Skip to main content

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.    
Labels:

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 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

Day Three Hundred Forty Two (Year Four)

Tonight was a slightly unfocused night in the studio. It was a night of acoustic stuff, but most of what I got accomplished involved tinkering with different songs by Jackie Greene and Johnny Cash.  If nothing else, I set up the next list of songs I want to figure out. Tomorrow night I need to start getting back to the Acoustic Goldmine book, as well.  Every time I sit down with the acoustic for an extended period of time, I reconnect with the emotional side of that instrument.  There's so much to learn still in that book, so much information designed to improve my playing.  I need to take better advantage of it. I know it's crazy, but I'm already looking forward to Friday.  I really need to spend a lot of the day in the studio.  Getting a weekday off of work is such a rare commodity.  I need to do a good job of using my time wisely. 
Post a Comment
Read more