I've set out on a personal mission to complete learning this book "Progressive Blues Lead Guitar Method", borrowed from Michelle. It's good to see that the book's nicely subdivided into small lessons, so i can really just practice lesson by lesson. Not that the stuff inside is anything new to me, but it's just a good way to get some playing done, and learn some simple bluesy licks.

So everyday, i'll set aside roughly 1 hour of my time to learn/practice 2 lessons, or maybe 1 if it's really challenging. I'll probably "review" the previous lesson as well, as a refresher, so that i dun forget the licks. And then most importantly, i'll blog about it everyday, just to be accountable to everyone, and also serves as a way to track my progress/thoughts on the lesson.

I started with lesson 5 anyways, cos the previous lessons touched on quite mundane stuff.

Lesson 5: Slide Technique

There's a subtle difference between a valued slide and a grace note slide. I use a mixture of both in my regular playing (check out "Eden Love Melody"), but i dun really take note of the 2 when playing. To me, they are just slides. However, i think i am able to control when to use a valued slide and when to use a grace note.

The slide lick example wasn't something that's very conventional. First time playing and hearing something like that actually. I liked the way the lick was closed. Very simple, very elegant, very blues. All blues licks should be like that, short simple sweet.

Lesson 6: Bending Notes

Focused on something called quarter note bends, using the index finger to bend the string. Very bluesy sound, especially when applied onto the minor 3rd note. I dun really use this technique in my playing previously, but now i've kinda become a convert. Every minor 3rd u do a quarter bend u get something tt's totally blues, so why not.

My finger strength is quite weak, so they kinda suffered during the intense bending session. And my bending technique seems somewhat flawed, so that has to be worked on tml. If i'm able to anchor my thumb abit better, maybe it will be easier to bend the strings and hold it longer.

The 2 example licks are pretty cool and bluesy, tho it's all in minor pentatonic and doesn't involve the blue note at all. Again, they are not very conventional, or at least i dun play my minor pentatonic in any way like they do. So it's quite an eye opener to see how certain notes can be played, without really messing up ur fingers.

Overall thoughts:

I really enjoyed the session just now. Just me myself and my guitar. No MSN, no disturbance from my family (cos i locked my room), and thankfully no phone calls. I was also playing to the metronome at 60bpm, so the slow ticking is kinda soothing in a weird way.

60 bpm is slow enough to let me play everything cleanly. Sometimes it's abit too slow, so it takes quite alot of control to not rush and keep in sync. Anyways it's not a speed technique regime, so it doesnt make sense to practice at higher bpm either. And blues is probably more enjoyable when it's nice and slow and chill. More feel.

Towards the end of the session i was in improvisation mode, so i basically used the 3 new licks learnt and just made little modifications to them. Had a so called jam with myself for abt 10 mins i guess, with just 3 licks and slight alterations to each of them. Beez calls this lead development. There's alot of things u can do to just alter a lick, like slowing some of the notes down, change a note, add a note, shift an octave and so on. Controlled improvising is very fun for me, as i can explore many ways to alter a lick into a new one. More licks = more hot solos.

Alright. That's about it for today. Quite abit huh?

Saw Chuan yday and today during my daily jogs. Still looks the same, still feels the same. Chuan's my NJ bball vice capt btw. He's probably the best player in the team then. Too bad i was nowhere good back then to compliment his talent. When the ball controller sucks, the team fails somewhat. Oh well, what to do. It was my first year playing team basketball. *shrug*

Ok i have to go sleep now. Or else Shirui will eat me. Good night cookie monster.