What's happening November 2019

I'm currently obsessed with a song. Well, two actually, one was about 3 weeks ago, the other from a few days ago. It's hard to be properly obsessed with two songs at the same time, so one moved into the other. Fortunately I'd nearly finished the first before the second arrived.

(I have a lot of other things I should be doing. My poor wifey deserves better.)

The first is ELO Telephone Line. Not sure why it came back into my life, loved it as a kid, love it when I hear it, must have been a "heard in shops 'I can fingerstyle that'" usual thing. Own arrangement, it's pretty good, I just can't play it well yet ;-) Here's bits of it in a demo:

Telephone Line demo:

The second was a Naudo, posted a few days ago. Chicago "If You Leave Me Now". He absolutely nailed it. Had to do it. When a song is sung high/falsetto it works really well as fingerstyle, because the melody sits nice and high above the bass and mid fill. This particular song has some nice complex chords in it. In fact so does Telephone Line. I must be getting in touch with my inner Jazz musician; the one who appreciates more than just basic rock. Here's bits of it in a demo, it is much rougher than the previous:

If You Leave Me Now demo:

There you go! Busy!

Guitar YouTubers and what videos to post

I noticed that one of my favourite fingerstyle guitarists, Jake Reichbart, has started live streaming. I'm always interested in what the professional fingerstyle guitarists out there have to say so I've been watching him (not live though, timezone issues).

Note: the guitar YouTubers I particularly follow are:

• Naudo Rodrigues. Just plays fingerstyle covers. "Just". The guy is a genius. I have modeled my playing on his style for more than a decade now from just watching and transcribing.
• Jake Riechbart. Just plays fingerstyle covers generally with a jazz feel. "Just". Recently streaming.
• Paul Davids. Talks about many interesting guitar topics, very knowledgeable and has a nice presentation style.
• Sammy G. He's quirky, interesting, a true musician and he talks about stuff in that vein. I don't think he is a fingerstyle player at heart, but when I've heard him fingerstyle, he's pretty good at it.
• Allen Mathews. Professional Classical guitarist. Hugely generous with his instructional videos, so much good stuff, and even though I'm not a classical guitarist I was born from classical guitar, and I can relate to almost everything he talks about.
• Kelly Valleau. Just plays fingerstyle covers. "Just". But his attention to arrangements is outstanding. I love it when he takes a minimalist approach and every note counts. I'd like to be like that!
• Adam Neely. Bass player, quirky, but another true musician. Talks about proper music theory which I generally don't understand, but just enough for me to have an idea what he is talking about.

There are many other guitarists in my feed, but these listed are the ones that post most frequently and generally with something I'd like to see. Now Jake Reichbart will post a song, and has recorded an instructional video on it, so you can pay him some cash and he will provide you with it. So the more views he gets, the more sales he would get. Jake mentioned during one of his streams was how his viewership has dropped off, which affects his income stream. How previously he would post something and have thousands of views in a short period of time, but now it's more like hundreds of views. I have noticed the same with the other guitarists I follow. They have many subscribers, they release a quality video, but after a week maybe a few thousand views. No more million views in a week!

I think the days of targeting youtube views is probably over. As in making a video specifically for people to watch because you think that is what they want to watch and will get lots of views. If the people who are really good at it are running out of reach then it's all over. I love to make a good video, I won't settle for poor quality audio, and I only ever posted what I thought people might like to see. So generally just a song, not me nattering. But now, I think it's okay for me to put stuff out there I hadn't previously done in the past. That slow motion video I posted the other month - generally not liked. But I wanted to do it, so it doesn't matter! My "Jawmunji Talks" videos, which I used to post elsewhere but now post on my main channel - they are generally enjoyed, I look forward to posting more in the future...and I want to try live streaming. Maybe over the Christmas holidays.

YouTube - tough, but also liberating!