Original lesson: Eric Gales Blues Licks by Gabriel Leopardi

Hi GMC

First of all, thank you for your advice on the previous lesson "NEO SOUL"
I didn’t expect to get an 8 of you 4 on such a difficult lesson

This new ERIC GALES lesson is full of subtlety,
I still do not understand why the blues is still considered as level 3 while it is probably the most difficult lessons to approach.

However it is only a number, it is not really important.
On this one, I tried to do better about tone, but it’s really not easy.
I gave the best of me, I hope to give satisfaction because the 1/4 and 1/2 bends are sometimes complicated

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This post has been edited by MisterM: Jun 24 2020, 09:10 AM

Very nice!

You do a fantastic job as usual. I am not on good monitors right now but it sure sounds like you found a matching tone for this lesson. Maybe other instructors can fill in with their thoughts on your tone.

The reason we give this lesson a fairly low difficulty level is because we also use difficulty levels to present lessons to new users on this page: https://www.guitarmasterclass.net/video-lessons/ And this lesson is suitable for intermediate guitarists as well - although nailing all the subtle details takes a long a time.

Although you already perform way above expectation here, the one thing I would still comment on - is to experiment with a loose timing. If you were slightly behind the beat you would totally convey a 100% pro impression.

To understand what I mean, you could go into your DAW and move your recording just a few milliseconds to the right and give it a listen. Experiment a little bit and see if you can hear what I mean. Obviously some parts will sound off when you do this, but it can still help you adjust your practicing goals.

Other than this some notes around the fast passage (~00:34) could use more articulation/practice.

Very well done, you get a 9 from me!

Hi MisterM!

Great to see you playing this lesson! It has been also a hard work for me to get all those details sounding good!!

You are now able to play all these licks clean and with the right timing, now as you already know, you need to get into subtle details to get the most from this lesson.

The secret here is to work lick by lick, trying to emulate bending, dynamics and groove. That's what I did when I was analysing Eric Gales playing. You need to review again the whole lesson, and identify which of your bends aren't reaching the right pitch, and where your playing can have more dynamics and still needs some groove work.

Here I will make a quick list with some of these details:

- 00:07 - Bend pitch
- 00:08 to 00:11 - Check bends and dynamics.
- 00:14 - Check timing/articulation.
- 00:17 - Check dynamics/articulation
- 00:25 to 00:32: Check bends pitches, and phrases groove/articulation.
- 00:40 - Polish this lick (pitches, cleanness, timing)
- 00:46 - Dynamics/articulation
- 01:00 - Groove/timing


Ok mate, I hope that this detailed analysis helps you! Keep on the hard work!

Hey there!

Yes I do agree - blues has it's one-of-a-kind difficulty but still we need to classify by some measurable technical aspects, which unfortunately are not eqal to overall sense of dynamics and groove necessary to perform blues with expected emotional load.

You did really nice with the tone. I realyl enjoy it. Veery close to the one Gabriel has set in his original take.

Now let's get into details

In the first lick I think you could be little more lazy with the "broken bend" - bend process more audible. In the response part to this likc you overlap two notes while gab has a clear separation here.

In the 2nd runs Gabriel does glue the notes more even if they do not overlap. He takes the bending finger just a slice later and it doesn't have that "cutter" feeling.

In the third run something went off with the tuning. Probably bends made you guitar loose some pitch. Before bending it is recommended to stretch the strings twice as much.

In the part of 0:16 I miss more audible "broken bends" ornament. They seem to disappear to fast or maybe you bend to fast.

around 034 a little precission is missing on these faster runs

If we would try to come up with a general tip it would be to get stretch the bends. Blues has a "50 shades" of bends. Not only pitch but a variations of bend timing matters. Notice that juicy blues bend-ornaments usually have a veeery low pitch increasement through most of bend time and a huge increasement in the end of note. so in other words - lasy beginning and fasten finish.

What you perform is technicaly proper but remove some of the "squareness" you can try to apply what written above.

Besides these, you have a nice sense of dynamics, timing is descent imho, tone matches the lesson and lot's of other details has been done already.

Pass: 8.3