Thursday, 23 January 2020
Thursday, 2 January 2020
New Years Resolutions! Why I Suck – And What I Intend To Do About It..
….and here we are in the future.
2020. A a new year, whole new decade, and disconcertingly, my fourth
wielding a guitar!
Now, over the last couple of years I've
set out my practice plan for the year and shared it on this blog to
ensure that I don't get stale, that I don't forget what it's like to
learn new things, that I keep on improving and pushing – partly for
myself, but of course what use is a teacher who can't learn anything
new himself?
Seeing as I've been playing since the
winter of '94, I'd pretty much got all the useful stuff covered –
pentatonics, modes, triads and inversions... so I started off with
good intentions to master the harmonic and melodic minor scales
(detailed here and here), some more exotic pentatonics and
arpeggios... but by the end of last year I found myself practicing
scales that really I didn't even like the sound of, let alone was
likely to use at a gig. This coincided with a student very kindly
giving me a copy of Joe Bonamassa's Live At The Greek Theatre album,
and listening to it I was struck by how powerful and authentic his
phrasing was. Jamming along with it, I just found myself sounding...
amateurish. Cluttered. There's still a little too much of the
17,18,19, 20 year old me in there, wiggling his fingers to impress
the audience rather than having the courage and conviction to milk
that one note just right.
So – this year, that ends. Back to
school. I'm going back to the roots of it all, old school blues, and
I'm transcribing as much as I can by ear. Those of you on Instagram
can find me at @jmguitartuition where I'll be sharing my notes and
can all let me know how badly mistaken I am.. ;-)
January – Albert King
February – Freddie King
March – B. B. King
April – T-Bone Walker
May – Albert Collins
June – Buddy Guy
July – Jimmie Vaughan
August – Mike Bloomfield
September – Eric Clapton (John Mayall
era)
October – Peter Green (John Mayall
era)
November – Jimi Hendrix
December – SRV
I'm going to be posting a vlog on my
YouTube channel (JM Guitar Tuition), so invite any and all interested
parties to join me on my journey! I may lose a little speed and
technique but I think that will be more than outweighed by the
benefits to my phrasing.. this is going to be an interesting ride!
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