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Big Gains from Extended Playing
I had opportunity to really dive in during Benchmark week featuring Ain’t No Sunshine this past week. I probably put in close to 12 hours of playing, maybe even more if I include my TV time, where I go over chords, measures or sections and even entire challenges while streaming my favorite shows. I’ll just loop through whatever I feel needs improvement.
The reward has been significant, making strides in barre chords, finger picking and timing in general. This represents several wins for me!
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7 Replies
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Congratulations. Sounds like you’ve really been putting in the work and it is paying off!! Thanks for the inspiration. I’ve been really lazy about playing lately.
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@Guitlesson it can happen that you drift into a rut, you’re not so enthused because you aren’t seeing enough progress. I think that’s the place I was in, especially in the improv realm. In fact with all the time I spent playing last week, improv was by far the smallest portion. I barely played through the scales. But I gave the other 4 challenges my all and then some. This week I need to go long on Wednesday and really take the next step in improvisation since it’s been one of my biggest thorns on my side.
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Thanks! Improve is my biggest issue as well. We will get there.
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I think improv is a stumbling block because I don’t enjoy learning scales, especially 5 of them at once. Would much prefer 1, maybe 2. I know Tony says we don’t have to learn them all at once. We can come back to those we miss next time, but I always find I need to review the first 1 or 2 and I’m back in the same place. Perhaps I need the Fretboard Wizard to really appreciate scales.
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Just remember the scale starts with one note. Take the Root and the 2 and the third spend an hour changing your leadtone on the chord change and mess with rhythimic patterns. There are building blocks in improv: they start with the root, then the thirds (pentatonics) then comes the octave scales, after that there is infinitely more but if you get those blocks then the infinite come automatically with…. you guessed it, time in the saddle. If I could do it over I would spend more time in thirds. I was slightly obsessed with the octave scales and in hind sight to my detriment. I will put in a good word for playing the whole improve track useing one note. This is the best way I found to work rhythm (super key in improve). I start banging out 1/4s in time, then 1/8ths then 1/4 triplets, then back, then mixed, then 16ths. I allowed my focus to be laser sharp on time, without worrying about note selection. This was a watershed moment when I was able to do this. Did not happen overnight, you can ask any of the people I play with. : ) I’m pretty sure I struggled harder than the average bear to get it. It was my mistake early on not to explore the importance of root tones and their octaves. This is one of my favorite guitar subjects to yammer on about.
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Thanks for the tip @jumpinjeff ! I’ll explore this. It’s great to have the experience available to us here; I really appreciate you chiming in here!
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I am grateful to be able to extend the courtesy that many extended me all along the way. I learn as much chatting with you as I do searching the internet for “guitar tricks” a practice I completely abandoned due to lack of results. This is better.
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