SumQuodSum

Making the Most of My Time

2012-01-29T22:35:00.000-08:00

It was fun to dream this wonderful dream during a two-week long stretch in which I didn't have to work (winter break). I progressed a lot during that time and found it easy to take the time to work within the schedule that I had created. I've found it difficult, however, to maintain the practice schedule that I created. I've yet to decide if I should pare elements from my schedule or to minimize the amount of time spent on each element. I expect to use tomorrow night as a barometer for determining to what degree I will re-engineer my practice schedule.

Though I've continued to practice daily, my practice has been devoted to transcribing music and working on music from two other projects. Between practicing jazz, practicing rock tunes, and arranging finger-style acoustic pieces, it's been difficult to focus on the foundational elements of jazz -- chord voicings, scales, arpeggios, progressions (comping), technique, and the like. While I realize I'm still growing in my ability I feel that more attention to foundational elements will help me grow a bit more. While my ear is developing, my chops are lagging behind.

One thing I did exceedingly well during winter break was to document my progress. This task was truly instrumental in my sticking to the schedule. I need to get back to that without worrying so much about blogging. While I've not blogged for some time, it's been less about not having anything to write as opposed to feeling that it was such an exhaustive task to complete to simply document my progress. One aspect of my practice that will change is blogging about it. I've decided that I can focus simply on documenting my progress in my notebook and saving blogging for the weekends when I have more time to reflect more deeply upon what I'm doing in my practice.

Speaking of practice, I mentioned earlier that I've spent a bit of time as of late transcribing. I'm currently transcribing "Misty" by Wes Montgomery. This transcription is based on Wes's performance of "Misty" at the Half Note in New York. While I've transcribed a variety of pop and rock songs before, this song is a completely different beast. It's been a great challenge, but lots of fun.

Day 6 - Giving the Plan a Trial Run

2012-01-01T11:00:00.000-08:00

So, I created a plan. Why not give it a go? I decided to try the Saturday plan. It went well. I started playing a little too late in the evening to get through the entire day's routine, but I like what I was able to accomplish. Here's what I did:

Finger Gym

1 - 2 Legato at 70, 95, 120, 150, 180 bpm
2 - 1 Legato at 70, 95, 120, 150, 180 bpm
1 - 3 - 4 Legato at 70, 95, 120, 135 bpm

Guitar Aerobics

Legato exercise through the A minor pentatonic scale (5th position)
40, 48, 58, 72, 84, 96, 108, 120 bpm x 10 (at each tempo)

Hal Leonard Guitar Method

I - ii - V in the keys of G and A (6th string root)
70 bpm (quarter and eighth note rhythms)
95 bpm (quarter note rhythm)
120 bpm (quarter and eighth note rhythms)
ii - V - I in the keys of C (5th string root) , G (6th string root), and A (6th string root)
70 bpm (quarter and eighth note rhythms)
95 bpm (quarter note rhythm)
120 bpm (quarter and eighth note rhythms)

Through Chord-Melody and Beyond

Read and played the melody to My Funny Valentine
Read Morgen's introduction to writing chord melodies for songs (there's more to it than what I state below)

Melody note is the highest note in the chord
Re-write the melody so that it's an octave higher
Write the chords on the strong beats and single notes on weak beats
Practiced writing chord melodies for five different melodies

Played the melodies first
Wrote the chord melody
Played melodies with addition of chords

I didn't get a chance to practice Jazz Improv: A Melodic Approach, Serious Jazz Practice Book, or my repertoire. Though I'm a bit disappointed, I also realized I made the most of the time. This is where, I believe, having a plan is most beneficial -- I'm not wasting time. This is a big change in my previous approach to playing guitar. Why it took me 20 years to get to this point I don't know -- better late than never. I believe I'm going to see some great gains as a result of maximizing the time I'm using. I'm excited about the prospects the next year holds for me.

I believe I've stated this before, but one of the best things that's come from my structured approach to practicing has been practicing at tempo. I also believe the more consistent practice has helped. Publicly documenting my progress has required me to stay on top of things more than I might otherwise have.

Days 4 and 5 - Solidifying a Plan

2011-12-31T19:55:00.000-08:00

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!

Day 3 - Learning the Beauty of Structure

2011-12-29T13:25:00.000-08:00

Though I've decided to use this blog as an avenue for documenting (actually motivating me to practice more) my guitar practice over the next 362 days, I never really went into it with a plan. As a result, I often spend a lot of time noodling around before I actually get down to business. Once I actually get down to business, however, I've wasted between 20 minutes and an hour. Once I get down to business, I gain great benefit from structure. What I do, however, is beat myself up for having wasted time.

I have always believed it didn't matter how I practice guitar, but that I simply practiced. How I've come to understand this is a fallacy. Having come to understand that, however, I have still not created a regimen for practicing. Part of the difficulty in creating a plan is that there is so much to learn. Another element of my avoidance is that when I learn a skill I learn it fairly quickly. As a result, I feel like I've wasted some time on that skill and that the skill, perhaps, is meaningless. What I fail to understand is that there are skills that I'll develop down the road that just might rely on my ability to apply these previously learned (or avoided) skills that I find meaningless. My goal for the end of the week is to develop a plan that allows me to practice some of the more necessary elements of guitar/music on a daily basis, while incorporating important but less repetitive skills on a fairly consistent, but not always daily basis.

In the meantime, I spent a lot of time last night listening to Satin Doll - more of a focus on Joe Pass's version. While I can gain a lot from other artist's covers of Satin Doll, I need to focus on one. Moreover, the beauty of Joe Pass's cover is that he plays all of the parts. While I'm in no, way, shape, or form capable of covering Satin Doll as Joe Pass did, I want badly to understand how he plays these pieces the way he does. Because I'm still new to transcribing and developing my ear, I'm focusing more the melodic elements of Satin Doll than the harmonic elements. As I learn more about chord melody, I hope to be able to gain more from listening to any of Joe Pass's works, particularly Satin Doll.

In addition to listening to and transcribing Joe Pass's cover of Satin Doll, I worked on developing a more meaty melody to Satin Doll. I've had little problem learning to read and play the melody, but it sounds too plain. I've been working on playing the melody in octaves. Octaves are still a new element to me, so I don't play them as flawlessly as I'd like. Nonetheless, the melodic elements that I've added octaves too sound a lot better than playing single note melodic lines.

I also spent last night developing some skills, reading, and watching videos. I worked through Day 3 of Guitar Aerobics -- a nice little blues lick in the key of A. Learning to play these exercises at different tempos has helped immensely. Learning to play these exercises (where the rhythm varies) in different tempos has really forced my to better understand the rhythmic elements of music. I wrapped up the evening playing all the modes of the major scale and their related harmonic minor scales in the keys of G, D, and A. As well as playing at different tempos, I really spent a lot of time analyzing the related notes between the major and harmonic minor scales in the various positions on the neck.

Tonight...Day 4

Day 2 - A Little More Progress

2011-12-28T11:15:00.000-08:00

I made a little more progress on Day 2 despite another busy schedule. I started practice with a variety of finger exercises - some from The Finger Gym (Justin Guitar), some from Steve Vai's 10-Hour Workout (Guitar World) and some I made up. I worked a combination of linear and angular exercises -- both at a variety of tempos (80, 100, 120 BPM - quarter note, eighth note, and eighth note triplets). While those tempos are fairly easy, I'm keeping them low as I find it much more difficult to play slowly than fast (to a point). I tend to get distracted playing more slowly and therefore am prone to making more mistakes.

Playing guitar at tempo (outside of playing with a song or a band) is something fairly new for me. I've always just practiced rather freely. I never worried about it to much as I've always been able to keep time well playing rhythm. As I've ventured into more solo-type playing I've noticed than my ability to maintain my timing escapes me. Practicing with a metronome at a variety of tempos and beats has helped a lot in just a short time. As I create lead lines, I've noticed my ability to play more seamlessly with the music has increased. I was told to do this about 20 years ago from my first guitar teacher. Unfortunately, I disregarded much of what he said. This is one of my few regrets -- he was a phenomenal guitar instructor and I was a dumb twenty-something novice guitar player. What is it they say, "Hindsight is..."?

I next worked on some I, ii, V chord progressions. There are a variety of ways in which to implement these chords in jazz - primarily ii, V, I. I just want to get the lay of the land with these chords from the perspective of the root (tonic). I worked my way through all of the keys anchoring these progressions to the sixth string root. I then started transcribing these chord progressions in each key in tab, indicating not only which string on which fret was played, but what notes and what scale degrees were being played in each chord. I got through only the keys of G and D because I went a little more deeply, looking at these progressions from the fifth string root position, as well.

Scales are a love/hate thing for me. I love to learn to navigate the fretboard via my mastery of scales, but I hate practicing them. One thing that has made my practicing of scales more fun is string skipping, connecting the modes, and applying a variety of rhythmic motifs. Again, despite the numbers of years I've been playing, these are all relatively new practices for me. These practices, however, have increased my mastery of the fretboard immeasurably. Moreover, I'm not playing so "boxy." Anyhow, what I wanted to say about scales is that I worked my way through each mode of the major scale in the keys of G, D, and A while simultaneously connecting each mode to it's related harmonic minor pattern. Being able to do this has allowed me to add more color to my lead lines.

Finally, I played some music. After all, isn't that what guitar is all about? I played my way through the chord progressions of Satin Doll several times before spending some time reading and playing the melody. I recorded the chords of Satin Doll to my Boss RC-3 Loop Station and then practiced playing the melody and a variety of lead lines over these chords. I then spent some time listening to Duke Ellington's, Joe Pass's, and Wes Montgomery's versions of Satin Doll trying to pick up some ideas for licks I can use to increase my jazz guitar vocabulary..

Today, Day 3...

Day 1 - Noodling and Reading

2011-12-27T14:31:00.000-08:00

Day 1 could have been deflating, but I'm working to stay positive about my guitar playing experience. Given our busy holiday schedule, I didn't get as much time to play guitar as I'd hoped. I spent most of my time noodling around and perusing the guitar books I had recently purchased. I did, however, make some positive gains.

One of the books I had recently purchased was Guitar Aerobics by Troy Nelson (Hal Leonard). I had taken a stab at Exercise 1 (Week 1 - Day 1 of the 365 day program) Saturday evening. The exercise is an alternate picking exercise over the E harmonic minor scale (E-F#-G-A-B-C-D#) performed exclusively in 16th notes on the high E string. The exercise starts at 40 BPM and increases gradually to 112 BPM.

Saturday evening I did fine at 40, 48, 56, 66, 76, and 88 BPM before reaching 100 BPM. Here I began to stumble, needing several attempts before competently completing the exercise ten times at this speed. I then progressed to the desired maximum speed of 112 BPM. Here I completely floundered. Not only was my right hand not up to the task, I found my left hand to be equally incapable of these speeds. I managed 1or 2 marginally successful tries at this speed, but was not able to complete the ten trials. Moreover, I lacked the fluidity I was able to maintain through the earlier speeds.

On Monday (Day 1), I decided to take another stab at Exercise 1. This time I decided to tweak my posture and the position of the guitar prior to practicing. In addition, I decided to relax rather than try too hard (as I'm prone to do). As I did Saturday evening, I successfully navigated 40, 48, 56, 66, 76, and 88 BPM. Additionally, I tackled 100 BPM on the first try! Though I didn't successfully complete the exercise at 112 BPM on the first try or two, I was able to complete 10 trials in succession on the third try. I didn't achieve the degree of fluidity I would have liked, but the successful completion of 10 trials in succession boosted my confidence and allowed me to relax further. This relaxation, I believe was the key to achieving a greater degree of fluidity on subsequent tries.

The rest of the evening, as mentioned above, I perused the books I most desire to use to guide my practice: Jazz Guitar by Jeff Schroedl (Hal Leonard), Jazz Improvisation for Guitar - A Melodic Approach by Garrison Fewell (Berklee Press), Through Chord-Melody and Beyond by Howard Morgan (Alfred), Jazz Guitar Soloing Concepts by Dr. Ronald S. Lemos (Hal Leonard), Joe Pass on Guitar by Joe Pass (Alfred), The Serious Jazz Practice Book for All Instruments by Barry Finnerty (Sher Music Company), and The Jazz Theory Book by Mark Levine (Sher Music Company).

Today is Day 2. Day 2 is looking a bit more open than Day 1 did. Hopefully, I'll accomplish a bit more.

365 Days of Jazz Guitar

2011-12-25T21:16:00.000-08:00

No waiting until January 1st for this one. After relocating SumQuodSum.net, and re-creating it with the intent of documenting my learning of (jazz) guitar, I've struggled coming up with ways in which to meaningfully structure my learning and, ultimately, document it. I've purchased a variety of jazz guitar "How To" books over the past several months and recently purchased more. I've decided to use these books, as well as the variety of tools I've been given by Phil Quigley, my guitar teacher, to create a program (of sorts) that I can purposefully use to better hone my chops.

My end in mind is to confidently and competently sit in with a group of folks (known or unknown) and jam. While I've played a variety of songs and venues live, I've always rehearsed these songs. While I'm competent enough to do this, there has seldom been room for improvisation. I don't quite have enough of an understanding of the languages of guitar (music, in general) to improvise well. This lack of knowing has diminished my confidence to publicly improvise; something, however, I'm slowly getting over.

Where I've Been?
So, where have I been? I've played guitar for approximately 20 years, give or take. I took to the guitar quickly, but was too distracted by college athletics and studies to devote as much time as necessary to bettering myself. Moreover, I lacked the required discipline to take it too seriously, though I loved the instrument since its adoption.

I've performed live with several bands, always playing rhythm guitar -- I've filled this role fondly. I've never been one to desire the attention bestowed upon the lead guitarist. I simply like making music. There is no better feeling than playing music with other musicians and locking down a tight groove. Making music, for me, produces a high that is soothing and freeing -- I would actually describe it as transcendental.

Earlier in the year my wife was diagnosed with breast cancer. Strange an impetus as this might seem, I decided to take up guitar again (after nearly 10 years of inconsistent and often meaningless play) -- I needed a distraction. I wanted to become not only a better guitar player, I wanted to become a better musician. I knew, despite its apparent simplicity, that jazz would be a great avenue for bettering both my musical and guitar vocabularies.

Phil has taken me on a wonderful journey, exposing me to a variety jazz standards and jazz genres. He introduced me to chords and scales that have made my fingers ache and my mind spin. Further complicating matters has been the issue of learning what scales are best to play over which chord(s) and what extensions best color a lead line. While I can in no way, shape, or form declare mastery of these skills, I can state that I have a competence in their applications -- this competence however, is neither high nor consistent.

Where Am I Going?
I've known not where I wanted to go until last night. I needed a goal -- an end in mind. I decided my end in mind must be to perform live with others -- to perform live with others competently and confidently enough that I can play and solo over any jazz standard or any blues/jazz progression in any key. This is a tall task; one I might not be able to accomplish without the crutch of a lead sheet, but one I want to know how to tackle crutch or no crutch.

I also need to document my progress. While the title "365 Days of Jazz Guitar" implies a daily entry, I don't know if that's a realistic goal given the demands imposed on my daily schedule. Nonetheless, I'll make it a goal to write 3-5 days per week and to fill in the blanks on the days I don't write. If I'm bold enough, I might even post my progress via YouTube (no better way to start performing publicly).

Tomorrow...Day 1

Guitar Websites I Like

2011-12-04T08:37:00.000-08:00

The websites I've listed below are among the many resources I've found that provide me solid insight on becoming a better guitar player. What's most invaluable to me is that they are free or low cost. I've listed the websites in no particular order.

Justin Guitar
I discovered Justin Guitar several years ago. I've used this site more for inspiration than I have to learn skills (though Justin Sandercoe (the site's author) has masterfully crafted a well-structured, thoroughly detailed plan for teaching guitar students of all backgrounds of ability and/or interest). One aspect of Justin Guitar that I most favor is titled, "Songs." Songs is a section of Justin Guitar that provides video tutorials on an abundance of popular music, both new and old.

While I've used several of Justin's music tutorials, I've most appreciated his lessons on transcribing music. Transcribing music is a wonderful way to not only develop my ear, but to develop my understanding of the fretboard as well as a repertoire of licks and riffs.

I'd be remiss not to add that I like the manner in which Justin has infused his passion for social justice issues into his website. I appreciate not only his perspectives, but the ways in which these perspectives allow me to better know my cyber-instructor.

Jazz Guitar Lessons .net
Jazz Guitar Lessons .net is a recent discovery. The site's creator, Marc-Andre Seguin, a Montreal-based professional jazz guitarist, has done a nice job of putting together a framework for addressing the needs of jazz guitar players at a variety of levels. Similar to Justin Guitar, Jazz Guitar Lessons .net offers video tutorials covering a variety of concepts from Improv and Soloing, Chords and Comping, Jazz Blues and more.

Jazz Guitar Lessons .net is regularly growing. Jazz guitar is monster of a musical genre with a ton of music, theory, and technique to absorb. The foundation that Marc-Andre Seguin has laid in this free teaching resource has made my navigation of the subject of jazz guitar much more easy to understand. In addition to his free lessons, Marc-Andre Seguin also offers private lessons via Skype. Oh, what the web has done to make people and services more accessible.

YouTube
I use YouTube when I get stuck transcribing. While I've found YouTube useful, it does not have a comprehensive catalog of music, particularly more obscure music -- that of jazz and blues artists.

How do I use it in transcription, you ask? If while in the middle of transcribing I've hit a section in which I've got the gist of the melody or harmony being played, but have somehow missed the nuances of the phrasing or voicing I'm transcribing, I'll look for live performances of the band or artist so that I may better understand how they played a particular part of the song. Often times, I find I'm making the transcription more difficult than it needs to be.

At some point, when I'm comfortable with people criticizing my guitar playing, as they want to do on YouTube (there are far too many keyboard jockeys out there too willing to type some pithy witticism that is meant to degrade as opposed to inspire or teach), I'll post videos of my journey to learn jazz guitar. In the meantime, you can find videos of my 12 year old son's bands on my YouTube Channel.

Guitar-Tube
Guitar-Tube is a recent discovery of mine. It is a great resource for free guitar videos, lessons, and more (though I've subscribed to the $10 lifetime premium account, primarily so I can access unlimited backing tracks of many of my favorite songs). What I like most about Guitar-Tube is that it is a guitar community -- a fairly comprehensive one at that -- many, many videos of live performances from all genres; backing tracks; tools; transcriptions and more.

Making the Band

2011-10-15T13:04:00.000-07:00

No, not a reference to the MTV series, but the formation of my newest band. Not "MY" band, as in I'm the leader of the band, but my band as in a band I'm a part of. Rich on vocals, Jim on bass and vocals, Dave on keyboard and vocals, and me on guitar (no, I don't sing -- not publicly, at least). We still need to find a drummer -- my hope is that craigslist will pan out. It would also be nice to find another guitar player as most of the songs we're looking to play were written with multiple guitars in mind.

We're looking to play primarily classic and modern rock, but will also infuse some jazz, blues, and r&b.

Stay tuned for our tour schedule!

Relocating SUMQUODSUM.NET

2011-10-15T10:19:00.000-07:00

I've moved my blog, sumquodsum.net, to a new host -- Blogger.com. There are no specific reasons for the move other than to make managing the site much simpler. Much of my time in the past has been spent managing IIS, updating WordPress, and finding and installing plugins. While I appreciate the skill sets derived from managing the various technical aspects of hosting my own blog, I find that I'd like to spend my free time doing other things -- playing guitar and working out.

sumquodsum.net has been used as an avenue for me to share my thoughts on a variety of topics -- most notably, education. While, as an educator, there are a variety of educational topics I'd like to ponder, I'll probably use the re-invention of sumquodsum.net as an opportunity to document my musical adventures (among other things).