April 19, 2012

           What do these places have in common? That’s easy, they are both four bedroom, in desirable spots in Colorado, and ownership costs less than half of what Marion and I are already paying. That’s ownership, in case you missed that. I like the two-car garage but that frost of snow gets me. Of course, I buy nothing unless the owner sells below cost in desperation (serves ‘em right), I’m just testing the water. The two storey is out because of Marion’s condition, but these serve as notice of what’s pending. (Note my English spelling of storey, this is intentional.)

           Myself, I’m far more interested in whether there is a nice shed or work area. I need plenty to do and living in cold weather again makes an enclosed vehicle a necessity. Time has allowed for excellent used Lexus SUV types to enter the market, another thing to investigate. Much as I dislike how America is set up to shaft vehicle owners, sooner or later you have to drive or ride in one. What I dislike most is how the laws make sure it expensive even to leave the vehicle unused and parked.

          Time for more Blues guitar. To learn exactly what I’m learning, Google “BB King Box”. There are two scales to memorize, the major and minor pentatonic, and you learn them in a series patterns that must look to some like boxes. Generally you use the major pentatonic on your one chord, the minor on the four and five chord, and save your best blues licks for over the four chord. (I’m finding another major guitar player annoyance. Guys, when teaching, students want the notes and the patterns, not your stupid fuzz box cranked up to full distortion.)
            While these “rules” don’t make you a Blues player, they each contribute to an overall sound that is familiar, and that is the goal here. Nobody is pretending to be original. The technique is harder than the notes, I still can’t make triplets work right and pinky pull-offs are a struggle. Much has been covered in two weeks, that we can be proud of. And bend the high notes.

            It was a lengthy and fast-paced practice to try all these variations. We concentrated on the BB King box mentioned, trying various dual lead riffs to find out what worked best in combination. While both of us still hit sour notes coming out of chord changes, it won’t be long until we learn what to avoid. There was also a quantum leap forward as we played to a real 12-bar backing track rather than a constant A chord.
           Which notes to bend is also an individual preference. I prefer a minor to major mediant bend where the downloaded demos use mainly the highest note. Then, they have clearly put in a lot of time learning pinky work with hammer-ons and pull-offs I can’t begin to try at this point. In all, a successful session with a lot of theory we were able to apply well enough to jam and sound reasonably okay.

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