While on vacation this week, I realized that I had strayed a great deal from the intent of the blog starting with the ending of lessons with Sal. From there, I got more and more into learning songs than practicing theory (although I still do this fairly regularly). Throw that in with engineering school starting for me and I just simply don't have the time to invest in this as I want to and once had.
Thanks to all that followed it!
Been a couple weeks. I have a ton going on now. Between work and the baby and the girls, I have school now. Yep, back at college for my BS in mechanical engineering. Very good school for it, too; so, I am excited. I was seriously bummed when I heard they didn't have a jazz band anymore. Oh well.
I do have a jam prospect coming up though. A dude who is a Berklee grad says he'd like to put something together for small cafe gigs and what not. I am nervous at the prospect for sure but I know thi
Been a couple of weeks. Been playing a good bit.
Of course, still playing All of Me but I also picked up a new tune: Why Don't You Do Right as made famous by Peggy Lee.
Simple changes: Dmin7 (4 beats)- Bb7 (2 beats) - A7 (2 beats) - Dmin7 (4 beats)- Bb7 (2 beats) - A7 (2 beats) - Gmin7 (4 beats) - Bb7 (2 beats) - A7 (2 beats) - Dmin7 (4 beats) - Bb7 (2 beats) - A7 (2 beats) - Gmin7 (2 beats) - A7 (2 beats) - Gmin7 (2 beats) - A7 (2 beats) .... and repeat.
I added a bit of rhythmic fl
Still messing with All of Me. Getting to know the song better and better. I am up to being able to do a more learned improv up to the first Dmin from there... I just noodle.
Wound my first coils for pickups. Here is how it went. The first coil did GREAT! I got 3.92k on it! For what I was wanting, that was ON IT! Second coil.... not as well. Got a 2.7k out of it. Put the two together and I would be only slightly more resistance than a Fender single coil and would lose a noticable portion of t
Good week for me musically.
Still playing around with All of Me.
What I started to do was play along with a nice
.
I graduated from playing just the chord changes, to the chord changes with the melody included in the lead tones and then just just the melody.
After playing with the melody for a bit, I started to add little notes, sometimes just neighbor tones but others being from the scale.
For instance, the first part of the melody that has the lyrics, "All of me,..." is R-
Alrighty. What a week!
First off, I am registered for school. Good news is that I am starting as a Sophomore. So... only about 4.5 years to complete the degree as opposed to the 6-7 year track I was looking at. Very pumped.
Next, and many of you reading this on the Heritage Owners Club forums may already know, I got my first new guitar that wasn't a 'scratch and dent' that was heavily discounted and required some amount of work from me or some of my friends to get it functioning again. I
Sorry I have missed so many entries. I have had a full couple of weeks. I am preparing for starting school in August for my bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering. On top of that, I had a nice lake getaway for the Fourth of July weekend. Been reading books on pickup making and so on. At work, they let go of everyone in what was our Toronto office so we are having to pick up their work load as well as shoulder what we already had.
On a playing note, I have really been messing around with
Ok. Another late one. So sue me. haha.
Been a busy week. My mother-in-law came in from Detroit. Good visit. She came for my son's first birthday which was this past Sunday. Had family over. Cooked out. Good times.
Musicially, I got very little playing in. With the guest and getting the house together, I just didn't get much time in that way.
Yesterday, however, I did get my book in on the history of pickups. Great, GREAT read. This is the one I got.
Sorry there isn't much info
Hello all.
Bad news on the pickup winding front. The school where I was going to go wind the pickups at got flooded so it may not be this weekend that I get to wind pickups but maybe a couple of weeks out. I should find out today or tomorrow whether or not they could get the water out.
Other than that, another good week. I got accepted into the university I wanted to go to for my bachelor's of science in mechanical engineering. Now it is just paperwork, funding and so on. I start this fa
Busy, busy, BUSY week!
I played for sure. I did a bit of jammin on Autumn Leaves. Always a good tune. More jammin with Rock Around the Clock by Bill Haley.
Still working my way through the 6/4 position in the key of C major. I am up to the Fmaj7 arpeggio diatonic to C. As I complete these sets of arpeggios, I work on tying them together. I will go from Cmaj7 in the 6/2 position to the same in 6/4 and back. Dmin7 in between the two and so on. I will also go from, say, Cmaj7 in 6/4 to Dmin
Due to my late entry for last week, this entry only comes a few short days after my last one... but I needed to get back on track.
Since my last and very recent entry, I have been going after the Dmin7 arpeggio diatonic to Cmaj in both the 6/1 and 6/4 hand positions. I have already committed 6/2 to memory.
The interesting part for me is that in the 6/4 position, the fingering pattern for Dmin7 is the same as Emin7 in the 6/2 position also diatonic to C. What this could ultimately mean fo
Sorry for the delay in getting this up.
Not much to report really.
Still running through exactly what I did last week going though all of the arpeggios diatonic to C in the 6/2 hand position. The cool part is I am feeling those runs being committed to habit and am having to think less and less about it as I do it.
Also, of the things Sal taught me, one of them was that the melody dictates the chords and not the other way around.
Taking that info, I went to a song me and buddy mes
This week is just more of the same of last week.
Playing all of the arpeggios diatonic to Cmaj in position 6/2. Still on Cmaj7 and Dmin7 of the 6/4.
Although, I am thinking that I probably ought to make sure that I can play every version of Cmaj7, Dmin7, etc in 6/2 before I really dig into position 6/4. That way I can really move easily between chords and single notes before I move to another position. Once I get that down, I will move to the 6/4 and then do the same. Scales, arpeggios,
Well, today I am out of work due to hurt ribs. I don't know what I did other than get older but boy does it hurt. No playing today but plenty up to this point.
Last week I mentioned I was working the Cmaj scale in the 6/2 position as well as the Cmaj Pentatonic scale in the same position and was starting on the A Aeolian scale also in the Cmaj 6/2 position.
In that theme, I have been playing the arpeggios for Cmaj7 Ionian, Dmin7 Dorian, Emin7 Phrygian, Fmaj7 Lydian, G7 Mixolydian, Amin7
Productive week.
I have still been running the scales as I mentioned in the previous weeks but now I am starting on A Aeolian. First running the normal scale which is, of course, exactly like the Cmaj scale but with the root moved to A. Next, I run Amin7 arpeggio as far as I can carry it in that position. Then the pentatonic scale of A Aeolian.
So far, I am only practicing in the 6/2 position of Cmaj for A Aeolian.
What little knowledge I have aquired in really hammering these scales
Last week I mentioned that I was just beating on the C scale and all of its positions: 6/1, 6/2, 6/4, 5/1, 5/2, 5/4 and open positions.
This week is sort of the same but with a variation: running the CMaj7 arpeggio and the C pentatonic scale. Again, running these in all of the positions mentioned above.The great thing about it is you have an opportunity to really familiarize yourself with the parts of the scale (with the fourth interval being notably absent in everything but the full major s
This past week has really been something! It is amazing what even a little time with a teacher can do! Before I was merely understanding what my theory and practice books were saying. Now, they have context! THAT IS HUGE! Since I discovered this, I went back to the beginning. Going through simple chords and drills.
Before I mentioned that I was going through the C Major scale with the root starting on different fingers such as 6/1, 6/4 and so on. For the past week, I have been playing the C
Well, today is a sad day in my studies, but I stand by it for the reasons I have are good. There isn't much in this world that will come between me and music, but my children are 3 of those handful of possible interferences. I don't know if I have mentioned it much on here, but both of my daughters have Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis and, although they are responding well to their treatments, those treatments are coming at a cost. That cost coupled with the cost of my time with Sal have had a not
As mentioned last week, Sal has another engagement so this is another week without a get together. The previous cancellations were on me due to work.
So, what I have been doing is, in the key of F major, playing solely in chord tones for Fmaj7 all the way up the neck. Those notes are sung "Do-Mi-So-Ti" for intervals 1, 3, 5 and 7. The notes are F, A, C and E.
*F(E/1) = note of F played on the E string at the first fret
In F:
Going up
F(E/1) A(A/0) C(A/3) E(D/2) F(D/3) A(G/2) C(B/1)
I had to cancel. Work has been just been gangbusters and I have had to stay late.
Bummer is, Sal won't be there next week... so that is ANOTHER week I will miss.
It is getting frustrating to say the least. What is getting more frustrating is I feel like i have hit a plateau in the areas I want to advance in. I am still gaining in other areas but just a bit frustrating. Won't stop me by any means.
So, what I have been doing is more of the same. I am working with a vamp of I-vi-ii-V7
This week I got held at work so there was another cancellation. What I did was pretty much a continuation of last week.
I played the diatonic chords in a key. They I would go up the chord tones then own the scale over each chord. Change keys and start over making sure to call out the name of the chord that I was playing over as I played it so that I wasn't just going through a motion but internalizing the information. Then I would go back and play chords or go up chord tones and down scale t
Sorry for the late post. My wife had something to attend so I had to cancel this week but had plenty to practice on.
What I did was keep running with the I-vi-ii-V7 vamp and then started to play only root-3rd movements. Never varied. Just stayed on root-3rd. All over the neck where ever the root and third of these chords showed up.
Now, another little exercise I have been doing is playing diatonic chords. For C, it would be Cmaj7, Dmin7, Emin7, Fmaj7, G7, Amin7, Bmin7b5.
Along those
This week's lesson got moved back a day as Sal had a gig so it was Wednesday instead of Tuesday as per normal.
The week previous, we decided it was time to start learning to improv. He picked Beyond the Sea. I love the song but I would be lying if I said that song didn't make me nervous due to the rate it goes through chords (every two beats it changes). Last night, it finally occured to me the disconnect I have between the notes and their sound. I know songs as changing positions on the fin
Ok, got back into the groove of things with last night's meeting with Sal.
The week leading up to last night wasn't much better in terms of practicing. I was prepared to go in there and honestly show no movement from the last time we met. I got there way early as I have to leave early to get there on time. I will either get there an hour early or a half hour late with how Atlanta traffic is between my work and where I take the lessons.
I ended up getting there about an hour and a half e
There isn't much to tell this week. I had to cancel the lesson. Too much going on at home with a daughter with Rheumatoid Arthritis and an 8 month old baby and another daughter with orthodontist appointments and me having to get a filling replaced for me.... and Valentines Day coming up which ultimately our plans got snowed out.
So, I really didn't much playing time in since the Week 11 entry. Maybe a couple of hours and that might be generous.
Just continuing on with learning Beyond the
