The Challenge 4 - 13/10/2010 - GuitarTalk Community

The Challenge 4 - 13/10/2010

Renesongs

This weeks challenge is...

Blues @ 160bpm or faster

PM your entries to me no later than 8pm Wed 13 Oct 2010. Please tell me in your PM if you want to be entered in as a Beginner or an Advanced player

Renesongs

Bump

evolucian

This one should be fun... whats that... 200 sections of 12 bars at that tempo... or near enuff i suppose... hehehe....

I've never done blues at this tempo before, preferring the slow feely ones... so this will be quite an adventure.

dee

Ag no man, I was hoping for the Bach one? ☹

?

chris77

Nice. Will be hard though to keep it Bluesy without going into Rock territory at that tempo.

Squonk

I think I will listen to The Dickies version of Nights in white Satin and see if it inspires some very fast blues playing.

Renesongs

Ag no man, I was hoping for the Bach one? ☹

There was a three way tie on the topic topic vote so I just select the first one. We can do Bach next time.

I've never done blues at this tempo before, preferring the slow feely ones... so this will be quite an adventure

I hope I am not biasing anyone's creative stream but I hear shades of Alvin Lee at Woodstock.

Ray

Squonk wrote: I think I will listen to The Dickies version of Nights in white Satin and see if it inspires some very fast blues playing.

Hey Gogga! what tablets were you taking when you were younger hey? I've got that vinyl "Dawn of the Dickies" ne?
Gee, I am just starting to get the hang of my micro br and this comes up. I cant play this fast hey.

Squonk

Ray wrote:
Squonk wrote: I think I will listen to The Dickies version of Nights in white Satin and see if it inspires some very fast blues playing.
Hey Gogga! what tablets were you taking when you were younger hey? I've got that vinyl "Dawn of the Dickies" ne?
Gee, I am just starting to get the hang of my micro br and this comes up. I cant play this fast hey.

@ Ray , I wish I had kept all my old records, I also had this one, bought it at Hillbrow Record Centre possibly in 1980, I think it had a Zombie Like thing on the cover (Obvious reference to Romero's "Dawn of the Dead").

On a possible doff question note - How do you measure your speed in BPM?

evolucian

Squonk... what do you mean... as in how many notes per second kinda thing?

Squonk

I am a bit musically challenged ?

How would I know I am playing 160bpm?

Is it measured in notes per second, the only BPM that I know would be to set the drum track to 160bpm but that wouldn't determine how fast I play?

I know it's a silly question :-[

NorioDS

Technically, you can play quite slowly and still qualify for this competition. The trick will be in making the slow playing, over such a high tempo rhythm section, sound good.

evolucian

Squonk wrote: I am a bit musically challenged ?

How would I know I am playing 160bpm?

Is it measured in notes per second, the only BPM that I know would be to set the drum track to 160bpm but that wouldn't determine how fast I play?

I know it's a silly question :-[

Well, set your drum thing to 160 and count it out... make sure you know where the 1 is... then practice yr 12 bar or 8 bar to the beat... as for yr soloing... aim for 8ths or triplets... but you'll know it once your rhythm track is down... does this help?

Warren

Squonk wrote: I am a bit musically challenged ?

How would I know I am playing 160bpm?

Is it measured in notes per second, the only BPM that I know would be to set the drum track to 160bpm but that wouldn't determine how fast I play?

I know it's a silly question :-[

In 4/4 time, you would clap your hands as:

1..2..3..4..
2..2..3..4
3..2..3..4..

etc.

Each set of four claps (counts) being a bar, right?

At 60bpm, you would clap once per second, pretty slow.

At 160bpm, you'd be clapping relatively quickly (160 claps every minute, or about 2.6 claps per second), creating a more up-tempo feel. You could play "slower" or "longer" notes over this, which would sound interesting.

But I think the idea for this challenge would be to try and play a bit faster, playing lots quarter notes (one note per each clap) at the very least, and adding in little runs of 8th or 16th notes to create little fills and stuff.

SRV has a number of very up-tempo blues numbers like this. Or also try Matt "Guitar" Murphy!

Bob-Dubery

Personally I'd set the drum machine for about 170 BPM and then play a solo that made tasteful and intelligent use of brieves and dotted semi-brieves.

Warren

X-rated Bob wrote: Personally I'd set the drum machine for about 170 BPM and then play a solo that made tasteful and intelligent use of brieves and dotted semi-brieves.

I dunno. 160bpm blues doesn't sound like "tasteful" blues to me. More like "ripping" blues. 8)

Bob-Dubery

Warren wrote:
X-rated Bob wrote: Personally I'd set the drum machine for about 170 BPM and then play a solo that made tasteful and intelligent use of brieves and dotted semi-brieves.
I dunno. 160bpm blues doesn't sound like "tasteful" blues to me. More like "ripping" blues. 8)

Oh cut to the chase already and call it what is is: Pentatonic shred.

Warren

X-rated Bob wrote:
Oh cut to the chase already and call it what is is: Pentatonic shred.

Haha ?

Actually, I associate pentatonic shred more with Zakk Wylde type players ?

Warren

Another really cool up-temp blues player was Little Jimmy King, who died prematurely ☹

Definitely check out his stuff if you want some ideas for this challenge.

evolucian

psssst... warren... if u take a look at Bob's post again, u'll see the humour... dotted whole notes and double whole notes... used tastefully... hahahaha, i thought it was brilliant.