This is the to and tail at the end of today’s practice where nothing was coming out right. Then I stumbled upon a nice set of chords and could vent my frustration over it for five minutes :) Not every day will practice feel like progress, but this saved today’s session from feeling like a total waste of time :)
Going down I see my alternate picking is fine but on the way back up I seem to do down-down-down-up without realising it. Dammit subconscious motor skills!
I had a nice catch up with my brother and he taught me this riff he wrote for Ikari. It’s all in the A major scale, but having spent all my time playing minor pentatonics and simple arpeggios it feels very unnatural to me (which makes it a good thing to practice).
I can easily lose myself doing improv over a looper like this - this clip was ten minutes long :) I’m still too linear in my scale movement, which is more obvious now I watch this back.
Mostly for my sister as she has memories of me being able to play this when I was at uni and I’d totally forgotten it :) This is practice, so I left examples of failing in. Spare a thought for Laura who had to listen to me fail a hundred times over, every day :) I’m very grateful that she can tolerate it! Thanks sweetie!
I tried to do something more tuneful, but nothing sounded that good :) This is a more complicated alternate picking exercise I do to try build up my timing.
Not all practice is fun tunes. As mentioned I struggle with rhythm and coordination, so after a hiatus I’m back on the metronome
I really struggle with timing and coordinating my left and right hands, so getting this to a point where I don’t stumble plucking as I change chord has been a lot of work :)
Another example of trying to use the pick less. This is the kind of thing I put into my looper and then will jam over.
Today I Practiced the John Mayer version of I Don’t Need No Doctor (originally by Ray Charles).
Very much struggling to throw those jazz chord shapes, but an example of my trying to learn finger picking of late.
An older tune I learned in my uni days, but it’s hard to resist playing it when I pick up my Eb tuned tele as it’s fun to play.
Very distinctive, but quite easy to learn.