Hi everyone,

It’s been a long time since I’ve done the monthly challenge. This time, I recorded a little blues in E to experiment with some licks I learned in the recent lessons in E. You might recognize a few of them if you pay close attention!

For the spacing, I used a call-and-response style with short gaps between the call and the response. The length of the silence varies to keep it less predictable—sometimes it’s 1 beat, sometimes half a beat, sometimes 1.5 beats, or sometimes no silence at all.

I did another take with longer pauses (like 1 to 2 bars) and asked some friends for feedback. The consensus was that it killed the momentum of the track, and they all preferred the version with shorter rests. So, the takeaway for me is that adding space isn’t as easy as it looks. It really depends on the context, the type of licks you use, and the backing track, so you have to be careful with it.

Maybe with a slow blues, longer rests would have worked well. But a teacher told me, “If we leave more than 2 or 3 beats of rest, it can sometimes sound like we’re lost and forgot what to play. Solos can also lose momentum with too many gaps.”

So, in the end, that’s why I kept the version with smaller gaps. I think that each call-and-response lick has a short space between them, making it feel like a real conversation. The guitar says a phrase, then takes a small pause to catch its breath and answers—just like when we are talking or singing.

Don’t you think?

• This topic was modified 23 hours, 28 minutes ago by math07.
• This topic was modified 23 hours, 27 minutes ago by math07.
• This topic was modified 23 hours, 26 minutes ago by math07.
• This topic was modified 23 hours, 25 minutes ago by math07.