Sorry...

Hmm... well it seems that I have been putting off updating this page (shame on you Shawn) for some reason, I don't know, but here I am again to bring you some news.

I contacted another guitar teacher to see about lessons last week. His name is Paul Asbell. He is from Burlington, Vt. and has been teaching for decades. He taught Trey Anastasio how to play and recently he is teaching Nick Cassarino, a young jazzer who played at PSU last semester with Jerry Lavine (oy! remember that? Lavine was awful... sorry). Pfaff sent me the link to his web address so I emailed him. He got right back to me but his schedule is full until early May. He charges $60 for a 50 minute lesson, which is still steep, but better than Fiucynski who I contacted earlier and charges $80 for 60 min. We'll see if I come through with this one...

Pete's ensemble is getting tighter. We made it through all the tunes today and even recorded one of 'em. Jaime didn't show again. This is ridiculous. I think he has made it to 2 rehearsals altogether. We all just ran through what we could of the tunes and I took solos on most of 'em. It'll come together.

Just like my songs will come together.

I finished the melodies of all the songs tonight. Pages has been solid for weeks and that one I'll have no problem with. Anarchy is okay... it needs some more spice though, kinda stagnant, I'll work on that. Windowsill is good, I like the melody and I hope the end section works like I hear it in my head. If not, whatever, I'll be fine.

Tomorrow I need to start practicing with the microphone to get used to the thing in my face.

So, my regiment this week is going to be: each song three times each twice a day... thats eighteen times each day. I think it'll work as long as I don't skip.

I did some French note-cards tonight too. Today the first time doing it and I learned 20 words. Five verbs and fifteen nouns... the nouns were different kinds vehicles. I couldn't think of fifteen ways to travel so I had to be creative (like aeronef:spaceship and tank:tank haha!) The reason I am doing this is because if you think about it 20 new words a day equals 600 words a month. I'd be impressed if I could keep this up for a month but it would pay off in some serious vocab knowledge. Now I just have to work on my mnemonic devices.

So I'm going to bed...

g'night!

-SP-

Many Things

So I went to see an occupational therapist on Friday, she was really nice and understanding. I got some ultrasound therapy and some exercises to do when I'm practicing. Tomorrow (...today really...) I'm going to be back on my 2hour/day routine which is sweet as I'm really missing the time I've lost.

I also read a paper today on mental practicing which is cool. There was some research done on non-musicians to see how mental practicing faired to actual hands-on practicing. The study found that the mental practice people had to only use the instrument for two hours after a mental regiment to get to the same level as someone who spent the regiment with the instrument. Granted it took more total time in the mental group, it took them eight less physical hours at the instrument to get the same results. So that means whenever I'm in line, or sitting, waiting somewhere I can be visualizing and practicing at the same time! Great!

And lastly I can say that I finished all the lyrics to my songs! So my three songs are Pages, Anarchy, and Windowsill. This is great... now tomorrow (again today....) I'll get to working on the melody to Anarchy.

So I'm off to bed... g'night

-SP-

Goals

I think this is a good space to set down my goals for the next couple months and to document what kind of progress that I'm making. Since guitar is my main focus, my goals will be mostly directed to my abilities. In any case here goes nothin'...

• Improve my sight reading: I want to be able to sight read eight-note jazz phrases around the fretboard.
• Improve my improvisation skills: That means being conscious of where I am and where the music is so I don't get lost and can make intelligent lines.
• Improve my comping: So learning chord inversions, extensions, and substitutions...

Besides music my other goals are...

• Learn French: This means practicing regularly to one day approach fluency
• Workout: I feel like I'm dragging and need to get into some kind of shape

So later today I'll try to come up with a way to get most of these objectives into a workable and effective scheme (routine?). I know I'm trying to do a lot with my senior project and working with Pete and the Natives but I think a well thought out plan begets well executed days...

oh and BTW... I cleaned out my school email from 1000+ to about 20 or so!

later!

-SP-

Crunch Time & GTD

So this is the time I have to really crank out my tunes for the end of the semester. I know I should have done them earlier, but they were slowly and steadily completed, and now is when I have to really start singing them. Part of me regrets choosing this as my senior project, but it has been a growing experience so far, songwriting is something that I've never done and seems pretty essential for a guitarist. I've had the lead guitarist/sideman attitude for a while, and I think it will always be the case. So having me sing, being a front-man, is very nerve-wracking. I can't let it get to me though! I have to do this, I plan on practicing my songs everyday from now till the performance on the 23rd. Thats almost a full month of getting ready. All it is is confidence, and if I have it I'll be fine. That and determination which I have now. I'm a little worried about having the band ready, but I think the songs are simple enough that they can get them quickly.

Plus to get things working smoothly (I also have papers, homework, lessons, and other songs to learn) I'm getting back into the "Getting Things Done" mode thanks to recent visits to lifehack and zenhabits. Today I cleared out my inbox (500+ emails to 16 WOW!), and finished everything I set out to do, like go to the doctors and give them my insurance card that I didn't have last time. Hopefully I can keep this up... Tomorrow I plan on buying some batteries for my voice recorder so I can dump any ideas into it whenever I need to.

-SP-

Music Videos

Its playing like this that gets me to the practice room in the morning....

Hiromi's SonicBloom feat. Dave Fiuczynski!


James Muller (...Scofield on Steroids)


Enjoy!

-SP-

Feels Good

Good to be back...

After finishing three gigs this weekend it definitely feels good to be playing with a healthy wrist. I was surprised that it healed as quickly as it did (Splints and Biofreeze work wonders). But honestly having a nice stretch before donning my Axe did wonders for my playing. I was a bit apprehensive at first 'cause the jazz ensemble forces me to use some complex chord shapes (again... those altered chords) and I did have some tension on the inside of my forearm during the first couple of tunes, but it quickly waned as the night (and soloing... and wanking) went on.

So now I'm going to get practicing on Monday. I have some things in mind that I want to do and some things in particular that I have to do. I want to chip away at the Scofield transcription that I've been working on (slowly) since the beginning of February, I want to start going through the Bebop book that Rick gave me, and I need to start working on Greg Tardy's and Pete's tunes for later this semester. Not to mention I have to finish my songs for Senior Semenar to give to Bill sometime this week.

work, work, work....

-SP-

Dominant 7 Chords

I was watching some You Tube videos this afternoon and came across a nice lesson on the mixolydian/blues hybrid scale. You know, for all this time I've been playing guitar I never thought to put these two scales together. Its a perfect match, hell I probably already do something like it already when I solo, but now I can dig into it... when I get my wrist back in working order. All this time away from practicing allows me to find stuff like this though, it really is beneficial for my growing-as-a-musician. So anyway, after I found this I tallied the amount of scales available over a plain Dominant 7 chord, the ones I thought of at least.

• Mixolydian (1-2-3-4-5-6-b7)
• Blues (1-b3-4-b5-6-b7)
• Mixo-Blues (1-2-b3-3-4-b5-5-6-b7)
• SuperLocrian (1-b2-b3-b4-b5-b6-b7)
• H/W Diminished (1-b2-b3-3-b5-5-6-b7)

So I figure that in order to successfully (note: subjective) play over a Dominant 7 chord, just avoid the major 7, anything else is permissible... hahaha.... hell you could even play wholetone (1-2-3-b5-b6-b7)!

I'll keep this in mind when I start up again.

-SP-

edit: Forgot about Bebop Dominant scale (1-2-3-4-5-6-b7-7!) but the 7 is only a passing tone in either direction...