Rhythmic Grooves - Blogged

[peterk2]

Alright! New member here. Just received my first Truefire package yesterday and am psyched about it.

Course: Rhythmic Grooves

http://truefire.com/list.html?store=...sons&item=7204

Bit about me:

I'm 40, started playing guitar when I was 11. Dropped it for many years to play flute and sax. Played a bit of sax semi-professionally. And about 4 years ago came full circle and started really practicing the guitar hard again. My main love is jazz. I'm in the middle of a long 5 year project to be able to play 4 hours of jazz standards solo with no sheet music in front of me.

I'm taking lessons from an amazing teacher who also happens to be an absolute rhythm maniac. Makes me tap my foot to a metronome for everything. If my playing is spot on but my foot is off, that's not good enough. Constantly says things like "keep your foot grounded", "your foot's the foundation". Sounds nuts, but I've heard/read similar things from a lot of the top players, so I take it seriously. Tough teacher, very slow and methodical, but he's made me appreciate rhythm and I love to start off my practices with some "groovework".

My axes:

Had an absolutely beautiful jazz archtop made for me for my 40th birthday and have recently put together a strat-type kit from Carvin for my rock/funk sounds.

Why I'm taking the course:

A couple of weeks ago, I was trying to do some collaborating on this site:

http://www.musicianscollaboration.com

and I wanted to get a guitar line submitted for a new funk tune, to nail down the guitar chair for that one (at least temporarily) and I recorded the part in this MP3.

http://webhome.idirect.com/~fkxcmrbn/Stop%20Look%20Listen_EGtr_Small.mp3


Unfortunately, to get that done quickly, I actually had to tape the pick to my finger to stop it from flying all over the place. When I told my teacher about that, he said that it's a sign of a whole bunch of stuff that I hadn't mastered yet (trying to make the pick do the work instead of the wrist etc, etc).

I've had really bad results in the past looking for good rhythm books/CD in the usual online-bookstores. I've bought a few over the years, but they've all been pretty wishy-washy. Decided to come here to do a similar search. Bingo! Hit the goldmine!

Day 1:

Went over segment 1. Great intro by Brad. I'm really glad he mentioned that the black Dunlop 1mm pick is a good pick to use because it's easy to grab on to, because this is my usual pick and I have been abandoning it for this type of playing because I find that it's NOT easy to hold onto right now. That just confirmed that my problem is with my lack of control and wrist power and not with things like the type of pick I am using.

Small exercise right at the end of the introductory lesson. 16th notes, all strings muted, placing an accent on the first 16th of the first and third beat of each bar.

Before deciding to stick that in my regular practice I take a quick peek at video #2.

Video #2 is the same 16th note pattern, all strings still muted, but another different type of accent placed on the first 16th of the second and fourth beat of each bar. When you play this pattern properly, it sounds like the guitar is doing a bass/snare pattern along with the drums.

I decide that this is a foundation-type exercise and I'm going to practice it for about a week before going on. Metronome at about 60 bpm to start working up to 80 (hopefully) by middle of next week.

See you then!