Thoughts:
So one of the reasons I decided to focus on leaning the intervals between strings through Anki (the spaced-repetition software) was that it is the first step to understanding chords. I want to understand chords because a lot of complex chords that sound pretty are used in samba/bossa (and actually in all styles, nowadays), and also because I want to sight-read on guitar.

The sight-reading goal is a running theme in this whole endeavor. I don't want to be the player messing up my body position because I need to look at the guitar neck while playing. The guitar is a real instrument! It matters how you hold the guitar. Not for aesthetic reasons, but because it influences your body, and thereby your sound.

Real instruments can be used to sight-read music. And there's plenty of it out there, so why not capitalize on that. Some jazz cats weren't into sight-reading music. But I bet just as many could do it and earned a living like that. Rock and punk and all that came around and made it uncool to sight-read. "Just be spontaneous." The outcome of that has been a very monotonous guitar sound - some of it is great, but there's a lot missing.

Usually, the guitar books ask you to memorize chord structures all at once. For example, they'll give you a Maj7 chord and just ask you to remember all of the scale degrees.

Sure, that's fine for the most common chords (even I managed to memorize the basic 4-note chords like this). But it doesn't work (for me, at least) for the more complex chords as well as for the inversions. After years of uncertainty on this subject, I came back to it and it was clear that the reason all of these chords get jumbled up in my brain is because, fundamentally, I''m unfamiliar with the underlying intervals among the notes in the chords.

Now that I'm been pounding away at these intervals, I need to tie it in back to the chords. So I need to first sight-read common intervals all over the neck. After I get that down, I need to start sightreading simple chords. Let's see how my brain takes that challenge.

Interval Review:

Reviewed intervals that have piled up.

Sight-Reading:
Reviewed lower notes (drop D, low E, F) on the staff using Notes in Flash program on the web.

Re-started Leavitt's sight-reading book from the beginning.

So, I thought about a gameplan for learning chord sightreading. First, I need to familiarize myself with all of the intervals. Then, I need to familiarize myself with the shapes of all of the regular triads (including inversions). That serves as the base for chords. But, how would I play chords that are more complex and have accidentals, etc? (The stuff that makes music pretty)

To answer this, I thought about how a piano player sight-reads (well, first I tried to just find the answer on the classical guitar forum, but to no avail). I think that they become familiar with the shapes of common chords and don't go through the process determining which notes are actually in the chord. Then, if they encounter a chord with something strange, they just manually go through the mental process of adding that note to the triad that they automatically know. I'm assuming that with one or two extra notes, this mental exercise doesn't take up too much time.

Now, getting back to playing a simple triad, how would one know that they should be playing a minor chord instead of a major chord? On sheet music, the notes for D major and D minor will look the same.

That, my friends, is where the importance of key signatures comes in. In fact, this particular situation is probably one where key signatures are the most useful. If I'm familiar with the key indicated by the key signatures, then I automatically know that since I see no accidentals, the D triad is a major triad since I see C# and F# in the key signature.

No wonder I have an Anki deck for the key signatures (last review - 11 months ago..... :). So, besides reviewing the key signatures, I must learn how all the triads look (it's funny, I've done this in the past in Jody Fischer Beginning Jazz Guitar book).

Warm-up/Technique:

Finger-stretching exercise @ 100 bpm

String Walking exercise (Pumping Nylon pg. 37) with i,m eight @ 100 bpm
String Walking exercise with m, l with eight notes @ 75 bpm
String-Jumping 1st string to 5th string, 2nd string to 6th string @ 70 bpm (played the etude, too -- confidence is King!)

Right-Hand Velocity (pg. 63) with sixteenth notes @ 105 bpm rest & free.
l, m @ 75 bpm rest & free

Synchronization Exercise (Pumping Nylon pg. 65) with i,m sixteenth notes -
85 bpm

l, m @ 70 bpm.

Putting it all together p. 67 Exercise - @ 100 bpm


Repertoire:

Pica Pica
Played @ 85 bpm, but double-timed the second repetition of Part B. That relaxed me and the melody flowed.

Estrellita
Played once through.

Na Gafieira Do Vidigal
Getting more smooth. A couple of good runs and I can proceed to transcribe the next section.

Transition between last measure of Part B and 1st measure of Part C is not smooth - there's a position change that I keep messing up. It's wonderful that I get to practice position changes within the context of a fun tune like this, as opposed to just drilling. Obviously, I have to get this down so that I have confidence and am not worrying about nailing it.

I need to record myself playing this part so far, because I have the feeling that I'm missing a lot of the nuances that make Baden Powell unique. I get a feeling that I may just be hacking through the piece. On the other hand, there's not point in imitating all of him......still

Samba Caribe
Part A - jump between measures 12-13 is quite hard. Practiced at 60 bpm.

Bart B measure 7 chord jump - still difficult. Keep at it.