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He can really, really play well, another player to watch over the coming years.
Originally Posted by Jimmy blue note
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03-09-2023 03:35 PM
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Remember, he started EXACTLY where you are now. He just stayed with it and sharpened his strategies and perspective all the time. A good lesson in what's possible. Originally Posted by GuyBoden
He can really, really play well, another player to watch over the coming years.
I think it's in all of us to be able to play at that level, if we wanted to make the sacrifices needed to do it. We can chose what we need to be happy or to survive with satisfaction. Find your obstacles and be dedicated in overcoming them.
I've seen a lot of students who had what it takes to be great, but it's only the ones that never gave up who found the unorthodox lifestyle choices that made it possible.
These 20 weeks are a microcosm of this arc. We can all improve our playing, and we can all get a glimpse into why we are, or aren't all we can be as guitar players.
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I don't really want to play FAST particularly, I just want to play something that complements the harmonic structure(s) of the tune and is interesting, at least some of the time. Week 2, Day 4: I felt like I was finally starting to "hear" the changes a bit more and was able to fit some melodic bits that made sense on top of them.
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For whatever reason, today was so rough I stopped and did scale exercises across the 12 keys instead. Creative lull I guess.
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Still trying to do this. Today I was less scripted and I still get lost. I don't have a good mental model as to what notes on the fretboard correspond to what notes of the chords. I know people tend to poo poo chord scale theory around here but it seems to me you have to at least know where the chord tones of each chord sit on the fretboard to do anything.
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Not bad. Hey have you ever tried working with a metronome on quarter notes and playing straight eighths? Or used spread triads to help you hear and get a footing on the harmony? Just some suggestions. Shake it up if you feel you're not playing as strongly from the ear. Originally Posted by charlieparker
Who's not big on chord scale theory? I don't know what anyone else does, but it's huge in my book as is an emphasis on NOT playing chord scales more than just a few scale steps in a row.
Do remember that the if you're just starting out, the first few weeks are going to be just moving your fingers without hesitation.
The next few weeks your ear is going to take that confidence and start to guide you to certain strong notes in the harmony.
The next step will be to hear and anticipate moving towards and away from strong diatonic areas.
The next step will be to build up a reliable lexicon of shapes and sounds for those harmonic blocks.
Then you can embellish and create line craft and archaetecture according to your personality.
All this takes patience, so don't drag yourself down by being disappointed that your progress doesn't go faster. Imagine if you had done this two years ago, where you could be today. Know that once you have these chops, it doesn't matter ONE IOTA how long it took you to get there.
Thanks for posting the clip. It's coming. I hear good things in there.
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Gonna have those days. One thing that isn't talked about is how fatigue or exhaustion effects our ability to even pick up the instrument. Originally Posted by AllanAllen
There are things I'm better at in the morning, things I'm better at in the evening and days that just picking up the guitar is all I need to open the floodgates of a long day. It puts me right to sleep.
For myself, I have a list of things I want to be able to do. Running scales is a good thing, and keep it musical. Scales aren't as useful when they're run evenly without a musical end. If you make scale time into a time when you can also make interesting shapes or learn to visualize, hear as well as play a scale (like using the map at some point for example) these things can profoundly change what and how you play when you've got the beat beneath you.
Just keep moving. You'll always get something useful!
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I woke up feeling sick today. Guess that was my roadblock. So I take the major scale through 5 fingerings across 12 keys, then I do it by thirds the same way. I was working on triads through the scale too. It's a combination of ear training and technical skills. I can transcribe much easier after going through these as I'm trusting my fingers/ears over my eyes when I do triads to know if it's major minor or diminished. It's the kind of elementary stuff every kid in school band was doing in gradeschool, but I never did it.
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What is a spread triad? Originally Posted by Jimmy blue note
Also, on the playing straight eighths, are you referring to the time feel as opposed to swing eighths or an exercise like we are doing of improvising with continuous eighths? I haven't played rhythmically straight eighths much except for a scale exercise here and there.
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Spread voicings, are simple where the voices are spread out. For example, an A major chord played like: Originally Posted by charlieparker
5.7.X.6.X.X or, X,X,7.9.X.9
They're really nice when you do inversions, A/C# like this, X.4.X.2.5.X
Garrison Fewell's book Jazz Improvisation for Guitar A Melodic Approach is where I learned of them. They're a lot of fun to play, If I can be so bold, here is a modal improvisation I did that incorporates the spread voicings (at the beginning and end of this video).
Last edited by fep; 03-10-2023 at 11:31 AM.
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triads as many first encounter them are pretty compact. 1 3 5 is the chord tones as close as you can stack them. Originally Posted by charlieparker
If you voice them without adjacent chord tones, you get 1 5 3. This makes the chord sound more like a bass note and a melody on top because the range separation accentuates the differences in sound. That's why I suggested you get to know and use them as part of your playing: they give you chord sound AND a sense of melodic identity on top.
Yeah, I like to use straight eighths as a way to keep my time tight, and to put a fresh melodic movement and dexterity into line construction. And for me, it makes me explore the use of chord tones because the swing accent isn't there to prejudice my note gravity. Just a suggestion.
The more options you have, the steeper the learning curve but the greater the construction rewards.
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Nice track! Originally Posted by fep
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Welcome to Week 3.
This is a fun one. Look it over. It's LOOSELY based on the tune Baubles Bangle and Beads.
Have a listen to the famous Frank Sinatra version, it'll give you an idea of the way the melody works with the general shape of the harmony.
This is NOT the chord harmony of Project 2-A but it'll give you some ideas of the way the project kinda feels.
He does the tune in Eb
The tune starts in one key, and changes key several times. This is the takeaway for this piece: Identifying where you are, where you're going, when and how you make the changes.
Now to Project 2-A
Give it a run to get the feeling for what's going on, and to see what demands you may feel are in store as you get to know the tune. There's enough difference between this project and the actual Baubles tune that I don't recommend you plugging in a backing track for Baubles if you want to benefit from what this project is presenting.
In 2-A we'll work with some important ideas:
Key Centres. I have these highlighted in blue or green on my simplified chart.
Common Substitutions. Often the ear will lead us back to the Tonic or I chord but that I chord has brothers that are commonly used or substituted instead. The I is a Tonic chord, III and VI are also Tonic chords so like measure 7, or 18, you'll see minor chords where you might also easily play the I chord of that tonality. Let your ear assimilate these "harmonic substitutions" and let that help you in hearing what's going on.
Turnarounds. We met these in the past two weeks and how they work. Take your turnaround developing chops and see how you can apply them to this piece. I have these outlined in red circles with arrows. These are dominant movements.
Sequences. These are chords that create movement by moving in a certain direction, so don't hyper focus on the individual chords but feel and convey the sense of movement to the eventual resting part. Measure 4, 8 are descenting sequences, measure 16 is moving up... I've labeled them in the colour chart.
There's a dominant approach called a tritone sub. I kinda think of that as a descending sequence or harmony conveying a sense of movement by half steps.
This piece is really good for familiarizing yourself with harmonic interval in thirds. I'll let you discover this movement and sound. There're a few of these sprinkled throughout.
Here's the simplified chart with some of the points I talk about above. DON'T OVERANALYZE it but use this as a guideline for developing your ear to acquire the little recurring devices (don't call it theory if that word bothers you) and learn to hear and guide your ear so it is the master of your hands.
And of course, if this is of help for you in establishing your navigation and knowing where your options are:
If you internalize this, your navigating autopilot becomes your best friend to your imagination.
Have fun!
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Just wanted to post an update on week 2. I was really running out of steam and ideas by the end of this week. I am having a hard time creating different sounds on the same tune and feel forumlaic. Hopefully, this new tune knocks me out of a rut. I typically like to find a good solo over a tune I want to learn to try and find some basic ideas to work with.
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I can understand getting burned out. Originally Posted by charlieparker
Each day can also be a new and completely fresh challenge too.
Some suggestions:
Pick a new part of the neck to do the same piece in.
Try to always know where you are in the form and anticipate the next "section" with a direction change.
Can you change direction at any point in your line?
Create a shape or a melodic idea. See if you can recreate that same idea on the new tonal area. This can be a real breakthrough exercise.
Be aware of what you did, and create a contrast with what follows.
Be aware of what you did, and create a complement to what you did with what follows.
See if you can make a thought of high impact.
See if you can make a thought of low impact.
Take a motif or sequence and continue it RIGHT THROUGH the bar line, and see how far you can go before you run out of neck. This is really a great challenge for your ear.
Play for CLEAN. Listen to your note articulation and determine at what points you might be sloppy or not sounding fluid, like where in a phrase or changing strings, and work on those situations until you play fluidly.
All these things can haunt you when we hit the higher speeds, and looking at specific points can turn each 10 minute segment into a step forward.
And keep in mind that yeah, some days you just can't move forward. Congratulations for staying with the program.
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Week 3, Day 1: I really like the fact that this project forces me to practice in a structured fashion for at least about an hour a day, beyond other stuff that I'm working on. Once again, as with Weeks 1 and 2, this chord progression mimics that of a tune whose title I have known for several decades, but have never really listened to or attempted to play. Today's first attempts at improvising over these changes showed me AGAIN how much work I have yet to do in terms of learning how to navigate the diatonic patterns found on the fingerboard. I know the patterns reasonably well - it's the NAVIGATION within and between them that seems to be my biggest challenge.
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And here is a pdf you can download or print for this weeks lesson : https://app.box.com/s/309gtvo7m00qwe68sif1hjlua9g5ow30
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Today being our day of rest, I just noodled over the "D" section which is just a couple of ii-V I progressions. Having fun.
The Eb/A chord is the unusual one for me. I think the Eb9#11 stuff or the A7alt stuff works there. That makes it familiar territory of a ii V I to D major (too bad it goes to F#m thought). Another thought, play the notes from the Eb triad and move them around by minor thirds and see if something sounds good.
What are your thoughts for that chord?
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Just starting out, a few weeks behind already.
Question: .012s. Really? On my Tele?
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Hi all. Firstly thanks Jimmy Blue Note for teeing this up. Looks like a great course and will give me some focus. Fluidity of soloing over changes is just what I need.
I started yesterday and will happily tag along a couple of weeks behind the rest of you. Thanks again. Si
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The Eb/A is just an Eb sound, you can and should ignore the bass note movement when soloing on it. This whole project is about chords and ways they can create a feeling of movement when they work together. That series of chords has a really nice bass note continuity to it, so when you play it in some way the feeling is that they're connected into a tonal area you can hear, and maybe be inspired to create longer lines that work within a larger framework; not just look at individual chords as separate entities to be filled in. Originally Posted by fep
That bass line ties several bars together starting from F# and gracefully floating through the II- harmony even to the Tonic chord which is played as a III substitution to retain that bass line. If you play these chords and learn to hear them, you open up the next gateway: Playing by ear and not by just chord symbols on a page. It's a big step to keep in mind. Let it come to you as it will.
As far as how to play on a slash chord, look at what's going on. It's maybe a 7 chord of some kind moving down a half step, so you can find some notes that either have a major-ish sound or you can choose something that just conveys the feeling of moving towards the tonic sound of D.
I have a general rule for myself when I see a slash chord: Hear the texture or feel the intention of the sound but solo over the top chord part and don't be tied to the bass note.
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Hey, welcome! You can look over the first couple of projects, and read the comments and the Howard Roberts text parts in the book...and join us on Project 2-A here. Pick your speed and jump in. Hint: We're coming back to Project I in a few weeks so you can always confront that Cherokee based exercise on your own time. You'll get another shot at it. Originally Posted by Simon1234
Welcome!
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I use 11’s on my tele, but it’s not necessary at ALL. Play what’s comfortable, if you’re a bender and plan to keep bending just stick with what you have. Nobody can tell from the recording or stage what gauge strings you have. If we could hear string gauge it wouldn’t be the cliche ice breaker question. Originally Posted by Bach5G
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.09s on my Tele. I didn't follow the 12s insruction. I'm trying for a light touch to keep the tendons happy.
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Early days on the Baubles Wk3 ex, I'm really struggling with all them turnarounds, but after a few hours I was improving, if not not improvising.
Coincidence, I'm using a 9 gauge top on my 7 string, picking with all fingers with a very light touch too. It doesn't sound as nice as your Tele. Originally Posted by fep
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Tritone chord root movement
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