barrymclark

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 fall. A long lost friend got in touch with me. That was very cool. He once made guitars in Atlanta and moved back to Indy several years ago. His main source of income was cabinetry. Now, he makes the cabinets for his amps! These are simply the most beautiful amps I have ever seen: Trillium Amps. I wish him the best of luck... not that he needs it with beauties like these! With regards to playing, I have moved from the Dmin7 arpeggio in Cmajor to Emin7 and Fmaj7 all in the 6/4 position. There is also a pretty good site for resources that was posted by 'mgoetting'. The site is a bit fumbly but not bad by any means. Check it out. Maybe... a Heritage to start my college days off and a Trillium amp for a graduation gift? hmmmm......

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 Dmin7 in 6/2 with four beats on each. Lots of fun. I play my Vox some, but my MicroCube gets all my play. The Vox sounds good and all... but the Roland is my favorite and it is just SO accessible. Small, no tubes... won't rattle the walls and isn't hard on my arthritic and injury beaten knees and feet. AlWAYS A PLUS! haha. A lot of other news! I turned 35 this week. Had a good birthday. Got some very comfy boots. Got a Dremel kit and ate out at a couple of restaurants. The MicroCube I mentioned before was an early present from my inlaws. My boy turns 1 in two weeks. For those that remember him being born, can you believe it has been a year? I signed up for and was quickly accepted into the college I have been wanting to attend. I am going to go for my Bachelor's of Science in Mechanical Engineering. Where I have such freedom, I will make my project music related with regards to guitar or amp parts or tools for making such parts. I can't wait! I am also gearing up for a PAF wind! This I am VERY excited about! The first weekend in June I am going to my friends luthiery school to wind my first set of PAF type pickups. These will go into my old Gretsch 6120. I have always been fascinated with what makes a guitar and/or its parts to do what they do! I will be going to his school from time to time to work on my first build. That is the plan, anyways! haha.

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 for a solo run that uses the iii-ii progression is that you can play the same fingering pattern over both but only moving your hand back a full step to move from iii to ii. Does it get any easier than that? There are others but I won't get into those as I have only noticed those in fleeting glances. One thing I am being very careful of is to always run through the diatonic arpeggios for C in the 6/2 position before I practice on the 6/1 and 6/4 patterns. As I do this, I make sure to tell myself at the start of every arpeggio what chord this is for. I am beginning to recognize the patterns as Dmin7 diatonic to C or Fmaj7 diatonic to C. Also I am now starting to associate the note positions on the fretboard as note names and not merely fret positions. This is a 25 year old habit that is proving painfully difficult to break but it is happening. Before I started this journey, the only notes I could immediately name off of finger position were the open notes, the 5th fret (4th for the B string), 7th fret and 12th fret notes. All of those for obvious reasons. The rest I could come up with fairly quickly but not nearly fast enough to work in a band setting. I would have to rely on the fret numbering where the inherent weakness is obvious. Now, in this arpeggios, I can easily call up D, F, G and all the others. The one that is still slowing me up just a bit is G on the B string. For what ever reason, I see the B string as an abyss of frets. Typing here, I have no issue calling up the notes, but when I am playing the guitar, there is anxiety around the B string. haha. Not that bad. I am getting it. All things in good time and not a minute sooner than I am ready to handle it. Although my progression is slight compared to where I want to be and may seem small to accomplished musicians, for me, I might as well have landed on the moon. It is that exciting to me. Last night was when it hit me that I was seeing the guitar's fretboard far differently than I ever had. Thanks, Sal!

Me too! haha. No, I wish I had more time to do more of what I am doing. What little I have been able to do has really paid dividends!

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 messed around with a while back. For the most part, it was fine. There were some parts though, it would go pear shaped for a bit then go back to being fine again. The problem was my chord choice in a couple of places. Based on the melody over the chord, I remapped the chords and WOW... what a difference it made in terms of sound. It had that "We are on the same page" sound. haha. Taking my ears some time to adjust to it as they have grown accustomed to hearing the chords being a certain way and when it doesn't happen, it sounds wrong... until the vocal melody comes in.

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, chords.

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 Aeolian and Bmin7b5 Locrian in the 6/2 position. (I mention the modes so as to be clear what scale is being used that the chords are being derived from). As I play these arpeggios, I am being careful to spell the notes as I play them so it isn't merely becoming a dexterity exercise. I also make sure I am aware of the interval that I am playing. For example, I try to be aware that if I am playing the C that is at the 8th fret of the low E, that I know in the Cmaj scale, it is the root. In the D dorian scale, it is the 7. In the Fmaj Lydian, it is the 5 and so on. There is also a good ear trainer online that I have been using for the last week. Check it out! With the context that Sal has provided me, I am growing more and more confident with what I am learning. Very pleased so far.

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 into my head resulted in a mildly improvised version of Sleep Walk (one of my favorite guitar tunes of all time). For those that have been requesting FOR MONTHS that I record something, here you go! ...most of you have probably already seen it. Sleep Walk

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 scale). From here, I start connecting the scales. Going up in the 6/4 and down the 6/2 then up the 6/1 and come right back down 6/1 then up 6/2 and the down 6/4 and so on. From there, I do the same with the arpeggio of Cmaj and further with the pentatonic scale of Cmaj. Not done yet! From there, I mix it up a bit. Starting in 6/4 I will go from C to C in the full scale and go through the next octave as an arpeggio and then come back down that same octave in the full scale and continue going down in pitch into the first octave I played through but this time only the pentatonic notes. I also carry this on to connecting the positions as well. A very large range of practice drillls can be derived from this. I will continue to do more of this over the next week.

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 scale RELENTLESSLY from the 6/1, 6/2, 6/4, 5/1, 5/2, open and 5/4 positions (this one is a bit hard on a dreadnaught). A few days a go, I started connecting the different scale positions. Starting in the 6/4 position, I would go up the scale until I hit the highest C in that position and then went down in 6/2 until I get to the lowest C in that position and then go up the scale again but in the 6/1 position. I do this until I get sick or the wife finds something for me to do. haha. A baby step was also taken! With my growing familiarity to the C scale, I started playing the positions with my eyes closed and noticing when I hit a wrong note in the scale simply by sound. From there, I would just noodle around in the scale over Cmaj. It was improv but EXTREMELY simplistic. Baby steps. I know the basic feel I want as I go through it and do something along those lines.

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 noticeable impact on my household finances. So much so that we are watching our bank accounts with more fear than we ought to at then end of every pay period. We have savings, but we are trying to avoid using them. To that end, I had to cancel my lessons with Sal. Although he gave me a great rate, that is just $85 per month I need in my pocket. To that end, I am not stopping. I have the lessons I have received up until this point and I have my books that I can work with by Jody Fisher. Nothing will replace having Sal there guiding me into Jazz, but I will make the most of what I have to work with. When money loosens up for me, I plan on returning. I only hope he is still teaching then. What I have been doing this past week is just running scales and chord tones. In the 6/1 position (Root on the sixth string at the index finger), I ran C maj. I then ran the same scale but in the 5/1 position (Root on the fifth string at the index finger). In the same scale, I ran the pentatonic scale in the 6/1, 6/2 and 6/4. Pretty much did this daily until I couldn't keep my eyes open any more. Just as a drill, I took the C major scale in the 6/1 position and did the following ascending in pitch: C D E F D E F G E F G A and take that pattern and extend it on up the scale.

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) E(highE/0) F(highE/1) Going down A(highE/5) F(B/6) E(B/5) C(G/5) A(G/2) F(D/3) E(D/2) C(A/3) A(E/5) ...and up again C(E/8) E(A/7) F(A/8) A(D/7) C(D/10) E(G/9) F(G/10) A(B/10) C(highE/8) ...and down again (This one can be a bit trying on a dreadnaught) E(highE/12) C(B/13) A(G/14) F(D/15) E(D/14) C(A/15) A(A/12) F(F/13) E(E/12) If you have an electric and have easy access to your 21st, 22nd or 24th frets (...and even beyond for those few) then just repeat the above but starting F at E/13 instead of F at E/1. From there, I try improvising a melody out of these notes and these notes ONLY. Next, I tackle Gmin7.

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 and playing around with intervals with particular attention payed to the chord tones. What I am also doing is, without a guitar, really introducing myself to the intervals through voice. For example, for the I chord, the scale is Do Re Mi Fa So La Ti Do and the chord tones are Do Mi So Ti So Mi Do. The ii chord: Re Mi Fa So La Ti Do Re and chord tones are Re Fa La Do. ...and so on. Then over the chords being played singing those intervals. First starting very simply. Contrived and boring. BUT... it is a step. From there, I am going to throw little changes into the 'walk' of the chord tones. First contrived and then try to 'feel' it a bit more. On thing I have noticed is I am MUCH quicker at noticing when something is out of scale even without being played against a progression. So... that is positive!

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 tones for a progression such as I-vi-ii-V7. Change keys and go again. Although there isn't much to type, this is a lot of playing... especially working full time and with a baby at home.

My pleasure, man! Glad you are enjoying it.

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 same lines, I would play the chord tones ascending in pitch and then descending in pitch down the scale until I hit the root of the next scale diatonically then go up that one. That would be, in C: C, E, G, B, A, G, F, E D, F, A, C, B, A, G, F and so on.

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 fingerboard as opposed to one note to the next... if that makes any sense. Makes improv excessively hard and maybe even impossible. Everything would be contrived. So, he said, "Start easy. Just root and third. Know them like you know the sound of your own voice." After noodling about with the root-third work over the first four chords repeated over and over again, that is where I had the epiphany about the disconnect I was having. I was still looking at it as first fret on the E string to fifth fret on the E string to open D to 3rd fret on the D string and I just translated that to 1-3-1-3 over the Fmaj and Dmin chords. So.... I took the first chord, Fmaj, and just included the 7 for fun. I played and hummed in unison as I ran through the arpeggiated Fmaj7 over and over and over and over and over and over.... ...then I dropped out the guitar and just hummed it. Then I sang it saying the note name at the matching pitch. I brought the guitar back in to make sure I was still at pitch then dropped it back out. Then changed the words to Do-Mi-So-Ti and just went back and forth with note names and those scale sounds as well as bringing guitar in and out. I kept it up during the shower. Checked pitch against guitar when I got out. Ate breakfast but kept it going in my head. Checked against guitar before I left. Sang it all the way in. When I get home, I will check it again. Next, I am going to beat on Dmin the same way.

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 early this time. So, I spent that time in the truck playing and trying to get something to show. Funny enough, all we did was just jam on the changes of Beyond the Sea with him playing the melody, then me on the melody, then me singing over it. It was VERY relaxed. In the end, he said he saw a marked improvement in my conviction of playing since the last time we played. That was a welcome but unexpected compliment. Anyways, I am going to start moving Beyond the Sea into different keys and I will be picking out the melody for Everything I've Got as sung by Ella Fitzgerald with Chick Corea (on the Verve Jazz Masters Volume 20). It is a new one for Sal it would seem as well. So, this could be fun for the both of us! For those who have never heard it, Everything I've Got is a delightfully dark song. I encourage a listen especially if it is the version I mentioned previously.

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 Sea.