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Wim VD

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Posts posted by Wim VD

  1. @NeilES335,

    Hi Neil,

    The Session 14 Bonus Materials contain an intro to arpeggios. The exercise is a harmonized major scale in C, played as 7th arpeggios. The harmonized major scale is further explained in Session 15.

    The course however does not contain any further coverage of arpeggios.

    It was only in Session 19 (soloing), that I became really aware of the importance of arpeggios. In this Session, Steve explains the concept of Chord Tone Soloing (when playing a solo over a chord progression, the chord tones of the underlying chord are the safe notes to land on in your solo).

    To put Chord Tone Soloing into practice, the only way I find working for me is to learn chord arpeggios and to build the muscle memory.

    Now this is a big task. Following the CAGED system, this means learning 5 moveable patterns for major and 5 for minor triads, and extend that to also cover 7th chords (major, minor, (half-) diminished etc.). 

    The resource I used for this is Chord Tone Soloing from Barrett Tagliarino.

    I have included arpeggios in my daily practice routine for about 6 monts now, and it is worth the effort. To be able to instantly make the connection between the chord, the chord tones (and the related scale or mode) is a very important skill and is a breakthrough in my development as a guitar player. 

    As you know I started the L&M Blues course last week. Where Sessions 2 and 3 of that course are hard to many students, it is the knowledge of 7th chord arpeggios that helps me through these sessions without real issues.

    So I can only recommend to put the effort into learning arpeggios in depth, because you will benefit from it in your guitar learning journey later.

    Wim.

    • Thanks 1
  2. On 7/24/2018 at 8:11 PM, NeilES335 said:

    @Wim VD  As I may have mentioned before, your learning progress and playing is an inspiration to all of us,   As with most learning paths, the course is  just the price of admission to a newer bigger world. Sincere congratulations!

    Thanks, Neil.

    You are now moving into the last couple of sessions of the course yourself and that is where things get really interesting. Keep going, you're almost there.

    Wim.

    • Thanks 1
  3. When working on a new piece of music or an exercise, I use 3 information sources.

    The 2 main ones for me are the audio file and the tab. I do know all the notes on the fingerboard, but still the most efficient way for me to learn a melody is to look at the tab. The tab tells me where to play a note, whereas the sheet music leaves this open.

    I only use the sheet music, as third source, to identify the key and for the info on rythm and lenght of notes and breaks.

    Please don't get me wrong here. I do think it is important for me to understand and know what notes I am playing and how they relate to the key and to the chords they are played over. But I rather derive  this from the position of my fingers on the fredboard than from the sheet music.

    Now this is what works for me, but there is a big disadvantage. I am not able to read sheet music or tab at playing speed. So basically, I have to analyse and study a piece of music and then completely memorize it.

    Unlike myself, my 13 year old daughter who is learning to play violin, has gone through 4 years of studying music theory as part of her classical music education. She does not have to fully memorize the music she is playing, because she has learned to read and play notes simultanuously at the required tempo. That's a nice pay off.

    Now tab would not work for violin anyhow ?

    Wim.

    • Like 1
  4. 25 minutes ago, Steve Krenz said:

    Wow, This is wonderful!

    Congratulations!!!  I'm sure you started this thinking it would look one way but now that you're done the journey has gone a different but wonderful direction.

    I'm so proud of the work you've put in.  Now, there's much music inside of you, ready and able to come out.

    Honored to be a small part of the journey with you.

    Thanks for being a great part of our guitar family.  You've got much to give to others still working on their skills. Keep learning and pouring out to others.

    - Steve

    Thanks, Steve.

    The strange thing is that this feels more like a start than an end to me now. It's like having earned an entry ticket into the world of making music.

    On the journey, I learned a lot about the learning process as well. A piece of music might seem tricky and difficult to learn at the start, but by breaking it down into smaller pieces, by taking it really slow, and putting in the necessary time, it can be done. Building this confidence is to me an essential part of a musician's development.

    Thanks again for all that you do for us.

    Wim.

    • Like 1
  5. 17 hours ago, gotto said:

    A major moment in your musical journey. Congrats. Your performances are inspirational for me and others here on the forum. I hope you continue to share your gifts to us and to others as you move on in your musical development. Thanks for sharing here.

    Greg

     

    13 hours ago, DianeB said:

    @Wim VD Congratulations, Wim, on a major musical accomplishment! You have joined a very exclusive club. I’ve enjoyed listening to your music, and I hope you will continue to share it with us and inspire us. Well played, and well done! ???

    Thanks , Greg and Diane,

    I really like the monthly recording challenge and will keep participating to it.

    Wim.

  6. 13 hours ago, V7#5b9 said:

    @Wim VD Congrats on mission accomplished! ??? Do you have any particular style(s) or genre(s) you want to focus on now, or perhaps a new guitar course you want to tackle?

    @V7#5b9 Thanks Gerard,

    I am still working on the  Chord-Tone Soloing resource. That will take me probably another 6 months. It's very rewarding to progress in this area of playing by ear and to have my fingers finding the right notes more and more.

    Also I would like to build a small repertoire of songs that I can play from memory. So far I have worked on songs till I could record them, and then moved to the next one, without maintaining the ones learned previously. I think I will spend one practice routine per week specifically on repertoire.

    And I still have the L&M Blues and Fingerstyle courses waiting for me to get started. I will start the Blues one first.

    Wim.

  7. With a last practice session on the bonus materials of Session 20, I finalized the L&M course today.

    Wow, what a feeling!

    Before starting the L&M course, I never ever thought I would get this far.

    For too many years, I thought I missed the talent to become a guitar player, but what was really missing was a good course and teacher.

    Searching the internet for good guitar instruction materials, I found L&M some 2,5 years ago and started to practice with lots of enthusiasm.

    On the way, I also got the Song Hits and discovered Justinguitar as a great additional resource for learning songs.

    The Major Scale Mastery Fredboard Workouts have been essential to my development as well. They have been the key for me to "unlock" the fredboard. I combined them with Session 17.

    Sessions 18 and 19 were the ones that required most practice time, also because I used complementary resource to dive a bit deeper into Jazz (with Steve's Jazz Chords workouts) and into soloing (with Chord Tone Soloing by Barret Tagliarino).

    And here I am at the finish line. I cannot thank @Steve Krenz enough for being the guide in my guitar learning journey. It's his way of teaching, his personality and his method that have taken me this far.

    I synchronized the L&M sessions with learning the Song Hits. So I consider the last songs of the song hits as my "graduation" projects.

    The first one recorded is "Don't know why" by Norah Jones.

     

    The final and definitely most difficult one to get under my fingers is "Mona Lisa".

    I would like to encourage all who are on the L&M course. Like others have said on this forum, it's all about practice, perseverance and patience. Trust the process. Steve's method works.

    Wim.

    • Like 10
    • Thanks 1
  8. Hi @colder, I am not on the fingerstyle course yet, but currently learning the fingerstyle intro of "Let her go" (Passenger).

    Getting these 16 bars of trickiness under my fingers takes much more time than expected. I have not played this kind of alternating bass style for a while, and it feels like I have to build the picking hand coordination up from scratch again. But the good news is that there is progress. It just takes a bit more practice, perseverance and patience.

    Wim.

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