What a great musical path. Congratulations!thanks for asking and sharing. Please take my comments with large grain of salt
Given a guitar at 14 and been playing ever since but all self-taught. Rock and a bit of jazz (love the classic Miles stuff). Was in a band in high school and another couple in college. Rock always...With kids, I wasn't able to play as much in their early years but always had a guitar around and played (though less frequently). Once they were older (15 years ago), I started playing and practicing lots.
I'm extremely lucky being retired (for 2 years) and 73 and in a "bar band". We play about 50 gigs a year. Mainly small venues and private gigs. Bluegrass/Americana/classic rock (Eagles, Dead, Dylan, etc.) and some originals. Check out Billy Strings as he's my current hero. All his "releases" are great. Truthfully, in live shows he's going much more jam-grass which I'm not as fond of but...I love Billy. Also Molly Tuttle, Sierra Ferrell, Steeldrivers...came to bluegrass only in the last 10 years ar so but now I'm a real Americana guy.
Also EXTREMELY lucky in that my main band mate is a woman bass player who is attractive and loves dancing around. We've been together for 7 years and have had a spate of different players. Mandolin, banjo, fiddle...all work. THey come, they go and we keep recruiting more. Current is 2 guitars, banjo and bass. Three of us sing and we have good harmonies. Our current guitar player is stunningly good and he'll probably move on past us but we love having him. I'm a rhythm player in the manner of (nowhere as good as) Bob Weir of the Dead but can carry a tune and not bashful...
I use Ultimate Guitar to get tabs on songs we want to learn. You Tube is also fabulous. Audacity is free and cross platform and great for slowing down songs (among many other things) . Since we play with lots of different players, I have fallen in love with LivePrompter, a teleprompter which is free with Windows and Android support. It makes it SO easy to ask players to sit in because they can follow the tunes at a gig easily.
My son (34) is a mandolin player in a bluegrass band and has taken lessons on both instrument and voice online and he highly recommends that. It's crazy how many stellar players give lessons for $50 (or so)an hour. I keep telling myself to do it.
Playing with other people is absolutely the best. It takes a bit to get used to.... listening and playing off their strengths and weaknesses but it is sooooo satisfying. Harmony is also wonderful and growing up in a church choir helped start me on that road.
One MUST practice and as much as possible. Instruments and voice. For harmony, I always sing along to the radio and try to harmonize. Record yourself with your phone for feedback. Get over (it's hard and I struggle with it all the time) the natural fear of embarrassment. There are a MILLION more talented people out there (see You TUbe) but they aren't at the neighborhood bar this Friday. YOUR BAND is! Be open to other players and genres.
I'm seeing replies from mainly men (I think) and I can't say enough about having a woman in the band. Diversity is great! Also so lucky that I have a very supportive wife!!
Yes. I used to use a recording cassette tape player, then those Sony micro cassette players, still do, to record playing and especially singing. The feedback can be brutal but it is "honest". I've played back "singing" from others that jam and after that they stop singing. They always thought that they sounded wonderful, (maybe in the shower....humor). What's really brutal is singing through a realy nice sound system which can bring out one's voice if it is nice but worse if it is terrible. Honest feedback is good even when practicing.
Thanks for sharing.
Great that you are active playing in retirement. Awesome, not common unless praise music venue, etc.
j
Statistics: Posted by Sandtrap — Sat Jul 06, 2024 9:10 am — Replies 35 — Views 2333