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Day Two Hundred Sixty Four (Year Two)

So, this afternoon I actually took a small bit of time to focus intently on "Red House" after I got home from work.  I skipped past the track at full speed in my run-throughs today, preferring to start with just the straight half-speed track, and then work my way up (or down) in speed from there.

After working on it for a little while, it's become obvious to me that there are two licks that I'm misfiring on.  The first one is the lick that sits right in the middle of the intro and ties the two halves of it together.  It looks like this:


What throws me about it, I think, is that it starts off very much like the bit right before it, and then the descending part near the end of the measure differs, and it happens quick enough that it catches me off guard.  I can play both parts of it fine separately, but somewhere in the middle, my brain hasn't quite made the connection yet.  This is, by far, the portion of the intro that has given me the most trouble.

The second lick that's causing me problems is the second to last lick of the intro, and I can tell you straight off that it's because of the position shift that happens midway through it.  It looks like this:

 
  I can come out of the sections before, played up the neck, just fine, but the quick jump from the 12th fret, down to the 2nd fret, and then right back up to the 8th fret for what leads into the last, partially chorded bit of the intro throws me.  I'm still at the half speed portion of the CD, though.  Haven't slowed it down any further from there, so that gives me hope that I'll pick it up sooner rather than later.

Already I've looped a couple of the licks, just to make sure I've got them down.

I'm really glad that the book I have breaks these songs into manageable sections.  It's less overwhelming that way, and it allows for steadier, more obvious progress.

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