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.