Sorry to inflict this on the listening public.
I went and played with some guys last Monday and I'm not going back...the place had issues. Nice guys, but I need to find another place to play. So I determined that I'm going to practice more at home. Lord knows I need it.
They say that one of the best ways to get better is to record your practicing. So I recorded this and here it is for you all to pick apart.
I hear:
Out of tune on 6th string. I tuned just before I played! Probably need new strings, these are kind of old.
Lots of crashes & semi-crashes. One lesson I learned from some reading I did last year, and which I took to heart since it has been a huge bugaboo in my playing: DON'T PRACTICE MISTAKES. There were many places where I would have stopped and reworked if I hadn't been taping. Is this a negative aspect of taping? I don't know, I kind of like the idea of getting used to taping. I just need to be sure that I don't solidify my mistakes.
Garageband is giving me fits. This was all it would record for me! I've recorded up to 10 minutes of stuff before; why wouldn't it do more than 90 seconds tonight? I've encountered this problem with Garageband before. I'll look it up.
Anyway, for your listening, here is tonight's practice tape.
Um, ok, I need to find that code I used to embed a player. Meanwhile, here's a link to the file. Listen at your peril. It's a slow version of Dan Tyminski's solo version of "Man of Constant Sorrow."
UPDATE:
Here's the player. Let's see if this works:
I was sitting in a pizza parlor with a large, close-knit (wealthy?) family - perhaps the same family as the previous dream journal. The place was like a Shakey's straight out of the '70's. They were many different races. Bill Cosby was their father. One of the boys, very young, started singing a song. As in a musical, others took up the song, taking turns singing their own verse. There was a set of twins who sang in beautiful harmony. By the end of the song, they were all holding hands. I felt like an outsider even though the pretty girl next to me was obviously offering her hand. I felt unsafe - as if, were I to reach out to her, she would laugh mockingly and pull her hand away. She looked at me with great pity and concern and I said, "I just don't 'do' people."
I can think of no higher praise for the book I'm currently reading, George R.R. Martin's "A Storm of Swords," than to recount that while leaving for work the other day, I realized I had left it behind. "I nearly forgot my people!" I said to myself as I went to retrieve it.
The first two books in the series are of course worth reading and are of course absolutely necessary for understanding what's going on in this one. So it all depends on your appetite for history that didn't really happen, with elements of fantasy thrown in for good measure. I think it's very, very well done.
I was at a family gathering - not my family, though - a joyous affair with really nice people. I also knew they were very wealthy. I was an outsider yet made to feel welcome. I decided to do the dishes as a show of friendliness. I washed the dishes but ran out of places to put the clean dishes. There was an elaborate knife block with many special knives including some that were quite fanciful.
I was attempting to ride public transportation to some worthy destination. I found myself in a station with many confusing platform and train options. I saw a train that looked like it was headed in the right direction so I jumped on just before it could leave. However, the train only went a few hundred yards before it encountered the end of the line (a stand-pipe looking affair in the middle of the tracks) and returned to the station. Frustrated, I shouted out, "This was a waste of all our time!" When we arrived back at the station the train that I actually needed was leaving and I resigned myself to waiting for the next one.
The train station has a magnificent entrance and landscaping with futuristic statuary and flyways, etc. Yet whenever I see this station (I've dreamed about it before) I always think A: I'm at Candler Park station and B: I might just walk instead, if only I were a little bit closer. Wherever I'm going, I'm very anxious to get there on time.
Something about elaborate house or landscaping work disrupting home life somehow.
Been awhile.
Guy stops me at the MARTA station yesterday and asks, "Can I ask you a question?" He doesn't look like a bum, so I say go ahead. (Many bums initiate their demands with, "Can I ask you a question?") Unfortunately, this fellow's question is, in a very put-upon tone, "Do I look like a bum?"
Now, scarier than the bums (who are usually rational enough to recognize that I'm way too big for them to try anything on) are the put-upon crazies. So I simply told him, "I don't want to talk with you any more" and walked away.
What would you do?