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Day Two Hundred Ninety Four (Year Two)

Relaxing tonight, and trying to get through a bit of the listening that has piled up over the last few weeks.  I've got The Search playing in itunes as I write tonight.

I've got to say, Jay Farrar has his moments of brilliance, but of the three bands (Son Volt, Wilco, and Uncle Tupelo), I definitely fall more on the Wilco side than anything else.  It has something to do with both the raw emotion, and the sense of adventure that lay at the heart of their music, I think.  I can appreciate what Jay Farrar does, but a lot of the time it feels like he's preserving something in amber as opposed to pushing the envelope for something new.  That's not always a bad thing, but I do tend to notice that the Son Volt tracks I like the most are the ones where he seems more emotionally committed to the lyric (and subsequently, the playing).

What I spent the most time doing today, where music is concerned anyway, was more sorting and examining of resources.  One of the things I found in that search was an Eagles tab book that I forgot I had.  I worked through a bit of the intro to "Already Gone" on the electric as a result of that find.  The string bends in that song are something I need to work on. Actually, string bending, specifically, is an aspect of my playing that needs work on an all-around sort of level.

What I really ought to do is sit down and make an objective list of the things in my playing that need work, and then go from there in terms of progress.  I find myself laying out things here a lot and list off things that then sometimes get lost in the shuffle.  If I'm going to start teaching and maximize my own playing, I need to be better about the follow through on the things I'd like to get done musically.

I've got Monday and Tuesday off, and I'll be in Cherokee visiting SL, but she's got to work both days, so I will have plenty of time to get my ducks in a row.

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