Greetings Friends,
Well we are at “high tide” already, here in Boise for the music season. Mid April proved to put 4-5 shows a week on the calendar and we really haven’t had much time since then to catch our breath!
This is great for getting out there, getting our playing chops sharpened and the camaraderie between Mo, Meghan and I as a band, couldn’t be better. We are really feeling the “gel” between us all! Meghan has been such a super support and we are very lucky to have her aboard.
She doesn’t play her drums every gig with us, but when she does, there is beautiful magic between us all and we feel quite blessed she makes the time and energy to be with us! She is the “THUNDER” of B&K!!!
I coined, “Blaze and Kellies”, since Meghan’s full name is Meghan “Kelly” Watters; so when she plays that can be our trio name.
Another fun thing is playing electric guitar! I made a goal to break out the electric guitar this year January of 2022. Fortunately progress has been made as I am starting to get use to it more and more.
It’s such a different “beast”. It’s more finicky than the acoustic yet easier to press down the strings, but also VERY sensitive. If you strum (bash) down on the strings of an electric…she will NOT sound better! There is a lot to finesse playing electric and I’m up for the challenge.
I’ve been taking my Fender Telecaster Thin Line out most shows we have percussion, along with my Fender Mustang III Amplifier. This AMP is the BOMB!!! I love it cause even though it’s small, it has killer sounds. I can concoct a recipe and get possibly ANY tone that I wish, without a bunch of extra pedals.
Now…how many tones do I use, you may ask? Really…two very good ones for right now. I have a switch pedal that comes out from the amp that allows me to bank 3 stations all designed to my specs. I have a “Clean Johnny Mar” sound on bank #9, then I have a cool “When Pigs Fly” sound on channel #8. Then I have this crazy rocking distortion channel I named “Heart” after the amazing lead guitarist Nancy Wilson of “Heart” . She is crazy good! I designed the sound to fit her tone as best I could. But who knows what these ears hear. Electric can be a bit ear cutting without the other instruments to tone it down a bit.
Now I only need time to sit down and TRY to learn some of those Heart solos that Mo wants to cover. OMG! No easy task! Magic Man is a very complex tune but I do look forward to getting at least some of it under my fingers this year.
The download for you this month is a little musing on the electric guitar. It is very rudimentary. I looped a little phrase on my acoustic and then played my electric completely improv (meaning, not rehearsed or thought out) over top of the acoustic rhythm.
This is a lot of how I practice. I will lay some little ditty down on the loop and just play, practice scales, noodle around, try out different modes, intervals and explore. It’s one of my favorite ways to have a cup of coffee in the morning. I’ve been a bit out of practice lately but I’m looking forward to getting back on the morning schedule.
So, enjoy. It’s complete with minor mistakes and all but that is kind of the beauty of this membership. You can get the feeling of how much we have to practice, where we start from to get where we end up.
I hope you like it! And thank you so much for all your love and support!
Much love, Niccole, Mo and Juno!
