Abubilla Music

11.01.21 Jimmy Learns Music – Blog 3

Written by Jimmy

Back from Seoul with my boner safe and sound, but my luggage still in Hong Kong.  Jet lag fights suspended chords to the death.  Suspended Chords win. 

Intro: OK, before this becomes a porn site, let me explain this boner reference.  For Christmas, Saint Kathy (with lots of advice from Martyn bought me a Swiss Bone Guitar.    It is a very portable guitar that I can take on the road to practice.    I refer to it as ‘My Boner.’   Well, my boner and I just arrived back from a trip to Asia, where I was able to play in Singapore and Seoul.    My goal is to take my boner to at least 15 countries this year, including Brazil in February and Kenya in March.    See the first blog on the Boner’s Global Journey.    Here’s a photo:

My Little Boner has Now Travelled to Singapore and Seoul.

Okay, that is now behind us.    On to the music journey, where my goal is to make you feel great about yourself by highlighting my incompetence.

Part One:  Update on the Journey

Week 3 on my journey.  Guitar on track, music theory on track, piano off track, percussion and voice yet to start.   ‘On track’ simply means I’m confident that the problem is me as opposed to a lack of ‘instruction.’   I still can’t find someone good to teach me on piano.     With Guitar, I keep plowing ahead with David but I’m not mastering anything yet.   He tells me to be patient so I will.    With music theory, I’m now memorising the ‘Circle of fifths’ for no particular reason.

Part Two:  Stuff that you might actually find useful:

1. Learning the circle of fifths: This is all about knowing all of your scales, which I don’t.  But in meantime, here’s a cool little site that basically forces you to memorise the circle of fifths.  It takes a while and I’ll probably take the test three or four more times, but here you go:   Circle of Fifths Test.  I’m about 2/3’s way thru this…
2. Know the order of the notes:    You need to know the order of the notes in the circle of fifths; here’s a little device.   First, you need to know the notes going around the outside on the sharps:   Cary Grants Drives an Enormous Blue Ford.   Sorted.   Now you need to know the order of the sharps:  Father Charlie Goes Down and Ends Battle.    And this works for the flats the other way:  Battle Ends and Down goes Father Charlie.    To remember the flat notes, go counter clockwise with Colin Farrel buys enormous alcoholic drinks gratefully (but except for him, the beers were flat). The last bit reminds you the b, e, a, d, g keys all flats.

Part Three:  How is it REALLY going?

1.  Kit is seriously winning against talent.  Well, I’m making much more progress on ‘the kit’ than the talent.   I talked in first blog about the importance of the ‘boy’ buying his ‘toys’ before he starts his various failed journeys.   So, I continue to collect the kit, all of which will end up in a box after this journey fails.   I’ve added a very cool Hercules guitar stand and a wooden metronome.  These help distract me, while my stupid fingers continue to keep C and G very far apart!

While my fingers fight a losing battle between C and G, I continue to assemble a lot of kit (which will subsequently be stored in the 'failed journey' box.)

2. The Dog’s Like All this.    Dogs 32 – Picks 0:    Toby and Lewie continue to eat (and poo) picks at an alarming rate.  They have taken 32 so far and 18 have been seen later in their poo.   We’re happy to report we are no yet ‘recovering’ picks from poo.

Yes, in this Chapter, we learn from the Dog's Poo that someone is trying to play the guitar and failing to look after his picks.

3.  I’m a little bit frightened of on line piano teachers:     I’ve sung the praises of Next Level Guitar because I think David is cool and relaxed enough that you don’t mind staring at 500 videos of the guy.  I cannot yet say I feel the same about piano teachers on line so far.  They are all just a bit too weird, a bit too lonely, a bit too … well I feel like I’m getting groomed.   I’m sure I’ll eventually find somebody – but in the mean time — oh my goodness, it is really scary out there.  Watch the kids.

So far, my journey for on line piano teachers leave me a bit frightened. You feel like you're being groomed on line for something. Please tell me it is safe out there!

4.  Suspended 2’s and 4’s really are the cats pyjamas: I’ve bitched and moaned a lot about the guitar to date, but there is one positive think.    My friend David at Next Level guitar started teaching me Suspended chords.  Mostly addin’ a pinky or droppin’ a finger off existing chords.  And it really does sound good.  I like all that.  Still can’t do an ‘f’ chord for the life of me, but i can suspend with the best of them.

Yep, I'm feeling pretty awesome about my suspenders! Go Mork!

Yep, my suspended chords are the cat's pyjamas. And you can't really use that in a phrase without a picture

Part Four: Odds and Sods: Adding this last bit as a permanent reference library that I’ll keep updating as I find more internet friends.  I’ve found nothing to compare to David for Piano or Percussion, but let me know if you see anything.   But here’s previous blogs and referenced sites:

• Previous Blogs: So that’s it.  For those of you who missed the first blog, 7 January 2011, click here.
• All Referenced Sites: And I’m also going to keep a reference library of my favourite sites:
  • Learning Music Theory:    For the absolute no nonsense basics,  start with Ricci Adamas MusicTheory.net,click here.  For a good set of lessons on ‘Circle of Fifths’, click here.
  • For Guitar:  Absolutely start with David at Next Level Guitar – sheesh, I’m even using him on piano.  Subscribe, but wait for his deal where he gives you all the song DVD’s free if you do a year.   Click Here.    I would supplement David with Rob at Heartwood; click here.  He’s got a lot of songs and very fast references for strum patterns.
  • For Piano:  Haven’t really started my piano journey yet,  but have found this a great little website for chords (easier than faffing around with a book, if you walk around the house with a lap top.  So for a good ‘chord finder’ go to  Piano Chords and Scales Made Easy.  Also, for a good discussion on scales, click here.

That’s it for week 3.

Jimmy