Jump to content

What are you learning today?


Recommended Posts

  • Members

I hear ya Mo! Big time! Holy Diver blew my mind. I will likely go on a Dio spree for a bit in honour of my sadness for his passing. I saw him last year with Heaven and Hell and he still had the pipes. Sounded exactly the same as he did at 20. He will be missed.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 142
  • Created
  • Last Reply
  • Members

I remember listening to Rainbow "Man On The Silver Mountain" back in the 70's.

 

I recall thinking "Wow! That singer is awesome!"

 

Dio. The greatest.

 

He was about 37 at the time "Man On The Silver Mountain" came out. Can you believe it?

 

There's some pics out there of him with a doo wop band in the way back.

 

dio.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

Recently started learning Invention No. 2 in C Minor by Bach... on piano. This is more of a keyboard/viola focused week for me, now that the band is getting more into using sequencers and programmed beats.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

I just realized (something that actually pretty much is common sense and that I already knew, but know it's coming back to my mind very clearly) that it does not make sense to keep practicing a certain thing (song or exercise or whatever) if it frustrates the $^&%%@ out of me.
If I don't enjoy it while I'm practicing it because it only frustrates me, I better choose something different to work on. (new song or new exercises, etc).
If I'm not enjoying practicng I'm not only wasting my time, I'm probably doing more harm than good to my playing.

Bottom line: I need to change the material I'm working on as soon as it starts frustrating me.

Anybody agree/disagree?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

Santuzzo,

 

Really the bottom line I think is that you enjoy it... but it kind of depends your goal sometimes.

 

For example, one of my goals (among many others) is to increase my jazz vocabulary. I have spent long enough reading and conceptualizing etc. I decided it's time I get down and dirty and start lifting some songs. There is no other way.

 

So I pulled out an old Grant Green album I love and started painstakingly lifting "Miss Ann's Tempo". Nice head, basically a blues..It has a good length solo with lots of fast bop. My goal is to get it note for note (else why bother) so it is slow going. So I pick at it one day, get bored - move on ... some more the next day, get bored - move on .. maybe skip a day and do a little more. etc.

 

So you see the larger goal (vocabulary) is still there... as are other individual goals. I am working towards all of it daily. But in manageable chunks. I have many other things happening at the same time so I do a bit of each until I am bored of it. Avoids some of the burn out factor. No sense all this being actual work!

 

For me I like big picture goals defined. Allows me to make sure I am moving towards something. Otherwise I can just flounder and fall back on wanking.

 

I like to work at it. Kind of like eating my vegetables, dont love it always but I know it's doing me good!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members
Santuzzo,


Really the bottom line I think is that you enjoy it... but it kind of depends your goal sometimes.


For example, one of my goals (among many others) is to increase my jazz vocabulary. I have spent long enough reading and conceptualizing etc. I decided it's time I get down and dirty and start lifting some songs. There is no other way.


So I pulled out an old Grant Green album I love and started painstakingly lifting "Miss Ann's Tempo". Nice head, basically a blues..It has a good length solo with lots of fast bop. My goal is to get it note for note (else why bother) so it is slow going. So I pick at it one day, get bored - move on ... some more the next day, get bored - move on .. maybe skip a day and do a little more. etc.


So you see the larger goal (vocabulary) is still there... as are other individual goals. I am working towards all of it daily. But in manageable chunks. I have many other things happening at the same time so I do a
bit of each
until I am bored of it. Avoids some of the burn out factor. No sense all this being actual work!


For me I like big picture goals defined. Allows me to make sure I am moving towards something. Otherwise I can just flounder and fall back on wanking.


I like to work at it. Kind of like eating my vegetables, dont love it always but I know it's doing me good!




Thanks, Jeremy !:thu:

I was just getting VERY frustrated today with my picking exercises, and I thought I have to practice some other stuff.
So, one nice tihng I leanred today was an Andy Timmons lick he plays in the opening riff of Electric Gypsy.

Usually I'm a very disciplined person when it comes to practicing, and I actually tihnk sometimes this works to my disadvantage and I need to pay more attention to whether I really enjoy what I'm practicing or if I practice it because I (think) I know I need to practice it.

For my particular example: I'm working hard on my alternate picking, and I thought I should stick to the same exercises for a few months, but I got so frustrated today, I decided I gotta change exercises to keep it interesting and fun. I can keep working on the same thing just with different exercises.:idea:

I often experience sometihng similar when I work on improvising over a jazz standard. I think I need to work on that one standard for x amount of time, or until I think I'm playing kind of OK over it. But after a few weeks of practicng the same standard it might be a better idea to take a new standard to work on. Still working on improv but on a different tune.

It's good you reminded me of the big picutre goals !:thu:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

Sounds like you are on it Lars! I have heard you play brother. Whatever you are doing is working.

 

We tend to complicate things dont we. It is quite simple when you think about it

 

More fun = More playing = Improvement

 

So stay engaged and you are on the path I believe

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members
Sounds like you are on it Lars! I have heard you play brother. Whatever you are doing is working.


We tend to complicate things dont we. It is quite simple when you think about it


More fun = More playing = Improvement


So stay engaged and you are on the path I believe



Thanks Jeremy ! I appreciate that!

YES, what you said there (underlined part) is exactly what I thought today when I decided to change practice material.
I gotta admit, I'm an exercise-nerd, ie I enjoy practicing exercises, but I still need to change them after a while, I think!

Good luck with the Grant Green transcription ! That guy played some awesome lines!!!!:thu:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

I learned last night that sometimes I suck so badly that it's better if I put the guitar away and watch TV or read a book. :facepalm:

 

I was working on the guitar parts for a new tune and everything sounded terrible..to the point where I'm thinking "maybe this should just be bass, drums and vocals"..in fact, that's a lesson too..if you can't think of anything, don't play.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

I didn't learn anything last night, in one sense. I went to see the Pat Metheny Orchestrion show. Metheny is a consistently amazing guitarist by himself, but all those robots on stage with him were a treat to watch and hear.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

I didn't learn anything last night, in one sense. I went to see the Pat Metheny Orchestrion show. Metheny is a consistently amazing guitarist by himself, but all those robots on stage with him were a treat to watch and hear.

 

 

Was that a good show?? I am really intrigued by that one. I trust Metheny's brilliance... but I cant imagine it being that much fun to watch... give me your reflections on that if you please

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

 

Was that a good show?? I am really intrigued by that one. I trust Metheny's brilliance... but I cant imagine it being that much fun to watch... give me your reflections on that if you please

 

 

Hey Jeremy...

 

Apologies for the cut-and-paste from the other forum, but here it is:

 

I very much enjoyed last night's show at Strathmore Music Center in the DC area.

 

There were some technical problems (nasty noises from the PA, etc.) after he completed his two solo guitar pieces and attempted to fire up the Orchestrion. He apologized to the audience, gave a shoutout to Gary Burton (who was apparently in the audience), then played the entire Orchestrion suite after the problems were fixed.

 

Metheny and Lyle Mays are masters of using sequencers unobtrusively. People tend to use sequencers in blatant ways, particularly in dance music, but with PMG, Metheny and Mays have been great at making the listener forget or not even be aware in the first place that a sequencer is running. Metheny's use of Ableton Live blurs the lines between prepared sequences and straight up MIDI triggering even more. I read here that he prepared over 400 Ableton Live "scenes".

 

Metheny took frequent breaks from playing to talk about the project. Unfortunately (from my geek perspective), he did not go into the technical details. But it was still great to hear him talk about it and attempt to explain through playing what was going on. He got some laughs out of us during a rendition of "Sueno Con Mexico" (from New Chataqua) when he repeatedly tapped a pedal to make the Orchestrion glitch on purpose.

 

He played several offbeat guitars - the now famous Pikasso 40+ stringer, the old Roland GR303, and an acoustic that had a solenoid or two inside that he could control with his feet.

 

After the show, we and a bunch of other fans went down to the stage to gawk at the Orchestrion up close. We saw that he had a Moog Taurus 3 bass synth. If anybody could sneak a Moog Taurus into a show and play it in front of us without us noticing it for what it was (the Taurus is notorious for its monstrous bass tones), it would be Metheny.

 

Some additional thoughts after the above writeup...

 

The bottle organs sounded awesome. The one-string guitarbots had an eerie, otherwordly yet folksy vibe. The robot drums sounded 100x better than any drum machine. It's NOT like watching a typical one-man act with play along with a sequencer and some synths/samplers. The physical presence of acoustic instruments, albeit played by robots, adds a lot to the total experience.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

I started working on 'What's this thing called love'. It's a great standard for me to apply the minor II-V lines I have been practicing.
I really enjoy this method of leraning a few lines (either taking them off recording, out of book, or writing them myself) and then working on applying them to tunes and leasrning to change/modify them on the go.

Then I am planning on learning alternative themes for it: maybe Hot House (Charlie Parker) or even Subconscious-Lee by Lee Konitz.[YOUTUBE]9bZKJdpbh4g[/YOUTUBE]

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

I'm learning to Comp Like Lenny Breau, I wish.

 

Working through a old GP lesson, what looked horrendously convoluted is a straight forward ascending chord sequence. I have to practice a couple of the fingerings tho'.

 

Then I have to work out the "why" it sounds goods and then transpose it to a couple of other keys just for the practice. :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.


×
×
  • Create New...