DianeB

My desk doesn't look so different. To one side rests a folder holding the statements for my tax return. Notes and homework for my music theory course are spread across the blotter. On the other side sits my appointment calendar. But none of this is quite as it should be. The tax returns would normally be done by now. The notes for my course were not taken in the classroom, they were created by our teacher during a Zoom video chat. And the calendar reminds me only to put out the trash. Like almost everyone now, I have nowhere to go. I sneeze and cough and wipe my nose. This cold is the last thing I brought home with me, probably from bowling, before the pandemic struck. Obviously I have no business going beyond my sidewalk. Yet I am lucky, so very fortunate when so many are nearing the end of their rope as I write this in mid April. I have food and medicine and a home. I have neighbors to check on me. I have a background in biochemistry to help me make sense of it all. In January, after I put Christmas away, I read the latest in a string of books I've devoured on practice and self improvement. Anything to keep me from chopping up my guitars in frustration and feeding them to the fireplace. It mentioned the 1955 announcement of the success of the first field trial of the Salk polio vaccine. This piqued my attention because I was born in 1953, and the fear of polio was still palpable during my childhood. What really roused my curiosity was the account of Jonas Salk's speech that day. His failure to acknowledge his coworkers' contributions tainted his reputation for the rest of his life. As a scientist, and as one who remembered polio, I wanted to learn more. I found the source, the Pulitzer Prize winning Polio: An American Story. I followed up with the HBO movie "Warm Springs", which dramatized Roosevelt's experience. Then I read The Cutter Incident, about the contaminated lots of hastily produced polio vaccine that sickened, paralyzed, and killed hundreds of children and adults later in 1955. In February, I watched "Contagion". I know what a strand of RNA can do. Nothing since has truly surprised me. I can’t meet my young guitar tutor for our weekly lessons. He needs income, and I need to avoid people, so he made a grocery run for me. I paid him hazardous duty rate and more. For all I know, he might have saved my life. My music stand holds a stack of songs. I chip away at the exercises and scales. During pauses, I glance up at the photos of the gang from Gatherings past. Most of us aren't spring chickens anymore. My imagination turns feverish. I see myself looking up at a nurse in hazmat gear. They’ve taken my glasses. She – or he – is blurry. I’m terrified of drowning, alone, in my own pleural secretions. The first molecules of propofol reach my brain. The lights go out. I shiver. I stand up, put the guitar down, and walk to the kitchen and fix a snack. I munch a while, flip through a magazine, and go back to my guitar. I play my heart out. These days are all we have.

@Greg800 Yes, Greg, that lesson aired March 24. I don't see it posted either. It's possible that Steve wasn't satisfied with the audio and wanted to retape it. In brief, he suggested that you choose a note, say C, and find every C on each string all over the fretboard. Say it and play it. In a couple of days, look for the C's and now the G's. Continue adding notes as you go by fifths or fourths. I've caught myself doing a form of this. Sometimes when I'm in the middle of his major scale mastery workout, I'll pause and think: ok, Eb scale next. Find all the E flats. It helps.

Now, that is classic Canadian humor!

@Randy120 Ha! Yeah, Randy, once I pushed my eyes back into their sockets, I had a good laugh at that. And I'm better now at stopping before frustration sets in. I take smaller bites of the challenging stuff. Hope all is well with you.

Forgive me for repeating this, but it's spot on Randy's topic, and maybe you missed it before. It's a podcast by Brent Vaarstra of "Learn Jazz Standards": Why I Stopped Hating My Playing. Bonus treat: at 4:00, you'll hear me take a bucket of cold water squarely in the face. Thanks, Brent. A little blunt, but I needed that.

Update: Steve reported in the chat Friday that Bob has cancelled his travel plans. So he will not be coming to Nashville for the Live Lesson as scheduled. From Steve's Facebook page, Saturday: But we will have our normal Tuesday night live lesson this week talking about Ways to Practice Scales Like a Boss and answering questions about the Triad series. See you there. - Steve

@Dave White Wonderful! And $20,000 for IOJ will bring a lot of joy into the world!

From The Guardian: "The road will kill you": Why older musicians are cancelling tours "Health concerns have caused a number of high-profile singers to quit the road but what will it all mean for the industry at large?"

I used Acrobat to combine the three triad PDFs (major, minor, and sevenths) into a single 5.6 Mb file, attached here for convenience. Triads Book(M-m-7).pdf

@Daveguitar_61 If I understand your question correctly, yes, in a harmonized B natural minor scale the fifth is a v minor (F#m = F#-A-C#). But in the context of this example, we have a specific form, that of "Hotel California," with a descending B-A#-A-E line. That specific fall requires F# major (F#-A#-C#). Felder used a common flamenco (but not pop) progression. Its working title was "Mexican Reggae". Of course, Henley and Walsh shaped it into the rock standard we all know, but in later years, the band returned it to its acoustic, flamenco-flavored origins.

Hello, @Preetam, and welcome to the forum! I will assume you are just starting out with guitar. I hope you will take some time to learn about good posture and the ergonomics of playing guitar. The Musician's Way website is a good start. The object is to be aware of your entire body, and which muscles are in use for supporting weight, providing balance, and musical control. For now, think of your arm, including the shoulder, as an extension of your hand. The thumb normally provides stability while the fretting fingers apply the minimum required force. The wrist, elbow, upper arm, and shoulder should distribute the weight. The fretting fingers should touch the strings on their tips, not their pads. And this is all easier said than done!

Recently I’ve read some new books that might be of interest. These are oriented toward general self- or skill improvement, not necessarily music, although music skills are well represented. I found valuable nuggets in each. One of these might perk up your practice, as they did for mine. If you enjoyed the late George Leonard’s Mastery (1991), I encourage you to follow up with his equally concise companion volume, The Way of Aikido (1999). It provides the backstory to the aikido lessons in Mastery, and we learn what it’s like to become a newly minted black belt. (Hint: You start over.) From the NYT best seller list we have James Clear’s Atomic Habits (2018) — build good habits and break bad ones. Chapter One alone is worth the price. Also well reviewed is Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise (2017) by Anders Ericsson and Robert Pool. And we have a pair from co-authors Brad Stulberg and Steve Magness, who have made new careers of studying the research on performance: Peak Performance: Elevate Your Game, Avoid Burnout, and Thrive with the New Science of Success (2017). In writing that book, they discovered that burnout was a subject in itself. They tackle the issues that arise specifically from following your passion in The Passion Paradox (2019). To borrow author Tom Peters’ phrase from a related context, “there is an eerie similarity of language” among all these authors’ findings and recommendations. I heard the same themes echoing again and again: Deliberate practice. Consistency. Self-awareness. Tradeoffs. Challenge. Warnings abound: The object of your passion can consume and crush you. Feedback is healthy, but pursuing external validation is a fool’s errand. Rest — short, medium, and long term — is a biological necessity for growth. The principles apply to learning guitar or improving at almost anything. The links above go to Amazon, but first check your local library. Enjoy!

@kenneth It's good that you're mindful of pick direction. The choice depends to some degreee on what's happening in the music: alternating bass? string skipping? and such. At this stage I'd encourage you to use alternate picking (up-down-up-down) as much as possible. It's hard to acquire speed if one's picking is all up or downstrokes.

Thanks, Mandy. On this theme, give a listen to Brent Vaarstra's podcast on Learn Jazz Standards: "Why I Stopped Hating My Playing". You can skip over the initial announcements to about 4:00, where you will hear the sound of me taking a bucket of cold water squarely in the face. Enjoy! I have to towel off, again.

@josev The key of G major (or E minor) is indicated on the treble clef with a single sharp on the F line. All notes on the F line are played F#, because that is what the interval pattern of a major scale (M2 - M2 - m2 - M2 - M2 - M2 - m2) requires if the tonic (first pitch on the scale) is G. So a G major scale is: G - A - B - C - D - E - F# - G. If a natural sign appears in front of an F in that piece of music, the sharp is canceled for the duration of that measure and F natural is played. This same key signature might also signify E (relative) minor, which employs the same pitches but starts on the sixth scale degree and follows a different interval pattern (M2 - m2 - M2 - M2 - m2 - M2 - M2): E - F# - G - A - B - C - D - E. At first, learning this will seem like raw memorization. In truth, there is much underlying symmetry, and as you become better acquainted, the patterns will emerge. Stick with it!

Steven Pressfield writes in Turning Pro: “A practice has a space, and that space is sacred. There’s a wonderful book called Where Women Create. It’s a compilation of photos of studios and workshops where various female artists do their magic. … Just look at those sacred spaces. What you’ll see is this: Order, Commitment, Passion, Love, Intensity, Beauty, Humility. … [These twenty-six women] all serve the Muse. And each has discovered in that service her unique and authentic essence.” Imagine your dream space. One that is uniquely yours. Let your imagination fly, put pencil to paper, then make it so.

@Run26point2 You can set up your free Google account here.

I'll phrase it this way: I want to speak the language that everyone understands.

@Cathlabrob Hi, Rob, and welcome to the forum! Humidity issues are a regular topic around here, and Greg will almost certainly cover the subject. Meanwhile, here's the thread with some potentially useful tips, links, and videos.