Triple L - third entry
Another week passed by with a lot of things going on - and one big milestone being met!
The past days, I did the self assessment topic wise and that’s what I came up with:
Chords & Scales
Chords going quite well, but identified that I could do a few Power Chord Songs to make actually use of them. Also, B7 is still a little less smooth as is mini-F. So I will dedicate them some special practice time and try to find songs that use these a lot. Barre Chords are sounding ok, only chord changing speed could be increased, especially for A-Major-shapes.
One area to revisit a lot is linking chords with scale notes. Except Am ↔ C and C ↔ G they are not yet under my fingers.
Scales are going good, all 4 being touched so far I know by heart and can play them between 105 - 120 bpm with 2 notes per click. Aim for end of consolidation is all being up at 160 bpm with 2 notes per click.
Accompaniment
Basic 8th notes strumming patterns are good and regularly used. Switching them within one song for dynamic reasons could be an area of improvement. 16th note patterns still could use a little more routine, especially the accenting on backbeat.
Picking individual strings while struming is an ongoing task. But the most painful area is definitely strumming with thumb and finger along with the back beat hit. This needs practice, practice and even more practice. Basic fingerstyle patterns are fluent for those 5 or 6 suggested during Justin’s course.
Other techniques
For remaining skills I see Triads, Palm Muting on the electric and Vibrato techniques that need to be ingrained a little more.
Knowledge
This area is an ongoing task with regards to music theory, chord progression etc. I revisit these things outside of practice routines regularly and will keep doing so.
Transcribing
Also an ongoing To-Do. I plan on at least one sitting per month to get these things done.
Riffs and Pieces
A few of the Riffs and Pieces suggested during Grade 1, 2 and 3 will be revisited from time to time: Happy Birthday, Green Sleeves and the Blues-related pieces. Else was either fine already or nothing I feel the urge to have in my repertoire now.
Aaaaaaaaand, I finally did it:
Still feeling so overwhelmed and grateful for the kind and supportive feedback being given.
For futurue updates I plan to include maybe small recordings of my country style pieces as progress tracker for me and post the songs I transcribed to increase the pressure for me a little more to finally do it.
Cheers - Lisa