Feb 1st 10
23 Comments | Posted in Guitar, Lessons
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Well, as you can see by the lack of posts in a while ※real life§ has yet again gotten in the way. Add to that an injured left wrist that makes it difficult and painful to play means I haven*t been playing and posting here as much as I would like.
But, I can*t blame everything on the real world and a bad wrist. Since this blog is about leaning the guitar, I should write about the good and the bad. The truth is, before life and limb got in the way I had grown frustrated with my guitar playing. In particular with my guitar lessons. And even further in particular with economy picking. As I posted about in a couple previous posts, my instructor Kit really wants me to break the economy picking habit and I seem to be having a problem doing it.
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Sep 25th 09
6 Comments | Posted in Guitar, Lessons
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For this weeks lesson we continued with the ※circle of notes§ diagram that I wrote about in my last lesson. My instructor Kit likes to call this his ※Dr. Seuss§ lesson since at first glance it doesn*t quite make sense and I need to trust that it*s going somewhere. This week I learned that this was more than just a memorization exercise to learn the notes backwards and forwards from any given note as I wrote last week. This time, Kit added two new circles (shown below) with different ※note spacing§ between the notes.
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Sep 4th 09
2 Comments | Posted in Guitar, Lessons
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I decided to try a new instructor. A friend of mine (who appears in my Jam Session post) is taking bass lessons from Kit Ruscoe who is also a guitar instructor. I*m not switching because I have a problem with my other instructor, Bruno Pelletier. I actually think he is a great instructor. I*m switching for a couple of reasons. First, since I*ve only seen one instructor, I*d like to get an idea of another instructors style and see if it*s a better fit for me. And second, even though Bruno is a great jazz guitarist and instructor, he*s not quite as up on the current rock/blues scene (he didn*t know who The Black Keys were). And as much as I would like to play jazz, playing blues and rock is what I*m after. Admittedly, at first I was specifically looking for a jazz guitarist as an instructor because I thought they would make better instructors when it comes to music and guitar theory. But Kit seems to have a good mix of theory (he*s actually classically trained) and rock expertise.
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Aug 28th 09
5 Comments | Posted in Dunlop, Gear, Guitar, Keeley, Lessons, MXR
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A new feature I*m going to have here is a lesson recap every time I have a lesson with my instructor. These my vary from every week to every two weeks depending on my schedule. In these posts you*ll get to see what I*m learning in my lessons. For me, it will be a great re-cap and force me to get a grasp on what I just learned. My lessons are on Thursday, so I*ll make these posts of Friday.
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Aug 14th 09
25 Comments | Posted in Guitar, Lessons, Reviews
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First, I*ll say that I think the best way for me to learn guitar was to find a teacher I like and take one on one lessons. But that can cost a lot of money (I know, I*m doing it and at $50 per hour lesson, it ain*t cheep). So, I decided to take a look at online lessons as a supplement to my one on one lessons. That way I can cut back the number of times I meet with my instructor.
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