Interval Review:

Reviewed intervals from yesterday. Added B string - A string descending intervals.

How will I study the triads once I get to them? Should I study the intervals first? Should I study them in one position based on a scale?

First, I'll need to study how the 1st and 2nd inversion triads look on a staff so that I'm able to identify them immediately. Simultaneously, I can go by Jody Fischer's Beginning Jazz Guitar book to study first all of the root triads, then all of the 1st inversion triads, then all of the 2nd inversion triads. After I get that down, I can start studying all of the triad possibilities in one position for every scale.


Warm-up/Technique:

Finger-stretching exercise - 1st position

String Walking exercise (Pumping Nylon pg. 37) with i,m eight @ 103 bpm
String Walking exercise with m, l with eight notes @ 65 bpm. Decreased from 65 because I really wanted to nail the notes perfectly

Made up a little lick - I would never (up to now) play this while improvising because I avoid position changes and descending lines - but those things add color to the music.

String-Jumping 1st string to 5th string, 2nd string to 6th string @ 68 bpm (same descending)

Right-Hand Velocity (pg. 63) with sixteenth notes @ 107 bpm rest & free.
l, m @85 bpm rest & free

Synchronization Exercise (Pumping Nylon pg. 65) with i,m sixteenth notes -
at yesterday's speed of 89 bpm, the pinky went up too high, lowered to 88

l, m @ 76 bpm.

Putting it all together p. 67 Exercise - steady @ 86 bpm

Scale Rhythmic Variation p. 68 @ 85 bpm

Speed Burst pg. 69 Exercise 1.A @ 70 bpm
This first exercise involves playing with i and a only. As it turns out, this coordination is completely lacking. So I had to just play i - a quarter notes at 65 bpm in order to prepare for this exercise.

Percussive Exercise
Played Nothin on You rhythm @ 81 bpm


Repertoire:

Estrellita & Pica-Pica
Decided to record video with my digital camera. The thing is more imposing than the built-in webcam on my laptop and I got camera shy. That messed up my psyche. When I played Estrellita, I was thinking of how I shouldn't mess up the position jump in measure 9 and how if I do, what does that say about my abilities as a guitarist, since I've been playing this tune for 5 months already......



On Pica-Pica, I didn't feel like my fingers were nimble enough




Na Gafieira Do Vidigal
Wow, this part's blowing me away. Didn't go on from yesterday's, because I noticed new things in there. It's hard man, and BP's rhythms are as complex as Monk's.





I was hoping that it would stay like this until the pretty part, but he keeps switching it up for the remaining 9 measures until the melody. I started to feel a bit overwhelmed, but I'm gonna just take it slowly. No point in learning the next crazy rhythms he has, because my brain won't remember them right now. As it is, I probably should review this in 2 hours to make sure that I haven't forgot it.

Samba Caribe
Bart A measure 12-13 arpeggio to chord - still making mistakes. Played with metronome at 65 bpm, but did so on autopilot (Klickstein warns against this - he said something along the lines of every exercise must have meaning, it must not be mundane)

Analyzed it a bit more. Played the same rhythms on open strings. The problem is that the free stroke run on the High E and B strings then changes to an arpeggio on the A - B strings. The wrist must shift down in order to get the arpeggio clean. It seems that this is the motion that I haven't been getting.

Part B measures 14-15 is also not as easy as I thought. The problem here is easier to identify. The chord in measure 15 must be nailed from a position jump 5 frets away. But the placement of the fingers is quite unusual, and the muscles simply aren't used to the stretching. So I need to just practice the change slowly, making sure that the fingers are already in place in their correct position before I hit the chord.