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11.02.11 Jimmy Learns Music: Blog 5
Written by Jimmy
I actually missed a blog last week, the romance period has gone. Music has become more a ‘wife’ than a lover. I’m beginning to know what I don’t know and it is a lot. The scale books are thick. I’m thick. No wonder I missed my blog last week. But hey, I love my wife … and I learned all about 7ths and how to chuck today. I’m now officially a blues man. Seriously.
So to remind you. The sole purpose of this blog is to make YOU feel good about yourself.
Part One: Overview of the Journey:
Five weeks into to a journey in many parts, the first of which is 52 weeks. The goal of Phase One of journey is to get relatively knowledgeable on guitar, piano, percussion, voice and music theory. And to be able to have one piano and guitar track survive to an album ( I just added that goal). In terms of guitar, I’ve got a great teacher with my friend Dave at NextLevelGuitar.com. In terms of piano, I still fear the internet and on-line teachers – I really do feel I’m getting groomed. Shared my concerns with Anthony and Sophie and they agreed I should focus on scales, chords and blues/jazz riffs and stay clear of those on line fellows. So order a few kilos of chord books from Amazon but haven’t opened. In terms of percussion, I bought a metronome. Music theory is stuck at Circle of 5ths, but I just learn the whole I, IV, V progression thing for guitar so that might be something.
Part Two: Tips that Might Actually Be Useful
I’m afraid I’m pretty light over the last two weeks because I’ve sorted all the kit and lesson plan and it is pretty much to crash thru on on line guitar lessons and start scales on piano by key, working up that old circle of 5ths.
Part Three: What is Really Happening
- The most important thing that is happening is I’ve discovered that my friend Dave controls time in a weird and wonderful way. Here’s the basics. I’m done about 100 ten minute lessons with him. That’s about 1,000 minutes or about 17 hours. In each of these lessons, he recommends something that I should do for about 10 minutes a day. Either a strum, a ‘chuck’, a finger pattern, the bloody ‘f’ chord, go to songs, whatever. It is 10 minutes a day. Now let’s say for a moment that he doesn’t actually mean I should continue forever to do something 10 minutes a day. But let’s say I should do it for 10 times. So each lesson begets 100 minutes of practice. So now, I’ve done a hundred lessons, so somewhere I was meant to have done 10,000 minutes of practice or 167 hours. Now, he also says that we really should only practice 10 minutes a day, but on a recent video he confessed that he secretly wants us to practice 20 minutes a day. Now I’ll do the math in a second, but you must also know that he also says we should do songs as well to build up our library. Now, he’s recommended about 30 songs, each of which comes with an hour DVD to learn the song, and each requires let’s say another two hours to master it (this would be far faster than I’ve every done). So we’ve added 90 more hours to the mix, which now stands at 167 hours of practice, 90 hours of songs and 17 hours of lesson watching. We’re up to 274 hours. Now let’s assume we’re really diligent and practice 2o minutes a day SIX days a week. That is 3 hours a week. So at this point, if I did what Dave expected, I would be at this thing now for 45 weeks — so a year. And I’m half way thru beginner lessons. I bring all this up, because I’m now on week Five not week 45, which explains very clearly now that I think of it, why when at lesson 78 he ‘recapped’ where we should be, well… I wasn’t there. Man, I wasn’t even on the same continent. I’m not sure if I was on his planet. No chuck, no f chord, no 7ths, no twenty different strums, no 30 mastered songs, no slash chords, … Nope, I was now that I think about it 1/9 where i was supposed to be. To be precise I can change chords between G and C add 9th. And that’s enough math!
- But golly do I like to Chuck. I can’t do it but you all know that a chuck is a downward strum on a guitar when strings are muted. But you mute with the strumming hand, which requires you to basically slap your big old fat hand against the strings while you pick. I can’t do it. But I’ve been waiting for a use of the fat on my hands. All they do is mute the high e with my left hand but now I get to use all that hand to mute everything with my right hand. My fat has a mission and it will take the hill.
- And man do I love the whole I, IV, V thing with 7th’s. YOU know what I’m talking about. My first feel of a little blues. And I got to use a B 7 to turn the corner today. And man did i turn the corner right back into another 12 bar riff. And I even know what that is. YOU know what I’m talking about. Rubbish at it, but I don’t care.
That’s enough. Off to Sao Paolo. Will get a picture of the Boner there.
Jimmy
