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
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
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
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
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!
Tomorrow is my first day learning from Sal. I know very little will happen tomorrow as I imagine it will be more of an orientation of sorts. Him getting a feel for what it is I am looking to get out of it and figuring out how best to get to that point.
All the same, I am absolutely pumped about the experience I am about to have learning from a person I consider to be a true master of his craft.
What a rush! I will admit, it was kind of a blur. Even with all the info he was throwing my way, somehow, it was sticking. It was things I knew, but now they were starting to make sense as I was hearing these theories in play as opposed to having them as book learnt knowledge.
Although I was clearly the lesser of the two people in that little studio, I definitely felt good leaving.
I brought my Gibson J-55 to jam along with him and his Super 400. That is a well worn guitar. Very cool.
This one was less of a blur, but still a blur. It all made sense, but the time I was there seemed to shoot by just wayyyyy too fast.
This time, it was more focused as well.
We started and ended on Autumn Leaves. To a powerchord heaving, heavy-metal expatriate, this was just mind blowing. A simple thing to you long time jazzers, but the door into a new world for me.
Learned about the Jazz or Real Harmonic minor where I had only met the regular harmonic minor in passing at a bar once
Today still had a touch of that blur that I have experienced in previous weeks, but there was notably less of it and the lesson was even more focused than it was last week.
We started on Autumn Leaves where we left off last week. It was in this that he introduced me to tritone subs. "You can actually use those things?" Yep. Made a different animal of Autumn Leaves right there on the fly. Just amazing. It was this week that really drove home to the both of us just how musically illiterate I a
This one had hardly any blur to it at all. That was nice. Still a boatload more info than I can take in for a session, but still very productive. Some of it was reinforcing what I knew already but tons of new info and things I can do for study and practice.
Lots of sub work. Dim7/7b9 and I/III sub'ing.
We used Georgia on my Mind for working lead melody into chords and sub practicing.
At the end of it, I as looking at his Super 400. He has owned it since about '78 and, from what I saw
Alrighty.
Week 5 was great, but I will get to that. I figure I should put more in detail what I am doing with what Sal teaches me for those interested so..... here goes.
Since my week 4 meeting with Sal, I have been using Autumn Leaves as my playground a bit as I am more familiar with it and using Georgia on my mind as more theoretical study. Which is proving just as helpful.
On Autumn Leaves, I have experiemented a bit on that one like I mentioned. I would play it straight the way I
As posted last week, Sal and I weren't getting together this week. Still thought I would post anyways as I am still working on it regardless. This time without a get together with Sal has proven helpful too. I am able to really play around with what I have learned and beat it into my head a bit more as opposed to learning it just a little before I get a mess more crammed in there.
So, it is more of the same. Autumn Leaves played all kinds of ways. Doing some minor improv stuff. Very, very mi
Sort of a bummer of a week on a couple of fronts. Mainly because the boy - 6 month old son- got an eye infection which babies are prone to get but also, and leastly, I had to cancel my meeting with Sal to tend to his needs. Don't regret it, just a bummer.
Anyways, the upside on both counts is that the boy is better and the week off from Sal I have seen as HUGELY beneficial.
How? Well, it gave me a couple of weeks to practice what I have picked up and not having more piled on every week.
Alright, I am back meeting with Sal after a couple if missed weeks.
We jumped right in with learning All of Me and then later in the lesson picking up on Beyond the Sea. These were songs of my request as they are in constant play in the ol' iPod.
I got a bit of a jump on the lesson as I get there early. He gave me the sheet music for All of Me and let me use a teaching room not in use to get familiar while I wait.
This song is another great example of how chord tones can make the li
I started this week figuring I would have to cancel the next two lessons because money is just too tight right now. I called Sal up on Monday to let him know and he insisted I come anyway. "Don't worry about the bread," he said. "It's more important to me that we keep this going."
That meant more to me than anything I could put on here. That definitely signaled to me that I wasn't just a half-hourly pay.
That coolness aside, we immediately dug into Beyond the Sea. That song really moves
Not much to tell this week really.
Sal has a gig so we didn't get together this week.
I am getting more comfortable with the changes in Beyond the Sea and continuing to play Autumn Leaves.
On YouTube, for Beyond the Sea, I play along with the Robbie Williams version because it has footage from Finding Nemo on it. haha.
Having navigated the waters of Beyond the Sea (pun intended) numerous times... enough to be comfortable with the changes, I went into this week's lesson ready to go with it.
It was fun being able to jam with Sal on another song. Having him pick up a melody line on top of the backing chords and embellish some.
His challenge to me this week is expanding the backing chords into utilizing the melody in the chord changes. That is to allow the melody to dictate to me the chords I use as oppose
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
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
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 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
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
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)
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
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
