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Day One Hundred Forty Five

Great day of music today! Some Matthew Sweet, some movable scales, and a bit of Soundgarden.

It's funny, sometimes, how you now something instinctively, but need to actually see it done in order to comprehend it. For years now, I've known the rough structure of Matthew Sweet's early 90's power-pop gem, "Girlfriend," and I've always wanted to learn it in more detail. So, I was on YouTube this morning, revisiting some of the guitar-related stuff I found yesterday, and stumbled across someone playing along to a recording of "Girlfriend." Watching the way it all fit together helped it click for me, and I spent some of the day burning those ideas into my hands. Sure enough, as I had long suspected, it's dropped a half step on the record, and whoever the player was used D-C-G as the primary progression. I need to keep loosening up my fingers, as a few of the reaches with the power chords strained my hand a bit, but that's more from disuse in the last few years than it is not being able to actually play what's there. Also, I found a really cool interview/performance online with Matthew. He doesn't really do that much, so it was fun to get some insight into the guy who made one of my favorite albums.

The scales were a part of one of the lessons I discovered yesterday, and I've spent time tonight, just sitting on the couch, running those up and down (and watching the BBC's new take on
Sherlock Holmes, but anyway), making mental notes of the keys I'm switching between.

As for the Soundgarden, it wasn't all that much, I just cranked it down to Dropped D and blasted my way through the opening riff to "Spoonman."

All in all, good times, good progress, and a good day... and I didn't even get to those backing tracks I found OR the Mighty Led Balloon.

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