WEEK 14 - Week Ending Friday 30 August 2024
Target: 7 hours of practice per week (average 1 hour/day). Actual: 9 hours 0 minutes
Practised every day except Sunday, Daily Min: 90 mins. Daily max: 90 minutes.
SUMMARY PROGRESS AND OBSERVATIONS
Started to just record formal practice time rather than itrying to capture ‘extra’ time spent outside of the plan on practice items e.g. additional song work, scales, chord changes etc. to how much time is actually spent. Once the practice time is achieved, anything else is a bonus/fun.
Completed Module 14 this week and will now move into Grade 2 consolidation until at least the end of the year before moving to Grade 3 for 2025. Total of about 9 months will have been spent in Grade 2 at the end of consolidation. I’ve worked out a 90-minute routine, based on Justin’s suggested structure, for consolidation that covers the subjects in Grade 2 as well as plenty of song work. Need to record some reference point video of the various practice items so I have a reference for the starting point of consolidation.
Playing without looking hasn’t been as hard as I thought it might be and I can play through several songs and strumming patterns now. Beneficial to try and not to look when it goes wrong and let the fingers figure out where to go as you continue with the song. Percussive hits with strumming needs more work to get the hits consistent without having too much tension in the hand/arm.
Continued working with the note trainer app and speed of recognition appears to be plateauing out a little now – not much improvement this week anyhow. Lost the daily stats in the dashboard so had to estimate scores based on the graph, will make a table in this log to record them in future.
Continued working on Crossroads, Norwegian Wood, Chocolate Jesus, and You Never Can Tell. All songs continue to improve and Crossroads, whilst still slow, is at least at a reasonable tempo and recognisable now. Started trying to introduce singing by playing 1 strum per bar to see how the lyrics fit with the changes and just singing off the song sheets. Picking accuracy/speed needs work for Crossroads and Norwegian Wood.
Completed at least a ‘first pass’ through all 10 Campfire songs and have the progressions and basic strumming in place for all 10. Work in consolidation period will be refinement and perhaps including some of the embellishments and dynamics to make the songs more interesting. Need to work on getting lyrics included in the songs too. Need to do much more listening to the tracks to get a better ‘feel’ of each song and how the words fit the progression.
Will also move forward to the next lesson in the Beginning Blues Guitar course. The 12-Bar in G patterns aren’t fully solid yet but are mostly there and I need a new challenge after 6-7 weeks of this.
The sections below are for my own future reference rather than public consumption, but you might get something out of it. There’s a lot though, so be warned!
THIS WEEKS PRACTICE ROUTINE (SCHEDULED 90 MINUTES/DAY)
Technique (20 minutes)
05 mins – Repertoire Revision (Warmup)
05 mins – (Mod 14) Slash Chords
07 mins – (Mod 14) Playing Without Looking Ex. 2
03 mins – (Mod 14) Percussion Hits on 2 & 4
Theory (20 minutes)
02 mins – (PMT-3) Major Scale Pattern 1 (Alternate Picking – target 200 bpm)
02 mins – (PMT-3) Minor Pentatonic Pattern 1 (Alternate Picking – target 200 bpm)
06 mins – (PMT-3) JG Note Trainer - Name the Note (2x cycles of 3 min each)
06 mins – (PMT-3) JG Note Trainer - Find the Note (2x cycles of 3 min each)
04 mins – (PMT-3) JG Note Trainer – Memory Quiz 1 (4x cycles of 1 min each)
Repertoire Songs (40 minutes)
10 mins – (Mod 13) Crossroads
10 mins – (Mod 14) Norwegian Wood (Slash Chords)
10 mins – (Campfire) Chocolate Jesus
10 mins – (Campfire) Never Can Tell
Griff Hamlin’s Beginning Blues Guitar (10 minutes)
05 mins - Strumming, Straight feel 12-Bar Blues in G using G7, D7 and C7
05 mins - Strumming, Shuffle feel 12-Bar Blues in G using G7, D7 and C7
PASSING GRADE AND CURRENT STATUS
There is no passing grade for this module as it runs into the Grade 2 consolidation period.
DETAILED PROGRESS AND PRACTICE NOTES
Module 14 Technique – Week 2 of Module 14.
- Slash Chords: worked through the various chord grips in each practice session.
- Play w/o Looking: can play through several simple songs without looking and have continued with the BBG 12-bar progressions in G. Feels comfortable now and am also trying to move fingers into place without looking when I get a bum note.
- Percussive Hits: just spending time trying to get the hits consistent with simple strumming, including the up-strum, with the metronome.
Practical Music Theory (PMT) – Grade 3
- Name the Note: peaked at 94 notes named in 3 minutes (one every 1.9 seconds. Last week: 95 notes). Target: average above 90 notes. Average this week: 89 notes.
- Find the Note: peaked at 41 sequences correct in 3 minutes (one note every 0.7 seconds. Last week: 40 sequences). Target: average above 40 sequences. Average this week: 39 sequences.
- Memory Quiz 1: reached 16 notes named from memory (Last Week: 16 notes)
- C major scale: played Pattern 1 at 160 bpm with alternate picking playing 2 picks per click at 80 bpm on the metronome. Now getting to 2 minutes with only a couple of errors at 160 bpm.
- A minor Pentatonic scale: played Pattern 1 at 160 bpm with alternate picking, 2 picks per click at 80 bpm on the metronome. Managed a couple of 2-minute sessions with no errors at 160 bpm.
Mod 14 Song Practice: Norwegian Wood – The Beatles
- Chords: melody parts are much smoother this week and I can play through the song at tempo (with a few duff notes).
- Strumming: getting the strumming and the accurate picked notes is the problematic part but it’s much improved from where it was last week.
- Lyrics: not working on lyrics until strumming pattern is more sorted.
- Enhancements: melody lines and accurate picked notes still need work.
- Overall: Once I stopped trying to hold down the pinky I was able to play the song well enough for it to at least be recognisable. Worked on speeding up the tempo this week and can play at approximately the full speed but quality and dynamics needs to be worked on. Need to make a chord/lyric sheet for this to flesh out to the full song structure. Put on the Developer list.
Mod 13 Song Practice: Crossroads – Cream
- Chords: shuffle pattern blues with melody lines. The shuffle pattern is OK but the transitions in/out of the melody lines still not up to full speed but continues to improve.
- Strumming: quite a fast tempo, at least for me for now. The shuffle is OK at full speed.
- Lyrics: not worked on lyrics.
- Enhancements: Intro and melody lines still require work. I can play the intro through at about 75-80% speed as actual tempo is still way too fast for me when I get to the 16th notes in the turnaround. Getting to the B7 arpeggio from the riff continues to be a tricky part and needs work.
- Overall: not up to speed yet and playing at 75% speed to build timing and consistency). Now able to combine the shuffle pattern and the intro riff relatively easily now. Need to have a close listen to the recording to work out the structure and lyrics before I can attempt a full play through.
Campfire Song Practice: Chocolate Jesus – Tom Waits
- Chords: simple chord progression with chords I already know.
- Strumming: simple strumming pattern, down-down-down/up-down, works.
- Lyrics: not worked on lyrics.
- Enhancements: need to find a key that I can sing – use capo for now.
- Overall: simple enough in theory but much work still to do in memorising the song and dynamics. Can play along with recording but not solo from memory yet.
Campfire Song Practice: You Never Can Tell – Chuck Berry
- Chords: simple, only 2 chords
- Strumming: trying to use accented strums. Needs more work to get it automated.
- Lyrics: started working on lyrics by talk-singing and just strumming 4 beats to understand where the words fall in relation to the chord progression.
- Enhancements: no real enhancement. Same pattern throughout
- Overall: this should be a nice, easy, song except strumming goes awry when trying to sing. Maybe try singing with the recording?
Beginning Blues Guitar – continued playing along with the full speed examples in both straight and shuffle feel. Changes are mostly OK at full speed, but more practice is needed to really lock them in. Changes to/from C7 remains a little problematic but is improving. Will move forward to the next lesson and return to this periodically.
Garageband – Paused for now. Look at again in Grade 2 consolidation.
Songwriting – Paused for now. Look at again in Grade 2 consolidation.