Wow, thanks everybody for the feedback!! I'm glad I could inspire some of you. Many of you have inspired me in other ways, so I'm glad I could give a little back.

Yes Chris S., it was fun and quite a victory for me. It was even more fun to listen to afterwards :-). I honestly didn't know I had this in me. It's great to do something like this to enjoy the skills I've developed rather than focus on those I'm still struggling with.

Mataonanjin, you make a good point in that it can be depressing...but not always - you'll find sometimes that things are working better than you might think. The key I found is to slow down. You don't have to play fast and you don't have to fill every single measure with notes. Sometimes, it's important what you don't play to give the song room to breathe.

Nothing I did in this recording was technically difficult - no fancy technique, no fancy scales, no clever selection of notes over chords. This is no "Cliffs of Dover" or "Satch Boogie". As guitarists, I think we get so focused on technique and stuff that we forget that it's a form of expression and you don't have to set out to melt everybody's face off with a wicked rippin' riff to impress people. Though it would be cool to be able to do that one day...

@Svanholm - I'm humbled that you want a copy of the track to listen to on your iPod!!! When you go to the link to "preview" it, you should be able to download it. Feel free!

@Slipin - There may be some triplet runs in there. When I would practice the pentatonic shapes, one way I would do it was in triplets up an down. I always thought that had a good sound. Since that is so embedded in my brain, I probably have a lot in there. They weren't consciously put in there. And yeah, I know where the clangers are, no worries there :-). I wasn't playing it safe in a single spot on the neck, so it was in some of those position changes that things went a bit awry - mainly hitting the next position a fret too high or low. Along with the clangers though were some phrases I'm not sure how I played them or where they came from. So sometimes you just gotta push the envelope and see what happens.

@Kasperow - I'm so glad you found this inspiring. Your posts of your progress and working with bands have been inspiring to me, so back atchya!! :-). I got a tab and "play along" CD with some old Aerosmith songs. Joe Perry is a great player and I especially like his stuff from the 70's. Looking at the tab, it may be a tough go, but we'll see. "Same old Song and Dance" and "Walk this Way" are on my list of what I really want to learn out of that book. The solo from "Dream On" would be a good one to add to my arsenal too. Which songs are you working on?


For anyone that is interested, I got the backing track here:
http://www.guitarbackingtrack.com/play/jamtracks/blues_bm.htm

There's a bunch more that I'll have to check out. It's a lot of fun using these. I'll have to try out a more rockin' one and see where that goes - crank up the gain and let 'er rip :-).

Again, thanks so much for the feedback!