The Guitar to Arrive Tomorrow!

This isn't my guitar, but pictures of the same make/model of guitar that is scheduled to be delivered tomorrow:

The James Hunter Six

Had a great time yesterday in Sellersville last night seeing the James Hunter Six with my wife and some good friends (one of which surprised me by driving from Toronto)! Great retro type music (think James Brown). Been practicing with my flashcards.

Daughter #2, Me, and Daughter #1

A Few Things

1) Continued to work on Flashcards to help with chord melody work

2) Rehearsed Gypsy Jazz with bass player (surprised how it was somewhat difficult to play rhythm to these same songs I was once familiar with).

3) Considering again working on the Ticket to Improv stuff AND the chord melody stuff. There is something really to be said for having the ability to improvise!

Flashcards

Working on my Flashcards. Still have more to go. Would be great if I had them all done by the time my guitar arrives (supposed to get here Monday), but will just have to wait and see.

Abandoned Ferris Wheels

Dominant Chords

Just getting into my dominant chord Flashcards while still using the Major chord Flashcards. Guitar is supposed to be delivered Monday.

John Lennon / Rolling Stones / and a pic

Listened today to John Lennon's first solo album "Plastic Ono Band," as we'll as some cool Rolling Stones stuff. The Lennon stuff was very personal stuff to him and was pretty powerful. Although I am familiar with the album, it takes on a different meaning for me these days. This is the first time I played "Mother" and "My  Mummy's Dead" in a long time.  On another completely different note, the Rolling Stones just have a groove unmatched by any other! 

Started to try to memorize the dominant chord Flashcards...

Another pic of me and my son taken, I believe, around the time of his first birthday:

Waiting

Waiting for my guitar to get here; it should arrive by Aug 19. Browsing for digital delay pedals; I love the sound it can bring to my playing. It's part of my sound. Continue to work on my flash chords for the major chords.

Pictures

Here's mom and my son taken when he was a little guy:

Here's mom with her sister:

Meteor Shower and Waiting and Flashcards

Went out with daughter #2 to see shooting stars; saw none, but below is a picture she took of the moon through corn stalks. The wait is on for my guitar to arrive in the mail. Working with varying degrees of success on memorizing the Major Chord Flashcards.

Flash Cards

Made a number of flash cards on index cards associating melody notes/chords for Major, Minor 7th, and Dominant chords. 

Although the Sudnow piano method and Conti's guitar material seems to emphasize learning by playing the instrument, I think the method by which I learn best combines playing the instrument with rote memorization.

However, I never had much luck memorizing piano chord forms. We'll see if this memorization works better for me on guitar. I think it will, since guitar feels more like home for me than piano.

Getting Organized Better

Ok, organized the chords into the Major, Minor 7th, and 7th chords with associated melody chords. Starting to memorize them.

Just down the line

Just down the line, this may be my next guitar, a Sunburst Ibanez AS73.

Stumbling / Crawling

But it's ok. Trying to find the quickest method of connecting a melody note to its associated chord. Figured the best way to do this at this point might be to remember HOW each chord shape is associated with each note. It's easier to do if the chord contains the root on the E or A strings. I may have mentioned this before, but with regards to the five chord groups, only the two major ones have chords not associated with the root on the E or A strings. So today I worked on just trying to remember how those C shapes are related to the associated notes and roots. So far, a procedure I'm using is this:

1) Find the melody note on the B or E string.

2) Try to find the chord shape associated with it. This is the hard part: trying to get to the associated chord shape as fast as possible. So perhaps by learning the chord shapes and getting them associated with the root quickly in my mind may be key. And I started that today. 

A possible good exercise: For each given note, find the chord structure for a lot of chords. Difficult.

Edit: there's got to be a way to crack the code, and I think I'm getting closer to it by trying to learn rules like: "when the bass note is here and the melody note is juxtaposed here, use this chord form,