

@Clayton, thank you for your insightful reflections on this topic. I will keep that in mind!

A big thank you,

Birgit

It's all about having fun 😊

That is great, it's getting better for sure! Keep tapping your foot and lock in with the groove. That's much more important than the length of each note. The downbeats are the most important. 

I will try to come up with a simple solo as well. What key would you prefer? Most jazz blues tunes I've played have been in Bb or C or F.

Thank you, Robert. I leave the key selection to you. I’ll accept the challenge.

But don’t stress yourself and only compose a solo if you have a bit of time and leisure. I want you to enjoy it.

Birgit

Practice log 01-27-2023

I started with « Jazz Blues 1 » of  Robert’s wonderful four part course « Jazz Blues Guitar 1 ». In this chapter the chord progression is a standard blues progression in C with a quick change in bar 2.

The shell voicings and the Freddy Green comping are completely new to me, so this first recording was a big challenge for me regarding playing the shell voicings C7, F7 and G7 and getting familiar with the chord stabs.

This still needs practice. And my right hand has to loosen up and strum without a break.

Birgit

Great job! The first chord sounds a bit out of tune, but that's no big deal. Overall, it sounds EXCELLENT. Keep up doing that! Do start to feel the groove? It's a good rhythm exercise in its own right.

Practice log  02-12-2023

I continued with the lessons Jazz blues 2 and 3 from Robert’s four part course «Jazz Blues Guitar 1».

In „Jazz blues 2“ the shell voicing for Dm7 was added in bars 9 and 12 producing the ii – V progression:

|Dm7 | G7 | C7 | Dm7 G7 |

This sounds so beautiful and jazzy in comparison to the normal blues progression in Jazz blues 1. Oh yeah, I love it.

In Jazz blues 3 the shell voicing for A7 was added in bars 8 and 11, which is the VI dominant and also the V chord of the next chord, the iim7 : Dm7.

|C7     | F7   | C7       |  C7         |

| F7     | F7  | C7       |  A7          |

|Dm7  | G7  | C7 A7 | Dm7 G7 |

As Robert explained in the lesson, it really creates a beautiful resolution. A big thank you to Robert for the step by step approach and the concise explanations 👍. Very helpful not to be overwhelmed by the many chords.

While playing I now have the chords in my head and also their meaning within the progression. This helps a lot not to get lost.

I worked a lot with Robert’s Soundslice version, to get the feeling for the Freddy Green comping and to see how Robert placed his fingers to mute unwanted strings. So helpful!

But very, very challenging! for me was to play the chords only half of the bar in bars 11 and 12.  I’ve done that for the first time now. I had to take quite a lot of recordings ……….. A sign that stability only comes with more practice.

But the beauty of the ii-V-I progression helps not to despair but to keep at it!

What else strikes me:

This recording „Jazz blues 3“ sounds much brighter to me than the last recording „Jazz blues 1“.

For „Jazz blues 1“  I used the Dunlop Tortex Jazz III 1 mm and for „Jazz blues 3“ the Dunlop Tortex Jazz III .73 mm.

I think that the thicker pick was responsible for the darker sound. But I like the brighter sound of this recording much better. So for strumming I prefer to stick with the thinner pick.

Thanks for the encouraging words from last week, Robert. And yes, I start to feel the groove 😊.

Birgit

That sounds excellent! I am very glad to hear you are learning, improving and enjoying it! 

I love these types of blues progressions, with more chord movement which makes it a lot more fun to play chords.

I have no specific suggestions for you, because you are doing great as it is. Just keep recording this several times so you get the confidence.

Could try do a recording where you ONLY strum the chord on the 1st beat? The "1". Then you may be able to hear more of what the bass and drums are doing, since you're basically just waiting until 2, 3 and 4 are finished. It's good practice as well. 

Practice log 03-02-2023

I’ve looked at the sheet music of Robert’s F Blues Solo & Tea several times, but kept saying that it’s still too difficult for me. It’s such a wonderful traditional jazz blues solo that really touches me. It didn’t let go of me and I listened to the song over and over again that I could really hum it by now.

Then I pulled myself together and started practicing, practicing, practicing. The 16th notes with the hammer ons and pull offs were really difficult for me. And from the many pull offs I practiced, I also got a little callus on the tip of my left ring finger. I’m just saying, you have to read Robert Renman‘s mail „My fingers hurt and this is why“ to realize that even full-grown guitarists are not spared!

This is my first attempt at 100 bpm instead of 130 bpm in Robert’s original.

I think there is still a lot to improve, but it's really fun to play 😊.

It’s a super nice solo and I’d like to thank Robert for it.

Birgit

Kudos to for your doing this. It's certainly not easy to play. Great job for this first attempt! This could be a good one to record once a month and make sure to practice it a few times through, every day. I think your technique and smoothness will improve if you keep working on it. Basically just keep doing it and you'll improve!

Practice log 03-14-2023

Robert, you encouraged us to play the lick of lesson YL44 in all 12 keys to get a better overview of the fretboard and to start seeing chords and scales much faster.

I said that I wanted to tackle that. I started but I noticed, that, at the moment, the lick on the lower strings is still too difficult for me to play.

But I didn’t want to give up and I had the idea to combine two licks from the „Minor blues boxes solo – Yl43“, the lick from bars 1 and 2 with the lick from bars 7 and 8, to get 4 measures in length.

I first practiced it with Robert‘s video jam track. Very helpful.

Meanwhile I can already play it with the normal backing track and I can see the chords and scales much faster. I didn’t expect it to be so much fun playing through all keys, but it really is.

From my current experience I can say that Robert is absolutely right when he says that playing through all 12 keys is a very good practice 👍.

I still have to work on cleanliness and smoothness.

Birgit

That's a great idea! Sounds really good overall. Glad you can move around the fretboard in 12 keys! Kudos to you - not many can do that so you are doing very well indeed!

The note you slide is sometimes leading to the following notes speeding up. I wonder if you could try playing without a slide? Just pick the all the notes. Also, you can skip the hammer-on double stop at the end if it's easier. Just have the goal to play all notes the same - as even and tight as you can.

Thanks for your comments and suggestions, Robert. Helps a lot 👍.

Yes, I think it’s absolutely right to skip the slide and focus on, like you said, «the goal to play all notes the same – as even and tight as you can». That's the most important point for me.

However, I don’t want to skip the hammer-on double stop at the end because I enjoy it so much 😊. And, I think, doing 12 repetitions all over the fretboard in one set will help me to get a little more routine.

I will include this exercise in my regular practice to gain more looseness, smoothness and cleanliness  to tackle lesson YL44 at some point.

Birgit