West Coast Blues

Trying out a new microphone. This was an almost passable take, so I thought I'd upload it. Yes, I KNOW IT'S TOO FAST. The arrangement is Pat Donohue's, more or less. He plays it better than I do.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• acoustic
• ragtime
• guitar
• blind
• blake
• west
• coast
• blues

[smiaaron]

Nice playing. No thumb roll on the "1"?

[keysounddotcom]

Not sure I follow you. I'm actually faking the thumb rolls anyway, with thumb & forefinger playing the two beats...

[mikelunz]

@keysounddotcom this might be a poor question.. but I have a hard time with my memory when it comes to playing songs by ear. I hear the song, hit the notes on the guitar.. and I lose what I hear in my head the moment I start trying to sound it out.. does that make sense? How do you work out songs by ear?

[keysounddotcom]

Yes. I find it's really hard! I used to use a tape player and headphones, sometimes playing the same bit over and over again to identify individual strings. These days we have more tools - I recommend 'The Amazing Slow Downer', which you can find with Google. Even so it's not always possible to get it all. I guess someone with proper musical knowledge (not me) could work it out more easily or improvise the gaps!

[stevenkoehler]

I really like your playing. Did you learn this from an instructional book? Nice job!

[keysounddotcom]

Thanks. No book, I learned this from listening to a tape I made from the record.

[smiaaron]

Clever... I hadn't thought to fake it that way.  I play both notes with my thumb the way Blake did, but it is hard to get the volume of the two notes correct (ba DUM).

[giacolino]

Doesn't sound too fast to me--sounds just right!

[mcob1]

looks like I forgot to rate it. his teacher and doc watson's

[keysounddotcom]

Blind Blake, actually, but close enough ;)