Chord Melody & The Blues

Good practice with the blues band today. We may alter our direction to do more upbeat rockabilly and very early rock and roll stuff.

Continue to work on my chord melody arrangement.

Need to get back to exercise, diet, and, oh yea, learning how to improvise on guitar.

New Orleans

Interesting: working on "Do You Know What it's Like to Miss New Orleans," chord melody style, using Howard Morgen's book. I like it.

Two books

Going to work with:

1.Howard Morgan's: "Through Chord-Melody & Beyond." 

2. Scales and modes haven't cut it for me. I know, I know, I'm changing learning materials yet again, but I'd like to try improvising using chord tones, or arpeggios, rather than scales. Going to use Kimie Kim's "Jazz Guitar Arpeggio Soloing."

Rode exercise bike for 1/2 hour.

Mish-Mash

Yesterday, we played  a really nice gig for appreciative folks at a retirement home. 

Rode exercise bike for 1/2 hour.

That's it. When it comes to learning how to improvise, no more learning 500 shapes to utilize at certain points in a song. I'm going to play the guitar more to learn improvisation. Will be using Robert Conti's "Ticket to Improv" Volume 1.

Rode exercise bike for 1/2 hour.

Cut the darn grass.

MONKEES

What a great night of music. Saw the Monkees (Peter Tork and Mickey Dolenz) tonight in a concert. Mickey's voice was great and quite amazing. Peter's guitar playing was also cool; tempted me to get a Martin acoustic. Those songs!!!!

Rode exercise bike for 1/2 hour.

Rode exercise bike for 1/2 hour. Feels good taking better care of my health.

Rode exercise bike for 1/2 hour. Taking care of health better. Yesterday I continued to work on Elliott book. May get a book re: chord melody. I don't know my chords that can help with chord melody! 

Rode exercise bike for 1/2 hour. 

Guitar

JazzGuitarLessons.net is a cool source of info.

Up to Chapter 2 in the Elliott book.

Learned some maj7 chord fingerings.

Rode exercise bike for 1/2 hour.

Guitar

Selling some piano learning stuff on order to get a Fender Telecaster.

Up to page 4 in the Elliott book. 

Tomorrow starts a diet challenge with a friend.

New Post

It's been awhile since I've posted in detail, so here is a "new post" as to what's going on musically.

* Still in the band that plays jazz as well as old style rock and roll.

* Still in the Blues band. We will be expanding what we play to include rockabilly as well as old blues. 

* Sold my Epiphone ES-339 Pro. Bought an Epiphone Casino (picture is below this post). I had a Casino before, sold it, and missed it! I really like this guitar.

* Made an "offer" on a Fender American Special Telecaster. We'll see what happens there.

* Still struggling with learning to improvise. A couple of bandmates suggested that I am approaching the issue too academically. Perhaps I can benefit from just playing jazz more rather than focusing on learning it.

* However, I still need a methodology! I'm now working on the book "Introduction to Jazz Guitar Soloing" by Joe Elliott.

Anyway, here is my Epiphone Casino: