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Day Seventy Five (Year Four)

Today was a great, great day music-wise. 

I got into the studio twice today, once this afternoon after my tutoring shift, and then again tonight after 10.

Having not focused on songwriting much recently, I knew going in that I wanted to spend at least a little bit of time focused in on that.  I did, and I think it was a first step towards finally finishing off a song idea that I've had knocking around for years that has never really come out sounding exactly the way I want it to.  Today, I messed around with capo placement (previously it has always been a "standard tuning, no capo" idea), and tempo/strumming pattern.  Those couple of things made enough difference that I'm starting to hear the spark of something in my head.  Hopefully the rest of the week will produce more positive results.

Worked on lick #1 of week 2 in Guitar Aerobics.  Somewhat similar to the lick last Monday, except that, where last week's lick was straight sixteenth notes, this week's had a galloping "eighth and two sixteenth" note feel to it.

The other thing I did today that made the day awesome?  I sat down with both the GW booklet I've been working with the last few days AND the DVD that goes along with it.  I must be at least some percentage visual when it comes to learning style, because somehow watching Andy Aledort demonstrate the ideas made things so much easier.  Sometimes I have a tendency to over-complicate things when it comes to my playing, glossing over the easy answer because it seems to obvious, only to see somebody make things easier and then understand why immediately.  Tonight, it was working on some open position pentatonic scales and realizing that I didn't always have to stick strictly to the 1 finger per fret theory when trying to play solos.  Again, it's things I know already, but feel the need to complicate.  Nonetheless, a good refresher right when I needed it.

Great day today.  More tomorrow.   
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