February 27, 2010

Already getting behind.

Life is getting screwy around here. Job status in the air, graduation looming. I find myself forcefully shoved into a "Figure out what you are going to do with your life" situation, RIGHT NOW. I wanted this to be a slower process...

Last few days i've only picked up the guitar to doodle, especially with the 11s on the strat. Oh my, 11's don't play any games. Until my life comes to a new point, I must not focus so much on practice quality, or become dissapointed when practice quality is not as good as I want. Couple months and school is over.

Today I want to do:
Alternate Picking
Sweep picking
Blues lick
Doodle
Play some songs in the setlists
Learn that 3DD song

Feb. 23, 2010

Yeaaahhhh!

Strat sounded good until the tubes went out my Peavey last night at practice, bleh!

Schedule today:
Stretch/warm up
1. For alternate picking: Minor Pattern / Ascending. 70 bpm
2. For legato: A lick from "The Air That I Breathe" by All That Remains. Learning
3. For sweep picking: "Thunderhorse" by Dethklok 45 bpm
4. Continue learning the solo: "Hold on Loosely" by .38 special.
5. Learn the riffs in "Behind Those Eyes" by 3 Doors Down.
6. SRV Lick
7. Brad Paisley Lick
8. Devil went down to georgia opening lick
9. No more tears alternate picking
10. Slide
11. Metal Riffage - Blackened by Metallica

1. 70 bpm
2.

Feb. 22, 2010

Band practice tonight. That will suffice once a week. Getting a strat, putting 11's on it and going to shred that fucker. I fully expect to add alot more blues/countryish licks to my repetoire during practice, but my fingers are going to hurt from the thick strings :)

February 21, 2010

Getcha' pull of this

Stretch/warm up
1. For alternate picking: Minor Pattern / Ascending.
2. For legato: A lick from "The Air That I Breathe" by All That Remains.
3. For sweep picking: "Thunderhorse" by Dethklok
4. Continue learning the solo: "Hold on Loosely" by .38 special.
5. Learn the riffs in "Behind Those Eyes" by 3 Doors Down.


Boy I don't like 3 Doors Down, but this song is bearable. The band wants to do it and the clean riffs are pretty cool.

Starting off small, just like my fitness goals. I don't want to fall off the wagon!

1. 70 bpm max
2. (Still getting this to muscle memory)
3. 40bpm
4. Check
5. Check

I feel off the journaling wagon, time to get back on.

Let's start off slow.

Re-identifying the skills I want to practice:
Alternate Picking
Sexy smooth legato ala Oli Herbert!
Sweep picking
Tapping
Metal riffage
Alternate picking on acoustic
Harmonic minor scale & licks
Phrygian modes
Hybrid picking!
Singing and playing
Learning more blues turnarounds
Solo phrasing
Learning song solos
...and alot more...

What I need to do start:
Develop licks/practices for each skill
Implement a plan to play them atleast once every other day
Post how a beginner could start learning some practices

The biggest thing to wrap my head around this guitar learning business is that there is no set milestone. It's simply: harder, better, faster, stronger. Forever. Improve daily. Same goes for my other fitness goals, except there are milestone markers along the way: Muscle gain, body fat loss, getting to the single digit body fat levels one day.

I'd like to be able to rip a solo one day, off the cuff, that flat out amazes people, and while I can do well now, I'm fooling everyone but myself thinking I'm a good player. Sacrifices must be made in order to improve. I start here.

Not dead

Just like to tell myself that I'm still practicing and writing, and having fun. I think I'm reinforcing somethings, but not really improving any speed especially Alternate Picking. I will be devising a plan to do the shred thing in the fall when my schedule is normal enough to get about 2 hours a day in. Right now im focusing on body recomposition and its hard to do 2 things at once. I'm still practicing just about every day though!

Day 21

burnout, dont worry man

AP, Legato and improv