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Day Three Hundred Eighteen (Year Five)

Today was a good day.

I got into the studio with a few clear goals tonight.  All weekend, I've been watching some lesson videos on YouTube (a few Brad Paisley things, mostly).  Some of them were focused on speed and the use of open strings, and some on fret-hand stretches to make things work.  What I wanted to do tonight was not necessarily try to replicate the licks in the video (that may come tomorrow), but more to test out the stretches and make sure my hands were loosened up to the point that some of these other ideas would be possible.  Sometimes my hands tighten up while I'm playing, and I think most of it is related to not always taking the right amount of time to warm up before I dive in.

The other thing I did tonight was to take another look (and a few listens) to some of the Hendrix I had worked on earlier in the week.  So much of my work there seems like it needs to be centered around phrasing.  I'm feeling more confident about having the notes themselves resting underneath my fingers, I just need to work on the way the notes fall as I play them.  That's going to be my big focus as I head into this week, just working through things so that I get the phrasing down right, and then speeding them up until I get the tempos where they need to be.    
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