Had some extra time in the day to start really putting a plan for my guitar playing together. Needs analysis stuff.
It looks like Im basically trying to train different domains concurrently.
I’ll update the guitar stuff more when I’m not in a phone
Meal prep:
70 minutes is waaaaay too long in the instapot for top round roast. I have 3.5 pounds of well done top round. Today I chopped some up and threw it in some black beans I made to go with the girls’ meat loaf. The girls get the meatloaf, I get the top round
*sits down to plan out a holistic and well-balanced practice regimen*
Oh here's two hours of bleep bloop music written by NYU undergraduates that may or may not need serious gear-related logistical thinking.
Practiced a bunch yesterday, thought I logged it.
Mostly practicing the new dither rep with some Galbraith etudes and right hand stamina training (this is not a NESS training log!)
Today I did
“Drums” rhythm at 120 with 20% beat drops (cool metronome setting!)
Galbraith G,C,F
Sonny Stitt Sunnyside of the street solo
Sonny Rollins St Thomas solo
Dither rep
Played through a dozen or so standards
In order to effectively practice, I’m setting up 5 minute blocks and focusing on very specific things. Tricky measures are marked on and focused on. The Galbraith etudes are for warmup and swing feel.
I’m not hitting all the blocks I want to in a day.
I should be hitting a couple blocks each of:
Technique
Dither Rep
Jazz language
Rock language
Classical rep
Jazz rep
Rock rep
7 domains - 10 minutes each is 70 focused minutes a day broken into 5 minute chunks. It’s easy to jump in and do a block or two without committing to a marathon practice session.
The key is to stay focused and not mess around, which is impossible without a timer.
5 minutes per block seems a touch low from what I've seen of intentional/varied practice, I don't know that I've really seen anything less than 15 in literature/people talking, though I would guess 10 could be useful. 5 just seems a bit too short. Hoping to come back to this once I get time to make guitar a priority again for some ideas.
Thursday and Friday were high stress work days and I forgot my iPad at home so when I got a chance to play during my lunch I just played some classical stuff. Some Satie and Chopin which is new for me, as well as dusting this Debussy arabesque arrangement I’ve been tilting at for over decade. I feel like if I really tried maybe something could come of it.
Meal prep: locked in for another week of sauteed chicken cutlets and brown rice.
Yesterday I made air fried chicken thighs and waffles. The girls thought the chicken was too spicy. So I ate theirs as well. Despite not going crazy cooking, the fridge is still stuffed with leftovers
Guitar practice
Galbraith etudes E harmonic minor, G, C, F
Jazz solo: Somny - St Thomas
Rock Solo - Weezer sweater song
Classical rep: bulk of the time
Chopin Nocturne - starting
Satie Gymnopedie 1 - almost memorized
Debussy Arabesque 1 - started finding the hardest spots to focus on it instead of just having fun with it.
Right hand
1234-4321 synchronization test 80-120bpm - Things got choppy around 98-100 - this is bad.
going forward, I'm gonna focus on 90bpm for time
Arpeggios
I want to try something different, So I'm looking at 21212 groupings for 7th chords (2 notes on one string, 1 note on the next, etc.)
Right now I'm focusing on diatonic descending arpeggios starting the 7th
Jazz Language
TBD
Repertoire
TBD
Gig stuff
Got a show next week doing a piece each by Feldman, Spiegel and Reich. Some interesting stuff to practice.
Also might have a run playing Grease in a community theatre
Started building a collection of short etudes to play through in between classes. I think this will be the way for technique and language. Next step is starting to pick some solo tunes and record some kind of demo to shop around for a low key restaurant/café gig.
Yesterday I spent my lunch jamming to some Youtube jazz playalongs. a very disheartening exerperience.
Today I mostly spent working up some fingerings for a Charlie Parker Solo. My goal this weekend is to put together a board with freeze, delay and loooping, and maybe record some stuff. I'm also toying with the idea of just blasting it onto twitch, just to get into the "creating stuff no matter what" space.