Time: 1 hour

Material:

• Gymnastics
• Three-octave Maj6 arpeggio from The Guitar Arpeggio Compendium by Scott McGill (using a metronome)
• Wolfhart #5
• Bona #82 and #83 (up one octave)
• Open voiced Major, melodic minor, and harmonic minor triads on string groups 124, 235, and 346 – all in ‘C’.
• Harmonic Gypsy Minor scale, every string every finger exercise (e.s.e.f.)
• Bebop lines from David Baker’s Bebop Volume 1
• “It Don’t Mean a Thing” chord melody arrangement by Howard Morgen
• Modus Novus
• Improvisation over ii-V-I in Ab.

Comments:

Had an interesting observation during the gymnastics and arpeggios parts of my session last night. Working with the metronome at a relatively low tempo (100 bpm) I discovered that I play very much right on top of the beat and have a tendency to shorten the note values. Once I figured out that I was doing this I realized (a) I do it all the time, and (b) it makes my playing and my lines sound rushed.

So what did I do? I relaxed! Lengthened each note a bit to fill the entire beat more and things sounded so much better! The notes flowed together so much nicer, and it allowed me to lay back in the metronome’s pocket more. I’m very glad that I had this observation because now I want to start thinking about playing with the pocket in my improvisation.

Good thing this is a guitar blog and not one drummers and bassists are likely to see much. Otherwise, I’m going to be inundated with “No S*@&!” in my comments.