Oct 31st 09
15 Comments | Posted in Guitar, Lessons
As I posted a while back, I was learning Eric Clapton’s version of Hideaway using a Lick Library lesson video. Of course I was doing this on my own so my technique was less than perfect. My instructor Kit is a stickler for technique, especially when it comes to picking. So, we set out for me to re-learn the parts of Hideaway I already know and then learn the rest of the song properly. And for anyone who’s learned something improperly and then needed to re-learn it properly, it’s not fun. My muscle memory is already set for my improper picking and fingering, so it’s going to be tricky re-learning the parts that I already know.
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Oct 9th 09
5 Comments | Posted in Guitar, Lessons
Today’s lesson was mostly focused on my picking technique. As I mentioned in a previous post, somewhere along the way I picked up the habit of economy picking. Upon seeing this my instructor Kit had me stop doing scales all together. In last weeks lesson he started me back on scales with the Pentatonic Scale. With the Pentatonic Scale, there are only two notes per string, so you’re pretty much always alternate picking.
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Sep 25th 09
6 Comments | Posted in Guitar, Lessons
For this weeks lesson we continued with the “circle of notes” diagram that I wrote about in my last lesson. My instructor Kit likes to call this his “Dr. Seuss” lesson since at first glance it doesn’t quite make sense and I need to trust that it’s going somewhere. This week I learned that this was more than just a memorization exercise to learn the notes backwards and forwards from any given note as I wrote last week. This time, Kit added two new circles (shown below) with different “note spacing” between the notes.
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Sep 11th 09
10 Comments | Posted in Guitar, Lessons
It seems my new instructor, Kit, is a bit like Mr. Miyagi and right now he has me waxing cars and painting fences. I trust it’s all going somewhere.
First off, he had me stop practicing scales all together because of my picking motion. He told me not to do one more scale until he tells me. Somewhere along the way I apparently picked up the habit of “economy picking” rather than strict alternate picking. My previous instructor, Bruno, also suggested I try to stop economy picking but he wasn’t quite as fanatical about it as Kit seems to be.
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Sep 4th 09
2 Comments | Posted in Guitar, Lessons
I decided to try a new instructor. A friend of mine (who appears in my Jam Session post) is taking bass lessons from Kit Ruscoe who is also a guitar instructor. I’m not switching because I have a problem with my other instructor, Bruno Pelletier. I actually think he is a great instructor. I’m switching for a couple of reasons. First, since I’ve only seen one instructor, I’d like to get an idea of another instructors style and see if it’s a better fit for me. And second, even though Bruno is a great jazz guitarist and instructor, he’s not quite as up on the current rock/blues scene (he didn’t know who The Black Keys were). And as much as I would like to play jazz, playing blues and rock is what I’m after. Admittedly, at first I was specifically looking for a jazz guitarist as an instructor because I thought they would make better instructors when it comes to music and guitar theory. But Kit seems to have a good mix of theory (he’s actually classically trained) and rock expertise.
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