Skip to main content

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.   

Comments

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...

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...

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.