I've had a pain in my left wrist that flaired up a bit last week, keeping me from practicing, so I had to cancel this week's lesson...
See ya next week, hopefully.
The last couple of weeks have gone really well. We've spent the last two lessons working on the Spanish arpeggio studies I've been practicing, and having a blast just shootin' the breeze about music.
This week, I'm focusing more heavily on the second of the two arpeggios, as I'm having some trouble wrapping my fingers around the chord progressions in the last two lines of the piece. I've got the chord diagrams drawn, but with the song in 2/4 time and a few measures containing multiple chord progressions, the piece is proving a tad trickier than I was expecting.
I was practicing the major scales G, A, B, C, and D, when I noticed something about the patterns. Typically, I start each scale on the 6th string. Using the G major scale, I decided to try an experiment and started the scale with my middle finger on the 5th fret of the 4th string. Using the pattern I've become familiar with when starting on the 3rd fret of the 6th string, I followed the same pattern from my new starting position, ending with my index finger on the 3rd fret of the 1st string, naming each note as I played.
What's just clicked is that, as long as I know where the root note of whatever scale I'm playing is, I can use the same pattern to play that scale anywhere on the fretboard, regardless of which string I'm starting on!
:O
Suffice it say, I'm feeling really freaked out right now; but in a good way.
I remember my teacher explaining this concept when he taught me my first major scale - G - and explained how its pattern can be replicated all the way down the neck when starting on the 6th string, to form the major scales, but I hadn't made the connection, until now, between the pattern and the fact that the same scale can be even be played when starting on the 4th string.
I can't wait to tell him the great news of my discovery next week!
:D
Yup, that's right, I'm improving!
hehehe
Seriously, this week I discovered why one of the chord progressions was giving me so much trouble: my second finger kept wanting to move up one string during the slide back to the first fret. The funny thing is, I never noticed what it was doing until my teacher pointed it out to me. The chord progression's a little easier now, but the stretch required to keep my pinky on the 2nd string, 3rd fret, is still a might painful.
I also need to work on improving my flow from one measure to the next. There's a couple of spots where I'm pausing to reposition my fingers instead of allowing them to flow with the natural progression of the song.
Finally, I've been assigned another arpeggio study. This time, I'm to focus squarely on identifying the chords that make up the piece, and then play what I figured out for next week's lesson. Then we'll work on arpeggiating those chords.
.... I got to learn that I'd been doing one of my new stretching exercises wrong!
LOL!
Yup, I was causing myself unnecessary pain by leaving two of my fingers planted on the strings while the other two did their thing. The release of tension from learning the exercise the right felt so good! It actually serves too functions:
1) Helps reinforce fretboard width when transitioning from electric to classical by training your fingers to remeber the spacing between the strings, and
2) Stretches the muscles located near the base of the fingers as you rotate between playing the 5th string and 2nd string, walking the same pattern down the fretboard. The stretching comes in having to maintiain proper finger position directly behind the frets to get the best tone.
It's still a bit painful, but nowhere near what I was experiencing last week. What a relief!
I'm doing more work with the arpeggio study. Now, I'm trying to ween myself off the chord diagrams I drew and identify them by reading the music itself. It's a slow process, but I'll master it, eventually.
I discovered something during a practice session last week, when I decided to play Greensleeves again. I'd forgotten how! GAH!! I don't know how it happened, but I'd actually forgotten what the notes below the staff lines were, and where they're located on the fretboard, despite the fact that every piece I've been studying since contains those same notes! I told my teacher about it, and he explained that it's basically akin to "if you don't use it, you lose it". Simply put, I just need to return to basics every now and again.
All in all, it was a great evening. See ya next week!