After the usual new year mayhem at work and a bit of a rocky start to my relationship with my new Strat, things seem to be looking up again, at last.
2 weeks ago I took the Strat back to the shop for a little adjustment, and now the tuning stability is indeed better. One less thing to worry about. 
So where to begin?
Since the end of 2022 I haven’t had much free time until this week, so when I had the opportunity to play, I stuck to my usual practice routines, see above. However, some ideas have been slowly taking shape.
I registered for a Home Studio course at a local university. It’s not a university course as such as it can be taken by anyone interested, but I figured it could serve as a starting point for my adventures in studioland. The course will be 50 x 45 minutes spread over 5 Saturdays in April and May so it won’t interfere with my work (or vice versa). A funny thing: I’m a regular at a biweekly film club and an elderly couple is among the usual guests. The husband has been an audio engineer at the Hungarian radio and works with electroacoustic composers, and he knows the engineer who will host the course. It’s a small world. I hope it will be interesting and that I’ll be able to make some connections for the future…
As a sort of preparation, I watched the videos in this course, although I’m not sure what DAW I’ll use eventually: Production Basics With Adam G
I started to read The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions by Mark Lewisohn. When I was 11 or 12 I bought the Hungarian translation of Revolution in the Head by Ian MacDonald from a used book store with my mum, and that’s pretty much when my interest in sound recordings started, so I have kind of come full circle this time.
I want to continue with music theory as well, so while doing Justin’s PMT, I ordered two books as well (they are still on their way):
Berklee Music Theory Book 1 – Basic Principles of Rhythm, Scales, and Intervals
Berklee Music Theory Book 2 – Fundamentals of Harmony
Although not guitar-centric, they seem to be valuable sources of information. Now I’ll just need some more time as well to use them along with the Leavitt book.
As for actual playing, I added Astronomy Domine 
to my playalong-list, although there are some weird (in a good way) guitar overdubs in that song that I still haven’t figured out. But I was very pleased with myself when I managed to figure out exactly how to mute the low E string to get the same sort of chug as in the intro.
Yesterday I started to “transcribe” the string parts in Walk On By by Isaac Hayes. I think the lead guitar part here will take more time than in his other songs I tackled, but I’m not in a hurry.
I’ve also been thinking about trying to play some Fela Kuti, so I added 3 songs to my worklist:
Je’nwi Temi (Don’t Gag Me) - it has a pretty cool guitar riff and a nice horn lick as well
Sorrow Tears & Blood - here I found the horn lines a bit easier, probably because the guitar is not that prominent in the mix
Colonial Mentality - this has a funky bassline and more horns
Interestingly enough, I managed to play along to these 3 songs around frets 7-10 on strings 3-5. I haven’t written the riffs down yet, but there must be something Fela liked about those notes…