Took a week or two off from the open mic thing. playing at them anyway. I still go to sample the local talent and meet new people. I thought I was strange. Turns out I was right. But there a lot of musicians that are on the same level of strangeness as I am.
So, if/when I am around a lot of other musicians, we out number the normal ones. That makes them strange.
I take some time off from playing from time to time and just listen. It allows the last thing I learned to soak in. I listen for how they use what I have just learned or if they do. Then I play better the next time out.
-- Edited by michael on Wednesday 16th of September 2009 05:18:58 AM
Here is something else, you can throw in a rif as the singer finishes a phrase. If you know the song and where they are going to stop. That can be tough on an up tempo song. Kinda like throwing a basket ball through the window of a moving car. Still working on when to shut up and when to let it rip! This may take a while.
Some songs sound best with just a riff here and there. So it's not like there is a hard fast rule for this. I'm guessing, the more I play with others, the more I will develop a feel for this!?
hit the open mic again tonight. The hostes of the event gave me some valueable feedback. "michael, play louder and don't play so much. Leave some windows"
I take that as good feedback because I'm still learning. When the singer or another musician is taking the lead I play really low, but I'm still in there supporting what they are doing, I feel like I should be. But I want to do it in such a way as not to overpower them.
Than when I get the nod, I kick up the volume and try to add to the whole thing. I think what she is saying is that there are times when I should shut up completely. Even then I have to learn when those times are. Jon gave me the same advise in a e-mail newsletter. He said it's better to play something simple, repeatedly. Than try to hit a differant note on every beat. This is all mixed up in my head. Remindes me of a line from an old Bob Seager song "...what to leave in, what to leave out...
I got a myspace page. There is a place on the template to enter "people I'd like to meet" I left it blank the first time around.... Think I'm going to put "Dutch Bones" in there.
Dutch, I remember when I was having trouble hearing the chord changes in the 12 bar progression. You gave me some tips that helped me work past that phase.
Even tho you are a better player than I, you didn't look down on me. You encouraged me and helped.
So any time I play the streets with a guitar player and there is money going in the tip jar. I remember the ones that helped. Thanks
the open Mic thing I started doing led to meeting other musicians. One of them is a guitar player/singer named E.J. He had a paying gig at the opening of a coffee house here in north central Texas. The harp player he had lined up had a class to go to and had to back out at the last minute.
Two hours after he called me, E.J. and I are set up outside the coffee house. Right there on the sidewalk, blowen the blues. The man paid in cash, but E.J. said there was not any reason not to sit out a tip jar.
Always been a dream of mine. Every since I started playing. Playing the blues on the street.
Thanks to Jon Gindick for His instruction, and a lot of work on my part, that actually took place.
