Ice Road Tele

Hi all ,

 
Ice Road Tele
https://soundcloud.com/guitarist-kenny-wilson/ice-road-tele
This is my first and only take over the Twanger Central 160 Backing Track
I wanted to keep it simple and melodic ..I hope I achieved that goal .
More importantly I hope some of you here on the forum enjoy the guitar playing
Kenny

Thank you Daryl
 
Kenny

Ooohhhh!  This is delicious.  Very sexy and jazzy.  Your guitar work is superb.
 
John B.

jamesg1213
This is cool Kenny. Lovely phrasing and dynamics, tasty controlled bends too. Good to hear you play after a long time 

Hi James ,
One this clip I wanted to get away from playing my guitar as a guitarist and play it  more along the lines of how I would sound on the guitar if I could sing w my voice  . I'm glad you enjoyed .
 

jamesg1213
Had to smile at that lick at 0:27, I do that a lot, what would you call it?

 
Gulp, for now I'm just gonna have to call it the lick that made me realize what I smoked 5 mins ago just kicked in
 
thanks for giving this one a listen .
 

Johnbee58
Ooohhhh!  This is delicious.  Very sexy and jazzy.  Your guitar work is superb.
 
John B.

Hello John ,
 
I'm glad my guitar playing reached you . thank you for the super kind words you said
 

Wayfarer
Sounds good Kenny. You still got the chops. (I've been looking for mine. So that's where they went!) But, that's a Tele? i would have thought it was a LP or something. Well, it sounds real good, whatever it is.
 
Bill

Hi Bill,
 
Yes my Chops went MIA for a while , so I do know the feeling ...
 
I couldn't play for a few months . It was just way too painful to move my right arm and place it over the guitars body for proper right hand picking and playing movement .
 
For healing and motivation I put all my guitars away. I needed a fresh motivation for my new ground zero .
I went out and bought me a brand new Squier Tele in Racing Green w a little battery powered amp .
The Tele I bought looks just like this one from a store photo
 
 
 
No matter where I was in my apt ( even in the crapper ) I had this little guitar and amp rig in my line of vision ...
I would just sit there all by my self or with my dog Duke and tell myself I 'm gonna get back into playing again ..
 
I remember when I started to play again I could only last about 5 mins before the  pain would shut me down ..
For about the past 6 weeks ,  I have been able to play w out getting shut out VIA the pain .
 
I'm very happy you like my guitar playing and the sound it makes on this tune
 
all the best ,
 
Kenny
 

I didn't know you were in pain like that. Glad you got through it!
 
I really like green Tele's. I think forest green is my favorite shade, but I like them all. The best Tele's I've ever played were lake placid blue from the late 60's that had faded to green. I don't know why, but every one I ever played just sounded incredible.
 
My current Tele (and my Tele for life!) is one I put together from parts I found mostly on eBay. It's a sunburst MIM body with a neck I bought from a guy in Canada who ships Canadian Rock Maple to some place in Korea that makes them into Tele and Strat necks built to his specs. Mine has a 1 3/4" nut width to accommodate more intricate jazz chords and fingerpicking. I like MIM bodies because you can still fit the old 3-barrel brass bridges on them, and they just have a thick, meaty, bluesy sound that I've never gotten with any other saddles. Intonation? We don't need no stinking intonation.  And if you ever look to going noiseless with pickups, I highly recommend these Dimarzio Area T pups. No one would ever know they had a dummy coil. They have some kind of dampening material around the dummy coil that does a great job of keeping it's magnetism from interacting with the main coil. Dimarzio really has this noiseless thing down.
 
Bill

one take? sheesh that's how you play an axe.

You definitely haven't lost your chops.  Great stuff Kenny.  I'm glad that your are back on the forum and I hope you are on the mend.

As always Kenny I knew what to expect here. Only the best. I can tell you don't struggle with the guitar at all. One pass and no retakes further proves this.
 
Imaginative, well done. Top notch!

Wookiee
Always a pleasure to hear you play Kenny, good also to know things are improving for you health wise.

Loved this sweet tones, phrasing and feel.   

Hi Wookiee ,
 
The health thing pulled me away from my music into what seemed like a bad gravitational orbit .
For the sake of the conversation lets just color that one a freaking Dark Place I was lucky to have temporarily escaped from
 
I'm glad I put up a new music clip . That may indeed turn out too be the best medicine I can do right now .
In the end , it seems that my only real pay off is to do my best while playing and hope that I hit a few notes that people enjoy listening too..
I'm super happy you enjoyed my tone , phrasing and feel .
 
FWIW , I happen to enjoy my playing much better over here too when I show a little restraint and leave out the kitchen sink
 
all the best ,
 
Kenny

eph221
I like watching that show *ice road truckers*.  While not a fan of green guitars,  I am a fan of your playing.  It was very thoughtful and heartfelt beginning to end.

Alright Wait a Second Here ...
Who stole Dave's forum login and posted this kind heartfelt message of Peace and Musical Brotherhood ?
In all honesty , + all kidding aside .
It means a lot too me that you would say such a kind word of encouragement too me .
Thank You Dave , you have made my night .
 
all the best ,
 
Kenny

emeraldsoul
one take? sheesh that's how you play an axe.

Thank you for the Kind Words you said  emeraldsoul  I'm glad you enjoyed my playing
 
When I was still very young I had taken a fork in the Road .
The ability to improvise and play in the moment with confidence while expressing absolute freedom of expression has always been very high on my list of playing attributes I have striven to learn .
Some days I can just nail it ..
Other days with out any prior warning The Guitar & Music decides to show me who's the boss and Just Beat$ my A$$
Either way, whether I like it or not .
I will always let the chips fall where they may ....
 
all the best,
 
Kenny
 
 
 
 
 

Freddy J
You definitely haven't lost your chops.  Great stuff Kenny.  I'm glad that your are back on the forum and I hope you are on the mend.

Hi Freddy ,
 
I 'm doing my best to hang in there . Some days can be challenging .
 
A big Thank you for the kind words .
 
all the best ,
 
Kenny

Starise
As always Kenny I knew what to expect here. Only the best. I can tell you don't struggle with the guitar at all. One pass and no retakes further proves this.
 
Imaginative, well done. Top notch!

Hello Tim ,
 
Thank you for saying the kindest of words
 
I do struggle with the guitar , but not in the same way as most people do .
The short story is 10 years ago I had a real bad cycling accident .The doc put me back together w some metal parts in my left arm and he told me considering the extent of my injury's I was to consider myself very lucky .
He also told me he had done the best he could do .
 
As a result of this , I lost my normal comfortable playing posture of most of my guitar life with that accidents recovery . Then I spent 10 years trying to readjust myself to a new playing posture  ....
Now after breaking up the right side of my body ,  I'm back to having to readjust my playing to using  2 sides of my body where I have flexibility and range of motion issues on both sides
( trust me here when I say this ....a laugh smiley ain't what I want to put there ...)
 
As far as my whole playing a guitar solo in one take goes . I would not be willing to accept anything less for myself.
Now granted if you hit me with a tune I have no Idea how to play over or Giant Steps in the key of Cb  w a tempo of 287 ...
I don't know ...Hey wait Giant Steps starts out w a B Maj 7 ...oh well there goes that theory
 
IMHO , it's all about being comfortable in your own skin while your playing and being able to let go...
For that to happen one must have a large degree of inner trust in their playing abilities  and the desire to let the chips fall where they may fall as the music is being played in real time ....
Whats  the worst that can happen ?
My playing is gonna be black listed as An Atonal Musical Clam Bake
So What if that happens . I have survived my own suckyness  for decades and now it's time too pay some people back
(just kidding )
 
For those of you out there that want to improve your solo's and guitar playing , I can only offer you the very simple suggestions I have used all my guitar playing life .
 
These tips are of my own creation since nobody out there in music and the guitar world had the balls to hip me to these ideas. That be the truth Mo Fo's
 
When you practice,  learn to practice things that will also help you express ( eventually ) who you are as an individual player with the goal of having a sound that is uniquely yours ....
 
What's the point of practicing scales if all your ever gonna do is put the guitar in drive , hit and mash the gas into the fret board and drive around the parking lot doing endless donuts and skid marks ? 
 
All things in music have a hidden structure and meaning ...
For example , scales can unlock all the relationships of harmonic content in music ...when you practice them don't just run them change up the sequence and order of the intervals and then run them . You may be pleasantly surprised at how easy this is to do and what you may find  .
 
More importantly because you can do this next one right now Here's a tip I came up with a long time ago that is worth it's weight in Strats and Les Pauls .
 
It has been said ...A Picture is worth a thousand words . Why not run with it and use this concept for music ?
 
I always create a story or a mental picture of what I want my musical parts / guitar playing  to sound like before I even play a note ...
Have you ever seen a little girl having an imaginary tea party ? all her tea party guests have names , they all have personality's and while they are there at the tea party they are LOVED by the little girl ....
 
Now Kenny isn't a little girl he is a big bad a$$ed smelly old fart  with a grey beard w a chip on the right shoulder balanced with a chip on the left shoulder sheesh he can't get a valentine on V Day because he ain't got nothing but lint in his wallet , but when it comes to playing guitar he does know a thing or two ....
 
For an example , I'm gonna use my Classic mental trick AKA "The ForestTeleGump "
This is true folks , sometimes I picture myself sitting there at the bus stop in character as ForestTeleGump .
While I'm sitting there I'm telling stories about each and every musical part of a song I'm working on .
Just like in the movie I have been everywhere and done everything with every one
I love making up names for each musical character and once I have an idea of what the overall personality of the part is gonna be I stick to the character while I am recording ...
 
Now I can go on and and on ...but I wont ...the essence of what I am saying here is to always tell a story when you play ...
 
Next time you sit down to play or record try it for yourself ...make up a story for the part you about to play and tell it .
 
any way I hope you have enjoyed the far side of my mind ..
As I like to say ,
If a picture is worth a thousand words then a ForrestTeleGump story on the fret board is worth a thousand notes
 
Kenny
 
 
 

You should consider getting a harmonic holder and becoming the world's greatest harmonic player. "Look ma, no hands!" 
 
Glad you're getting the hang of this guitar thing though. 

Excellent guitar playing - nice job.