I did not have much time on Thursday to practice. I was able to get through Guitar Aerobics, Week 1 - Day 4, Arpeggios. I also continued to work on variations of the melody of Satin Doll. I really like the sound of the octaves, but am beginning to explore the application of chords in the melody. Chord melody is a bit out of my scope of understanding right now, but I have a great book, Through Chord-Melody and Beyond by Howard Morgan (Alfred). In just the first several pages I've gained some great insight into the application of chords to melody. It's going to be great fun to explore!
Yesterday (Day 5), I completed Guitar Aerobics, Week 1 - Day 5, Sweep Picking. It went alright. I much prefer alternate picking to sweep picking. I do, however, see the benefits of sweep picking. Sweep picking is still new to me. While my dexterity is improving, the application of sweep picking is not automatic in the contexts I need it to be. I do realize I'll get there -- patience, however, is sometimes hard to come by.
I continued to work on Satin Doll. I'm not happy with how my picked octaves are sounding in comparison to my finger-picked octaves, but I continue to work at getting a quality sound out of my pick. I suppose the sound out of my pick is fine, but I love the warmer, mellower sound I get out of my fingers.
In addition to working on Satin Doll, I watched a video on Jazz Guitar Lessons .net. The video was one in a series of videos on jazz guitar licks. The video's primary focus was on the use of the 3rd and 7th notes of the chords in the ii-V and ii-V-I progressions as the building blocks of your improv. I found it to be quite useful information. I played around with this concept in variety of keys and positions. It opened up my eyes to how simple improv can really be.
Today (Day 6), I created a plan for practicing throughout 2012. I've used several of my recently purchased books as a framework for creating my plan. While I've got a plan in place, I realize that I'll probably deviate it from time to time as schedules and feelings vary. Rather than copy and paste it into this page, I've added links to the Excel (<--Click there for Excel) and PDF (<--Click there for PDF) versions of this plan (just in case anyone actually reads this blog).
I officially begin the plan on Monday, January 2. While I realize I've already started my 365 days, I didn't have a solid plan in place. One of my goals of creating this blog to document my learning was to give myself a framework not only for sharing my experiences, but a framework for structuring my practicing and playing. While I've accomplished that, I've got another goal that I want to achieve over the course of my 365 practice plan -- to learn at least one new thing each day of those 365 days.
Happy New Year! Here's to an enriching 2012!
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