Vacation, Day 3

Peace & Love:

Fedora Man:

Son and his mom (my wife):

Vacation, Day 3

Started with a long morning walk, then the beach, some reading of the Salinger book, nap time, dinner, and getting ready for bed soon.

The surprise hit of the summer is that I'm enjoying listening to "The Doors" debut album. I did not like Jim Morrison's drift to self-destruction, but I respect and admire him for living as an artist in his songwriting, poetry, as well as his ability to live life on his own terms and rules.

I've lived a lot of my early life according to the terms and rules of significant others, including not having them angry or disappointed in me, so it's natural for me to admire the man. It still is difficult for me to be myself because I'm not sure who "myself" is after a lot of playing the role of peace maker and an affirmation seeker.

Vacation, Day 3

Vacation, Day 3

Morning walk:

Vacation, Day 2

A good guitar practice day, and a good vacation day.  Napped, had some beach time, napped, read, ate ok, exercised.

Practiced material to get ready for my last assignment of the guitar improvisation course. Enjoyed playing my inexpensive Fender acoustic. 

Reading and enjoying J.D. Salinger's "Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters." He is definitely my favorite writer, and "The Catcher in the Rye" is definitely my favorite book. I relate to his characters.

My oldest and my youngest:

Vacation, Day 2

My wife and I went for a walk on the beach; I kept walking after she went back to our place.. Beautiful morning.

Vacation, Day 1

Brought my guitar on vacation to practice the jazz improvisation material. A friend asked me to record "Blackbird," and my son recorded this quick video for me. You can hear him in the background after I end the song:

https://youtu.be/6XW0zfwu250

Vacation, Day 1

The Blues

Practiced my guitar improvisation course materials over "Autumn Leaves," and it didn't sound that great. Sounded weird. Not flowing. I'd probably have to learn present lines in different positions as well as new lines  to sound better and less choppy. 

Thinking of getting into blues guitar again. Not a great jazz guitar day. 

Zoey

Our dog Zoey may not have long to live. She has cancer in her right paw. If you look at the right side of this blog, you'll see a picture of her as a puppy. She was born in 2009. Here are some recent pictures of her and me and a picture of her alone:

Music. Dylan

Still trying to figure out where I am in the world of music....jazz guitar?....piano?.......songwriting?......electric guitar my way?.....acoustic blues guitar? 

I have been listening to some later Bob Dylan and the man is just amazing to me. His attitude in his songs, and those LYRICS! "Thunder on the Mountain" and "Levee's Gonna Break"have such a cool feel! His phrasing of words is also great. Excluding the Sinatra material that I haven't really gotten into, and excluding the "Under the Red Sky" album, I really like his style since the "Oh Mercy" album. His style has evolved into something of a wise old bluesman playing roots rock & roll, ballads, and blues. I remember ice reading somewhere that in "Exile on Main Street" the Rling Stones used all of their influences and made something original. Well that's what I think Dylan has been doing. Just listen to "Time Out of Mind." Great stuff.

And I haven't even mentioned his stuff from the 1960's! I really like his bootleg series package that deals with his "Self-Portrait" phase. The songs this man knows!!! 

I saw him live a couple of times and I remember not being very impressed. Specifically, I saw him while "Oh Mercy" was released. I remember over hearing a member of the audience saying something about well, I guess the producer had a lot to say about the songs sounding so good on the album (because they didn't sound good live). 

But he is living his life as an artist. 

A true poet that hasn't blown it.

Dunkirk

Well I made a mistake in the "Blue Bossa" video I posted yesterday. Specifically, I did not utilize the correct method of substituting a major 2-5-1 jazz lick into a minor 2-5-1 progression. 

Saw the movie "Dunkirk" tonight with my son, and we both were really impacted by it. Just taking it all in: the humanity, people fighting and killing other people and it being acceptable in times of war, the heroes, the pain, the disposability of humans, the story of a victory while being defeated. Powerful. 

Blue Bossa

Practiced and recorded "Blue Bossa" today, and here is the result:

https://youtu.be/RayosgtwBbw

Not really 100% happy with it all, but it's ok. This often happens with piano or guitar: there's kind of a let down when I finish and record a song. My solo here doesn't sound like a lot, but I was trying to do a bunch of things: using the harmonic minor scale, using the major scale, switching a riff from a major to a minor key, using a dominant lick, and using a minor 2-5-1 lick.

There's a lot more licks and scale positions for me to learn in this course after it is officially over.

Christmas in July

Had a good "Christmas in July" gig with the band tonight. I have to get back to practicing the guitar! Procrastinating.

Daughters!

Wife

My wife as a kid: 

Little

My youngest when she was little!

Ghost Tour

Me & Son

Dominant

Up to Lesson 41 of 44 in my Jazz Guitar Improvisation course. This is really great stuff, but there's so much to learn and not get mixed up! Learned about the dominant chord and how to use a color tones during this chord in a major or minor 2-5-1 progression.

Interesting how things get integrated in my music learning. The dominant colors were involved in the Sudnow Method for piano. I'm not sure that this lesson for guitar would have been so clear if I hadn't first learned this stuff in the Sudnow Method.

Interesting relating these dominant colors to a guitar chord shape, also.

Guitar!

A really good practice today. Learning good stuff in my course; glad I'm still doing if. Lots of material there! I've been listening a lot to Charlie Christian, also.

What's interesting is that I'm finding that fun actually occurs when I just get into the groove of learning things at my own pace and for no particular reason except that I enjoy it! Like if I don't see it as a chore, work, a competition, or with any end goal in sight- just getting interested in it was really interesting tonight. Things seemed to click from an organizational level: figuring out what I need to prioritize, and putting that material in order in its binder. And of course, working on it. It just seemed to click in a good was tonight.

When this course is "officially" over, there will still be material in the course to work on. Just thinking that it after it's over, it might be cool to somehow work on: 

1) Continuing to review the material learned 

2) Continue to learn new material from it that I didn't get to

3) Work on chord melody

4) Work on Charlie Christian material that I have

5) Learn to read music in positions other than the first position.

I know that's a lot above, and I'm just kind of brainstorming what would be fun to learn as well as what would be possibly less fun but beneficial (reading music).

I'll miss the current course when it's over. It somehow doesn't feek like I'm a lone soldier out there when there is a teacher on line (even if I'm not receiving private lessons from him).

Forward! 

Practice Practice Practice Practice 

Apply what is practiced Apply what is practiced

Sunday

Me, dad, and my brother today:

1989

Me (with beard) and my brother at my first wedding in 1989:

Jazz Guitar

Considering my recent temptations to quit the guitar course, I had an interesting practice day on the guitar. Learning stuff in the course that has to do with minor sounds. It seemed to work today. The prospect of getting into jazz guitar stuff was rekindled today. 

I really want to finish the course. It's almost done, and I think I just might finish it. I sure will not have internalized or even tried to learn everything the course offers by the time it concludes, but the material in there can still be learned later on after its conclusion. There's a lot there!

My goal is to just finish the course and do what I can to get through it. 

Found an old book about how to play piano using a fakebook and it does not seem very intimidating so I might get into it a bit.

Mele Kalikimaka

Playing "Christmas in July" at a community for older folks next week, and I had a good time practicing the song "Mele Kalikimaka" tonight.

Musically, I am all over the place again. Feeling like quitting the jazz improvisation course. Feeling like just doing what I do on guitar and teaching myself pop piano. Frustrating to not have a focus.

Too concerned about what others think of the quality of my playing. 

Rant

Don't feel like practicing. I'm never going to be s great guitar player or piano player. It's not fun, at least not today. It's upsetting when I think that my playing isn't being liked. But that shouldn't matter so much, I know. 

Listening to The Who's "Quadrophenia." Now that is really some cool art. And what am I doing at age 55? Can't even remember a couple of scales.

Well that's not fair. My professional life has mostly been devoted to my career and not to music, so to say I'm never going to be musically great isn't really painting a complete picture of my professional life. 

It has to be fun, and it doesn't quite feel like fun today.

Wednesday Guitar

                       Big Guitar Practice Day

Trying to consolidate some material from the improvisation course. Tried:

• Two 2-5-1 Major Licks

• Two Static Major Licks

• The Blues Scale in one position

• (New) A Static Minor Lick

• Some Blues Licks 

I am behind! There's more to memorize!

Starting to think differently about soloing. Learning that perhaps if I learn some of Charlie Christian's  licks (since I like his swing style so much) I can incorporate them in my playing by not being so rigid about when they need to be played. 

"Progress, NOT perfection."

"Progress, NOT perfection."

Minor

Up to Level 5 in the 6 level guitar Improvisation course. This course is just so full of good material that I can use it to learn even after it is over. For sure, I haven't come close to mastering all the material that has been presented thus far. I should have practiced more, but I lost interest for a bit. I'm now back at it.

Learning about the minor 2-5-1 progression now. Learning new scales! 

Listening to some other students play is cool. Getting ideas from their play, and being inspired by them can he helpful. 

Impressions

Well here is my latest submission for my Improvising Jazz Guitar course. It's called "Impressions" and it's by John Coltrane:

https://youtu.be/brEE6bBK9JA

Came to a really good insight today regarding my ongoing internal battle of if I should focus on guitar or piano. It's all about human limitations. Maybe I got this from the Ted Greene book I'm reading and I applied it somehow to me. I'm not sure. 

Anyway, we all have limitations. And I can accept that one of my limitations is that piano is just not for me. Again, guitar is more natural to me. Although I like the sound of the piano better than the sound of the guitar, I can still work on the guitar and accept that I am not a piano player. And my guitar playing ain't that bad!

Sunday

• Practiced from the material in my guitar improvisation course.

• Struggling with Christianity/Catholicism

• Enjoying reading about Ted Greene's life and his desire to use music in a positive way.

• I agree....I would love to use music to enrich people's lives and help them to be more caring and compassionate. I love how Ted said something about him using reverb to use music that way. I love reverb. I love that sound! Part of me again says I should go back to piano and just play the music that touches my heart: ballads. But I'm in the middle of this guitar stuff. And much more importantly, piano is sadly not that easily learned by me. And possibly even more importantly, I'm not convinced that I want to devote myself to something like the piano that will demand much much more of my patience than the guitar. Even possibly more importantly (!), I went back to the piano some days ago, and I wasn't hooked. We'll see. But for now I'm sticking with doing what I'm doing with the guitar plus chord melody stuff in the near future. 

Chord Melody (notes)

1) Find a (major, minor, dominant) chord shape that has the degree of the note in question as the highest note in the chord.

2) DOMINANTS

A) dominant =natural tensions that don't sharpen or flatten the tensions = 9, 13, 11, etc 

B) altered = #9, b13, b9, etc

C) When an "altered dominant" is seen (like B7b9), play only the altered chord type.

D) When a "dominant" is seen (like B7) you can play either:

a) the dominant (9, 11, 13, etc.) OR an altered dominant  (#9, b13, b9, etc.).

3) Less is more. 

4) Sometimes just a bass note sounds good.

During a Walk

Soloing

Some info for me to keep in mind from my internet guitar teacher;

1) In Bb, can use Gm and vice versa.

2) Analyze songs in terms of progressions rather than individualized chords out of context. 

Example: Bb Major scale can be used over Am7b5 / D7b9 / Gm7 because it's the relative minor 251 progression.

Example: Cm7 / F7 / BbMaj7 work with BbMaj because all these chords are based on the key of BbMaj.

Example: You can often see key changes by looking for common progressions (like 251's) in a different key.

3) If chord progression isn't clear, look at melody notes which might suggest a new key.

4) In a modal tune in which the chordvis Dm, the first chord can be a modal Im7 chord in D Dorian.

Or:

It can be thought of as a iim7 chord in the key of C Major.

Or: 

It can thought of as a I chord in the key of Dmin.

Or: 

You could think of it's relative major, F major, and play lines like that.

Note: none of these are right or wrong. They simply result in different sounds or effects.

5) Find a way to analyze changes that makes sense to me, use it to inform my soloing, but be aware that there is never just a single correct way to analyze a chord change.

No Guitar Day

Yep, did not play the guitar today. But that was not necessarily a bad thing. What I did do, was learn something.

I sat at the piano and began to work on "Over the Rainbow." Earlier today I even purchased the music for it on line with the intention of working it up for piano. Well it did not work. I found that I'm just not up to working on the piano. 

I had a fun run with the piano some years ago when I used the Sudnow Method; however, this time around it just did not work. Something just did not click. Perhaps it's like anything enjoyed earlier in life that was fun while it lasted, but the great feeling does not come back when it's tried again later in life. 

That's ok. I'm glad I tried it. Onward and upward with the guitar! Earlier today I almost tried to cancel the Ted Greene stuff that I recently ordered, because I thought I was going back to piano. Really glad that I did not cancel the order! 

Got back to being more healthy today. I need to make my health a priority.

Over the Rainbow

Still tempted to return to piano. Comparing my recent post with me on guitar playing "Over the Rainbow" with me on piano playing it at,

https://soundcloud.com/user-860420366/over-the-rainbow-cover )

I really do like the piano version better.....

Difficult to decide which to focus on.

July 4, 2017

A good guitar day. Worked on some stuff from the guitar improv class. Filmed the YouTube video that's a couple of posts or so below. 

Most significantly, though, I started the Toby Wine book. There is a lot of work to do here! I'm up to only page 6, and I got a lot of work to do. Right now, I'm working on chord triads on different strings. 

Over the Rainbow

Here's my "Over the Rainbow." 

https://youtu.be/cxlfk3bTGsk

Ted Greene

Ted Greene / Chord Melody

Branching into another direction. Getting into chord melody guitar again. This time, I'm using a different book: A Guide to Chord-Melody Jazz Guitar," by Toby Wine.

In the past, I tried to memorize chord melody chords in a weird way that just didn't work. I'm getting the idea now that a good way of remembering them is not only by their function (major, minor, dominant, etc.), but also by the scale degree of the note being harmonized. We'll see how this goes!

Probably not giving up on the jazz guitar improvisation course, but my heart really isn't in it (that much) at this time. It concludes in August.

I'm getting really interested in Ted Greene. He seems to have been a very nice man, and a great guitarist. Look him up on YouTube playing "Send in the Clowns" as well as "Over the Rainbow."

When I was much younger, I bought one of his books about chord progressions. I was young and didn't know  of the author, and just bought the book. It looked good. I never did too much with it, but I do remember sitting on the bed playing (or trying to play) one of the progressions. It sounded nice, I think, but I had no idea how to use the information.

Fast forward forty years, and here I am really interested in the man's life. I recently ordered two books: his "Chord Chemistry" book as well as a book by his parter about her life with him.

He seems like a kind man who wanted to spread the word about how to beautify the world with music.

Level 4

Working on Level 4 in the Guitar Improvisation course. I'm not sure what lesson I am up to, but I believe the lesson number I put  in yesterday's post was incorrect. Learning about how to play modal tunes. 

One question that I recently posted on the forum on that site essentially is: how do you know when to change keys in a solo by looking at the chord chart? I really do think that if I can get an answer to that question, it could be really helpful!!! We recently covered a tune, and he stayed in one key throughout the song. However, if I followed the method of a guitar improvisation book I have, I believe the keys would have changed.... Confusing.

Practiced Christmas songs today (for a "Christmas in July" gig that we will be playing), and it went well. Tried some stuff that I learned in my guitar improvisation course, and it fit well.

Still thinking that learning tons of jazz vocabulary might be a key to improvising . . .