Double bass
Incremental progress! I'm itching my way through the next few exercises from Tao (hand shape, coordination). Keeping a good hand shape is hard! On top of that, I've been drilling my shifts for the F major scale on the G string, and I think I'm a bit more "locked" in now - generally off by bits instead of being on the wrong note. Intonation is going to take a lot of time.
My classical teacher has me started on slurs, and that's going to be the focus of drills this coming month. I've to watch the amount of bow used and be conscious of getting the bow to "bite" before starting.
I also managed to progress well in getting the 12 major arpeggios down with fairly good intonation, so starting April I'll be working on the minor arpeggios. Walking some simple blues at around 100bpm now, which is great fun.
On the side, I also started playing the melody of Miles' So What on the electric bass, which I didn't really get to spend all that much time on.
Goals for April
- Walk on getting my slurs exercises up to speed on the metronome
- Continue with the usual drills (scales, shifting, good consistent bowing)
- Practice and dial down the minor arpeggios
- Practice accenting the 2nd and 4th beats of the arpeggios (to get that swing feel)
Guitar
I worked through a couple of pieces this month,
- Village blackbird blues (a modal piece)
- Nightfall
- The only waltz of its kind
A lot of time was spend on correcting my left hand, which included playing scales from the 7th fret and move upwards to the 2nd, along with Giuliani's right hand exercises. I think my left hand feels much better of late, is more "front facing" as opposed to my unconscious tendency to slant it.
I started on a well known piece - Carcassi's Etude 7 Op 60, which has tremolo sections, even though I doubt I'm anywhere near doing tremolos. But it's a great piece my teacher started me on to get a challenge going.
For relaxation, I also started working on the 1st few lines of Kinkachoo, I love you, a very ostinato -ish composition from Houghton.
Goals for April
- Work through all of Etude 7 Op 60, and hopefully on the metronome reach a respectable BPM
- Work through all of Kinkachoo
- Get through 1st 15 right hand studies