OK, so I missed most of this week. I have a good excuse: I used the time I would usually blog to practice guitar. I practiced a lot! Right around Monday, our electric player in the church band became unavailable, and so after a bit of shuffling, I wound up becoming the electric guitarist this week. The thing is, these songs were WAY beyond my ability (and even more beyond the other guy’s ability, so why were the songs chosen?); especially “Reaching For You” by Lincoln Brewster. I could either complain and get the songs changed, or try to learn these “impossible” songs. I chose the latter.
I have spent the last three days practicing 3-4 hours a night. I got three songs down quicker than I would have guessed, but the really hard song took much longer. In order to figure it out, I had to look at several you-tube videos of others playing the song – trying to figure out how they did it. Tabs were useless for the solo – too many notes! Fortunately, there was some sort of “create your own lead” contest with this song and so I had hundreds of you-tube entrants to look at (Yeah!). I finally found a video of some 14 year old Korean kid who slowed things down so I could see what was being done on the song. The song is still impossible, but I could at least create a simplified version with his chord structure.
Tonight is rehersal, and I feel reasonably good about the songs. Guess I should get to practicing again so I can succeed tonight!