My wife and I got back from vacation last weekend. We had gone to Mexico for 8 days and for the entire 8 days I didn’t touch a guitar. I had a surprising desire to play and fiddle on a guitar. Ultimately, I did make it the entire eight days without going though guitar withdrawal.
Now that the vacation is over, I’ve been trying to get back in to the groove of daily guitar practice. Even though while I was on vacation I wanted to play guitar, it has been a challenge to go back to my guitar routine (not to mention my work and general-life routine).
I started by re-practicing most of my “harder” material. I only had to go back a few pages in my book. I started with a slower tempo and was able to play though the Ode To Joy without a problem. The Ode To Joy was a milestone marker for me. I quickly worked the tempo back to what I was playing it at — 95 BPM.
After Ode To Joy, I picked up where I left off. I progressed further and I’m now in to playing the High E, B, G and D strings while sight reading whole, half, quarter and eighth notes. That is amazing progress for myself. A few weeks ago I had huge trouble with just the High E and B strings (while sight reading)… I was always fumbling either my fretting or picking hand and screwing something up.
I am also suppose to memorize the following pattern as it is suppose to help with finding chords and other musically important information.
A C E G B D F
In upcoming posts, I’m hoping to be able to explain why memorizing this pattern is useful. From what I understand right now, it has to do with chord theory. Keep an eye out for more in this.
This will be a quick post, but a post none-the-less….
IG Blog was actually the first Guitar blog I started to follow… It is actually the inspiration for this blog… On IG Blog, quite a while back I found a series that IG posted about the CAGED chord system; I’ve been meaning to go through the system for quite some time but every-time was deterred by something else in my pursuit of the guitar.
Anyway, I’ve finally “forced” myself to start going through it. So far, I’ve gone through the first and second “pages” and am, thus far, very happy with it. The information on these pages are very valuable to any level of player.
http://igblog.wordpress.com/2007/04/02/a-good-approach-to-guitar-chords/
http://igblog.wordpress.com/2007/04/10/a-good-approach-to-guitar-chords-part-ii-caged/
Back when I was working with an instructor, he tired to convey this information but unfortunately, wasn’t too good at it. I want to encourage any beginner or intermediate guitar player looking for solid information on Chords and theory to at least check out these articles that IG posted. I will continue the series either tonight or throughout the rest of the week. Expect more posts on this topic…
It’ll probably take me at least a few months before I’ve got everything pat…
I wonder if IG has posted anything on the Pentatonic Boxes?…
Recently I decided to disband from my guitar teacher and go back to self-study for now. When I originally picked up a guitar, I thought that I’d learn how to play myself. Over time, though I realized that I’d be better and would get further with an instructor.
My search for an instructor begins… I found two instructors. The first one was not a good teacher at all. That instructor was a good player and could sight-read music, but didn’t have the ability (and perhaps the patients) to teach others. I think the instructor was doing it for money while in college. That ended after the first session.
Very shortly later, I found the second teacher. I continued with the teacher for the last 5 months. And I must say my playing did vastly improve as a result of working with the instructor. We went over everything, form Chord Theory to proper technique. It was all helpful!
So, you might ask why I decided to discontinue working with the instructor. I think the answer is quite simple. While the instructor wasn’t bad, I didn’t feel they were that good either. Sometimes the pace was too fast and at other times the material didn’t seem to “flow” and furthermore, sometimes when I didn’t understand certain material the instructor could not explain it so it made sense. So, I worked with the instructor for a time and got out of it what I needed.
I now plan on taking what the instructor taught me and continuing to build my skills. I’ve also planned on utilizing books to aid in my learning. (If anyone can suggest good books or training material, I’d love to hear it!)
I do plan on eventually going back to using an instructor but I think I need some time to absorb and practice what I’ve learned.
