TOPIC: Energize Practice; Play With Your Favorite Band

When it comes to traditional, hard-driving bluegrass, that played by Bill Monroe and The Bluegrass Boys in late 1945-1947 when his group included Flatt & Scruggs, is my all time favorite and "started it all". If you want to have a great time practicing, learning, etc. try jamming with your favorite band.
If you have Windows Media Player on your 'puter, you can adjust the playing speed of a song between Fast, Normal (recording speed) and slow which is about half speed.
So pick a band, select a song, play the song and play along with your instrument to determine the key the song is in. If the recording speed is too fast, slow it down. If that doesn't work, pick a slower song. Learn the rythm.....then try to play a lead.

You will be amazed after doing this a few times at how much faster you can get into it and it is highly energizing and promotes practicing.

This is the original way I learned to play guitar. Put on my favorite tunes and try to play along. After a while you can figure some of them out and "join the band". If a beer or two was involved it was just amazing how good I sounded. Of course that only took me so far and it wasn't until I started taking Dave's classes and learning about theory that all those chord relationships started to make sense. I still enjoy playing along with my favorites quite a bit and any time you are pickin' helps.

I bought the Beatles Complete Scores a while back, and it was the best $50 I'd ever spent on instructional materials. It has standard notation for every part possible and TAB for guitar and bass.

Sometimes I'll try to get thorugh an entire album. I've done this with Abbey Road, which is a blast! I Want You is great and there's room for pentatonic blues improvision. The Hard Day's Night album is quite hard because of the heavy syncopation, even though solos are scarce and short.

And Your Bird Can Sing from Revolver is perhap my favorite Beatles song for guitar. There are two distinct lead guitar parts to learn. The entire lead is in harmony - diatonic to E. (John and George played their Casinos together.)

Nothing the Beatles played was ever that fast, so you don't need to slow it down. I generally use my Telecasters, Gretsch bass, an electric 12-string and acoustic for everything Beatles.