2022-09-13
Last weekend I was able to do some Level 9 practice after several weekends of not doing it. Last practice was August 6. Our daughter moving to Canada’s Atlantic Coast for a master degree and my brother coming to visit from Finland left no space for my regular weekend practice, but first things are first.
Still, after reading again my previous post, I can see that I managed to make some progress, specially with the songs. With Yellow Submarine I was able to do the chord progression along with the backing track with quarter strumming on beats 1and 4 for Verse 1 and four eights and two quarters strumming for Verse 2, at 84 b.p.m., practicing each verse separately four times in a row. At the suggestion of my brother I split my GarageBand backing track of drums in two tracks so I could control the volume of the open hi-hat separated from the kick drum and later I decided to do the same with the snare drum and put it in a separate track. Last Saturday I started practicing Verse 1, Verse 2 and Chorus in sequence to have the strumming pattern changes incorporated in the equation.
Asturias is going well. First 7 bars of 70 (simplified short version) are memorized. I am learning the next two bars. I am playing it very slowly, playing the sixteenth notes as eight notes. It is a long term goal, but I may post something when I can play at least twelve bars.
Habanera has been harder for me than Asturias when is marked the opposite in the YT channel I am following for classical pieces. It has triplets and hamner-ons. At the suggestion of my brother, I started to practice it without the bass notes. So far I think it was a good advice as it is something less to get tangled with. Once I am more fluid with what’s happening with strings 1, 2 and 3, I can add the bass notes.
I finished quick reviewing the Beginner Grades 1 and 2 lessons. Not room yet to incorporate selected content in my current practice other than the chord progressions mentioned in my previous post. I gave a try to the beginner hamner-ons exercise and my hamner-ons are in better shape than I expected.
Now to get the most of my practice time till the next pause in October for holidays in Colombia.