I spent some time earlier in the day internalizing the Real Book progression (Bb) with shell voicings—most of the way way there, but probably need a bit more of this to have it down totally solid. Later, following JBN's lead, I recorded several choruses of using just shell voicings—just half- and whole-notes, straight from the chart, at 58 bpm. I picked the least sloppy chorus and looped it twice, for a total of ~4:30 per take.
Then I recorded whole and half note root movements over my simple backing track. I did 3 takes of two choruses each. First time through I played the roots only on the high E string. Second time through I tried to open up a bit and found myself vaguely following the positions of the fifth and sixth string root position shell voicings I used in the backing track. This is something I have been working on in my lessons—correlating my fingerings to the chord shapes. At any rate, by the third take, I was finding some ease with the form, and able to move around with a bit of freedom. A couple of clunkers here and there, but feeling good about Day 1 overall.
I won't do this every night, but I'll try to post an occasional video in case anyone is interested in seeing / hearing my progress. This was probably my cleanest chorus of the night. Sorry about the slight electronic buzz (damn single coil pickups and their finicky positioning needs) and the fret (recent acquisition needs a setup).
Transcriber wanted
Today, 04:35 PM in Improvisation