"Muse" - ings on Rock & Life

Taught this morning.  Both lessons.  First time in a long time that has happened.  Teaching early got me a bit of a chance to play this morning before the obligations of the day pulled me out of the studio.  Working on the things I've been working on for the last couple of weeks is starting to pay off when it comes to confidence in my playing.  I may not have unlocked all the secrets of it yet, but I'm feeling better about what it is that I have accomplished recently. Never did get around to hooking up the looping pedal today.  We don't have anywhere to be until quarter to eleven in the morning, though, so I'm hoping to get up at a decent hour and have a bit of time in the studio before we're off to church and lunch with family that's in town for the weekend. Finally got around to importing the new music I picked up the other night, too. I really need to spend some serious time in the studio tomorrow.  Things feel like they're getting away from me a bi

So, today was pretty great. I crossed something off my list that has been on it for a long time.  I found a looping pedal on a really great Black Friday-type deal at the local instrument store!  It's made by TC electronics, and it's a whole lot smaller than I expected it to be, but all of the reviews I've read (and the videos I've watched) have been really positive.  I'm excited to have the weekend off to start playing around with it. Worked until 6, and then we had other obligations tonight that got in the way of much music-making, but I teach tomorrow morning so, if nothing else, that will force me to get up and get started on things early.  It will also give me the time to get caught up on some of the things I wanted to get to today that I simply ran out of time for. That's really all today, although I did make some progress in my Beatles vs. Stones book. Tomorrow will be better.  Tomorrow will be awesome.

Got back late tonight from Wisconsin.  Stopped and did a little Black Friday shopping on the way in.  I picked up a couple of CDs in the process: Reflektor - Arcade Fire and Foreverly - Billie Joe Armstrong & Norah Jones Can't wait to absorb those this weekend. As for the rest of my day: I got to spend a bit of time with my brother, as we stopped over by them for a bit of the afternoon before heading off to eat at my Grandma's.  We talked a little bit of music, played a little guitar, and generally had an excellent time, for the hour and a half or so we were there. That was, for all intents and purposes, my day when it came to music. I'll say it again: it felt weird to be home and not go to The Exclusive Company. More tomorrow.  Back in the saddle after a day (almost) off.

Early post today.  And a quick one at that.  We're headed up to Wisconsin tonight after I get off of work to spend Thanksgiving with family.  It's going to seem weird to go to Appleton, and not hit up Exclusive. Planning on taking the ukulele along with me, as well as all my scale pattern stuff, so that, if my brother and I have time, we can look at it together.  I'm curious as to his insights into all of this when he gets a firsthand look at it. It will make for a late night, but it will be good to be home for the holiday.

Went back at my scale patterns again tonight.  The more I work with this stuff, the more sense it makes.  I backed off of my "gotta learn all the patterns at once" stance because I know it's not a smart (or healthy) way to approach things.  Instead, I spent tonight focused on the second and third patterns.  I feel like I've got the first one memorized inside and out. Going through "Stairway" last night really has me wanting to get back to the 100 Riffs from the Chicago Music Exchange.  I played through the first three again tonight, just to make sure that I still had them down.  When I started that, I made it up to "Johnny B. Goode" before I got sidetracked.  I know a few of the riffs that come after it, I just need to finish out the Chuck Berry in order to tie them all together. Other music stuff that happened today included: 1) Work on the Guitar Aerobics lick of the day. 2) A phone call from my brother, to tell me he had won a concerto co

One of the things my brother and I talked about the other day was that one of the next things I ought to do with all of these scale patterns I've been working on of late is sit down with a famous solo that uses the pentatonic scale as its base, and see just how close it comes to sticking with the patterns.  Now that I think of it, I might have mentioned this idea in Saturday night's post. Anyway, one of the things I did tonight was to sit down with a print out of the solo for "Stairway," just to see how close it came.  I even went so far as to find a tab of it where the solo is broken down into smaller chunks, just to make the examination process easier. As I expected, there are a few spots where it branches off into the A natural minor scale, but for the most part, it sticks almost entirely to the patterns of A minor pentatonic. Other stuff that got done tonight included the Guitar Aerobics lick of the day, and a little bit of just plain old playing on some Cou

Didn't get into the studio until pretty late tonight; but the time in there, although quick, was productive. I spent most of it working with, and trying to burn into my memory, the other pentatonic scale patterns.  I'm feeling better about them tonight than I did going into today, but I'm also left with the feeling that, just as I was getting warmed up tonight, I felt like I needed to wrap things up so I could post and get some sleep heading into the week.  I know that, despite the progress I'm making, I'm not budgeting my time as well as I could/should be. This week is going to be an interesting one, what with going up north on Wednesday night for Thanksgiving with family.  I'm going to have to cram in a lot of music during the next two days, because I know that Wednesday night/Thursday will seem like forever to be away from the studio. Did I get as much done as I wanted to this weekend?  No, but I did push forward at least a little, and things feel a lot

Had a great conversation with my brother today.  We updated each other on our lives, but as always, a lot of the conversation revolved around music.  We covered everything from classical to punk and pop. We also hit on the studying I've been doing the last few days.  We both play guitar, and he was as blown away by things as I have been. One of my longer term goals with all of this lately is to sit down with a famous solo, and analyze it based on scale pattern choices.  I know that so much of rock and blues is based around the pentatonic scale, I'm just curious now how close it sticks to the patterns, and how much of it could rightly be considered "out of the box." Didn't get to do a whole lot of playing today, but the chance to talk music with my brother is always something that brightens my musical landscape.  A conversation with him will always push me forward, get me listening to something new, and make me want to practice more and be a better, more well

Tonight was completely a follow-up night to last night's moment of understanding.  I not only went back through the parts of the lesson I've spent the last few nights working on, but I also printed off a couple of diagrams and some blank fretboard sheets, just so that I could look at things as well as write them out. I wanted to be able to look at the patterns individually, and I found a diagram that has them all listed.  That will be helpful this weekend, as I continue to reinforce things over the next 48 hours. Already having the major scale patterns printed out, my plan for the weekend is to start with the pentatonics, and work into the major scale. I just wanted to review things tonight, at the end of a long week, before adding more to my plate this weekend. I hit the lick of the day from Guitar Aerobics , too.  A Friday lick that was both cool, and a bit easier than some of the earlier Friday licks. All told, a bit of a hodgepodge today, but a productive one.  An

Tonight's studio time was amazingly productive, and also slightly less than an hour long.  I spent all day turning over scale patterns in my head.  With the clarity that exercise provided, I was able to study things again tonight, and now it feels like all of the pieces are starting to fall into place.  For the most part, it has been pentatonic patterns so far.  While I know that everything can either be added to (or taken away from) the major scale, I wanted to make sure I understood what I thought I did with less notes in the equation first. Having sat down with the combination of lessons I've been working on the last couple of days, I then took a look at a big folder full of scales that has sat in a magazine file since we moved.  Just being able to look at the diagrams and recognize the patterns lets me know I'm finally on the right track to being where I really want to be. Sometimes, in the end, it's all about seeing things you should have seen all along, feelin

Woke up a bit under the weather today, so while I laid low for a good portion of the day, I still got some good time in the studio tonight. It started with the lick of the day from Guitar Aerobics .  Tonight's lick was a bit tougher than last night's, but I worked through it enough that I got it down, which was cool. After that, I sat down with the lesson from the last couple of nights.  I made some more progress, but didn't get through the whole thing. Then I went looking for advice on connecting things together.  Found some good stuff that I saved in a folder for printing out tomorrow. Also, I'm thinking about taking a few lessons again, just to get some outside perspective on the work I'm trying to accomplish.  This weekend I want to investigate that idea a bit further, price things out, and see if I can't find someplace to take a few lessons.  Life has been so hectic lately, and the time I've had for things has felt like it isn't being used

So, I know I said last night that I was going to spend tonight's studio time delving into that lesson on fretboard knowledge, but I got sidetracked by the idea that all I've played recently is electric stuff; and while I have all day tomorrow to keep doing that, I spent time tonight on the acoustic side of things. More specifically, I spent it looking at a couple of the highlights from Clapton's Unplugged record.  Mostly, it was "Layla" and "Tears In Heaven" that I spent my time on tonight.  They're both songs that I've learned the outline of over the years, but when it comes to knowing them note-for-note, I've never quite gotten there. It's just another one of those things that's on my long-term list, but everything on that list has to be started sometime, and tonight it was good to get back to some acoustic stuff. Really the only electric playing that got accomplished tonight was the lick of the day from Guitar Aerobics , which

Tonight was another good night. I blasted my way through the lick of the day from Guitar Aerobics , and then settled in for a more detailed look at that lesson that I glanced through yesterday. It starts off with translating open position major, minor, and seventh chords to barre chords at different places on the neck before delving into the octave shape system for figuring out scale and chord root notes.  Having looked at that idea a couple of times from a couple of different resources, it's starting to sink in a bit more.  I think that, with Wednesday off this week, if I can get some good time in studio-wise, things will really start to click. After the octaves, the lesson dives into different scalar approaches, and while I started to get into a bit of that tonight, I skipped to the end where it talks about learning the scales in smaller chunks at various points on the fretboard.  What I probably should have done was to follow the lesson all the way through from start to fi

The fact that the studio got cleaned up yesterday made progress today so much easier.  When I got into the studio tonight, the two things on the top of the pile on my work table were the two things that got focused on, and that worked out just fine for me. 1) First and foremost, I made it through Sunday's lick of the day from Guitar Aerobics .  Pretty soon, like maybe Wednesday on my day off, I'm going to have to do an eight week review, where I go back through and try to nail down some of the harder riffs from the last two months.  I'd also like to copy down (or make copies of) a few of the riffs that worked well so that I can incorporate them into the lesson binder. 2) Secondly, I had picked up a book of lessons pulled from the pages of Guitar One while we were out the other day, and tonight I sat down with one on fretboard navigation.  There are a lot of ideas crammed into it, but two of them really stood out.  One was a more detailed follow-up on the octave patterns

Today was a good day, music-wise.  Found a few LPs for 25 cents apiece at one of the local thrift stores.  Got a little bit of classical, and a little bit of jazz. As for the stuff from yesterday's list... I did okay, but not fantastically.  I got the new Counting Crows disc imported into iTunes, and am charging the iPod as I type this. I also gathered up everything music-related that had wound up in the living room (including the couple of books I picked up the other day), and hauled it all back into the studio. I'd have gotten to a lot of playing, but when I made it into the studio, I looked around at the mess that it had become and decided to spend most of my time in there getting things put back in some semblance of order.  I'm thinking I need another small shelf in there that can hold the stuff I'm currently working on, which would free up the work table for the immediate project. Feeling pretty good now that everything is back in order.  Like my tomorrow,

Friday nights are always good for a little bit of fun in the music room.  Tonight it was less about serious study, and more about just sitting down and playing as a way to unwind at the end of a long week. I played along to whatever the iPod brought up for two of my favorite bands: Counting Crows and Barenaked Ladies, trying to work out the chords to songs if I didn't already know how to play them.  It was a fun exercise that probably could have used a bit more intense focus (and a notebook and pen, to write down what I figured out). As for other stuff tonight, there was a bit of "Twist & Shout," and the usual Guitar Aerobics lick of the day.  Seven weeks into that, and the ones that really give me a harder time are always the ones on Friday. As for the weekend, I've got to: 1) charge the iPod, and add the new Counting Crows disc to iTunes. 2) collect the music stuff that has migrated out to the living room area and get it back to the studio. 3) put in a

Tonight was another night of catching up on some things, and adding in a few new music resources.  We stopped off at Books-A-Million after going out for dinner, and I found a few things that were cool enough to pick up.  They were: Big Man - The Clarence Clemons biography from a few years back (for only $2!) I also snagged what looks to be a really cool book called Beatles vs. Stones .  It explores the decade of the 60's set against the biggest music rivalry of the era. The other two books I picked up were more related to actual playing.  They are: Total Acoustic Guitar - Andrew DuBrock and Lesson Lab: The Best of 1995-2000 .  Put out by Guitar One , a now (sadly) defunct music magazine, the book highlights their best lessons over that five year time period.  Both books look to be great additions to my collection, and I can't wait to dive into both of them. All told, today wound up being a great day for music, even without a whole lot of playing in it.

Looking back on yesterday's post, there were four things that I wanted to get accomplished today.  They were: 1) Get through the last few tracks of the new Counting Crows record. 2) Hit some more of 100 riffs. 3) Go back to "Twist & Shout." 4) Keep working on the AC/DC. I worked quickly tonight, but was efficient, and managed to cross everything off of that list. My session started with "Twist & Shout" tonight.  It seemed like a fun way to work my way into playing for the day.  While I worked through the verses a little bit, I spent the bulk of my time ensuring that I had the solo down cold. After that, I worked through the lick of the day for Guitar Aerobics , which wasn't technically on my list from yesterday, but went well just the same.  Tonight's was pretty easy, and so I went back and made sure that I had yesterday's down as well.  Worked on that one for a bit, and nailed it, so that was cool. Didn't do as much as last

Today was a good day for catching up on some things that had gotten set aside for a couple of days. 1) The Classic Rock Song for November this year, AC/DC's "Rock & Roll Ain't Noise Pollution," got picked up again today, after a few days off.  The intro just keeps getting smoother, and I'm feeling pretty good about the verses right now.  Seems like this one is going to come down to the same thing these month-long excursions always seem to: my old nemesis, the solo.  This one doesn't look all that tough, though, so I'm pretty sure that, with almost three weeks left in November, I ought to be good. 2) I've been slacking a little bit on my Guitar Aerobics stuff.  Not fleshing the licks out as well as I ought to be.  Got back to that tonight with a vengeance and played a bit of catch up.  The licks are getting there, but they aren't quite at the level I'd like them to be.  A bit of backtracking and catch up for the rest of the week should g

Today was a good mixture of things: 1) The new live record by Counting Crows got dropped off by the UPS guy tonight, both ahead of schedule and ahead of release date!  Started listening to that tonight. 2) Kept going with the 100 Riffs thing.  Tonight, I got through a few of them.  After finishing off "Folsom Prison Blues," I worked on "Words Of Love," "Johnny B. Goode," "Rumble," and "Summertime Blues."  This is definitely going to be a fun project. 3) Did some studying of scales tonight, too.  I'm trying to get better at visualizing (and playing) them from one end of the neck to the other.  There's progress being made there, but it's slow and steady. All told, it was a decent day.  Back to work tomorrow, which means my time for musical exploits will shrink... this will force me to be deliberate in what I choose to focus on, which is good.

For a while now, I've said that I want to find a way to trace my way through both the history of rock & roll and my history with guitar and music.  Its taken me a while to stumble onto the right way to do it, and now that I have, it was something that was staring me in the face all along... I'm using the "Brief History of Rock & Roll" that came up in the last few days.  It's 100 riffs, and it covers 1953-2011.  I'm not going to put any sort of time limit on it, be able to play them all in one take, or make a commitment to do 1 riff/day for 100 days or anything like that.  I'm just going to work on it at my own pace.  Either way, I started today with the riffs from "Mr. Sandman," and "Folsom Prison Blues." Truth be told, I did a lot of my playing from the couch today, so while I spent time working on music stuff, I spent little time actually "in the studio."  With tomorrow off, that will definitely change, as I'm

So, my brother called tonight, which means I got the chance to bring up that crazy voice mail that I mentioned in last night's post.  From my viewpoint (that of someone who feels he never has enough time to get to all of the practicing he wants to do), my brother has this great life... he's going to school for music, so every time he practices, it's part of his homework.  Sometimes, though, I get the feeling that he looks at my schedule, with my hour here, and my hour there, and gets envious of me .  What it comes down to is this: we both feel like we have so much stuff that we want to work on, but he has professors that keep adding to his pile, while I only have me to thank for that. We both admitted that we try to do too much, and that our playing would likely improve if we simply focused more intensely on less things at any given time.  I'm not entirely sure I'll actually be able to do that, but I'll try it if it will make me feel like I'm getting close

Good night tonight.  Glad to be at the start of a three day weekend. Kept working on "Twist & Shout" tonight.  Played around with the solo tonight.  It's short, classic, and done in 3rds.  That song fits so well into my "classic song" category, along with "That'll Be The Day," and "Johnny B. Goode." Also, I found something else really cool tonight: the TAB for that YouTube video of "100 riffs, the History of Rock" online.  I've wanted to learn some of those riffs (if not the whole thing) ever since I first spotted that video. Got through the daily lick from Guitar Aerobics , too. So, my plan for tomorrow is to spend most of the day in the studio.  Feels like it's been a while since that actually happened, so it'll be good to get that chance. Also, I got a cool voice mail from my brother tonight.  He was all hopped up to have a conversation about practicing, so I'll have to give him a call tomorrow s

Another really good night tonight!  I had the house to myself, with the Mrs. away at a retreat, and definitely took advantage, getting into the studio earlier than usual, and being productive while I was there. After loosening up my fingers thanks to Guitar Aerobics , I started off by reading a bit of the latest issue of Guitar Techniques .  My original intent was to start working on a lesson on how chords and modes are related that also focused on the licking in of rhythm and lead parts.  Instead, I had some fun focusing in on one of the transcriptions in the magazine, The Beatles take on "Twist & Shout."  It's not a difficult song by any stretch of the imagination, but it is a blast to play. After that, I moved into a run through "Missing You," a Green Day song that I had started to mess around with a few weeks back.  Better progress on that tonight than there was the last time around, so that's cool. Oh, there was a bit of Alkaline Trio involved

Tonight was definitely a night when stuff around the house needed to get done, and therefore came before time spent in the studio. By the time I got down to the business of music stuff, I wound up only doing a couple of things, but I had fun doing it, and at the end of a long day, fun was what I needed. Most of tonight was spent goofing around, soloing over a I-IV-I-IV-I-V progression in the key of G.  The G-C repeats were a good time, because they let me try out a few licks and work on connecting some phrases together.  It's yet another thing I need to be working into my routines on a regular basis.  Related to that, I found a CD filled with backing tracks tonight as I was sorting through some stuff in the closet, so that could hold some fun heading into the end of the week.  A lot of the focus tonight was blues-based, as has been the theme of late, and I enjoyed it a lot.  There's stuff to work on that has come out of it, which is good. As always, I blasted my way throu

Today was a good day.  Being off from work meant a lot of time to devote to musical things.  Therefore, I: 1) Got things organized a bit in the studio.  It had gotten slightly out of hand of late, and so it was nice to take some time and have things looking good again.  There are a few more things to do in that regard, but then again, there are always a few more things to do in that regard. 2) Picked up the latest round of guitar magazines.  It was my one moment out of the house today, and I ended up with new issues of Guitar World, Acoustic Guitar, and Guitar Techniques .  Seemed like a victory all the way around. 3) Spent some time with the AC/DC tonight as well.  Feeling pretty good about that right now. 4) Talked to my brother for a couple of hours tonight.  We hand a wide-ranging discussion that involved (among other things) listening to music vs. wading into it in order to understand it on a deeper level.  I've said in this space many times that I'm envious of my

Long day today.  Got into the studio late, but still feel like I made some progress. Started off, as I usually do, with the lick of the day from Guitar Aerobics .  I'm finding that, for the most part, those are good for getting my fingers warmed up, which is a cool benefit. Worked a bit more on the AC/DC tune tonight.  That's definitely starting to feel better, and I feel like I've hardly spent any time with it at all. Tomorrow is a day off, and looking around the studio tonight, it's obvious that I need to spend a lot of time in there tomorrow.  Things aren't as organized as I'd like them to be, and there's a lot of playing that needs to be done.  Really can't wait to have a whole day to do just that. Not much else to report tonight.  Really feel like tomorrow is going to be a great day, though.

We got back to town around 8 tonight.  As good as sit was to be away for the weekend, it sure was nice to get back home... and back into the studio. I did a few things as soon as I got in there tonight: 1) I blasted through the last few days of Guitar Aerobics .  Did I get everything flawlessly?  No.  But I got through it. 2) I started in on the classic rock song for November.  "Rock & Roll Ain't Noise Pollution" is going to be fun.  I was pretty tired at the end of a long, awesome weekend, but I played through both the intro and the verses tonight, just to get some of it underneath my fingers heading into the week.  Tomorrow night should be a good one for music, though, and I'm planning on spending most of Tuesday in the studio as well.  Hooray for days off.  It's looking like a solid start to the week.

So, having the ukulele along for the trip to Cherokee was helpful in two ways: 1) I got to play for my niece, who was fascinated by the music, and the idea of playing the uke herself.  She sat and watched for a bit, and then kept reaching out to strum the strings. and 2) I got the chance to sit and try to figure out a bit of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" by ear, because I didn't remember/wasn't smart enough to print out the transcription I found the other day and bring it along with me.  I've got the opening few lines pretty much nailed down, but before I go much farther, I want to sit down with the tab and get a better look at it than I have so far. Regarding the classic rock month selection of "Rock & Roll Ain't Noise Pollution," I checked before we left home, and I've got a good tab of it in an AC/DC book that I've got, so I'll be good on that front.  Now it's just a matter of getting home and diving in.  As I suspecte

We're heading out to Cherokee for the weekend to see family and just hang out.  Leaving in a minute here, but I wanted to post something, at least. November again, which means it's time for me to learn a classic rock song.  I asked my brother for song suggestions, and he came back with a good one: "Rock & Roll Ain't Noise Pollution," by AC/DC.  That works for me.  I'll either get started on that on Sunday night when we get home, or (more likely) on Tuesday, when I have the day off. I'm taking the ukulele along with me, so that I can get a bit of music in my weekend.  Should be a good time. I'll post something more concrete tomorrow, but for now, it's time to hit the road!