How Do You Know? (When You're Ready to Play With and For Others)

Hey @Michaelgb93:clap: great job brother…

So you’re notes are clean and you’ve got a nice riff library going. Your trills are tight. You are also adding some nice embellishment’s (hand wash, vibrato, etc.)

In agreement with @Andy2 consider working on a bit of rhythmic accountability - it will add continuity to your playing. Slow it down and use a metronome or backing track and it will help tighten up your rhythm.

Again, great job.
:v:
Mike

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Thanks so much for the advice and kind words as well, Mike!! I am so appreciative and will definitely take them to heart. Thank you again!

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@Micahelgb93 playing in front of people always accelerates your growth, just as playing here for us elicited feedback from @Andy2 that got you aware of the rhythm issue that needs attention.

BTW - as he said you are well on your way! You’ve got single notes, and you’re playing some bluesy stuff, and you’re putting your heart into it.

When it comes to rhythm, a GREAT resource is playing along with backing tracks. Look up “blues backing track in G” on YouTube and a whole bunch will come up. Jam along with those and pay attention to how you’re playing is fitting in with the band. Then you can play with phrasing, and playin “in the pocket.”

Rock on Michael. You’re on the path, my brother! :sunglasses::notes:

@Corky_Music of course has posted prose again latent with DEEP wisdom. We should all ready this often. In fact… I think I 'll share it in another thread!

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I am not on Facebook but know enough about it to realize its the last place I would go for harp help.

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I’ve not got anything to add to the above beyond “you’ll never know if you’re ready until you dive in and find out”
I’ve also found that in real life people are a lot more encouraging than you’d think.

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Thanks so much, Luke. I feel like I’m making progress every day and enjoying my practice quite a bit. Thank you and the everyone else here for the encouragement and wisdom!

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I definitely agree with you about Facebook being unreliable when it comes to harp advice but I had no choice when I started out. I had always thought, even as a kid, that asking for help was a sign of weakness. It was how I grew up with an abusive father for 15 years. It seemed that every time that I asked for help, he told me that I’m weak for even asking. After my parents divorced, I went to Facebook for help, but people made fun of me for needing clarification on certain pieces of advice and I got banned from MBHFacebook because of it. This is why it took me a long time to ask Todd Parrott to be my teacher. I was so worried about how he was going to react to me being disabled, but it was worth it in the end.

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I used to read tons of interviews with harp players back in the day they used to deliberately mislead you and tell you the wrong thing on purpose! Thankfully the attitude has changed over the years, and now they are more encouraging

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This band was formed from people meeting at the Blues Society Jam Workshop. The video is our first appearance - at Blues Society Pro Jam

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When you can play clean single notes consistently and your timing is correct you should be very close. You know more than anyone else when you make a mistake. I/M/O if you can play something and everyone knows what you are playing its tells you something. Pick a slow tune that requires your timing be good and single note play spot on. I have learned more from these than anything else as any mistake shows up. I am not anywhere close but the harp players I have seen that were good all showed these attributes.

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Dude the one thing that stands out to me, Relax! You look very tense.

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@Maka Great job my friend. Nice solo! Congrats. :facepunch:t3:

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