BluesJacketman
30 posts
Feb 06, 2013
10:40 AM
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BUMP!
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BluesJacketman
31 posts
Feb 06, 2013
10:44 AM
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why do you keep bumping me down the list? all i want is some criticism!
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Pistolcat
365 posts
Feb 06, 2013
11:07 AM
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Your singing is good! It gets better with every video you post. It was hard to hear the harp through the vocal mic. The bit you played through through your amp sounded very adequate although in some places it was a bit flat. Your good at making on beat statements but maybe sometimes need to find that pocket, you know? I liked second guitar solo better. The one without slide. I think that could have been a mix thing.
All in all: nice performance and very good singing.
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Pistolkatt - Pistolkatts youtube
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BluesJacketman
32 posts
Feb 06, 2013
11:13 AM
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Thank you!! You gave me alot to work on!
Yeah my singing and playing has gotten much better since I quit smoking.
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Goldbrick
46 posts
Feb 06, 2013
11:46 AM
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I hate to critique anybody-but if you want it here goes
Strat guy is above the skill level of the band. Leave the slide guy home. Can't hear the bass player.
Harp needed to come up in the mix.
Always hard to get a good impression when recording in a noisy environment
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Martin
229 posts
Feb 06, 2013
12:01 PM
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OK, if you ask for it: probably good idea to use the same mic for the harp thorugh it all: the shifting thing don´t work -- unless you turn up a whole lot, or get a whole lot closer to the mic.
Being that off on the slide is a no-no. Play this tape for him and he should get it. Either work on intonation or skip the slide. It´s not easy.
Your harmonica playing sounds a bit ... uncertain. I get the impression you´re not really following the chords. But of course, that´s to a great deal a matter of taste.
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BluesJacketman
33 posts
Feb 06, 2013
12:57 PM
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@ Goldbrick man thats really harsh, the kid is really young and he was having a very off night. This was on saturday, now on monday we went to a blues jam run by the executive director of the San fransisco bay area blues society and he just loved the kids playing.
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GamblersHand
420 posts
Feb 06, 2013
2:00 PM
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I'm not sure that the low harp/SBS was right here - it wasn't cutting through and you need to be a very good player to get the intonation right, especially in a band context. That version sounded like it was in G so I'd suggest a standard C harp next time...hey it was good enough for Little Walter..
Singing was better to my ears than some earlier clips that I recall. Some notes and phrases were off, especially when the chord shifted to the V and IV. Also you were rushing some vocal lines, say at 1.45 and 2.15
Anyway, some work ons, but it's overall showing distinct improvement in a short space of time - some of us take years to noticeably improve!
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JInx
405 posts
Feb 06, 2013
7:39 PM
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It sounds like even the drummer is out of tune, just kidding. If people are dancing, then what's to criticize? Keep at it. And keep posting please. THanks
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Sun, sun, sun
Burn, burn, burn
Soon, soon, soon
Moon, moon, moon
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capnj
82 posts
Feb 06, 2013
8:24 PM
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I believe critisism for bands is alright,but everybody can't be exceptional,take years, if they are dancing great,be your own judge,we all need to improve.Personally I like that song in A,and blow the D Harp,and if the guitars sound not so right,I Big Walter Them,and take over.Keep Blowin man.
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Steamrollin Stan
705 posts
Feb 07, 2013
3:07 AM
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Its ok, ok?...i've been harpin for 5 years and never played out, you's will get better if ya practice and perfect everything, you know what i mean ..
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kudzurunner
3902 posts
Feb 07, 2013
5:10 AM
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@Bluesjacketman: If you post a video on this sort of public forum and say "All criticism is welcome," you should mean it. Goldbrick gave you direct, honest criticism, and you bridled, complaining "man thats really harsh." Either you want criticism or you don't. If you don't want it, you shouldn't post videos here and ask for it.
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Baker
275 posts
Feb 07, 2013
5:12 AM
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Hi BluesJacketman. I think there is a few things to work on here. Firstly good going for getting a band together and getting out there. It's fun right?!
For me the first thing I noticed is that the singing is a bit off in parts, some off notes and I think the articulation could be better. I think you know where the weaknesses are as you seem to back off a little on the tricky bits.
The harmonica playing, as has been mentioned isn't bad, but it doesn't seem to work WITH the song, you are making blusey sounds in the right key but it's not adding anything. It sounded much better through the amp. Good tone, but there were some flat notes, sounds like a symptom of drawing too hard on that low end.
The slide, I'm afraid was not great, again, just making blusey sounds over the track, but not following or really adding anything to the song.
Try thinking of solos as telling a story. A beginning, middle and an end. Take the audience on a journey. This for me is one of the most common issues. I hear it all the time with harp players and guitar players. You find a noise that sounds bluesy and keep hammering it.
I agree with Goldbrink that "Strat guy is above the skill level of the band".
Keep it up. Concentrate on the detail, intonation, articulation. Keep in the moment and listen rather than letting yourself get carried away with the music.
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colman
225 posts
Feb 08, 2013
12:30 PM
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It STARTS OFF LIKE THERE`S NO BALLS IN IT,LISTEN TO LITTLE WALTERS BAND ON HIS TAKE OF IT.THEY START OFF IN YOUR FACE AND GRIND THAT BEAT LIKE THEY`S ON THAT HIGHWAY... AND HAVE FUN..
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Frank
5155 posts
Aug 16, 2014
11:17 AM
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Agreed :)
This version is bookin...and good to learn from!
Last Edited by Frank on Aug 16, 2014 11:25 AM
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BluesJacketman
205 posts
Aug 16, 2014
2:14 PM
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Wow frank, how mature of you to go back and pull up a video of me from over year and a half ago. Of course it has no balls were bunch of kids in our teens and early 20s just trying to learn the blues. But hey I gotta say, at least we're out there playing music with
others and for actual audiences. Not just making videos to backing tracks of note for note covers. Man you need a life.
Last Edited by BluesJacketman on Aug 16, 2014 2:16 PM
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Frank
5158 posts
Aug 16, 2014
2:32 PM
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Actually I'm doing some research on that great tune and was excited to find yours...I'm taking notes how you do it so I can thrill audiences like you with some fine blues :)
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groyster1
2650 posts
Aug 16, 2014
3:19 PM
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I have never heard key to the highway with a tempo that slow....I tried to count on the timing...the original was done in an 8 bar blues.....cant be sure on your version
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BluesJacketman
206 posts
Aug 16, 2014
3:22 PM
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Well in that case, I hope it helps!
Good luck as I won't be listening to your note for note cover of Little Walters played to a backing track. I would love to hear you play it with a group you either form or join at a jam or even a video/recording of one of your rehearsals!
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5F6H
1824 posts
Aug 16, 2014
3:41 PM
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@Groyster1 "...the original was done in an 8 bar blues....." the observations on the OP's timing are fair point, but the earliest version I am aware of is actually a 12 bar:
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www.myspace.com/markburness
Last Edited by 5F6H on Aug 16, 2014 3:41 PM
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BluesJacketman
207 posts
Aug 16, 2014
3:51 PM
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yes, the timing was bad. but I already stated that we are a bunch of kids in early twenties and late teens just learning. This is also from a year and half ago that frank brought up and posted on vindictively. I'd like to see how well you played the blues when you were 20 years old?
Last Edited by BluesJacketman on Aug 16, 2014 3:52 PM
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Goldbrick
622 posts
Aug 16, 2014
3:54 PM
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My favorite version
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5F6H
1825 posts
Aug 16, 2014
4:03 PM
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@Bluesjacketman - Whatever Frank's motivation in digging up a long defunct thread, it is dug up & an open discussion...it'll follow it's own natural course.
I'm sure your timing is better now, but on the video it still hasn't changed...the observations remain, no one is getting at you, we're just shooting the breeze about the song (& trying to ignore whatever personal spat you & Frank are having). FWIW I didn't start playing until I was 28, so kudos to you.
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www.myspace.com/markburness
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jbone
1735 posts
Aug 17, 2014
7:00 AM
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At 20 your efforts are far above what I could do at that age. I had a lot of hard living and life lessons to learn before I got even close to putting a harp part together. I was in my mid 30's in fact.
Detractors, there are plenty. They are not worth the adrenalin to get pissed off at.
Real courage- asking for a critique- is the door to real growth and shows true courage and a student mentality.
Obviously by your more recent videos you have made a lot of good progress. That's what I key on and the archival stuff, I take with a grain of salt. My own included. Being in public opens one to potshots but that's how we develop a thicker hide. I get mosquito bites when I'm fishing but it's fact of life. I still fish!
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http://www.reverbnation.com/jawboneandjolene
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000386839482
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wa7La7yYYeE
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groyster1
2651 posts
Aug 17, 2014
10:51 AM
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when I listened to your version I was unable to determine if you were doing an 8 bar or a 12 bar blues....when I listen to sonny terry or Derek &dominoes version I can count the 8 bars and turnaround...maybe you should try it again with better timing....you asked for criticism so theres mine
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Goldbrick
627 posts
Aug 17, 2014
11:35 AM
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The great ting about nusic is age really is just a number
Johnny Lang is 16 here
Honeyboy Edwards at age 95
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walterharp
1485 posts
Aug 17, 2014
6:25 PM
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well the timing on the harmonica is a bit painful, in that last video of honeyboy...he is grooving the harmonica is not.. the tone is ok, but the groove does not seem to be quite there, maybe the old guys do know something! :-)
on the first video, hey.. love to see young guys doing blues and the young women are dancing, no problems there!
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kudzurunner
4875 posts
Aug 17, 2014
7:27 PM
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I think Goldbrick's first critique is dead-on.
General note to all who post their own performance videos on this forum: If you post here and write "All criticism is welcome" or some variation on that, please mean it. Don't sort-of mean it. Mean it.
Myself, I wouldn't have dared post in a forum like this as a 20-something and asked what people thought. I played a whole lot of half-baked crap in those days and I wouldn't have been able to take, or hear, the truth. There's a point in one's own development when what one needs is a teacher, a mentor, a guide: one specific person whose opinions you can trust. The mob--this place--isn't necessarily a good guide to what you should be working on.
Then again, sometimes crowdsourcing is an extremely effective way of cutting the bullshit and getting a sense of what's actually going on in your own playing. The reality-principle cuts through narcissism. (I'm talking generally here, not about Bluesjacketman. Heck, I'm talking about myself at age 20. The reality principle is taping yourself and listening to it later, when you're sober and realize that you've got a lot to learn. Ouch.
But it's really hard to hear honest criticism when you've got voices in your own head telling you most of the stuff about your own playing that other folks are telling you. It's also hard to hear honest criticism when you've got an inflated sense of your own abilities and resent anybody telling you that you're not--well, exactly how good, or not good, YOU think you are. We all suffer from this to a greater or lesser degree.
Which is to say, if you dare to show up here, post a video, and say "All criticism is welcome," you really need to be prepared to honor your own words. If you're not, you shouldn't post those sorts of videos here.
Bluesjacketman: if you feel that your playing of a year and a half ago truly is unrepresentative of what you're doing now, please post a video of what you're doing now. And if you're now embarrassed by your playing back then, take it down! But please don't blame a poster here for digging up an old post! That's silly. A much better and more constructive way of dealing with the bump (so to speak) would be to talk about the ways in which your playing has grown in the time since that last video.
Last Edited by kudzurunner on Aug 17, 2014 7:32 PM
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mastercaster
57 posts
Aug 17, 2014
8:50 PM
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@ Bluesjacketman : you said " all i want is some criticism!"
A little food for thought .. next time add the word 'constructive' before the word criticism ..
fwiw I 120% agree with the following :
"if you dare to show up here, post a video, and say "All criticism is welcome," you really need to be prepared to honor your own words. If you're not, you shouldn't post those sorts of videos here."
Myself , your version of Key was .. and I'm being kind here ... I found it hard to listen to all the way through ....
pure criticism and nothing constructive added ..
Last Edited by mastercaster on Aug 17, 2014 9:31 PM
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dougharps
710 posts
Aug 17, 2014
11:39 PM
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My thoughts...
Key to the Highway is a great song to discuss. However, continued criticism of an old performance to serve a negative purpose (check the sarcasm in the post after BluesJacketman responds!) is just WRONG.
BluesJacketman bravely (or foolishly?) posted this video in 2013 asking for criticism, and he received appropriate criticism as requested. The criticism pointed out areas to improve, and was very direct. Hopefully he took the criticism in the best way, and worked on weak areas in his playing.
Then in August 2014 he got into a dust-up with another forum member in different threads (as several others did), emotions surged, and things got out of hand. The forum member he had differences with dug this up and posted his "agreement" with follow up sarcasm in his next post.
The requested criticism of the video was completed a year and a half ago. The current criticism 1 1/2 years later serves the unfortunately negative purpose of the poster who resurrected this thread.
I thought we were all going to take some deep breaths and chill?
So fine, discuss the song, but why give brutal criticism all over again on this post? It serves no positive purpose, and it is old history.
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Doug S.
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SuperBee
2163 posts
Aug 18, 2014
12:23 AM
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+1 Doug. Spot-on
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arnenym
300 posts
Aug 18, 2014
2:04 AM
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+1 on dougharps
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kudzurunner
4876 posts
Aug 18, 2014
5:01 AM
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@doug: I don't keep up with one-on-one feuds here, but if the other member (Frank) did as you said--dug this thread up after having a dust-up with Bluesjacketman in another thread--then I agree with you: that is a completely inappropriate use of this forum.
My general comments still hold. Brutal criticism, BTW, is never a good idea. Goldbrick's original criticism was constructive, not brutal, and it precipitated Bluesjacketman's ill-tempered original response.
Not to hijack this thread, but here's a side note. When I work in the studio with producer/musician Bryan W. Ward--he's done all of my projects at the Tone Room--and we're listening back to something, either my own playing or his sweeting or mixdown of a track of mine--I've learned that my first response, intuitive and uncensored, is always the most valuable. I'll sometimes say "That doesn't work at all." I'll just blurt. I don't censor. And there's ALWAYS some truth in what I say, because it's what I'm actually hearing, not what I'm supposed to hear or what politeness dictate that I should say about somebody else's playing, or my own.
Goldbrick's initial response here is that sort of response, which is why I like it. Those sorts of responses--"This works (for me), that doesn't"--are the responses that can help you grow as a player; that can help you get closer to what you're trying to do.
Just this morning I got an email from a guitar player--an occasional partner and good friend. Once again he said "You should dial back the foot drums. Make like John Lee Hooker." What he doesn't know, since he hasn't seen or heard me in the past 18 months, is that I have slowly evolved in the direction of more subtley, more variance in volume, and a strategic decision not to play both drums and the tambo pedal all the time. So while I don't like being told what to do and will never do what somebody else tells me to do just because they tell me to do it, I do listen. And sometimes that listening can be helpful in terms of confirming my own intuitions about the developmental direction I'm taking.
But I think criticism can be destructive, too--especially if it's intended to be destructive. There was a big debate around here back in the days when Buddha offered his rough, direct critiques. Some people bridled; others said, "He's just refusing to filter." I never could decide.
But yes: when "All criticism is welcome" becomes twisted into a retributive scheme--if that is indeed what happened in the second life of this thread--that that is indeed wrong.
Last Edited by kudzurunner on Aug 18, 2014 5:03 AM
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SuperBee
2164 posts
Aug 18, 2014
5:07 AM
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I think it should be noted BJM's objection was simply in regard to the comments about the guitarist...somehow that seems pertinent...
But I agree with Doug, and with BJM's assessment of why this thread was resurrected. We've seen this before. Remember Hvyj.
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dougharps
711 posts
Aug 18, 2014
8:20 AM
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I do not take issue with the original round of criticism, most of which I would consider useful and direct. It may have been startling at that time, but that is the way it goes when you ask for criticism on a forum like this.
In my own playing in local bands and local studio work (not bigtime stuff) I value input from good players and producers. It has improved my playing, and hopefully will help me continue improvement. Adam's example of accepting this input to improve fits my experiences (though my playing is nowhere near Adam's level).
For that matter, I believe that just because you post and start a thread doesn't mean you get to control where it goes or how it is used. You put it out there, and it is beyond your control. A thread may take twists and turns that we as posters don't like. That just goes with posting on a public forum.
Hopefully when a thread goes differently than we had intended, or is brought back from the dead for whatever purpose, we can keep cool heads and not get carried away in our responses.
That all being said, I thought that I should point out that recent turmoil had carried into this thread, that the request for criticism was way out of date, and to give some context to the reappearance of the thread.
If people still choose to post criticism of the old video, that is their choice and just the way it goes. It is an open forum, and BluesJacketman asked for criticism.
Hopefully we will not just pile on, and the trust he showed in asking for criticism was not misplaced.
Edit for typo
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Doug S.
Last Edited by dougharps on Aug 18, 2014 8:23 AM
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BluesJacketman
208 posts
Aug 18, 2014
8:31 AM
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I'm done with this forum. A lot of you guys on here are really nice and I am appreciative for the advice and knowledge, but a few rotten apples have ruined for me.
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kudzurunner
4878 posts
Aug 18, 2014
9:59 AM
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@Bluesjacketman: Now that you've deleted the video in question, and your original post, this thread begins with two other posts of yours in which you managed to cultivate a grievance because no forum members were apparently giving you what you sought: criticism. In the six or seven years this forum has been in existence, I've rarely seen somebody so doggedly insistent that attention and criticism be directed his way and so angered when it actually came.
In my experience, the blues world, including this blues forum, is filled with many different types of people. Some people--the rotten apples, as you term them--will prove more of a challenge than the other, nicer people. If you're intent on playing the blues well, the rough-and-tumble of this forum ranks pretty low on the list of challenges you'll face. Good luck to you.
Note: I'm locking this thread. Now that the original criticism-seeking video has been removed and Bluesjacketman has quit the forum, there's no point in continuing it.
Last Edited by Guest on Aug 18, 2014 10:03 AM
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