Amanda Palmer Concert Review

I am vindicated.  Amanda Palmer played "Call Me Maybe."  Instant four stars on that alone.

Not really.  But sort of.

Solid concert experience.  It dragged on a little more and was a little overblown in its own artistic self-importance, but entertaining and engaging.  The level of musicianship was pretty much top notch, especially for the whole goth punk cabaret thing they've got going on.  But while Steve Vai's (far superior) musicianship was numbing, the Grand Theft Orchestra's musicianship was enthralling.  Probably because they were fun, witty, and musically concise.  But then, brevity soul wit, so that's redundant.  It shows that you don't really need the thirteen hour practice sessions for forty years to be an amazing musician though, so that was inspiring.

On the other hand, I think they were somewhat over distorted - the harmonics were often difficult to hear over the muddy layers - and Amanda is certainly not the best technical singer, though she is quite charismatic.  She's a pretty good song writer when she's not being overly serious though, and her band carried the rest of the show. 

"Pictures or It Didn't Happen" was the highlight for me.

Not paying her string or horn section was definitely the low point.  Pay your f*&%ing musicians, lady.

Guitar Practice Week Six

We're already up to week six.  That 's almost a month and a half.  I didn't have a lesson last week due to surprise Amanda Palmer concert, which I might try to review at some point this week, and this week I had to cancel for Gordon Webster and Rosh Hashana.  Gordon's probably worth it.

So where am I at today, a month and a half into my guitar adventure?  I've got all the natural open major chords down and most of the natural open minor chords.  I'm pretty darn close to getting barre chords down, and I understand their theory.  I've begun my first forays into power chords and single note lines, and those are coming along.  I'm fairly confident with the major scale, though I will continue to work and work and work at it.

More importantly, my ear training is drastically improving.  I'm beginning to reliably hear major seconds and thirds, perfect fourths and fifths, and octaves quite reliably - at least going up.  Going down, I've only gotten major thirds down so far.  The secret: hearing songs that start on that interval in my head.

• Major Second - Do Ray Me, this one is easy.
• Major Third - When the Saints
• Perfect Fourth - Here Comes the Bride, Chariots of Fire
• Perfect Fifth - So Far Away
• Octave - Somewhere Over the Rainbow
• Descending Major Third - If I Were a Bell

Now I just need to add songs to my head for other intervals.  I'm also becoming better at distinguishing between major and minor third, but I still tend to make mistakes with either very high or very low root notes.  I'm going to keep practicing.

I've decided that ear training is the single most important thing I could be working on, so my progress there is really heartening.  I might become a real musician yet.

Side note: I've been pretty much exclusively using my electric guitar at this point.  It looks and feels so much better than the old Epiphone.

No Lesson this Week

Amanda Palmer concert instead.  Two lessons next week though, so hopefully that will make up for it.

It will also give me more time to practice.  I bet I can get "Where is My Mind" totally aced by next Tuesday.  Which means I'll have time to work on other things.  I'm thinking scales, singing, and ear training.

Ear training is going super slowly right now.  I can do it all easily enough from C, but as soon as we take away the anchor note, I'm practically clueless.  I'm going to work on this as my primary project for the week, though, and I'll report back my findings here.

My lesson next Wednesday is focused on ear and voice work, so that will hopefully help.

My other main project: making my strumming very even and clean.  I want it be able to sound exactly the same every measure of the strumming pattern.

Weekend Practice Wrap Up

So Saturday ... I played for six hours.  That's right, six.  The results were palpable.  You could literally palp them.

"Where is My Mind" is like almost working.  The lead part and chord parts are 95% there individually, and I'm about 80% there to stringing them all together.  Since this is by far the most difficult material I've tackled, I think that's pretty good.

This means that my barre chords are coming along.  The F Major shape is no longer a challenge.  Like at all.  And I can hold it much better than before.  I now have the strength to do two or three choruses of "Creep" before having to quit, instead of just one.

Finger exercises are coming together.  By focusing on relaxing, I was able to blast through the first couple finger exercises Tony had given me.  And I've almost aced the G Major scale already, thanks to LOTS of practice.  My technique: learn it one note at a time.  Keeping it simple and mastering the first three notes, then the first four, then the first five, etc., made learning it cleanly far more manageable.

I've almost got the problem chords in "Autumn Leaves" working.  I'll be able to play the chords all the way through at tempo in a week or two if this keeps up. 

I need to watch out for repeated use injuries.  My wrist was fairly sore by the end of the marathon session.  That shouldn't be happening and is not a good thing.  Also, my fingertips were WAY too sore to even touch the guitar on Sunday, though I tried anyway.

I'm excited.  I think I'm on my way to becoming an actual guitarist.

Unfortunately, I need to cancel my lesson on Tuesday due to surprise Amanda Palmer tickets.  I'm okay with this.

I Will Never Be Steve Vai... and That's Okay.

So I Saw Steve Vai Friday Night ...

And boy, what mixed feelings.  It's amazing to watch and be impressed by his technical mastery of his instrument, but it's just not as easy to care.  Some thoughts:

• If you start at eleven, where do you go from there?  Vai's playing lacked the dynamic range to make the virtuosic work exciting.  It was like listening to a Bach piece - the whole thing is so complicated that you never truly realize it's complexity.  Unfortunately, Vai's music lacked the melodic appeal of Bach's music.  As Vai's appeal is essentially as a virtuoso musician, he should be doing everything in his power to emphasize his virtuosity.  This includes playing like a normal person sometimes.
• Keep It Simple, Stupid.  He said a lot, but there were multiple place where even I realized that he could have said practically the same thing in a more concise way, and I think I would have enjoyed it more.
• Keep your playing human - he was at his most interesting when he was singing along to the notes he was playing or when playing simple clear melodies.  The shredding?  Totally not that interesting.
• I have a new found respect for Eddie Van Halen.  His more melodic approach to the same style made for far more memorable guitar work.  Whilst Vai is undoubtedly more technically skilled, it's obvious why Eddie is the one who attained superstardom. 
• Very few musicians have enough ideas to single-handedly carry an entire two hour concert, no matter how proficient they are.  This is why you have supporting musician.  The concert was most interesting when Vai was interacting with the musicians around him.  Unfortunately, these moments were too few.  He has a truly all star backing crew - his failure to utilize them was his undoing.  It's why his instrumental porn grew stale and the Flecktones, Maceo Parker, John Coltrane, etc. remain consistently fresh.

The Number One Thing I Learned:
I can be the amazing musician I want to become without needing to exhaustively master my instrument.  What I do need: A good sense of dynamics, harmony, rhythm, and melody; a moderate technical proficiency; an ear for music; and the ability to play well with others.
I can do those things, possibly with only a few years of diligent study. 
I will never be Steve Vai, but I don't have to be.  Which is great, because I don't really want to be him anyway.

A Wild Steve Vai Appears

So the bad news is that I probably won't get my intended practice time in today...

The good news?  I see Steve Vai tonight.  For free.  Because Kate is a bamf and spent all day hanging out with him making a music video.

Sometimes, life is awesome.

I imagine I will be extra motivated to practice tomorrow.

Effectivizing Guitar Practice

That's probably not a word.  I don't care.

The Dilemma:

As you may have noticed from my previous blog entry, the list of shit to practice is ever growing.  However, as I return to dancing a bit, my time is becoming more scarce, so I'm going to need to manage my practice time significantly better than I have been. 

My practice in the last week was unfocused and meandering, often involving switching between random things whenever I hit a wall.  It's probably not a coincidence that this week's lesson was the first time I felt like I was under-prepared.  And now that the material I need to practice is growing every week, I can't afford this sort of lackadaisical practice.

It's Time to Get Organized.

This is obvious.  I've done some reading on building guitar practice schedules, and I think I've figured out my methodology for building one.  The keys are to focus on what needs work for extended periods, but not so long that you get frustrated, vary your focuses within a session, and vary your focuses between sessions.  And most importantly, practice at least a little bit every day.  This last bit will be difficult with dance, but I think it's doable.

My Solution: Modular Practice Schedules.

I'm going to build a bunch of blocks that I can string together.  I will figure out what blocks I'm working on before my practice session begins.  I will then practice them for five or ten minutes, before moving on to something else.  I will log my practice times somewhere.  Maybe I'll finally get to use Evernote.  I knew there was a reason I downloaded that.

Modules Ahoy!

• Scale work.  For now this is only the G Major Scale, and thus will probably not extend over five minutes.  Metronome required.
• Finger exercises.  Moving up and down the neck.  Metronome required.  Could be done whilst watching tv or doing other things, but focus on accuracy is encouraged.
• Barre Chord to Barre Chord switching.  Use song "Creep."  Metronome required.  Probably five minutes max now, because this is going to be hard on my fingers.  Use "One Minute Changes" method to work on speed.  I might explain this in a later post, where I talk about how this experiment is going.
• Open Chord to Barre Chord switching.  Use "Where is My Mind" and, later, "Should I Stay or Should I Go Now."  Use "One Minute Changes" method to work on speed.
• Power Chord Practice.  Use "Where is My Mind" for this.  Not much here to work on, shouldn't be longer than five minutes.
• Open Chord Practice.  "Autumn Leaves" changes.  Again use "One Minute Changes" method. 
• Teacher Assigned Lead Guitar Work.  "Where is my Mind is the focus here, obviously.  Metronome required.
• My Lick of the Week / Month / Whatever.  "Surfing U.S.A." for now.
• Aural Training / Transcription.  Five minute blocks initially, using justinguitar.com till I'm able to actually do this to real music.  
• Singing and playing.  Do this only with songs that I have down, like "Closing Time."  This is a good break exercise, and should only be five minutes for now.
• Song of my choosing.  Should only be done when I have longer blocks and have already accomplished at least five or six of the above.  This could involve learning the song or putting everything together.
• Theory Exercises.  The focus here is on figuring out theory things on my own.  This includes moving scales around, moving chord shapes around, and naming notes on the neck.

The key here is to use timed five minute blocks on each of these, with a max of two in a row.  Even if working on the same song, like "Where is my Mind," I can break it down into parts so everything is practiced with hyper focus.  This will allow me to put it all together far faster than my hodgepodge approach. 

I will make a note of which modules I've been working on, to ensure nothing is overly neglected.

Let's give this a shot!

Guitar Lesson Four

Guitar is getting rough.  We're moving at a break neck pace, now firmly in barre chord territory.  I am not a fan.  On the other hand, I think I've accomplished a lot in a month.  Certainly more than I did on my other guitar learning attempts.  Having a teacher is really forcing me to get things done, so that was a great investment.

So I went into this with the ability to play the F Maj shape clearly and to move it down the neck to a limited degree.  However, I do not have the finger strength to hold it, and it falls apart whenever I have to move up the neck.  This is going to take continued practice.  Lots of it.  And I kinda didn't do a great job of that this week.

My calluses are getting callused.  This is great news.

As I might have mentioned, I've started working on my first lead licks - namely the piano line from "Closing Time" and the intro lick to "Surfin' U.S.A."  I am astoundingly bad at lead playing.  I also don't feel very good about those finger exercises.  I need to keep practicing them, and with a metronome.

Anyways, on to the actual lesson:  We spent a few minutes on "Creep," and Tony was satisfied with my progress, even though I wasn't.  I guess it's hard to judge if I'm progressing at a reasonable speed or not, having never seen anyone else progress through this stage, but I feel like I could be progressing faster.  The issue lies in my inefficient practice.

The vast majority of the lesson was spent on learning a Pixies song with a title I can't remember.  The song is tough.  It has three barre chords and an open chord, which means I need to be able to move between the two efficiently.  To add to the difficulty, it has my first real lead line we've worked on in a lesson.  And it's kicking my ass.  This song is going to take A LOT of practice, but I need these skills, so I'm thinking it's going to be the vast majority of my practice time.

Finally, I've been assigned my first real scale.  We skipped that whole pentatonic shit - thankfully - and dove right into the G Major scale.  It's going to take some practice, but it's gratifying that I was able to use a combination of my ear and theory knowledge to work out the notes of the scale.

Things to practice for the week:

• Practicing.  I will post an entirely new blog post with my thoughts on making my practice sessions more efficient.
• That Pixies song.  This is going to be the majority of my practice.  I will work on it every day till I can play it all the way through to a metronome.  Without messing up.  Reliably.
• Creep.  I'm going to use this as a workout for my fingers so I can hold a barre chord.  I'm going to focus on just the C Maj to C min to G Maj sequence.
• Closing Time, Wild Thing, Louie Louie, Call Me Maybe: These songs are down and feel good.  They are to be used to practice singing and playing, clean strumming, and for fun.  They should be practiced only when frustrated or with extra time, as the other pieces are far more important right now.
• Practice Autumn Leaves changes.  This should be a warm up exercise, but serious practice should be put into changing between the last four chords of the song and then back to the beginning, because that needs work. 
• Continue ear training and singing practice.  I think this will merit a separate blog post, as it's something I'm doing independent of the lessons structure.
• Get that G Major scale DOWN.
• Keep working on Surfing U.S.A. lick.  Just keep doing it and doing it till it works.  A little bit at a time every day.  Do it slowly to the metronome whenever frustrated with other things.

Well, the more I learn, the more there is to learn.  Crap that's a lot.  Hence the forthcoming blog on managing my practice time.

Gypsy Jam Recap

Last weekend I jammed all the Gypsies.  Not really.  But I did dance with Alice Mei.  What what.

Thomas and Alice are pretty amazing teachers.  I really dug the first day of workshops, which worked on a lot of cool rotational leads.  I now see why their ILHC spotlights are always so ... round.

Day two was less natural to me.  The problem area - over-rotated swingouts.  Holy crap is this hard.  The main problem with it is the beginning of the move has to be led entirely from the core.  I thought I was getting pretty good about not arm leading, but apparently not so much.

Moral of the weekend: Lots to practice.  Time to go back to the drawing board on the body leading stuff.  Work on being more relaxed with footwork.

And yes, dancing with Alice was amazing.

Guitar Lesson 3

Motherfucking barre chords time.  Holy crap do these things hurt.

Autumn Leaves is 90% down.  Just need to work on that F#min7 b5 chord.  Everything else is there.  At consistent metronome speed.  This has led Tony to tell me I'm ready for barre chords.  So we've started on the FMaj chord shape.  Specifically using it to play Radiohead's Creep.  What a bitch.

However, I'm pumped to get it, as it will let me rock out the Clash's "Should I Stay or Should I Go," which is my current side project, now that Closing Time is mostly down.

Also working on my first ever lead guitar line, the intro lick from "Surfing U.S.A."  Man, I am not ready for this lead stuff.  Still, gotta get it down eventually, and it will sound so good on my Danelectro.  Which I still need to name.

I've also started working on ear training.  I suck unbelievably at interval identification, but I'm getting better at singing them to a keyboard.  This will probably be a long process, but I strongly believe that ear training is pretty much the most important thing to musical development.  What does it matter what your fingers can do if you can't hear what they're doing?

Guitar: Week 2/3

Week two was a bust, due to social and dance commitments.  Week three, however, has been progressing well.  I have been able to practice at least thirty minutes every day.

Most of my work has been centered around practicing chord changes.  I can now strum quarter notes for "Mr. Jones" and "Closing Time" chords at 96 bpm pretty consistently.  My new goal is to begin incorporating strumming patterns, so I can actually sound like the songs.  If I can just improve this slightly more, I'll be where I need to be to play a full song at speed.

The finger drills are more difficult than I would think, but they are progressing nicely.

I have yet to practice my reading or really dig into "Autumn Leaves," but I still have four days to do that, so we'll make it happen.

On a side note, I also want to start working on some surf guitar stuff.  This guitar would just sound so good playing it.

Greatest success - metronoming.  I now barely consider it practicing when I don't have one out.

I'll try and get another post up Sunday or Monday detailing where I am before the lesson.

Guitars, Canadians, and Spaniards, oh my!

So I picked up a shiny Fender amp for my shiny new guitar yesterday.  I am pleased to report that I think this thing sounds pretty freaking good.  Or at least it does in my entirely uneducated opinion.

Unfortunately, my playing still sounds like crap.  Despite knowing them pretty damn well - I no longer need to consult any chord charts for any of the open chords I've been working on - I still take way too long to switch between them to naturally play any kind of strumming pattern.  I can do quarter notes at 70 or 80 bpm alright, if I stick to the D, G, C, Am, A, E, Em type chords, but I realize that's not really the pace music is made at.  This will probably take some time.

But then, expecting instant results is a bit ridiculous.  If I keep practicing half an hour to an hour a day, I'm sure I'll get there.  Fortunately, I'm hyper motivated right now.  I want to be playing basic songs in time by mid September.

A pleasant diversion arrived last night in the form of a car full of Canadians and Spaniards.  We enjoyed some dorky dorky dorky lindy hop related conversations and a drink or three.  It was a pretty great night.  I'm taking them to Swing 46 tonight, which is pretty exciting.  Almost as exciting as figuring out how four more people and all their things would fit in my apartment.

The answer?  Surprisingly well.

Guitar Two: Electric Boogaloo!

Or, I Impulse Buy my First Electric Guitar!

Yeah.  Maybe not my best decision, but she was super pretty.  And RED.

Mine is red.  This one is blue.

And it was only $290, with tax.  It came into the office this morning, and I've been basically incapable of focusing since.

In fifteen minutes, I get out of work, and then it's straight to Guitar Center to get the best amp I possibly can for $200.

And then I'm going to play it till my fingers bleed.  Or till my four French Canadian couch surfers get in tonight and drag me out dancing.  Whichever comes first.

Home from Lindy 500

And, as expected, Baltimore delivered on the dance front.

Lots of new friends, lots of old friends, Gordon Webster, some brutal but useful classes, and some kickass waffles.  Overall a first class exchange.  Especially for the price range.

The highlights:

• Kevin and Jo's ILHC routine.  Yeah, we saw it a week early, and wow.  That's really all I have.  Wow.  I don't think I can begin to describe how much ass this routine kicked, but I will say that I will be very very shocked if they are not placed in the top three.  All you folks who are actually going to ILHC are in for a treat.
•  Gordon Webster delivers, as always.  I mean just writing this feels redundant.  It was an especially special treat to see him with this set of vocalists, who, besides being absolutely phenomenal, allowed him to revisit some old favorites, like "Bei Mi Mis Dur Shein," "Long John," and "Twenty-Four Robbers."  A good time was obviously had by all.
• Congrats to Dan Repsch for winning a crazy awesome jack and jill.  I mean, the results were kind of a forgone conclusion, because it was an audience judged competition in his hometown, and Baltimore is famously loud, but that doesn't take away from Dan, who pretty much out-danced everyone there anyway.
• Michael Seguin is the best MC, largely because of his tendency to MC whilst drunk.
• The Koreans were incredible dancers.  The whole lot of them.  I need to visit Korea.

And now onto the classes.

Kevin is really a great teacher.  I'd seen Jo present this same material on her own before, and it was practically indecipherable.  I was getting it right off the bat with Kevin's explanations.  The material was incredibly interesting: basically a mega in depth look at leading and following the very basics of lindy hop - triple steps, rock steps, single steps, etc.  I was able to manage it fairly well in class, but as soon as it came to the social floor, or putting it all together to music, it fell apart.  I will need to work on this.  A lot.

New goal: insert one very closed led chorus into every song I dance from here forward.  Keep it small and close to make it manageable.  Don't go too crazy till totally comfortable with it.  And insert that rise before the start of every single triple step.

When I get home, I will post pictures of epic waffles.

We are less than seven days from new ILHC videos hitting the net.  My interest in dance has been a bit stymied lately, but I imagine it won't be this time next week.  I'm such a dork, I'm actually counting the days till these competitions hit youtube.

Guitar Lesson 2

Guitar Quest 2012 continues with my first full length lesson.

Fortunately, I got a bit more practice time in the night before, including some metronome work, so I was feeling pretty good about where I was on last week's material.  This was validated when I went through the warm up exercises and chord work quite well with my teacher, henceforth to be known as Tony, even doing both at a much faster tempo then I'd been doing them in practice.

My teacher was pleased and possibly a little insane, because he started me right away on some jazz work.  Specifically, "Autumn Leaves."  This is wonderful, as it's easily one of my favorite standards, and a super pretty song.  This is insane because the chord voicings are significantly more challenging than the Counting Crows song he had me on last week.  Apparently he's pushing me in the deep end and hoping I can make myself swim.

I had no trouble physically voicing the chords, which impressed Tony but not me; just making shapes is easy enough, but the real meat of the challenge is moving between them at tempo.  And these chords are not going to be easy to change between at any level of constant speed.  So I've got my work cut out for me.

Also we're starting sight reading.  I'm less than enthused about this, but it will help me learn where the notes are on the guitar, which can't be a bad thing.  It's also a more manageable than I'd previously attempted, as we're focusing on just two strings a week - basically six notes.  While I'm not a fan of the reading aspect, learning where these notes are is going to be pretty key to figuring out chord voicings for myself - one of the skills I was most pumped to learn.

And we're continuing with the mindless finger exercises.  I'm kinda antsy to get to scales, but I think there's definitely a value in developing my technique more evenly across fingers and fret board initially.  If I'm still really bummed about it, I can work on it myself.

No lesson next week; the school is closed.  This is actually pretty fortunate, because I don't think I'll be able to practice again till Sunday or Monday due to dancing / work / social life.  This whole having a life thing might need to stop soon.

Since I will have some extra time, and I kind of want to be impressive, I might try and learn both the melody and chords to "Autumn Leaves," but we'll have to see how quickly the chords are going.  They're first priority.

To do for the week:

• Continue finger exercises.  Practice with proper finger technique or a pic, rather than just Wes Montgomery-ing everything with my thumb.
• Continue practicing already known chords:  G, C, D, F, A, E, Am, Em.
• Begin learning "Autumn Leaves" chords:  Am7, D7, GM7, CM7, F#m7 b5, B7
• Begin reading training.
• Increase metronome usage to all the time.
• Stop being a bum and actually tune my guitar.
• If time permits, begin working on basic strumming patterns.
• If time permits, learn the melody to "Autumn Leaves."

Of note: I finally played till my fingers bled.  Well a finger bled.  Regardless, awesome.

Hey, I just heard this, and this is crazy...

... But here's a song, so like it maybe?

"Call Me Maybe."  Though my love of all things Muppets had already let the Cookie Monster parody worm its way into my ear, I'd been doing my best to avoid this song.  After all, it was everything I hated about music - a shallow exercise in top 40 commercialism created for easy mass consumption by a third place Canadian Idol finisher.

And now that I've actually heard it, I have confirmed my suspicions that I'm a pretentious ass.  This is the best pop song since Bruno Mars' "Marry You" of last August, and the best chart topper since Cee Lo's "Fuck You" two years ago.  Yes, I'm on the record with that.

"Call Me Maybe" has that kind of pop magic where the only natural response is to smile.  I often get caught up in the intellectualism of analyzing and critiquing art - what does it say about the world, what does it say about me, etc.  So it's wonderful when a piece of art comes along that bypasses all those analytical centers of my brain and just hits my emotions.  And really, isn't connecting with your audience on an emotional level one of the most important tasks of successful art?

So why do I, general hater of cynical, slick Top 40 cash grabs, completely love this song?  Well, because it is impossible for me to think of this song as cynical.  It crosses the line of bubblegum pop cliche so thoroughly and completely that it bypasses the territory all together, landing in that rare zone of pop music that feels plain honest.  Like Meat Loaf's absurd teenage rock and roll angst of Bat Out of Hell, it's delivered with such unabashed conviction that the cliche becomes charm.

This is a time honored tradition of pop.  Think Paul McCartney.  Or the Beach Boys.  Or the Four Seasons.  None of them were afraid to sound cheesy, silly, or uncomplicated.  It's part of their charm.  It used to be part of pop music's charm.  In this age of Patron posturing and Gagaesque over-dramatics, the simplicity and honesty is the breath of fresh air that I hadn't realized I needed. 

And it's catchy and dancey as all fuck.

Before you came into my life I missed you so bad.  I missed you so bad, and you should know that, I missed you so so bad.

Guitar Journal: Week 1

Week one is almost done.  Lesson number two is tomorrow.  And I'm basically Jimi Hendrix now.  Now that I'm done with the wishful thinking, I am both pleased and disappointed with my progress.  

I am, of course, nowhere near Jimi Hendrix.  This is not disappointing.  It wasn't expected.  I've done this whole music thing before, and I know that achieving rock godhood is more than a week or two of work.  Hell I've been at the drums in some capacity, granted, mostly a fairly limited one, for the past sixteen years.  I consider myself passable.  My ambitions are to be a better than passable guitarist, but, then again, I always wanted to be a better than passable drummer as well, so we'll see what happens when I get to that stage.

The main thing I'm pleased with: I actually played every day.  Even if I didn't sit down for real diligent practice, I did pick the thing up every day.  That on it's own is a big success for me.  I was also shocked at how much I remembered - off the top of my head, I could still make G, D, C, Em, A, and F chords.  I have since added Dm, Am, and E to my vocabulary.  Nine chords in a week is pretty decent.

Less pleasing?  I'm still nowhere near speedy at moving between these chords.  I've gotten okay at moving around the chord progression of the Counting Crows song my teacher  assigned me, but I still struggle with adding a metronome and keeping the changes even.  I expect this to be an ongoing struggle for quite a while, especially with my high rhythm standards from my drumming background.  I'm also not pleased that I didn't spend much time with my metronome.  Or the general chromatic finger exercise assigned by my teacher.

Fortunately, I have some time today after work to revisit these areas.  I intend to spend at least an hour to an hour and a half working on them tonight.

My goal for next week, even before I hear from my teacher?  Metronome metronome metronome metronome.

The Guitar: Third Time's the Charm

Ah, the guitar.  My old nemesis.  We meet again.

I remember the first time we met.  You were so alluring, so promising.  You seduced me away from my beloved drum set with your promises of fancy solos and recognizable tunes.  Together, we played "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star," the intro of "Stairway to Heaven," and "Take it Easy."  You were polite; you didn't even comment on how cliche and boring my tastes were.  But you sensed I lacked commitment, always gravitating back to the old steady, Drum Set.  It was only a matter of time before I pushed you away for some cheap John Bonham fills.

You of course remember the last time I dusted you off.  It was two years ago.  We had some good times learning some open chords, half a Tom Waits song, and "Goodnight Irene."  But you defeated me with an F chord and delayed gratification. You're a cruel and demanding mistress. 

Well I'm back.  And I will master you for real this time.  Maybe.  I hope.

On 8/6/12 I dusted my old Epiphone - a gift from my sister, likewise defeated by the guitar - off and dragged you to a real guitar lesson with a real teacher.  At the Queens guitar school, just down the block.  I asked them for the biggest theory dork they had and bought a pack of five lessons.

This was a while coming:  The Queen's Guitar School?  I'd walked past it every day for almost a year, and I'd spent months entertaining lessons.  My inability to get a drum set into Queens meant I'd not played music seriously in a year.  I had always identified myself as a musician, but I recently had the startling epiphany that I was now at best a dancer first and a musician second.  At worst?  A former musician.  I had gone to college for music, but I sensed that all the amazing theory I'd learned was slowly draining from my head.  Use it or lose it.  I needed a melodic instrument to play, stat.  And Phyllis - that's the Epiphone's name, as of four seconds ago - was right there in my living room.

This blog was started in part to motivate me to really give this a solid go this time.  I'm going to track my progress here and, hopefully, use this place to keep me honest.

My short term goals:

• Basic instrument proficiency.  Duh.  I want to be a solid rhythm guitarist, able to jam with friends asap.
• Ear training.  I want to be able to hear all the things I learned in Jazz Theory class, not just conceptualize them.
• Expansion and recovery of my theory knowledge.  I have too much knowledge to lose, and not enough to use.  It's an awkward position.

My long term goals:

• Expert proficiency in rhythm guitar.  I want to be able to play with anyone, and I want them to want to play with me.
• Extensive harmonic theory knowledge. We're talking Paul McCartney / Bernie Worrell level here.
• Freddie Green, Slim Gaillard, David Gregory, Nick Drake, Marc Ribot, Eddie Hazel, Django, George Harrison, Prince, etc.  Well at least I don't have a problem aiming high.

I will log my general progress at least once between each lesson and once after each lesson.  I also think it will be interesting to record some of my musical opinions now, at the beginning of my journey, and track how they change after a year or two of guitaring.

Stay tuned for my first lesson and practice report.

So what's this blog thing all about?

So I'm getting on this blog bandwagon thing quite late in the game, I'm aware.  I'm not sure anyone will ever read this thing, but I need some place to organize my thoughts, and a journal doesn't fill my need for external attention and discussion.  I'll try and be entertaining and interesting, but I imagine my interests are a little specific, so I imagine this will be populated mostly by friends and blood relatives, but regardless, comments are welcome.  If you have a topic you want me to discuss, tell me.

So here we go.

Topics I'll probably feature here:

•  Music.  Specifically my own personal progress as a guitarist, drummer, and musician; commentary and analysis on musicians and their works; and sharing things I think are neat.  Expect geekery.
• Dancing.  I'll focus on my own development as a dancer, as well as the lindy hop and blues dance communities on both a national and local level.  Hopefully this will expand into hip hop as I do.
• Sex and relationships.  And the politics and ethics of both, in the modern dating world.  Think Dan Savage but less articulate and flamboyant.  You might as well just go listen to Dan Savage.  Not really.  There will be an ongoing series about how to not suck at online dating.
• Art criticism.  Other than music, I'll probably write my thoughts of other notable works, including films, television, and literature.  Possibly even the occasional video game.
• Political Punditry.  With an emphasis on the puns.  
• Miscellaneous thought experiments.  These will range from attempts at humor writing to philosophical arguments on the nature of art.  I'm sure they'll be my most popular posts.

The goal?  Update this bad boy at least three times a week.  Maybe I'll get more ambitious later, but that seems reasonable for now.

Good luck, me.