String manufacturer poll

Out of the 17 people that got back this is how the votes came in:

Augustine     1
D'Addario    13
Ernie Ball    0
Hannabach     1
La Bella      0
Martin        1
Savarez       4

So it would seem that D'Addario rules the street. Unfortunately I forgot to add "Other" as an option (smacks forehead), once a poll is underway you can't change it. The list was compiled from best sellers info on the internet.

I will throw a set of Savarez on sometime though, that still nearly a quarter of all respondents, see what they are like.

Interesting, informative, thanks all!
JAW

Poll results and Never Tear Us Apart

I hadn't run a poll for a while, which was a shame, I love polls.  So I posed this one: "Out and about...who do you play guitar for?"

The results from 69 votes were:

53% I play only for myself
23% I play for anyone who will listen
18% I play for friends and family
2%  I play small gigs
1%  I don't play guitar
0%  I play large gigs

Other than the usual analysis of "100% of people polled are the sort of people who respond to polls", I didn't find it surprising that nobody plays large gigs and everybody plays guitar. (Except for you, my 1% friend, but I'm sure you will soon).  People who play large gigs or don't play guitar don't need this.

I was hoping for more people who play for friends and family and anyone who will listen.  I spent too many years playing for myself, you are missing out when you hide away.  Sure, there is that "putting your heart on your sleeve" when you play, the opening yourself to potential emotional distraught, but you are missing out on the connection you get to make with other people through music.  What a powerful thing music is!  How great is it to share it!

So my 53% of mates out there, yes sure, practise by yourself to get your stuff up to performance level, but then go play for an audience! It is good for you!  The rest of us - keep playing for audiences, and keep refining and expanding your set - don't ever be a half song playing guitarist.

In other news, Wifey and I watched a great documentary the other week, INXS - Never Tear Us Apart.  I wasn't a fan of my home town band during the day - wifey was - but over the years I have come to appreciate them more.  And I like being able to play Aussie Pub Rock!  So while I was away with work just before Christmas, I had a crack at "Never Tear Us Apart".  I've really enjoyed how it came together as an arrangement.

In other other news, I've been doing some renovations to our bedroom, it is currently completely gutted.  So it's one big concrete echo chamber.  I decided to record "Never Tear Us Apart" in there, for Ultimate Natural Medium Room Reverb.  The play needs work, I'm finding it hard to get the arrangement to stick to my fingers.  Some arrangements are like that.  As for the reverb - well, the sound just gets muddy.  The trebles are nice, but the bass is washed out.  I ran some post EQ to demuddify it, it's tolerable, but it reminds me why I never use any reverb/delay for gigs.  Keep the sound flat and clean - the room is already going to add reverb/delay and mess up the EQ.  And get the tone you want with your fingers - not with electronics!

Have a listen if you like - Ultimate Natural Medium Room Reverb "Never Tear Us Apart":

JAW

Youtube stats 2013

Ah YouTube, what a great platform. It has greatly helped my guitar enthusiasm and performance. Without it, I would probably still be like I was during my twenties - maybe play a few hours a month, when I could be bothered. If you aren't playing regularly for a reason - that is, for an audience, could be a gig, church, guitar teacher, something that forces you to play and practise regularly - then YouTube can fill that space.

I first posted a video on YouTube as part of a discussion on a forum about fingerstyle guitar. A guy inspired me to record a video. But how was I going to send a video - too big for email, too tedious with ftp! He said "Use that new YouTube thing". I'd never heard of it, it had only been around for nearly a year when I created an account.

It wasn't until Sept 2007 that they started recording proper statistics. I do love a good statistic. Here is a simplified lifetime statistic for my Jawmunji channel:

The graph shows number of views per month, each dot is a month. May 2010 was the all time high just short of 200,000 views in that month. All time highest day ever, 7,344.

But the graph shows a rise and fall. Currently I'm down to half of the views from where I started; and at 10% of my peak, and it looks like it is continuing to fall. Why? I have a few ideas:

1. In the early days, there weren't many fingerstyle guitarists on YouTube. Now every second fingerstyle guitarist has videos on YouTube, so the viewers have a lot more videos to choose from. Supply and demand.
2. You can see that more than a third of my views come from "Canon in D", so that one pretty much dictates my channel performance. Over the years, YouTube has featured that video, which drew far more views. None of my videos get featured anymore, see point 1.
3. Most of my views come from YouTube/Google searches, so as each time they update search algorithms, it can cause a lot more views, or a lot less.
4. I don't post as much now as did originally. YouTube "rewards" frequent posters, "engagement" is what's in, "social networking" is everything and that drives search results.
5. YouTube is changing. It's more like watching a TV station than watching random videos. Since people can now upload videos as long as they like, it means that the total amount of time spent by people watching is no longer 20 x 2 minute videos, it is 2 x 20 minute videos. Less clicks, less "channel surfing". This change will be to increase income through advertising. YouTube/Google model people's behaviour, and tailor YouTube to drive (and reward) what works best for them. After all, YouTube is a business, that Google paid a lot for.
6. YouTube isn't all there is. There are plenty of other places to find video. YouTube is the biggest (at 82% of the market Google tells me), so this probably isn't a major factor.

Getting views was never a big driver for me; I have watched it increase and decrease over the years with fascination, but the reality is that the conversations I have with just a few people are far more valuable to me than thousands of silent views. I did "monetise" my videos a while back, and I kind of regret it now. For the $20 a month I get, it's not worth making people watch advertising to see it. Too late now, I can't go back.

It's been an interesting project, and one that I will continue. I've got several songs I'm planning to record soon, watch this space.

I'm not exactly sure why I wrote article, perhaps it's just my love for statistics, and analysis of them :) But if you had ever wondered how my Jawmunji YouTube stats went over the years, now you know!

JAW

What's happening September 2013

I ran another poll a month or two ago, this time I asked "If Jawmunji made a product it would have to be..." Here are the results, from 37 responses:

54% a music DVD of songs with interesting booklet, tab data and other cool stuff
27% an instructional DVD, c'mon man!
10% an Audio CD of songs with an interesting insert
8%  just high quality 99c downloadable mp3s

There weren't nearly as many voters I would normally have for a monthly poll, less than half. Either the traffic to the site was down, it was a boring question, or a Jawmunji product is not really called for. But hey, I liked the results! A video DVD with cool stuff appeals to me the most and it was the most voted. It would be a large amount of work, but not as large amount of work as an instructional DVD. I didn't mind the idea of an Audio CD, but, they seem to have passed their use-by date. Thanks for confirming the 99c downloadable mp3s though - I don't like that either. One song might be a cash cow for an artist, but the amount of art you are buying might be the tip of the iceberg from that artist. They might have so much to offer, good stuff you'd enjoy, but all you did was download "the most popular song".  Buy the album!

I'm still working away a lot - 2 weeks on site, 1 week in Perth. While in Perth I get the weekends off and only work a 40 hour week, but up here on site I work a 12 hour day 7 days a week. Sure, all my meals are catered for in the mess, my room is regularly cleaned, all I do is work...but I get weary. Hence I haven't been doing as much writing to you as I thought. I'm still playing the '74 Yammy a heap, it's just not "productive" playing. Generally I will sit and just play my regular tunes, most nights with the lads over a few beers. I've done a little bit of working out new tunes - in the pipe I've got "Without You", "Lean On Me", "Bright Side of Life", "Something So Strong", "Bad Moon Rising" all basically ready to record. But I'm not recording while I'm here, and when I'm back in Perth I don't set aside the time to do it either.

Someone commented last month "you should do a Tame Impala cover"...and I youtubed a song of theirs or two, discovered they are a local band, and my favourite genre - psychedelic rock.  Closest sound would be early Beatles and Pink Floyd.  I enjoyed them so much I bought the album and I have listened to it a lot.  I might cover "Only Going Backwards" or "Mind Mischief" to pay homage, it would be lost on 99% of my listeners, so it would have to be a quick and easy cover.  But alongside Dark Side of the Moon (I listen to it about once or twice a month, to keep inspired...as well as "Dub Side of the Moon") it is what I'm listening to.

In fact, what do I listen to?  Kinda nothing.  I'm totally out of touch with modern music, and I don't feel the need to constantly relive the past either.  I'm not a headphones-all-day sort of guy, it just makes me further deaf. I do listen for 70's and 80's music if I'm driving somewhere, songs that I might be able to cover, and I do listen to other fingerstyle guitarist covers, but I'm just not a regular listener.  Does that sound strange?  It does seem a bit rude of me to not pay attention to new music!

Well a quiet What's Happening this time, I do have some stuff in the bag waiting, I just need to get some long term rest so it can come out in flying colours :)

JAW

What's happening February 2013

Results from the "confirmation" poll, "Do you play guitar?" are in. From 185 votes we had:

139 (75%) Yes
45  (24%) Just Starting
1   ( 1%) No

Well this is a guitar site after all, so not surprises there. But the ratio of Yes to Just Starting, of one in four people are "Just Starting" tells us something. Okay, maybe it tells us nothing. What one person considers "Just Starting" will differ from the next. And even then, if we said that once you can swap fluently between strumming G to C to D you were no longer "Just starting", there is still no real information in that statistic. One of the trickiest parts of polls is that your information is already in a subset of people who click on polls! :)

One day I might have enough information from polls to deduce something; for now it's just kinda fun.  I've popped up another simple poll - let me predict the results right now:  "Is this your first visit to this site?" Yes will be 75%, No will be 15% and "I don't know" will be 10%.  Let's see how I go!

On the guitar front, I'm in the steady state of not much going on at all.  I'm still playing for 2-2.5hours at BBar every Thursday night and am still enjoying it.  I have a few regulars that I see every week or every second week, and a few people that I've seen before once or twice.  Mostly they are all new people, when I chat to them the common response is "I really enjoyed that!" It might be true, or it might be standard Aussie politeness.  Us Aussies aren't very good at criticism, which isn't good, we need to learn how to say what we feel.  Aussies criticise with their feet - that is, they leave, say nothing, and never return.  Nobody gets to learn from that response!

I'm comfortable enough at BBar now that given the right "mood" (both the audience and my mood) I will play stuff I haven't perfected.  Yep, that's right, practising!  Even if I'm fumbling around with it.  Not much though, I still want to seem professional, but a bit of "raw edge" isn't scorned upon.  The trick seems to be to make it look like you aren't practising - so play through your mistakes, don't pause, if you are going to repeat a section because you muffed it up and what to try again, do it, but on beat.  A few new pieces and some old forgotten ones are finding their way back in.  My set is now 2.5hrs long, so I normally don't get to play the entire thing.  This is good, it means I can tune the set to meet the crowd.  It's also bad, because I don't freshen up my songs every week.

What gigging does mean for my guitar life (which is still very limited due to work and family commitments) is that the gig is everything at the moment.  In the last three weeks I have only played guitar three times...so although I'm enjoying the performing (and polishing/practising my set list) I'm not creating anything new.  Which is all I used to do.

Times and seasons.  The season at the moment is performing to audiences, and seeing as I haven't spent much of my guitar life doing it, I'm happy to keep it just at that for now!

JAW

I'm Still Here November Update

Hey I ran a poll recently (if anyone has a burning question they'd like to see polled, let me know) "Where do you place yourself in your guitar journey?" From 195 votes we had:

6  ( 3%) Expert
18 ( 9%) Just Started
22 (11%) Advanced
61 (31%) Beginner
88 (45%) Intermediate

Only 3% call themselves an expert; I'm going to put that down to (a) "Aww shucks, I'm no expert!" and (b) Experts don't need help from the internet.  Look I don't even want to call myself an expert, there is so much about guitar and music theory I don't know, but if you are talking cover arrangements in fingerstyle, OK, I will begrudgingly call myself an expert.

"Just started and Beginner" was purposely broken into two to provide an escape hatch - "Just started" is a real beginner, but some people who have been playing for 10 years might still be "Aww shucks, I'm just a beginner" so they need the "Beginner" option.

"Intermediate" at nearly half is to be expected.  I would consider most guitarists who have mastered the basics, and have access, would search the internet for ideas and inspiration.  My humble site here hopefully offers ideas and inspiration, so welcome! :)

"Advanced" was also offered as an escape hatch for "Expert", I would have thought there would be more.  I was thinking there would be say 25% in the Advanced/Expert class, 25% in the Just Started/Beginner class and 50% in the Intermediate class.  However it's not like this poll is a true cross section of the community, it is roughly a cross section of solo acoustic fingerstyle. At best.  I imagine a similar poll on a learners site would have the results skewed quite differently.

Anyway, polls are fun.  I'm not sure how much to read into this one.  Must be time for another!

Meanwhile, I recorded another Billy Joel cover and posted it on youtube, you can see it here: http://youtu.be/wHwSqIG12wM  I liked this one because the bass line challenged me a little bit - root notes on beats 1, 2&, 3 and different (but in chord) note on beat 4.  Chuck the simple melody on top and finger flick some chord fragment fills in where you can.  Because of the reasonably busy bass line I didn't find much room for flicked chord fragments.  As you know I like my arrangements less regimented - the fragments add a dimension of "feel" unlike pure alternate bass style picking which is clever but, erm, clinical?  Mathematical?  I was forced down that line somewhat in this song which to be honest is often a good thing - too much flicked chord fragments "muddies" a song, the distinctions are lost, the melody is not clear and the arrangement approaches strumming.

There is a fine line between "Clinical but clear and distinct" and "Muddy but warm with feel".  And a balance to be found.  You can't go clinical for 20 bars, then go muddy for the next twenty...well okay you can, but only when it is balanced.  I think I got a reasonable balance with this arrangement - I was strict on the bass line in places, but loosened off when I needed to.  I'm still learning! :)

I haven't decided what arrangement to focus on next.  I've got a few unfinished to get back to sometime, I've also got a few songs to re-learn.  Gigging is going to be back on in the next few weeks (not that I have time for it, but you must make time!) and I like to have a solid two hours of material, with maybe only a few that I play with trepidation in the fear of botching it...when some nights I'll have a crack at it when I'm feeling good, some nights I'll leave it alone.

However as of today, I haven't picked up the guitar in five days!  It is terrible!  And even then five days ago I only played for an hour!  I've been working 50-55 hours a week, and I'm laying some flooring at home and other renovation work.  Yes; it doesn't sound much like a guitarist...working big hours at a day job doing engineering, and in the evenings DIY home improvements.  I think that is the reality for most of us hobbyists.  Sometimes life gets in the way...priority can't be the guitar.  But it is always there, waiting for when life isn't quite so demanding :)

JAW

What's happening September 2011

Two more polls completed, the first was "How do you like your blog?" and from 43 votes we had:

23 (53%) text is just fine
13 (30%) in glorious video
4  ( 9%) I don't like blogs 
3  ( 6%) audio for my 'pod

So the message is that I shouldn't bother with an audio blog, that roughly 1 in 10 people who find my blog (probably looking for tabs) like to fill in polls but don't like blogs, and I should run say 2 text blogs for every video blog I post. Okay, thanks all!

For "I'll watch a youtube video...", from 58 votes we had:

27 (46%) even if I had to watch an advert first
18 (31%) only if it was totally advert free
13 (22%) even if there were overlaid adverts

Which tells me that only around one in three respondents don't want any adverts at all...which is less than I expected. It seems that adverts are just an accepted part of life, I would say because they are easily ignorable. But, marketers are prepared to spend huge dollars on them, so they must work. On this site I get about a 1% click rate - that is, 1% of all advert views result in someone clicking on the advert. That either means that 1% of people don't know how to use the internet, or 1% of people do know how the internet works and that clicking on an ad sends money to the publisher :)

Speaking of which, I signed the youtube channel up. I had been asked, slightly persistently, by Viso Music (a Canadian broadband TV crowd) to partner with them. After about two months of avoiding making a decision, reasoning with myself about why I should or shouldn't, and boring them to tears with incessant questions I finally said "what the hey" and signed their (scary) agreement.

Good or bad decision? Time will tell.

There were two good reasons that made it an easy decision in the end. Viso have an arrangement with YouTube, they look after the licensing issues of cover artists, and in return YouTube will allow a cover artist to be a Youtube partner. Normally if you, as a cover artist, applied to be a partner you'd get turned down due to copyright infringement. But as a partner, you can then advertise with your videos.

Did you notice the two good reasons? (a) I'm now a partner with Youtube protected under the banner of the ligitimate company Viso Music so Youtube will never shut me down due to copyright infringement. (b) Youtube videos get adverts which sends money my way - although it won't be much, maybe a dollar a day.

The downside is I've basically signed videos over to them, if I want to pull the plug, well, they've got the videos now, I don't.

Of course, early days, we'll see how it works out.

In other news I started working on an interesting video which I'm sure you will appreciate, stepping through an arrangement with screen video captures and a commentary. It is taking longer than I hoped, but I will finish it, sometime! Mostly mastered playing "Stupid Girl", will probably record a video of that in the next few weeks. Really enjoying playing it, it's just got a good feel and a cool sound. Recommended!

Live Music

Another poll processed, this one was quite interesting, not what I expected! Out of 164 votes cast on "What's your main guitar goal?" we had:

60 (36%) Hobbyist; only playing for me
52 (31%) Playing for family and friends
28 (17%) Occasional public live gigs
20 (12%) I want to play professionally!
 4 ( 2%) Recording internet audio/video

So 2/3rds of guitarists polled aren't interested in playing guitar to someone they don't know. That's understandable, we all need that time to learn and build confidence, we don't need to have our spirit crushed by a stranger. I would have thought the recording videos would rate higher, seeing as that is the path I took. It's not as intimidating as public performance but it has all the prerequisites for it - being able to play a song at performance level from start to finish, and then dealing with the (eventual) feedback, both positive and negative.

To the rest of us, who feel the need to put their stuff out to the general public, good luck and good skill to us! :)

In the same vein, I bumped into a guy at work today who is a both a guitarist and a wise fella; we had a bit of a chat about music stuff. He said a few things that made a lot of sense, well worth sharing with my mates here.

He has observed that in Australia, we don't really have a culture of live music. As in, if you were to take your guitar around to a party, people there wouldn't know what to do - do I be quiet and listen? Do I have to sing along? Should I ignore it? He said in other cultures throughout the world he'd seen live music firmly embraced; at parties live music always came out and it was an enjoyable experience for everybody. They knew what to do. It came as no surprise to me, I've seen the lack of enjoyment/understanding of live music at parties many times. How sad for us Aussies.

Further, he said the live music scene (specifically here in Perth) was disappointing. He'd played in restaurants where they saw live acoustic music as merely something they can put as a promotion on their door and flyers. That they weren't particularly interested, very slow to pay (if at all) and if the live musicians were having a great time "and getting too loud" then that was distracting for the customers - tone it down. That live music to them is just slightly higher than having a CD playing as background music.

Interestingly, he thought that fingerstyle guitarists in places like the USA were on every street corner, each one worthy of a record deal, but not wanted for their music. I don't know if I agree with that - if youtube is anything to go by, there aren't that many *outstanding* fingerstyle guitarists that make me say "wow". There is definitely a lot, and probably more than the market needs, but I'm not thinking one on every street corner.

This all adds up with my inability to find anywhere to perform. I'm a bit picky, and not trying as hard as I could, and I'm certainly not a record-deal-worthy; but so far out of maybe 15 places I've talked to nobody is jumping at the idea of having me play at their venue. Without even talking price (I'd basically play for free if someone haggled me down that low!)

I'm living in possibly the best place in the world for engineering and mining - which is important because that's how I earn my crust - but possibly the least live music cultured. Lucky my guitar is a hobby not my lifeblood!

JAW

What's happening June 2011

Poll 3 results are in, I'm quite enjoying these polls. The thing about polls is that people like to vote on them - they are quick, easy, and kinda fun. The site is getting around 500 hits per day, which is largely due to YouTube people coming for tabs, but nonetheless the stats show me that around 1 in 40 visitors still vote on a poll.

This poll was "How many times a week do you play guitar?", the results from 184 voters show me that you are pretty serious with your playing!

89 (48%) : Every single day 
65 (35%) : Almost every single day 
20 (10%) : 2 or 3 times a week 
6 (3%)   : Once a week 
4 (2%)   : Less than once a week 

I've been getting a bit more playing in than normal myself, and, not surprisingly, the more I play the better I play. Last week I felt like I was playing great! Just my usual repertoire; but everything was flowing and it felt really good. The beauty of being "in the zone" is that you start to get more emotion and feeling into your playing. Which makes it even more enjoyable. Basically it goes something along the lines of: learn how to play the guitar; learn how to play a song; learn how to play the guitar well; learn how to play the song well; be able to pour emotion, love, heart into the song! Okay, maybe a tad oversimplified.

I even dragged the amp out into the backyard, cranked it, and went through some songs I was enjoying playing. Wifey was not all that pleased: "Why do you have to play so loud? I think that is rude to do that to the neighbours." But, in my defence, it was a sunny Sunday afternoon, and it was the first time this year I have played plugged in. Playing acoustic unplugged and plugged is different; I usually only play unplugged. If I ever get around to lining up some gigs (I'll save that for another blog) I need to be able to play plugged in. I need the speaker loud enough that I can't hear the guitar I'm holding, just the sound that is being amplified to me. And then, I play off that sound.

I put my phone down in front of the amp in record mode, sadly, it recorded 45mins of auto-gained distortion. I'm quite sure nobody would want to listen to a recording of me play for 45mins, but there *might* be somebody, so I'll tweak some settings on the phone and record again next time. Promise.

Speaking of recording, I watched a YouTube clip of kjjmusic play "Air on G string" last night. Beautifully played, but what really captured my attention was the superb audio recording. He'd used a Zoom Handy H1. Up until that moment, I thought my plugged in recording was pretty good. The H1 took digital recording up another notch. NOOO!!! Now I want one! :)

Changing subject; apparently, some of my mates like to know when I'm going to next put out a video. Well, I'm in a strange place where I have "Take me Back" done but I'm not happy enough with it yet. Also, I'm past the honeymoon period, and I've stopped enjoying playing it. Usually I have recorded a video before I've stopped enjoying it. (And in 6-12 months, I will probably start enjoying playing it again. Circles and cycles :)). "Howzat" is great, but I need to create the bridge. Which requires time and effort. I don't think I can let that one out the door without the signature key-change/bridge. So, on hold. And finally, my AC/DC medley which consists of "You shook me all night long", "Who made who", and...well there's the problem. I've got the first two ready to go, but I don't know what to do with the third. Yes; it needs a third. I wanted to go with "Back in Black" but I haven't been able to arrange anything cool/playable enough for it. Toying with "TNT", which would be simple enough, and probably quite effective, but again, time and effort. I'm enjoying just playing too much at the moment!

Meanwhile, I was going to say something about my guitaristy. Wasn't going to, was going to...well, maybe let me skirt around it a bit.

I follow blogs of other musicians, and guitar teachers, and well, they are great. Consummate professionals, all class, great people to boot. Passionate about music. Live it, breathe it, want to share it with you. Now I haven't self deprecated for a while, but just to clear up any misconceptions with my mates - I'm not a musician, far from it. I play the guitar pretty well but that's it - so long as you aren't looking for perfection, I strive for "good" not "excellent". Because playing the guitar represents only a small (but important) part of my life. Additionally guitar for me is at least 50% "a physical challenge" as it is music, and I'm a persistent bugger when it comes to challenges; I don't stop. I describe myself as a "programmable guitar playing robot". And I like to talk. And I like to share.

But what I found was there are other people out there - in fact probably the norm, not the exception - just like me. Guitar is a hobby that brings joy; who don't have the time or inclination to immerse themselves in all-things-music, who in fact just want to be able to play some nice fingerstyle even if they have no idea what they are doing; even if it is just programmed in like a robot. Welcome to one of the middle grounds of music. I hope I've helped out in your quest for joy. We are here (hand on heart gesture). Amen Brother, and Sister.

* * *

Well, that was definitely true to form original JAWs Guitar Ramblings. See you again when I have something more coherent to say!
JAW

What's happening May 2011

I managed to get a good break over Easter, the whole week in between in fact. Even spent at least two nights in front of a campfire with another Floyd enthusiast; we worked through Dark Side of the Moon several times, him singing and me on guitar. It's a deviation from fingerstyle - where we do everything, unsupported - but while you are having a few whiskeys it's a good excuse for sloppy playing, and reverting to simple strum patterns not worrying about the melody so much. It's good not to be solo all the time.

Two days ago a song jumped into my head, and wouldn't get out. This happens a couple of times a year to me, and basically I can't get rid of it until I've arranged it (or at least arranged a bit of it. Yes, I have many incomplete arrangements :)) It is a classic 70's Aussie rock song by Sherbet, "Howzat". Unmistakable bass line and chorus. It mapped out really well into fingerstyle - and I was in luck, there was a great midi on the net when imported almost perfectly into powertab, I didn't need to do much work. And, unusually for me, it is a left hand finger twister! I've put in another good technique which hasn't featured in my arrangements for a while; where you hammer-on/pull off/slide the bass line while plucking a melody note. Your thumb sympathetically wants to pluck that bassnote while plucking the melody note, but don't.

I spent about an hour and a half last night quite engrossed in it, then realised I was abusing my left pinky. I had the good sense to stop at that stage. Yes, I've made it so I have to fret a bass F and a top string A at the same time - which I can do - but I shouldn't :)

More on that later; here is a little snippet of it, quite interesting, I would have recorded an audio bite (need to do that more often) but I couldn't play it up to my minimum standard yet!  *Update* about a day later I recorded a very scratchy demo, still got a lot of work to go but I'm not afraid to share the learning process, warts and all, with my mates :) Still not clever enough to insert as an embedded thing, so here is a link.




Now since switching to jawmunji.com I've been running some polls. It's interesting stuff, and people have been voting. I've put a new one up; if anyone was interesting in some sort of fingerpicker statistic, let me know a good poll to run!

The first poll was "what song would you like JAW to do a lesson on" and the results from 165 votes were:

88 (53%) : Canon in D, definitely, even if it is hard
25 (15%) : Here Comes the Sun, new to fingerstyle I want to learn!
21 (12%) : Wish You Were Here, I love that song
13 (7%)  : Another One Bites the Dust, how do you bass slap!?
11 (6%)  : Anything, I just want to hear your crAZy Aussie accent!
7  (4%)  : Sunshine of Your Love, for some groove

No surprises there, it lines up with the viewing statistics on my youtube channel :)

The second poll was "what is your current fingerstyle guitar" and the results from 132 votes were:

59 (44%) : Classical  
27 (20%) : Big body steel string acoustic  
23 (17%) : Small body steel string acoustic  
18 (13%) : Nylon string crossover/hybrid  
2  (1%)  : Solid body electric  
2  (1%)  : 12 string  
1  (0%)  : Hollow body electric  
0  (0%)  : Other

That was more surprising, I thought classical wouldn't rate as high as that - I thought the steel string acoustics and even the hybrid would rate higher than classical. So I'm not sure if the classical players are coming here looking to get a bit pop/rockier - or the pop/rockier players are coming here ready to get more classical! :)
JAW