what is going on in your musical life

I found a reel to reel on the curb at trash day and it works. Not a fancy model ($200 on EBay) and it's pretty creaky but it has tube preamps and sounds pretty wild even not going to tape.

Received my Slum of Legs vinyl finally today & am really digging it right now — sounded great on phone/headphones but it really opens up in the living room with a real stereo. So glad I shelled out for the physical thing! It’s a treasure.

Aw jeez. Thank you <3

today is my debut on a recording as a sideman! even the tiniest things are enough to brighten my mood a blip so i am trying to enjoy this milestone :)

i just went ahead and used sideman because there is no gender neutral option and i wanted to show again how absurd that term is. we can do better!

I attended a Zoom workshop led by Ben Monder yesterday, which was the most I've felt challenged in a long time - pretty much a 90 minute barrage of information. Just working through the first bit of it, I already feel like my soloing has gotten a lot stronger. The takes I laid down for the piece I'm working on are a lot closer to what I want them to be.

i just went ahead and used sideman because there is no gender neutral option

Mike Watt uses "sidemouse"

thank you for acknowledging my post sic :)
and wow i forgot about that album! its most distinguishing characteristic is being too large for normal CD storage. i did not remember that song.

it's a lesser track on the album but I've always liked the neutrality of the term! hope your mousegig goes well

I attended a Zoom workshop led by Ben Monder yesterday, which was the most I've felt challenged in a long time - pretty much a 90 minute barrage of information. Just working through the first bit of it, I already feel like my soloing has gotten a lot stronger. The takes I laid down for the piece I'm working on are a lot closer to what I want them to be.

serious question, but where would be a good *starting* point to strengthen lead playing. I'm a dude who settled for playing rhythm years ago, and I'm not looking to be Joe Satriani, and I know there are a ton of online lessons, but I tend to be the type of dude who just has a hard time getting started, once started i'm good to go.

like if u got any good videoz to point out for someone who has played the occasional bluesy solo but isn't doing tapping solos or nufin

richard lloyd is more than available for online lessons iirc

not actually joking, one of my buddies took weekly lessons from him while he was still in nyc and it was apparently amazing

Neanderthal, are you very comfortable with a couple of movable major and minor scale forms? (I'm assuming you can play pentatonic and blues scales from what you said.) That's probably where I would start, with a metronome, and practising both picking every note (I favour alternate picking myself) and also playing slurred scales (hammering on going up, pulling off coming back down) in time with the metronome. If you haven't done this with the blues scale, that might be a good idea too. When that becomes easy, try doing slurred triplets with combined hammer-ons and pull-offs between adjacent notes on the same string (e.g. fifth position A natural minor: A-B-A, B-C-B, D-E-D, E-F-E, G-A-G, etc.) With bends, the thing is usually being able to hear/feel the right pitch you are bending to - practise hammering on to the target note, then try to duplicate it with a bend. Focus on just one thing at a time, though; definitely don't try doing all of this at once (I don't really know your level so maybe some of this is too basic?). Also just find easy solos you like, slow them down (easy to play Youtube videos at 50% or 75% speed if you don't have software that can do this), and play along with them, recording yourself.

(Not Neanderthal but) my trouble with soloing is this: I am cool with a decent bunch of scales/modes and movable scale/mode forms. You can get pretty far if you're staying in key and noodling in an appropriate movable form.

But the harder part (that has never quite clicked for me) is keeping the current chord in mind and choosing notes from (or that go with) that chord. Like, an okay solo works with the key. To do a good solo, your note choices need to work well for the particular chord you are noodling over at that moment. So, like, it's one thing to play something that sounds generally good over an A blues; quite another to play something that tracks its movement between the I, the IV, the V, etc.

use arpeggios?

So, like, it's one thing to play something that sounds generally good over an A blues; quite another to play something that tracks its movement between the I, the IV, the V, etc.

speaking as a former all-state jazz first trombonist, this is all in your head. just have a blast and the progression will eventually come back around.

this sounds like overthinking dance steps -- i can pretty much never follow dancers who are very rigid about "correct moves" but if the leader goes with feeling, it's way way way easier to follow (if i have to follow)

Think of it less in terms of what notes are allowed with each chord and more about do I like the way this melody sounds with the accompanying music.

Agree with NickB that it helps to practise the arpeggios for the chords you are playing over (or for standard progressions), identify a couple of places you can play each, where it is easiest to transition between, and essentially fill in the spaces with passing notes, or to start that way. Also thinking of tendency tones helps: so e.g. the leading note (7th note of the scale) will tend to rise up to the tonic if e.g. you end with that note over a V chord when you are about to change to I; sevenths of chords (not the 7th scale degree) tend to fall at a chord change, etc. Usually avoid or de-emphasize notes that are a semitone above chord members. Unless you're playing over something like rhythm changes, where the chords change every two beats at 200 bpm, in which case, yeah, just feel it out. There are a million backing tracks for standard chord progressions on Youtube you can practise with. You definitely don't need to apply any of this like a strict rule but it's a good way to get started with getting out of a box.

Usually avoid or de-emphasize notes that are a semitone above chord members

where is the fun in this I ask you

Well, don't do that if you want dissonance, which I often do! Leading into the chord member from a semitone away or a semitone below and above is a common jazz trick.

But yeah, assuming that YMP wants to follow the harmony.

("don't do that" = do the opposite of what I said if you want to sound dissonant)

See, I can play arpeggios, but that's basically the same as playing rhythm, to me.

And as far as sund4r's "thinking of tendency tones" and "avoid or de-emphasize notes that are a semitone above chord members," well, to do that I need to know what the chord IS, and that's the rub. If I have actually remember where we are, or look over at the other guitarist, "shit, what chord are we on now" then I lose the trance-state. As Tombot says, that's not as fun as letting loose and not caring where you are in the progression.

Anyways, it's not THAT big a deal - I do fine for the situations I put myself into, and I rarely have to play improvised leads anyway - I am usually on mandolin, or on drums, playing rhythm guitar. When I have to play a mandolin solo, I tend to write one and memorize it, as opposed to improvising.

just play don't think so much

Ah, if the trouble is keeping track of the changes, and this is something you want to do, then you probably will need to actively listen and count, which will mean getting out of the trance state for a while. And/or practise over those changes at that rhythm. Playing rhythm and playing lead are not that different - instead of repeating the arpeggios in a rhythmic fashion, you move around between the notes melodically and fill in the spaces. If you're doing fine letting loose and not caring, and that's more fun for you, then do that, ofc. I was just trying to answer the question (or at least the question I was inferring).xp

this is all in your head. just have a blast and the progression will eventually come back around.

this sounds like overthinking dance steps -- i can pretty much never follow dancers who are very rigid about "correct moves" but if the leader goes with feeling, it's way way way easier to follow (if i have to follow)

just play don't think so much

My only problem with this advice is that some people do learn better by learning, thinking about, and applying theory.

you're of course right. the amount of brain space / cognitive appetite available for theory knowledge varies from person to person.

I definitely feel like knowing some music theory gets in the way of creativity for me, especially when it comes to writing simpler music like the stuff I like.

you are absolutely correct that some people learn that way -- i am not one of them and that is ok too. it wasn't advice in my case, it was my experience i was relating

No worries. I read "overthinking" as judgment but thanks for clarifying.

nah -- i know that this is what works for some people! i am a teacher! :) i just have a hard time dancing with people who have a very rote idea of how to dance. it's not a really a problem because the opportunity to dance with another person arises about 2x/decade ;_;

A perhaps simple way to do this:
Start with the blues. You might not like the 1 4 5 progression, but you surely know it well, and you can feel which of those chords you are on at any given time. The way to start finding local harmony rather than global harmony is to target the major 3rd note when you are on the 5 chord. In the key of E you will have been playing E pentatonic over E and A. When you go to the B chord you want to throw in an Eb note in place of a D. This will make sense in context of the chord you are on and offer an obvious way to resolve back to E natural on the I chord. Maybe you know this already.

I don't improv very often but I really can't fathom being so zoned out that I don't know where I am in a chord progression; most of the music I'm singing, it's integral knowledge that affects voice-leading and my ability to properly tune the chord.

29 facepalms's idea sounds good.

HI DERE. I have in recently years been playing electric bass in jazz band and I heard you guys were talking about soloing.

Oh wait, sorry wrong thread.

then you probably will need to actively listen and count

Hah, yeah, fuck no. I don't even count when I'm playing drums in a weird time signature.

This just pushes me back onto Team Tombot / esby. Never mind.

The original question was from Neanderthal, so let's talk about what Neanderthal needs.

By ear, can you pick out the root note of a chord? You could maybe try that to guide yourself?

My ear sucks which is why I'm a drummer

my ear is good for rhythm, that is why i am a drummer :)

What about learning to play the main melody of the song and then when it's time to solo using that as a starting point to make some variations?

🤔

I'm fairly close to being done making an album of solo electric guitar material (mostly tonal, somewhere in the realm of 'soft' modern classical, modern jazz, folk, and ambient, not a world away from the electric things I've posted to this board?) and thinking of what to do with it other than post it to Bandcamp when it's done. I'm not expecting to make charts ofc but just looking to get it out a little wider than it might with just a Bandcamp link on its own. I don't have that much experience with this side of things - put something out on a small label in 03 but otherwise have just done everything myself. Have people found much benefit to working with labels these days? I was wondering if it might make it easier to do a physical release. I've heard from some people that they have better experiences just working directly with a hired publicist; not sure how you'd go about finding a good one, though, or if, in the end, it's more practical to just work on one's own and send things to the right places, at least to start with?

I'm obviously unqualified to answer your questions, but congrats, Sund4r! I very much look forward to hearing the album.

Honestly have no idea how to go about marketing music; I'm barely at the "record some stuff and put it somewhere you can share with your friends" level

Sund4r, are there labels putting out stuff in this mode that you enjoy? I'm a big proponent of at least reaching out to labels first for something like this, and imo it helps if you genuinely know & enjoy their work, and can make it personal.

If no one bites, you can always self-release or look into hiring PR. But I think a label can really be beneficial in terms of connecting the record with an audience who's already checking for this sort of music.

From what I've heard hiring PR can definitely help in terms of getting premieres and possibly reviews, but I'd say only do that if you're willing to lose money on it in exchange for some more ears. It would be super hard to try and get those on your own, unless you're really lucky or have some connections.

Yeah it think that’s about right. Submitting tracks to the Spotify editors feels like pressing the close door button on the elevator - something that was put there to make you feel like you have any control. Review sites are great but similarly opaque in terms of their selection process, and I’m guessing only the really big ones even move the needle. Hiring PR is probably the way to go, but it’s trading cash for ears, as Jordan said - you probably won’t get your money back.

Sund4r, talk to Hand Drawn Dracula

Can't wait to hear it!