Getting Acquainted with my New Best Friend

I can't believe I did this. But when someone offers a great deal on a bass, to a bassless bass player, well, things just happened.
I managed to squeeze it in but still have to figure out how I'm going to sleep in my bed tonight....

Jammin' on Skype

I got to jam with my sister today via Skype. It's not the best venue for duets but it's better than nothing.

The first issue we discovered is the time lapse. We can't really sing or play together since one of us is a couple of beats behind.
That doesn't bother us much though since we discovered that we can't hear both parts at the same time anyway. I mean, who ever is loudest gets the bandwidth. If I want to hear her play and sing, it works better if I just turn off my microphone. Otherwise, she'll be cutting in and out. Just have to remember to turn it back on.
We also get dropped calls. I thought it would be better since my WiFi was upgraded. We lost connections about 4-5 times today. It kept telling me I wasn't connected, but my computer told me I was. I hope the new version of Skype fixed that problem. That one is really annoying.
In spite of everything, we keep trying to play together. I can see what she is doing and I can try out my new songs. Maybe when she returns to the mainland things will go better. She's in Hawaii right now and the distance is a definite factor.
Still, with all the issues, it's great to see and talk to my sister. She's really getting pretty good on the banjo and her singing has really improved. I wish we lived closer so we could see each other from time to time, but in the meantime, we'll just jam on Skype.

St. Anne's Reel

A snippet of St Anne's Reel using my new little amplifier. (My dulcimer tends to get drowned out when we jam with 8 guitars, handful of banjos and a couple of fiddles.)

St. Anne's Reel

My New Honeytone Amp

My little HoneyTone amp arrived along with my $7 pickup. I think they sound great - especially for the price. I tried it on the uke and and ubass. They worked fine on both, but picked up all the noise from touching the instrument too. I will need a smaller, non-clip-on pickup for those two so I can mount it inside the body. The concert uke sounded great with the pickup up under the neck.

But my dulcimer needed the amplification the most. It couldn't be heard at the jam sessions with six guitars, two or three banjos, mandolins and what have you. Now I'm thinking I need a pedal switch to have volume for lead and less volume for backup. Even an on-off switch would work. I'd just be playing acoustically when playing backup.

Timers and Practicing

I've been trying out some timers to keep track of how long I'm practicing. I've tried several free downloadable programs and have to say they all work. I've also used a basic kitchen timer.

At first, I didn't like the programs because most of them don't let you stop the timer and continue it when you're ready. If you stop it, it resets. I sometimes have to interrupt a session if someone calls, or there's a dog "emergency" or something boils over on the stove. My kitchen timer worked great for that issue.

But now I'm back to using the first timer I tried, the Focus Booster. I've found that sometimes if I don't have an hour free, I won't practice at all. Focus Booster was recommended for working in smaller chunks. I read that working for 25 minutes and then taking a 5 minute break, called the Pomodoro Technique,  is actually more productive than trying to crank out work for an hour. Focus Booster can be set up for a work session and a break too.

I do seem to get more focused practice in when I only do 25 minutes at a time. When I tried to practice in hour chunks, I spent more time in mindless noodling instead of focused practice. I quit beating myself up if I don't get in all the practicing that I think I should. If I learn one thing a day, I'm making progress.

Soloing

I'm finally figuring things out. All those years of practicing scales, I never connected how to use them. Now I'm determined to learn to solo, even if it's just a few simple bars of  bluegrass. I've made myself some backing tracks and now I see the reason for all those scales.
I have a free program called Audacity. I just love it. It makes it really easy to record myself playing chords and I can then save it as a MP3.

More Music

After a couple of days under the weather, I'm back on track. I've been paying more attention to my low blood sugar times and having a snack. I've been really enjoying having more energy to practice and play music. I'm even enjoying playing scales.
Today I figured out a way to do a chunk rhythm on the dulcimer. I've always wanted to do that since I would like to be able to sit back and listen to someone else solo. Now I just have to practice changing gears.