Practice Log for Thursday, 14 Jun 2018

Scales

I just used them as a warmup. Thirds up and down, scales ascending chromatically from F to E.

Ending of “Under the Bridge”

There’s so much for me to learn in playing these songs. I’ve been playing the same two or so songs for something like a month now, and I still don’t have them down perfectly. I need to focus more on the difficulties of these songs.

Part of the problem is that I’ve spent many years noodling after my initial very focused introduction to the instrument, and so there are a lot of minor skills that I’ve neglected over the years. For example, in “Under the Bridge”, John Frusciante is really showing his skill as a rhythm guitarist. I can imitate his style, but it’s no where near as clean as what he can do.

I quickly reviewed my pick palming in the intro. This intro is now actually pretty much where it needs to be, but the pick palming still has a little bit of practice to be done till it’s really smooth. The other thing is that it needs to be connected to the first verse, which is actually easy—but I tend to forget to start singing along with it, as well, so I need to work on that transition.

What I focused most of my time on was the outro to the song. The Am - G chord progression is what gets me. It’s not very smooth. I need to make sure the E string continues ringing. At the same time, I can’t miss the D on the second string, so that transition is pretty tricky if you throw a fill in right before it, as Frusciante does.

Summary

Transitions!

• intro to verse
• chorus to outro
• chords in outro

I’ll work on these next time. It’s good to be playing again—I neglect my playing when other things get in the way. This past week, my friend in China has been very stressed finding an apartment for us to live in, and my girlfriend thought I wasn’t compromising enough in my search for the right place, so she upset with me, too. On the other hand, I’ve also been working to set up a website for my friend, as well. I have focused more on getting his up and running than adding to my own. I’m back at it now, though.