Filed Under (Random Thought) by Frank on 28-01-2009
I’ve been meaning to write this post for a while and I’ve just kept getting pulled away. I’ve completed my lessons at the Music Room and I thought things went well. I spend a lot of time with guitar during this time and actually learned things!
As you might recall from previous posts, I decided to stop attending lessons at the music room because of the amount of time I felt I had to put in to each week to ensure I learned what I was suppose to learn. Ultimately, it left me absolutely no time for all the other things that I had going on. I guess this is the hard part of being an adult learning something like an instrument.
Desire just isn’t enough because that desire needs to be stronger than what you need to sacrifice and for me I was sacrificing too much. Of course, I’m am planning on continuing with the guitar. I will, but I’ve vastly slowed the pace. I doubt I’ll ever be able to play like I wanted to but ultimately, I knew I’d never get there because I tend to be a perfectionist.
I imagine that being a perfectionist has also hindered my ability to play because if I cant nail something perfectly, consistently I keep on it. I wear myself out in this way because I either get tired or frustrated with what I’m practicing.
Anyway, my teacher gave me a few tips for continue to practice. One thing that I wanted to make sure that I post here is that I discussed rhythm guitar with my teacher. Rhythm guitar is a very versatile thing which is why I wanted to cover it. Any time you hear someone solo in a bar or what not, 90 percent of the time they are playing the rhythm part of the song (occasionally filling in with the popular riffs and etc.)
My rhythm guitar sucks. I know it has gotten better since I first started this effort, but it still sucks. I can’t keep time and I have trouble maintaining a pattern. All very frustrating.
My teacher suggested a book called “Winning Rhythm“. I hope to evetually pick this book up and work though it.
Do you know how to drive a stick shift car or anything with a manual (normal) transmission? If you at least understand the concept of driving a manual transmission car then you’ll probably understand the following analogy.
My guitar education feels like I’ve been stuck in first gear with my engine over revving to making up for the lack of gears. I’ve occasionally made it to second gear but either way I’ve been pushing hard and I feel like I’m not getting very far. I feel like no matter how hard I push each practice session I can only get so far — never where I want to be…
I’ve got two more prepaid lesson left at The Music Room. While they’ve been great, I’ve decided not to renew with them. It is important for me to mention that my teacher is/has been excellent but I feel like I should have progressed further than I have. I attribute this not to the teaching but my inability to focus as much time on guitar as I’d like. Quite simply, guitar is over-occupying my time (even though I want to put in more time). I figure if I’m not in weekly lessons I can focus a little more on other things (like Design Patterns or how Firefox works)… In addition to guitar…
My guitar studies will continue and I will continue to run Understanding Guitar. My plan, in regards to The Music Room, is to take the “ad-hoc” options. With this option, I’ll have to call in to schedule an appointment every week or two. I’m considering this plan a half self-study, have lessons plan.
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.
It is Friday Night here in Chicago; tomorrow morning I have another guitar lesson. Time in between the lessons elapses quickly.
This week I was to go over the notes on the D string and I was to practice playing the first part of Ode To Joy at 75 BPM. At about Wednesday I was playing it at about 95 BPM which I was very happy with. I hope to fit a few more run-throughs in tonight yet, but we will see what the night brings.
Going back to the D string, I’ve been having trouble with it. Not like the string is breaking or anything, just that for some reason my finger “stumbles” when time to play a note on that string. Just before I sat down to write this, I notice drastic improvement.
Every thing is what it is; eventually i will get it. I just need to practice on it all more.
Most of my practice time has been spent on learning how to read sheet music while playing — not something that is coming easy for me. Thus far, I’ve worked my way up to the D string (from high E). It has taken me about four weeks to get to there. In retrospect, I think that is terrible… I wish I had gotten further faster…
Anyway, tonight after I finished going over about 45 minutes worth of note reading practice and some finger work [this exercise] I spent time looking at barred chords. Right now, as I write this my left hand is hurting me… I really worked the barred chord. I spent about 10 minutes playing a Bm, A, G, Em progression.
After which I started playing a A, G and then a D, C progression. I was playing these using the following chords.
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A Chord as a “E Shape” Barred Chord
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G Chord as a “E Shape” Barred Chord
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D Chord as a 5th string “A Shape” Barred Chord
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C Chord as a 5th string “A Shape” Barred Chord
I believe that this is good barred chord practice. Using the A, G progress as an example I was playing:
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4/4 A / / / | / / / / | G / / / | / / / /|
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Repeat that 4 times and then play the same rhythm for D, C progression.
Below are the files that I promised in the Quick Post: Sat. Guitar Lesson post that I created earlier today.
The Music Room, Universal Language Spoken Here
My guitar lesson last Saturday went well. Nothing too fantastic; we went over what I was suppose to learn [See here] and then Gary (Guitar Teacher) showed me a new pattern to learn. I believe he called it 3rd skips. My intention is to throw it in TuxGuitar and post it here at a later date, but no promises on that. I’ve been trying to spend my free time with a guitar in my hand…
The aforementioned 3rd skips I should be playing in quarter notes, half notes and 8th notes.
As for the practice itself, I’ve not done nearly as much as I’ve wanted to. Between my pending vacation [Mexico!] and the election I’ve been a little distracted. I’m trying to focus for at least one hour a day but that has been hit or miss. Sometimes I get a half hour in other times the entire hour. I will be trying to improve that…
Also, I’ve been continuing to practice my Bm and other barred chords. They are getting better but nothing significant yet. I’m hoping that it takes time and my improvement since the first post about this has been vast.
Hopefully I’ll have time to post more about this last lesson at a later date. Until then (and beyond) thanks for reading! Regards!
Filed Under (Random Thought) by Frank on 07-10-2008
I’ve spent time working on a MS Windows program that I will eventually release as open source. The program isn’t spectacular — it is a hierarchical ToDo list. This means that you can have sub-tasks. I like this type of tool while I work (as a programmer).
Anyway, it got me thinking about something… Millions and millions of programmers work on open source software software each day. Some of the most notable open-source products include (but are not limited to) FireFox (the web browser) and OpenOffice (A Microsoft Office Compatible Office suite). These two programs, I imagine, have hundreds of people working on them; thousands of programmers are willing to work on free products. Given this, then why isn’t there free music? There should be thousands of free songs!
Perhaps there is? Perhaps I’m not looking in the right place? Either way, it probably isn’t wildly known else I’d have stumbled upon it by now…
I wrote my aforementioned program as a practice piece. Something to hone certain skills and to see what I could produce. I guess what I’m trying to ask is: do musician or bands create and record songs and release them for free for the same purpose? Or perhaps with the idea of getting feedback from the public in order to improve or perhaps just to hear how one sounds on a recorded and mixed song?
I know that Jonathan Coulton did something like this. He spent, I believe, a year releasing a song a week on his blog for free. You can still download those songs.
Do you do things like this?
I suppose some people do this on YouTube, doing covers and stuff. But I’m looking specificity at original material?
I’m always interested in how other guitarist practice. There are a bunch of different schools of thought on the topic.
Recently Tim of Pickstroke.com did a post about how he spends his time, what little time he has, practicing. Tim admits to not being a guitar god — I can relate! I encourage you to compare Tim’s description with how you spend your time practicing? What are the differences? Do you think the differences are good or bad? Based on that (you don’t have to post your thoughts) adjust your practice to improve.
Check out the article here: http://www.pickstroke.com/?p=278
You not only want to improve your playing but your effectiveness in praticing to play.
As a follow up post to “Create your Own Custom, Unique, Unscripted Guitar Solo!“, I wanted to post the next box to learn — oh, yes — there are more boxes. There are a total of five Pentatonic Minor scales (in the key of A). The post mentioned above introduced you to the first two – Box 1 and Box 2.
This post will introduce you to what is referred to as Box 3. The music below is Box 3 in A (Making this [also] A Pentatonic Minor). Keep in mind, for this previous series with the 3 boxes (so far) they have all been a A Pentatonic Minor scale, only on different positions on the neck of the Guitar.
A Pentatonic Minor - Box 3
You can download the TuxGuitar file here: TuxGuitar file – A Pentatonic Minor – Box 3
Remember to first memorize and practice the scale. Afterwards you can set yourself free with the scale; you can play around and improvise within the scale. Enjoy!
Bonus: Following is me practicing this scale with effects from my Pod v2. I’m posting it to illustrate how I sound when first learning a scale. I figure that it might make readers more comfortable with their practice to know that my material is full of mistakes also (it would for me). Note: The following is full of mistakes.
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