So tonight was lesson night which is always a great opportunity for me to check on my progress with Mark. I was quite pleased to note that it’s now becoming easier to play the basic chords, which make the chord progression exercises a lot easier too. The next stage will be to try and diversify the types of rhythm I play while strumming, or perhaps work out an arpeggiating sequence that works well for me. But there’s no rush for that just yet.
We also started looking at a new tune, despite not having quite managed to play Call of Ktulu throughout, which is Gary Moore’s Parisienne Walkways. It’s a nice tune to strengthen all the little bits of phrasing to really get that bluesy style which I particularly like. I mean, yeah shred would be great to master but meanwhile, this is something I can manage to do without getting my fingers tangled in a knot or my wrist turning into concrete.
Working on the various ways you can do a bend is something which we’ve done before, but actually putting in to context makes it much easier to appreciate just how many different ways you can make one small sequence sound, and thus which sort of feel you can convey. That is something else I strive to, assimilate technique and phrases so well that it gives me what Marty Friedman calls a vocabulary for your guitar playing to express what comes from deep inside.
Another thing that struck me tonight is how easily I was able to pick up the opening line of Satch’s The Forgotten Part II just by realising it’s based around C Minor. That’s giving me more confidence in my ability to get the music from ears to fingers and I’m really hoping it’ll only expand as my knowledge of scales improves (at the moment it gets tricky if it involves modes other than Minor and Major). So slowly, getting there 😀