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Hello everyone,
Let me introduce myself, I’m a new member in this community. Hopefully I’ll make some friends here and we can share our passion for music together.
My name is Mathieu and I’ve been playing guitar for about four years. I’m 95% self-taught from YouTube teachers and recently started taking lessons with a local teacher in my area.
The style I’m most familiar with is the blues on electric guitar, as I completed a Blues Immersion course last year. I also enjoy acoustic guitar, but I don’t have enough time to focus on both at the moment.
I joined Active Melody on October 9th with a one-year membership, so you’ll have to get used to seeing me around ahah!
I wasn’t sure where to start meeting other members, but I figured participating in the monthly challenge would be a great way to begin.
My local teacher asked me to compose a blues instrumental using harmonies like 6ths and 3rds as homework over the past two weeks. I wrote it over a shuffle backing track in A. Today, I spent a few hours adapting my blues for the monthly challenge.
I used Brian’s funk backing track from EP439 — it’s also in A, but the groove and chord sequence are quite different from a blues. There’s even a C chord in there, which made me rework a few parts. It turned out to be a really fun and interesting project for the afternoon.
I think it did not turn too bad, the funk version has a character of its own. What do you think ?
Monthly Challenge – funk version :
And if you are curious and want to see the shuffle version that I did for my local teacher:
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Fantastic playing, Mathieu!!!
First, I listened to the first video, then the shuffle, and then back to the challenge video and I think I understood the difficulties you may have had with adjusting to the funky track! Yes, it must have been a great challenge and I think you did an awesome job!
Another great move you did after signing up with AM was to jump right into the monthly challenges! I remember doing exactly that all the back – ahem – over 8 years ago and never stopped since. It is not only a fun and motivating part of the AM membership but also an instant immersion into this awesome online community of friendly and like-minded folks here. So welcome and looking forward to witnessing your guitar journey here. It looks like you didn’t waste any time in the last 4 years either! I have a feeling you are determined and focused to sky-rocket your guitar chops quickly.
🎸JoLa
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Hey Mathieu, welcome to AM and the challenges. These monthly challenges are a great community builder and a terrific way to keep pushing your learning and creativity.
Manfred has also been hosting a zoom for members a couple times a year, which is a fun hang.Nice playing! Sounds a bit like Duke Ellington’s “things ain’t what they used to be”, can’t go wrong with that.
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Thanks so much for the warm welcome to the community, John, Martin, André, JoLa, Bill and Alan — really appreciate it!
Beautiful guitar (PRS?)
Yes, it’s a PRS. The McCarty 594 SE is PRS’s take on the Les Paul. I particularly like the 24.594” scale and the blue finish 🙂
Another great move you did after signing up with AM was to jump right into the monthly challenges! I remember doing exactly that all the back – ahem – over 8 years ago and never stopped since.
Wow, congrats JoLa on your 95th monthly challenge! That’s an incredible level of commitment and motivation — a real achievement. You must have learned so much along the way. Looking forward to following in your footsteps!
Sounds a bit like Duke Ellington’s “things ain’t what they used to be”,
Nice tune, Bill! The opening lick does sound similar. Thanks for sharing the song — I used to play alto sax in high school, so I’m really enjoying watching the official video on YouTube. That orchestra is impressive! It brings back some great high school memories of playing with the saxes, trumpets and trombones.
I like the shuffle best.
Both versions sound great but I’m a little biased towards the shuffle.
After listening a few times, I agree with you both. I like the higher tempo of the funk version, but it feels like there’s a lot going on at once in the rhythm guitar track — I’m not always sure where my ear should focus. Could we say that it’s like two people talking at the same time, making the conversation harder to follow ?
I feel like this specific funk track might work better with shorter fills rather than long licks.
As a little experiment, I tried the backing track from the same EP, but without the rhythm guitar — just the organ and drums, I think. It definitely sounds different. It loses some of that funky vibe, but there’s more room to breathe.
I think I learned a good little lesson from this challenge. I tend to jam over the same backing track again and again. But in this small experiment, I tried three different ones with similar licks — and they all sounded different! So, that’s an easy way to make things more interesting when practicing.
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Welcome to the challenges, Mathieu. You took a similar funk approach to this challenge as me. And you did great.
Thanks for adding your shuffle video too. It shows that it takes a lot to adapt the whole thing to the style. And you did a great job. I’m already looking forward to your next posts.
If you’re interested in meeting other community members, look out for the next Zoom meeting. It will be in November. It would be great to meet you there.Take the chance to meet your AM friends on Zoom
The next Meetup is expected to take place in November 2025There will be a detailed announcement here in the forum in good time.
I look forward to meet you.
Manfred -
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Hi Mathieu, welcome to AM and to the monthly challenges. You’ve made an impressive entré, I gotta say. All videos were really good. My favourite is the last one as it sounded most polished and – you said it yourself- with the rhythm part it was a bit too busy. I probably would have submitted after the first attempt and I give you a lot of credit for giving it another shot. I’m looking forward to your future postings.
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