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Day Nineteen (Year Four)

So, Round 2 of the #STARTexp began today, and the good people of the Start Experiment have charged us with being Audacious in the second round.  I looked that up today.  According to Webster, to be audacious means being: intrepidly daring, recklessly bold, contemptuous of law, religion, or decorum, and marked by originality and verve.

That's quite a list of attributes to measure up to.  Given my challenge (and the fact that I've tried to complete it before, and failed), attempting to get a handle on a lesson binder seems, at the very least, to be recklessly bold.  And, while it may not be the most daring place to begin, it made sense to me on Day 1 to go back through my prior attempt to see what it was that actually made it into the binder when I tried to do this in years past.  It didn't end up being all that much, but what did make it in will prove to be helpful in establishing the base of what is to come.  Here's what I found tonight that's already in the binder:

1) A Music Reference form from Berklee.  Likely out of date by now, yes, but it lists various competencies and invites whoever is filling out the form to grade the applicant on each of the areas.  Since Berklee out in Boston was the original goal four years ago, this made sense.

2) Two different fretboard diagrams: one that has all of the notes on the fretboard right next to their equivalents on the staff, and a second one that has all of the natural notes circled.

3) A sheet that has the scale tones for all 15 keys.
4) A sheet with the circle of fifths, all key signatures, and the all of the keys with their corresponding relative minors.

5) A sheet of scale degrees for all about 30 different scales
6) A fretboard diagram with all of the A's, B's, C's, etc. circled (one sheet for each note)
7) A fretboard diagram that has all of the notes in every key circled (one sheet for each key)

Also included were a couple of random classical pieces that my brother had mailed to me, and an article on practicing that I had found online a number of years back.

Oh, and there's a notebook in the binder.  It has all of the keys written out, with the major scale written out for each key, along with the number of sharps or flats (and their names).  It also has the tonic, sub-dominant, and dominant chords for each key (I-IV-V) and the relative minor (vi).

That seems like a lot of stuff, until I sit back and realize everything I want to go into this... then it seems like almost nothing at all.

Sometimes, in order to START something effectively, it helps to go back and see where the earlier mistakes were.  I'm in a better place now to learn from them, and build something that will work better.

More tomorrow!

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