Thursday, January 6, 2011

Anki:
Reviewed yesterday's cards and entered 5-6th string descending intervals. Let's see how this keeps up. Right now, I feel like I'm on top of this.

Warm-up/Technique:

Finger-stretching exercise @ 100 bpm

String Walking exercise
(Pumping Nylon pg. 37) with i,m quarter notes @ 115 bpm
String Walking exercise with m, l with quarter@ 75 bpm

Right-Hand Velocity (pg. 63) with sixteenth notes @ 95 bpm rest stroke
@90 bpm free stroke
l, m @ 70 bpm rest & free

Synchronization Exercise (Pumping Nylon pg. 65) with i,m sixteenth notes - @ 75 bpm.

Repertoire:

Estrellita

Many minor mistakes and rhythm problems. Played with metronome @ 40. Challenging, but a good exercise, especially to try to

Pica Pica
Practiced with metronome @ 55 bpm. Rhythm was way off in measure 29-31, so need to keep at that.

Samba Caribe
Practiced mental imaging. Section A Bar 3 - chord is difficult to nail down.

Sightreading:
Delcamp Vol II. p. 11 - tune with nice simple melody. My mistakes with hitting the notes with free stroke highlight problem (perhaps nails are still too short)

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Thoughts:
I've been meaning to get back to chord-study for some time - there needs to be progress. Really, I was a bit scared because I didn't know what to start with. And I've started and stopped this endeavor so many times that I didn't want to let myself down again. Obviously, there must have been something wrong with my methods.

I've been thinking that Anki (a space repetition software I use to study and review Japanese) is really quite efficient in balancing all the information that I have to review, so I wanted to make a music Anki deck. Incidentally, someone already created a chord progression deck that's I downloaded straight from Anki. The user has to identify common chord sequences that the computer plays. Very useful. Doing this highlights the fact that in order to venture in a prepared state into jazz, samba, etc, I really should be very familiar with simple chord progressions first. That's because everything builds upon itself and all of the added notes in jazz & samba make it very hairy and a bit overwhelming if one doesn't recognize the basics.

In addition to this deck, I also started creating cards for a deck in which the front side of the card lists the starting string, then the interval and then the ending string. In my mind, I have to imagine how I would position my fingers. For example:
6th string ascending maj. 3 to 5th string

Once I create ascending and descending cards for many of the intervals (skipping strings as well), I should be prepared to understand chords straight off the bat.

Warm-up/Technique:

Finger-stretching exercise @ 100 bpm

String Walking exercise
(Pumping Nylon pg. 37) with i,m quarter notes @ 110 bpm
String Walking exercise with m, l with quarter@ 75 bpm

Right-Hand Velocity (pg. 63) with sixteenth notes @ 90 bpm rest stroke
@80 bpm free stroke
l, m @ 70 bpm rest & free

Synchronization Exercise (Pumping Nylon pg. 65) with i,m sixteenth notes - @ 75 bpm.

Repertoire:

Estrellita

Played through. Sounded very good.

Pica Pica
Had to stop mid-play because I kept losing the rhythm. Practiced with metronome @ 55 bpm.

Samba Caribe
Part A 1st 4 bars chord progression (v-V-I-IV - Autumn Leave progression)
Mental imaging exercise (p. 48) - need to keep at this, but generally very good feel

Samba exercises from Nelson Faria's book
Studied chord progression in Part A.

Sightreading:
Delcamp Vol II. p. 8

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Warm-up/Technique:
Finger-stretching exercise @ 100 bpm

String Walking exercise
(Pumping Nylon pg. 37) with i,m quarter notes @ 100 bpm
String Walking exercise with m, l with quarter@ 75 bpm

Right-Hand Velocity (pg. 63) with sixteenth notes @ 90 bpm
l, m @ 70 bpm

Synchronization Exercise (Pumping Nylon pg. 65) with i,m sixteenth notes - @ 75 bpm.

Repertoire:

Estrellita
& Pica Pica
Played both through. Sounded pretty good, but nails are still too short.

Samba Caribe
Part A 1st 4 bars chord progression (v-V-I-IV - Autumn Leave progression)

Samba exercises from Nelson Faria's book
On hold

Saturday, January 1, 2011

Warm-up/Technique:
Finger-stretching exercise @ 100 bpm

String Walking exercise
(Pumping Nylon pg. 37) with i,m quarter notes @ 95 bpm
String Walking exercise with m, l with quarter@ 70 bpm

Right-Hand Velocity (pg. 63) with sixteenth notes @ 90 bpm
l, m @ 70 bpm

Synchronization Exercise (Pumping Nylon pg. 65) with i,m sixteenth notes - @ 75 bpm.

Repertoire:

Estrellita
Started playing with Glickstein's practice routines. Centered, connected, counted fine, but the actual playing was so ridden with minor inaccuracies and omissions that the tune as a whole sounded awful. Well, my nails are still short.....

Pica Pica
Reviewed chord progression. Dwiddled it a little bit.
Samba exercises
Track 2 - totally forgot the pattern
Track 3 - reviewed D69/A
Analyzed A diminished

Friday, December 31, 2010

Warm-up/Technique:
Finger-stretching exercise @ 100 bpm

String Walking exercise
(Pumping Nylon pg. 37) with i,m quarter notes @ 90 bpm
String Walking exercise with m, l with quarter@ 70 bpm

Right-Hand Velocity (pg. 63) with sixteenth notes @ 85 bpm
l, m @ 70 bpm


Synchronization Exercise
(Pumping Nylon pg. 65) with i,m sixteenth notes - @ 75 bpm.

Rythm Exercise
Played blues block chord progression (All Blues for Jazz Guitar pg. 18) @100 silent


Thoughts:
Reviewed the Glickstein's performance advice. So much information in such few words. This is definitely gonna take some time to get down well. Right now, I need to work on getting at least a 3-tune repertoire which I can play in front of people together (anyone..... a senior citizen center, etc) , while slowly working on samba, etc. (music for the kids :))

Repertoire:

Estrellita
Decided to go back to practicing performance as per p. 180 of The Musician's Way. Noticed that I had totally forgot the correct pre-performance procedure (October 13 post). And yet I had practiced this procedure in October quite frequently and was starting to get better.
--------Center---------Connect---------Count-----------Begin

Pica Pica
Reviewed chord progression. Dwiddled it a little bit. Need to keep at it to restore what I had.

Samba exercises
Track 2 - totally forgot the pattern
Track 3 - reviewed D69/A
Analyzed A diminished

Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Mistakenly filed wrong part of my nails - harder to play. Live and learn :) Also, the nail on my thumb cracked because I didn't file it regularly. Need to establish a schedule to file every 3 days...

Warm-up/Technique:

Finger-stretching exercise @ 84 bpm

String Walking exercise
(Pumping Nylon pg. 37) with i,m quarter notes @ 84 bpm
String Walking exercise with m, l with quarter@ 70 bpm

Right-Hand Velocity (pg. 63) Impossible to do with my short nails....

Synchronization Exercise
(Pumping Nylon pg. 65) with i,m sixteenth notes - @ 75 bpm.

Rythm Exercise
Played blues block chord progression (All Blues for Jazz Guitar pg. 18) @100 silent

Repertoire:
Estrellita
Decided to go back to practicing performance as per p. 180 of The Musician's Way. Noticed that I had totally forgot the correct pre-performance procedure (October 13 post). And yet I had practiced this procedure in October quite frequently and was starting to get better.
--------Center---------Connect---------Count-----------Begin

Samba exercises
Track 2 - totally forgot the pattern
Track 3 - reviewed D69/A
Got stuck on analyzing Adiminished


Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Warm-up/Technique:
Finger-stretching exercise @ 100 bpm

String Walking exercise
(Pumping Nylon pg. 37) with i,m quarter notes @ 95 bpm
String Walking exercise with m, l with quarter@ 70 bpm

Right-Hand Velocity (pg. 63) with sixteenth notes @ 92 bpm
l, m @ 75 bpm

Synchronization Exercise
(Pumping Nylon pg. 65) with i,m sixteenth notes - @ 75 bpm.

Thumb Exercise (Pumping Nylon pg. 41) @ 75 bpm.

Arpeggio Exercise (Pumping Nylon pg. 38) Various drills @ 75 bpm (thumb free stroke is harder than thumb rest stroke)

Rythm Exercise
Played blues block chord progression (All Blues for Jazz Guitar pg. 18) @100 silent

Repertoire:
Estrellita
Reviewed first part. Re-memorized chord progression in 2nd part - F#9+5 chord is hard to remember

Pica Pica
Played fully through but didn't focus on the meaning, so not so good

Samba exercises
Track 3 exercise (- note degrees of Adim chord)