Skip to main content

Day Seventy One (Year Three)

First rehearsal tonight with the praise band.  I really was going to just sit and listen.  Until none of the songs they picked actually had the canned music they've been using.  So, while I didn't play for the performance part, I definitely played along a bit at rehearsal.  It helps to have a guitar stored at the church in these instances.  Apparently they were impressed with my ability to pick things up at the drop of a hat.

As an added bonus, they said it was totally up to me whether I used the acoustic or the electric during the performances... they've got an amp and an effects pedal that someone had left there years ago.  So, I imagine that at some point in the next week or so, I'll wander into the church after hours, with my Strat, and test everything out.

After I got home tonight, I skyped with my brother, and we got to talking about Circle II by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band.  We grew up with that album, on family vacations and road trips, and I'm not sure either one of us really appreciated it for how awesome of a record it is until we got older.  Anyway, S. was trying to learn "Will The Circle Be Unbroken" tonight, and we figured out that it's in the key of A, and learned it that way.  Then I remembered that I've got a program on my NOOK that lets you input a chord progression, and see what the chords would end up as if you put a capo on any of the frets.  We both figured out that the progression was a whole lot easier to play if we put the capo at the second fret.  Good times.

Spent a bit of time on the Grohl Challenge today, but not enough to make any substantial progress.

I'll probably go to the jam session tomorrow night.  Even if I have to go by myself.  If I do, you'll get a paragraph about that tomorrow night.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Day Two Hundred Six (Year Four)

Today was the first official day of the second half of my "album-in-a-month" challenge. As for today's goals, I wanted to see what I could get done in regards to track order, and get at least a little bit of a start on the lyric writing process. I spent more time working on the track order question than I did on the lyrics today, but as a result of that, I ended up with something that I think will work in terms of order. I did sit with the notebook for a few minutes at the very end of the day, and got a solid starting line of lyric and some other ideas that I hope will be jumping off points for lyrics. What I'm thinking I might do, however, is switch my focus from the lyric writing part of the process directly to the recording part of the process.  That way, if I can get the music recorded and burned onto a CD, I can take the music with me in the car, and listen and try to see what images and thoughts the music brings up.  It's a tactic that has worked for...
Post a Comment
Read more

Day Two Hundred Ninety Nine (Year Four)

Tonight was one of those nights where absolutely nothing went right, but somehow, some way, I managed to get into the studio for a little bit, and make what felt like good progress, all things considered. I went back through the second half of last night's chapter in The Guitarist's Guide To Scales Over Chords , just to make sure that I had a decent grasp of everything that was covered, and then made the move to the next chapter. After the theory-heavy chapter I had just gotten through, it was a great relief to have the next one be more music (playing) centered.  It was all about putting the scale examples they cited in the early chapters to use in a musical context. I've seen a great number of books try to do this in a successful manner, and end up failing spectacularly, but so far I'm liking what this book is putting forward.  They give you "starter" examples, that don't necessarily make the best use of note choices, etc. and then present you with an...
Post a Comment
Read more

Day Two Hundred Ninety Two (Year Five)

Today was the last seminary village cookout of the year. While we were all sitting around the picnic tables eating dinner, I got a chance to talk with a few of the Mrs.'s classmates about guitar related stuff. As it turns out, more than one of them wants to be more proficient on guitar. I'm not saying that this will lead to more teaching opportunities, but I told one of them that I would throw a folder together for them. Essentially, anytime I get a chance to talk shop is a great chance for me to reinforce some of the things I have been focusing on. If nothing else, it gets me thinking ahead to tomorrow's day off and a chance to get into the studio for a decent amount of time.
Post a Comment
Read more