I've been messing around with adding an mp3 managing plug-in for a "Jam Corner". Its just a page that lists some mp3 jams that I've made for the public to use. You can play from the page OR download the mp3 directly. Whoever is lucky enough to read this gets a heads-up and a preview before it goes live.

The Jam Corner

Bryan

Bryan...

Just happened to run across your stuff on You Tube.... Took and look and it's interesting. You do a nice job of down to earth sharing of your ideas. I like it!

I've signed up on your web page and was surprised and pleased to see that you have a section on jam tracks. Great idea!

From my perspective, I really favor the slow to mid tempo blues tracks. (Blues just ain't made to be played fast). Hope you can drop a few more like that in. Favorite keys are G, A, & B. Lots of people seem to like E, but there's too much open string stuff on the low end to really get effective bends, stops, etc. for my taste.

Good luck on the new site. I'm looking forward to seeing more. Perhaps some blues lick sharing.

Harleymanjan

Harley,

Thanks so much for taking the time to comment, I really appreciate it. It's incredible how a few kind words can energize me so.

Now that I've got the Jam Corner and mp3 sharing on the forums, I am looking for other features and lessons subjects. I'd love to hear some more of your suggestions if you have the time.

A lick sharing application? It sounds intriguing... What all do you imagine that this app entails?


Bryan

Bryan....

Nothing much on the lick sharing. Just simple videos. Tabs are nice, but if I'm like the majority of the unwashed masses, there's nothing like a picture. It just seems to pass along the lick idea more clearly than a tab.

Keep up the good work!

Harleymanjan

Harley,

I've recently added the ability to upload mp3's in the forum and play them within the browser. Maybe that would allow users to share their lick ideas. I kind of envisioned letting users share their solo creations online, but maybe thats a pipe dream of sorts.

I just put up a new jam track for Born Under A Bad Sign, and I am really happy with how it turned out. It's in C# which I think is a great key for improvising on. Visit the Jam Corner and let me know what you think.

Bryan

I agree with harley. Blues are definitly with best slow to medium tempos. And i also agree about E being my least favorite key. So Id be pumped to see some more A and G keyed slow blues jam tracks pop up. The blues tracks you already have tho are excellent and ive played through all of them several times.

Excellent website. Excellent work.
Thanks

Definitely appreciate the comments. I'll get onto some slow jam tracks. If there are any specific styles you'd like to hear, by all means give me some examples.

This is that E rythm I wanted you to make a jam track for. It is basically a rip off of SRV's Pride and Joy, especially the intro. The intro isn't necessary, but I like it. This is a very rough recording, using my acoustic and audacity, but hopefully you can get the idea of what I want and do it.

Thanks

Excellent playing Garret, I thought about doing a SRV series of lessons and jam tracks, and this is something like what I thought I'd put together. I'll work on it this weekend and give you a heads up.

Thanks man. SRV is obviously a leading blues musician, therefore having several lessons based off of his riffs and leads would be extremely helpful. I'm looking forward to the Pride and Joy style rythm.

Thanks

First off let me start by saying hello to everybody. Im a new member here on this site and so far I am a huge fan! Im also a new guitarist and have been taking lessons and practicing as much as I possibly can! I have just started being able to actually put stuff together that sounds reminiscent of guitar playing! the Jam Corner is an awesome way to help me create ideas to play and try things out! There is not very many guitarists by me and this really helps out! Keep up the good work!

Hello all. Another newbie here. I am really enjoying the site. I have never participated in a forum or any kind of message board before because honestly, all I ever saw was people cursing and arguing with one another. But not here! As someone posted in another thread (I think it was axeddicted) everone here treats each other with respect. Thanks Bryan for your wonderful site.
I wanted to make mention of something I use that I have not seen mentioned here yet. It's a program called Band in a Box. I read many comments and reviews about it before deciding to get it myself, a few negative saying it was uninspiring and or just did not sound good. I have to say I have been very pleased and use mine all the time to lay down chord progressions. When in the program it is true the sound is not super because it uses midi so much. However, you can mix down and save files to use for recording and then the sound improves! I am currently using Mixcraft from Acoustica for recording and I love it. I can render the band in a box files to wav or mp3 and import them to Mixcraft. Then I can play along and record lead and rhythm tracks. I'm posting here a tune I did recently. The backing track is from BIB. I play a lead line with my kit built Strat copy and a rhythm track with my Jay Turser 12 string electric. Would love to know what you guys think. This isn't blues, but I am trying now to learn more about blues playing. Apologies for such a long post, comes with being retired I guess!

Whitepath: So glad you shared the tune with us! I rather enjoyed the mountain music/John Denver feel it had (maybe with a touch of The Eagles...). I think you have some solid melodic lines going on (especially that pentatonic like descending line right before the progression restarts), but I would suggest 2 things:

1) A little more rhythmic and melody construction

Like I said, some great lines but lacking any real singable parts. A lot of great guitar solos have a melodic thing going, you can almost always hear them in your head and sing/hum/screech along as well.

2) More volume on the lead guitar

An easy fix, I had to struggle at times to hear what you were playing. You might do well turning down the volume on the other tracks and bumping up the lead guitar a bit. Hard to say how Band in A Box works though.

Love to hear back from you!

Bryan

Hello Bryan: Thanks very much for taking time to listen to my tunes. Thanks as well for your advice, which I appreciate and totally agree with. I know I need a lot of work yet in constructing melodies. At this point I have trouble with everything I do sounding somewhat the same! Hopefully your site will help me break out of that rut. I really want to be able to do some blues soloing but am finding it tough.
The Sweet Tea tune was an attempt to do something with a different feel than stuff I have done before. It is really pretty rough, but I wanted to see if anyone thought it had enough potential to be worth continuing to work with. The Seminole Spirit song is one I spent more time developing. My wife has suggested an increase in tempo would help it "flow" better. I did bump up the tempo with Mixcraft and have to say I like it. I will however have to put in some time practicing to get used to playing it that way. I'm posting here another of my earlier efforts of a bit faster tune I call Lucky Touch. It also uses a Band in a Box created backing track. Thanks again so much for this great educational resource you are providing.