Open Mic - starting Dec 31st to Jan 11th
Open Mic is a time to share your music with the Sonic Junction community. Post a video of yourself playing your favorite tune -- it can be a song you wrote, something you learned here at Sonic Junction or elsewhere, or a tune you're enjoying at the moment. Check out the videos from our past open mic's to get ideas. It's a great chance to share what's on your mind -- inspire and be inspired!
From Dec 31 to Jan 11, post your videos here and check back often to enjoy all the talent here at Sonic Junction!
PLEASE WAIT until Dec 31st to post your video.
Drop me an email or let me know via the Contact Us page if you have questions or need help editing/posting your video.
Looking forward to some good music!
Mike
I am looking forward to hearing everyones post on Open Mic. Let's see a lot of videos from all of you. Duke
Hi Mike
I planned on doing an old Harry James song that was covered by Bing Crosby and Les Paul (Its been a long, long time) but our 12 week old doxie puppies are currently commanding a lot of our attention. I will instead post an older video of me doing an Earl Hooker instrumental that i would love to share.
Cheers
Steve
Here is a bonus track. Honky Tonk Duke does a great job teaching this one.
Happy New Year everyone.
Steve
That was great Steve! That's not an easy song to play. Correctly that is! and you nailed it. Nice Guild! Duke
Earl Hooker's the Huckle Buck. That's me on the strat and the buds of many years backing me up.
Happy New Year everyone.
Steve
Here is a slideshow I made for Duke's lesson of West Side Shuffle.
Cool stuff Steve and Marty!
Here's a piano track, since we are lucky enough to have Davell with us in SJ now, and I'm also attempting to sing. I'm really rusty on piano as learning guitar has been my 100% musical focus for the last couple of years, but here it is. So, this goes out dedicated to Mike Caren for all that he does to make this site happen, and because he's said nice stuff about my voice in the past. ;-)
Without further rambling, here's my stab at Ray Charles' "You Don't Know Me". Cheers, everyone.
Beautiful. Great tune and performance. I liked the solo too --- nice arc to it.
Thanks for reprising this great tune - haven't heard it in a long time. And a very sweet verstion; well sung and played.
Hi Bruce!
really good version of a great classic! Rusty onn piano...well...you accompany yourself very well. Your voice and playing is full of feeling and compassion.
If you'd like to give it another shot later on let me know. I've got some helpful tips for your piano playing, so let's be in touch.
Davell
Thanks, Davell !! I'm glad my rustiness doesn't show much -- I feel like I'm playing piano with oven mitts on. :-) I stopped gigging on piano about 10 years ago and have really been bad about keeping up with it since then. You might also hear some clicking because I've grown out nails on my right hand for guitar, which does mess with my timing a little too. There's a few places where I'm rushing a little. You know, I absolutely love bad puns and can't help myself. I just thought of this joke:
"Was Jimmy Rushing?" Ok, it's not great, but it's free. :-)
I would be absolutely delighted and grateful to hear any comments, and I'm looking forward to your future lessons as well! Thanks again for the kind words. Bruce
By the way, Davell, one of my favorite tunes to play and sing on piano is "Hey Little Girl" by Professor Longhair. I think that one would make a great lesson. Professor Longhair's unique style of playing always reminds me of Guitar Slim, how he'd sometimes emphasize the major third where other blues guys would play the flat third, and occasionally even the major 7th. Yet sounds so great and even bluesy when they do it! ;-) But of course it's the rhythm that is so key to Hey Little Girl, keeping that synchopated thing doing and singing against it, that's what makes it so fun to play. Sorry, I start talking about music and I get excited. :-) Thanks, and I would love to see some Professor Longhair from you at some point! Oh -- and a lesson in Aretha Franklin style playing. I was so knocked out (just like everybody else) to watch that video of her at the Lincoln Center. Hearing *that* piano and *that* voice -- what power!! OK, I'm doing it again. Stop, Bruce, Stop.
Requests in brief: Professor Longhair, Aretha Franklin
Bruce
Here's something I've been working on the last few days. It's one of my very favorite guitar solos, performed by Herb Ellis from Blossom Dearie's wonderful "Deed I Do". I find that it's been very helpful for me personally to try and copy some of these great solos as closely as I can. I'll never be able to fill Herb Ellis' shoes, but walking in his footsteps for a little while has taught me a lot.
Good Job on that solo, That's a really fun tune to play! Duke
Thanks again, Duke!! It really is a blast to play. The way Herb blues-i-fies those notes going down to that repeated bend at the beginning of the 2nd 8 is just so cool. What amazing technique he had!
It will take a day or two to get some videos done here. Still on the road and just rolled in. But I wanted to post a couple of videos to get us all in the mood. This is a tribute to a place I spent a lot of time in my formative years growing up in Chicago - Maxwell Street, which was adjacent to the old Italian neighborhoods my relatives spent their lives in. Maxwell Street was a free commerce area in Chicago where 25,000 people got along with only two cops on the beat every Sunday. You could buy anything there, listen to the real blues, eat a real Polish sausage sandwich, and have a suit made on the spot while you waited. It was filled with the great old time steet vendors who could attract a crowd with their entertaining hustles selling the most ridiculous gadgets in the world, or even prayers. The slogan was "We Cheat you Fair" - meaning, you may get cheated but it's a good show and it's a good deal anyway. Most of the time the sales pitches included lots of free, but completely worthless, extras, which were made to appear absolutely irresistible. But mostly the music was there: the Chicago Blues. Little Walter played there even after he was a big recording artist, and made $500 a day. In the early 50's you could buy a Coupe DeVille for $2,500. Here we have the two types of music which enchanted me even as a preschooler, prowling Maxwell Street with my older uncles: Blues and Gospel. The Gospel music was sung out of store front missions purely for the spirit. The Blues players were always around a corner in an alley running off an extension chord for tips. ,The incredible Carrie Robinson and Blind Jim Brewer: if she can't get you the Spirit, you will never get it. Robert Nighthawk and John Lee Granderson. The two pure roots: God's music and the Devil's music. As they used to say in the "neighborhood" "place your bets and takes your chances". Whenever I get a bit frustrated musically, I look at these videos and I get inspired all over again. Thanks Duke, Corey, Jerry and Chris for helping keep it all alive.
It must have been incredible growing up in Chicago.
Looking back on the memories we all have as kids, some good others not so much but it was all we knew back then.
I also remember those days coming off the road looking forward to home, seeing the city lights early in the morning as the van rolled into town.
Looking forward to hearing your vids Vinny.
The Maxswell Street Market in Chicago down there near to the infamous "Killin' Floor" of the Chicago Stock Yards...?
( I know my history of the blues...! )
Vinny's post, above.
By the way, that gentleman dancing in the Robert NIghthawk video: that's a for-real razor-cut scar on his cheek. Juken could be hazardous in those days. How come it looks so cool though.
Here I go again... I got the Pandora Radio on in the background and I'm jamming along with Little Walter and Eddie Taylor... This is how I keep busy around here...
Ha...!!!
I thought I sounded lousy... I thought you guys would be all over me for being out of tune and off tempo...
I sound like a drunk bluesman... but I don't drink.
You know that period of blues was not that clean all the time - nothing wrong with sounding like a drunk bluesman - if he's a real bluesman. Being off beat here and there - if it works - it works. I think it's a cool sound and groove.
I was watching this video about Hill Country Bluesmen, and I recalled this conversation. I think it's easy to sometimes think more about our limitations or mistakes than our assets. At 11:00 mark, there is a segment here about Cedell Davis, who was a victim in his life of Typhoid, Polio, and later in a sort of panic stampede in a juke joint was severely injured being trampled and wound up in a wheel chair. He had to reteach himself the guitar, after the polio. He really could only use his hands like fists. And while right handed,he had to turn the gutar over and play left handed. He could not even hold a slide and resorted to a butter knife. He could not use the knife coming up underneath the neck so he went over the top. Tuning was probably the hardest thing as he had little use of his fingers. And he was frequently out of tune. But he had to devise his own open tuning anyway. His words are, you have to use what you have with imagination. The whole video is inspiring, as these guys, when the video was made, were playing for no money; just love of the music. That's at the 11:00 (eleven) minute mark.
again Vinny thanks for the precious informations!! and by the way I'm still working on poor black mattie...I'm getting closer..I'll send you a video on your email when I'm ready...:)
Hi SJ students,
This audio is me on my Muddy Waters Tele (high guitar part) with my harp playing friend. Then I added to the track the low guitar part. All is the result of Duke, Corey and Jerry's lessons. It's raw, but please hang on till the harp solo (1:30 mark) and I settle down. Hey one take on cheap gear and we had a blast. Use headphones for best sound.
thanks again SJ!
dave
Sounds like the blues to me! Duke And I wrote this before I saw Steve's comment!
Hy Mike, Vinny and all,
nice to be here again for the open mic. This time I post a very old video, 2011, of two songs that I used to perform in little clubs like this....I was not a professionist musician, but I had fun. Lately time to study guitar is always less and I actually trying to get some kind of results playin RL Burnside guitar style honestly with poor results, but still a lot of fun....Nex open mic I'd like to post Poor Black Mattie.
Always a pleasure to be here, and a warm greeting to all the teachers here who devote their precious time to give lessons.
Ciao
Alex
Hi Mr. Portnoy:).....this one is for the harp player's. "Lowdown", I tuned my 1975 SG down a half step to backup my friend. Recorded on a ZoomH2.
Blow, blow, blow my baby back to me......
Dave
I was just noodling, recording myself, hoping something would happen and I started doing "Nobody Knows You When You're Down And Out". I'd never played it on guitar, but panic set in only once, and I'm pleased with it.
Okay, finally have something here to start with. Definitely technologically impaired situation here in this old motorhome I'm hanging in. Been cold and wet and as usual this time of year my voice is marginal and hoarse. But I have been working on this Lightning Hopkins song "Mojo Hand", and I would say it's not all the way there but I'm trying to get the guitar groove down. This is a low res video, as my internet connection here is terrible. Video has a good "hiss" to it too. Frustrating quality.
Hey Vinny, you play from your heart and keep it driving, I like it like that!
I like it...the sound of your guitar is authentic...Dave said right...you play well and you play from your heart..not a thing for everybody :)
Bill Jennings, Big Boy, intro and 24 bars of solo at 1/2 speed. A work in progress.
Signing off cuz the pups are up.
Steve
Dave and Alex: thanks for the supportive comments. Yeah, I like to try and capture the feeling and groove on a song, and let that carry me through the rest of the notes. As I said, this is not where I want it to be, but you have to play a song like this a long time to really master it. Weather just cleared here and I have some internet connectivity again, so I might be able to upload something tonight. Frustrating end to a frustrating year musically. But here's something I did some time ago that's already on YouTube; some Skip James.
Cool stuff, Steve! Here's one of my works in progress. It's Cliff Gallop's first solo from Race With The Devil by Gene Vincent. Those opening double pull-offs triplets are still super hard for me, but I can finally sort of play them *almost* reliably after many months of practice at about 65% speed. I'll get 'em eventually. Anyway, I think this is a really great solo; I especially love that ascending octave riff.
Here's something that I've been working on. It's not blues but you'll recognize it. The cool thing is that I really did not have to learn any new chords or progression concepts. Everything I needed I had already learned from the lessons I've studied with Duke.
Marty...real nice, laidback, relaxed, you just played a story on that blue tele and it had alot of soulful blues. Good tune for the last day of open mic .
Marty, for some reason I'm just seeing this now. It's beautiful. I'm very honored that most of these chords you say you learned for my lessons. Now I'm going to have to learn your arrangement! Thanks, beautiful job, Duke
