GUITAR TIP - Formatting your Practice Schedule "Breakfast", "Lunch", "Dinner" and "Dessert"....
I try to keep my practice time focused and song/goal oriented. This is for two reasons:
A musician should know a lot of songs! AND this furnishes me a harmonic framework that challenges me.
Try to have a well lit area that is always set up with a reference books, a music stand, notebooks and pencils and a guitar beckoning you to easily sit and study.
Here's what I try to do ... this can be accomplished in one hour, to eight hours.
1.) “Breakfast” .... WARM UP with arpeggios (Major, minor, augmented, diminished) and scales (Major - natural minor - harmonic minor-melodic minor) Play all your scales in 3rds, if not 2nd's, 4th's, 5th's... etc.
Apply the arpeggios and scales to a musical context with universal pieces like “All the Things You Are”, "Stella By Starlight", or simpler tunes like “Tennessee Waltz”, “Sleepwalk” etc.
Tempo and meter aren’t priorities when applying arpeggios and scales. The main goal is playing a harmonic progression that will "police" you from playing what you already know. Always try to have small intervallic jumps , whether it be between chord voicings, scales or arpeggios. No playing by rote!
2.) “Lunch” .....Learn a song and memorize the melody (otherwise you don’t really know the song!) Understand the chord progression and memorize it. Transpose it.
Although Jazz standards are harmonically challenging and furnish the necessary framework for application of arpeggios and scales ... We need not travel the well traveled road of high brow jazz showpieces. One can master a Link Wray song, a Bill Jennings solo or a Ventures tune. Whatever the case -my suggestion would be - make sure you have mastered the complete song, from beginning to end. No dead spots. Everyone can play a 1/2 a song... go the extra mile and be a finisher!
3.) “Dinner” ....... Record the changes of the piece you are working on. I suggest recording something quick and low fidelity to avoid time consuming production. Play the melody and solo over the changes.
For variety I might try to apply a different approach to every chorus - Octaves -Chord Melody-Steel Guitar-James Burton plays Jazz- etc. etc. . When you memorize the song, put it on a list of songs you know. Run through that list every few days.
4.) “Dessert” .... Play and improvise. Try and write something. Experiment with your tone or effects. Have fun and be a creative artist.
A musician should know a lot of songs! AND this furnishes me a harmonic framework that challenges me.
Try to have a well lit area that is always set up with a reference books, a music stand, notebooks and pencils and a guitar beckoning you to easily sit and study.
Here's what I try to do ... this can be accomplished in one hour, to eight hours.
1.) “Breakfast” .... WARM UP with arpeggios (Major, minor, augmented, diminished) and scales (Major - natural minor - harmonic minor-melodic minor) Play all your scales in 3rds, if not 2nd's, 4th's, 5th's... etc.
Apply the arpeggios and scales to a musical context with universal pieces like “All the Things You Are”, "Stella By Starlight", or simpler tunes like “Tennessee Waltz”, “Sleepwalk” etc.
Tempo and meter aren’t priorities when applying arpeggios and scales. The main goal is playing a harmonic progression that will "police" you from playing what you already know. Always try to have small intervallic jumps , whether it be between chord voicings, scales or arpeggios. No playing by rote!
2.) “Lunch” .....Learn a song and memorize the melody (otherwise you don’t really know the song!) Understand the chord progression and memorize it. Transpose it.
Although Jazz standards are harmonically challenging and furnish the necessary framework for application of arpeggios and scales ... We need not travel the well traveled road of high brow jazz showpieces. One can master a Link Wray song, a Bill Jennings solo or a Ventures tune. Whatever the case -my suggestion would be - make sure you have mastered the complete song, from beginning to end. No dead spots. Everyone can play a 1/2 a song... go the extra mile and be a finisher!
3.) “Dinner” ....... Record the changes of the piece you are working on. I suggest recording something quick and low fidelity to avoid time consuming production. Play the melody and solo over the changes.
For variety I might try to apply a different approach to every chorus - Octaves -Chord Melody-Steel Guitar-James Burton plays Jazz- etc. etc. . When you memorize the song, put it on a list of songs you know. Run through that list every few days.
4.) “Dessert” .... Play and improvise. Try and write something. Experiment with your tone or effects. Have fun and be a creative artist.
Comments
Thank you for your presence and input on this forum! Could you elaborate on "No playing by rote"?
First of all, thanks for posting this. Second of all, when you say play your scale in thirds, do you mean to play harmonies through the scale, or play 1-3, 2-4, 3-5, etc?
Tony
What I try to do to figure out melodies on the guitar is learn to sing the melody first (if it's one you enjoy, you probably already know it well enough to do this), then find the first note on the guitar, and then go note by note (an interval at a time) just using the melody in my memory. Once I think I've got it, I try to play along and see how it sounds. Of course sometimes, I have to use the recording and work through it a few notes at a time.
Both men were discussing the creative process of composing, improvising and practicing music.
I saw a common thread pulled through both lengthy music discussions. That common idea was, getting music from your brain to your fingertips and eliminating every thing in between. I had heard this before when talking about John Coltrane or Duane Allman and thought this experience was reserved for virtuosos.
But I experienced it with this guitar exercise and I am no guitar virtuoso! The exercise is playing modes from a common starting point. I always practiced them diatonically up and down the neck. I did not think there was another way. This is how it works: In the key of C you play the major scale “Ionian” starting on the eight fret. Play it descending and ascending a bunch of times. Then close you eyes and play the “Mixolydian” mode staring on C. Only one note changes (flat 7) but with you eyes closed that one note sounds like a car horn! That’s the point of this exercise: learning to hear and recognize the sound of intervals.
After a couple of weeks of playing through all the modes from the C root I could play all the modes with my eyes closed. At this point, one early morning before work, I was practicing descending and ascending very slowly with my eyes close. I was thinking of a mood and trying to play that quiet reflective early morning sound I could hear in my head.
I played the major scale descending then ascending I played a mixture of notes form all the modes I had been practicing. Just floating around never quite completing any mode a couple of eight notes some quarter notes and it was like magic.
I was probably playing major/minor scale and major 7#6 but my eyes were closed and now… they are wide open!
At five o’clock in the morning I was, for a brief moment, in Lennie Tristano and Hal Galper’s world.
Neal T