Tuesday,
10/30/12
2:00-3:45pm - Jam/lesson with Mike. Fun time, felt
comfortable and fresh, fingers accurate and strong. As Mike
suggested, would like to begin working on rhythm basics. I believe I
have the finger skills to quickly pick up on new chords, just need to
learn which chords to play depending on the key of the song. Bob
wants to jam tomorrow, but I told him I won't be fresh because of
today's practice, so will hopefully get together with him next week.
Wedndesday,
10/31/12
9:00pm-11:00
Walking exercises with metronome, flat palming chords,
stretching 2 & 3 finger with bottleneck.
Thursday,
11/01/12
12:00pm - 12:15
Watched a Joe Bonamassa lesson video on 12 bar blues -
as he is explaining some of the chords, he says “a lot of these
chords that I use, a lot of these inside things, I learned from a guy
named Danny Gatton, and this is good stuff to know, but don't ask me
to name them because I have no idea what they are.” - pretty funny
that a master blues guy does not know the names of the chords he is
using!
7:00pm - 9:30
Walking exercises to metronome set at 60, 2 notes per
beat. While doing this discovered a 7 note bass lick which sounded
familiar, not sure from where. I kept searching for notes until the
lick was complete.
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
7 7 _____________________7 pause____________7 7 _________________
__0 0 0 h-7 h-9_____9__7 7 h 9_0 0 0 h-7 h-9________0 0
0 h-7 h-9____9 7 7 h-9 0 0 0 h-7 h-9 0
The above lick can be expanded to other notes and riffs.
The key is D minor.
3/4 exercise. Jam to Burnside, backing tracks, and some
BB King.
Friday,
11/2/12
5:30pm - 8:30
Finger exercises, 3 note pent exercise (skipped the 4
note because 3 is hard enough at this point), flat palming chords,
stretching 2 & 3 finger with bottleneck, jammed to various blues
songs.
Saturday,
11/3/12
7:30pm-11:30
Finger walking exercises with metronome, stretching 2 &
3 finger with bottleneck. Long jam tonight, almost 3 hours of non
stop blues fun. Things are starting to slow down (mind comprehending
things which it could not 6 month ago), so I can concentrate on finer
details. Focused on making the notes clean and solid, definitely a
lot of mistakes, but some good passages. Feel for bends is improving,
so is vibrato, just have to keep at it. Fingers sore at the end,
otherwise would have played longer because energy was good.
Sunday,
11/4/12
6:00pm - 11:00 (a few breaks thrown in)
Finger walking exercises with metronome. Discovered a
new way to walk the pentatonic - hit first note once, second note
twice, third note once, fourth note twice, etc, good sounding riffs
from variations on this exercise. Came up with another low note riff
while doing exercises :
__________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________
________0__2__0_______________0__2__0________________0_2_0_____________0____
_____2___________2__p0_____2___________2___p0_____2________2__p0____2________
__0
_____________________0______________________0_________________0________0__
Flat palming chords, vibrato practice, repeated
difficult riffs from yesterday's jam and repeated them slowly to
figure out how to improve the finger movements. Studied picking
motion to discover best movements for particular fast passages.
House of Rising Sun practice with 4-5 different versions
streamed through the amp. I discovered something which could be a
step in understanding how to find chords for rhythm - some of the
versions are in different keys, when not in A the open chords won't
work, at least not the normal open chords. Saw that the open chord
structures work 5 frets down from the main box pattern of the pent
scale - if the key is G minor, then the main box pattern starts at
the 2nd fret, or the 14th, backing down from the 14th 5 frets is
where the main chords are, so use capo at 9th fret.
Jammed to Bar B Q Bob and the Spare Ribs (what a name,
haha), the band played in a bar, the video captures the entire
concert, they played almost 2 hours without break - played along to
all the songs, lots of good blues with different keys and rhythms -
Fun!
Monday,
11/5/12
10:00pm-11:45
Finger walking exercises with metronome. Flat palm
chords. House of Rising Sun practice. Jam to Junior Wells South Side
Blues.
Tuesday,
11/6/12
Break
Wednesday,
11/7/12
5:00pm-7:00
2 hour jam with Bob at his auto garage. Bob is good at
playing rhythm, so we played 2 hours with me mostly on lead. I tried
rhythm for 15 minutes, not too good with it because lack of knowledge
of how to stay in key, which hinders creativity for spontaneous
music. Positives - good to test myself in the presence of another
musician, learning through watching what Bob was doing (he also
explained a lot of stuff, which was helpful). Negatives - Bob hesitant to break away from playing a song in an exact way, which
hinders creative jamming. Similar to a conversation, where one wants
to recite exact lines of poetry or dialogue, while the other speaks
his mind. I prefer music to be an open conversation, flowing and in
the present moment. For my part, too weak with rhythm due to
knowledge gap - my fingers have the strength to play rhythm, I just
don't know where to put them. Will continue to research this and will
eventually figure it out if I'm lucky.
Thursday,
11/8/12
7:00pm-8:00
One hour of jamming to blues songs, not inspired to do
anything else.
Friday,
11/9/12
7:00pm-9:00
finger exercises - good control and sound.
Saturday,
11/10/12
5:00pm-8:00pm
Finger exercises. 3 note pent repetitions. Jam to blues
songs. Worked specifically on sliding more than usual, trying to be
quicker and more proficient, especially the longer 3 fret slides near
the nut. Watched a portion of a dvd which I got at Eugene library -
“easy steps to blues guitar jamming” - included was a booklet
which showed chords for jamming in E. Quote from dvd - “first rule
in playing with a friend is... leave space...I mean, you can't have
too much space in music...and so if your'e in doubt of where you are,
you can just wait...” and “jamming the blues really does have a
lot do with that, it becomes intuitive, and hearing the spaces also
becomes quite intuitive, you don't really want to have to think about
it too much...some of the great blues players played just one or two
notes, and repeated them over and over again.”
Fingers got sore earlier than normal, probably from
practicing slides.
Sunday,
11/11/12
6:00pm-11:30 (with breaks)
Walking exercises, flat palming chords, House of Rising
Sun, Outside Woman Blues, jam to various blues songs. Bends are
getting better, nice feel and sweet sound. Vibrato improving, but
still a ways to go. Practiced long slides, making improvements.
