This week I’ve been practicing the first three sweep picking exercises: major chords in root position, 1st inversion and 2nd inversion. Thought it would be harder than economy picking, but actually the right hand movement is surprisingly easier here.
So after getting used to the shapes the exercise itself felt manageable and I rushed through the tempos in order to focus on the minor shapes the next week and end the module right at the end of my year in the program 🙂
I also returned the guitar back to the store, and looking forward to get another one instead. But it’s on the way, so I have to wait until the end of the month, which is unfortunate. But I can’t wait to play on it and make a purchase, because on the pictures it’s gorgeous.
I’m sorry in advance for the video length, but I’ve just been practicing and recording so much stuff that I couldn’t make it shorter. As always there are time codes for your convenience.
This week I’ve been polishing my economy picking skills. I started with a step back from last week speed (150 bpm) to 140 bpm, and had been practicing at it for 5 days. Only then I decided to increase it back to 150 bpm. The progress is very noticeable (I hope ?).
Also the new seven riffs have been recorded and posted. And this time I finally got to figuring out the keys of the riffs I played. Not sure if there was enough musical information for each of them but I tried my best.
Enjoy the video, and see you in a week with sweep picking exercises!
Getting closer and closer to the 52 week into the course mark. Excited about that and kinda anxious about what to record for that video… But that’s the problem for the future me, so let’s get through everything I’ve been doing during this week.
First of all, I finally got through all 8 levels of economy picking. The hardest ones for me are 8 (obviously) and 5 (not obviously). I think that the hardness of the 8th level makes sense – it’s the last one after all. But as for the 5th level, I find it really hard to construct wide shapes on the fretboard starting from the pinky. The same shape in level 6 is way easier to play and I thought it was due to it being in the beginning of the line instead of the end. But nope, after thinking about it I can definitely tell that starting with the pinky is the issue.
The second part is the riffs. I’ve recorded seven of them as usual, and quite like how the end results sound. Unfortunately, I didn’t have enough time to figure out their keys, so that task will remain for the next week. Or I’ll just skip it for these riffs.
The video is quite long but I tried to make it as short as possible. As always there are time codes in order to make the navigation easier. See you next week!
Technically, that video has to be my 52nd one in the group, but since I counted only the weeks I’ve been practicing in, the numeration shifted a bit, so the proper 1 year summary will be posted in 4 weeks from now.
Anyway, at the very first day I decided that if I’m to successfully maintain consistent practice and to devote a good amount of time into the program then I’ll reward myself with a new guitar on the next birthday. And here it is!
The guitar is a PRS SE CUSTOM 22 VINTAGE SUNBURST and it’s beautiful and versatile. Looking forward to continue my daily practice on it!
Anyway, the practice routine for this week was economy picking, levels 1-4. The speed I’ve reached is 1/8 notes @ 140 bpm. Next week I’ll add another 4 levels and get these four to 150 bpm or maybe even further.
Also there’s new riffs as always. And I tried to figure out the keys of the songs only by the riffs. Not sure if it’s always possible, because sometimes there’s just not enough notes, but I tried.
Well, I’ve figured out that have been playing major/minor pentatonic shapes wrong before… Don’t know how I learnt them incorrect in the first place, but the most important thing is that I’ve fixed it 🙂
Next week I either continue practicing them in other ways or leave them in the background and switch to the next module, which is on figuring out the key of the song.
This week I’ve been practicing major triads and their inversions. I would generate a list of notes at therandomscalemachine.com and play all triads and inversions for given root notes pronouncing the notes.
Sorry for the sound quality. I should adjust the input levels of the mic better next time. This time I had to limit the levels after recording, and the sound is just not right.
There’s a lot of stuff that’s happening right now and have been happening during this week. First and foremost – I finally finished figuring out every shape/voicing of each chord for every mode. At least for C major key, but other chords could be get just by moving the shapes around so I’ll leave it as it is now.
The second thing is that I decided to learn something by ear, record and post something daily. I chose the short format of Instagram Reels, TikTok and YouTube Shorts, so now I upload daily to each of these social networks. It’s interesting how the same videos get different results on these platforms.
Feel free to subscribe. I’ll try to maintain that pace and post riffs/melodies/solos daily:
So in today’s video there are my attempts of remembering modes characteristics and the chords of each mode as well as 7 riffs I’ve learnt this week. Enjoy!
After the livestream I returned back to the previous chords from C Ionian and D Dorian modes hoping that their quantity will decrease after I apply the following rules:
The lowest note of the chord must be 1, 3, 5 or 7
We can omit any notes except for 3, 7 and the ones in the chord name
The first rule really helped and I deleted quite a few of voicings which couldn’t be called the way I named them.
The second though… Well, after going through C Ionian mode I “decreased” the number of voicings from 74 to 89, and for the D Dorian – from 69 to 98. I’ve spent several hours straight for each of these modes yesterday and found some crazy wide voicings which I haven’t considered before. Hence this quantity increase.
The situation have got out of control a bit, but I’m having fun as soon as I’m not stuck at the same ones.
Next week I’ll go on vacation and won’t be able to continue just yet. So I’ll go with ear training and maybe something else instead. But when I’m back, G Mixolydian, A Aeolian and B Locrian will have been gone through as well.
At first I thought I would play all these chords, but now when I’m writing this I’m not sure anymore, because I have 311 voicings on my list and it’s gonna be a 15-20 minutes long part of the video of me just playing chords, which is not very enjoyable to watch. But on the other hand it might be useful to hear through all of the different voicings and choose the ones I like the most. So at that point I’m a bit uncertain, and we’ll see what’s gonna be as a result.
Phew… Can’t believe that I’ve done all this. These numbers are really crazy.
