Guitar-Muse Interviews

• My new interview with Rob Nishida and Lucian Lu of Origin Guitars just got posted on Guitar-Muse.  You can read that here.

• I’m in the final editing stage of the epic 40 page Miroslav Tadic interview.  I’ve got questions out to Magneto Guitars and Strandberg Guitarworks  as well.  (There are also still questions floating out to a few other people – hopefully we’ll hear from them soon!)

Other Updates

• In additional Guitar-Muse news, it looks like I’ll be doing a player profile series for them with licks/tab/mp3s.  I’ll post more when they’re up

• I have Duodenum gig Friday, February 24th with Carmina Escobar opening for The Decisive Instant (a free Jazz Big band!!) at the Glendale Moose Lodge, 357 West Arden Ave., Glendale, CA.  The web page should be updated soon – but there’s some info here.  We may be playing to a visual or just freely improvising – but I believe it’s a 30 minute set either way.

• Additional lesson posts will be going up over the next few weeks – but right now I’m just knee-deep in trying to get the chord scale book draft done by the end of the month.  (There will be an editing stage and the book should be released in March).  I’ve had some bundle requests – I’m still determining if I’m going to bring that back, but if I do it’ll be for all 4 books.

• There are a few other things going on – when they solidify more I’ll post here.

As always, thanks for reading!

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Most people have their first exposure to the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) assessment either in a college psychology class, a life coaching session, work-related retreat / team building exercise.  For those of you who aren’t familiar with the test, participants are given a (psychologically loaded) questionnaire that’s been specifically devised to determine individual preferences and based on those, to then extrapolate the test taker’s decision-making process and world view.  

In context, it’s a useful tool.  When participants get their four letter code that determines their personality type, they then typically get the equivalent of a score card to determine what the letters mean and to offer some guidelines on the types of decision-making process that they make.  As I said, in context it can be a useful tool where participants might see themselves and their decision-making process in a whole new light. 

However,  there always seems to be at least one person in a session who finds this to be something between a milestone and a revelatory experience and the next thing you know, every discussion with this person centers around Myers-Briggs.  Every interaction is analyzed and put through the Myers-Briggs filter.   “Oh well he must be an “I” which means that….”. 

And then, eventually, someone calls them on their bullsh*t.

Myers-Briggs typing starts to break down in the real world, because while it’s not a bad contextual lens for gleaning some information, it’s not a good lens on its own and it certainly has limited validity as the sole filter for information.  Additionally, people don’t dig being typecast in any scenario, even when you’re trying to be helpful.

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“Cure’s All that Ail’s ya!”

The web is full of these observations and cure-alls for whatever ail’s ya.  “Become a guitar god in a week by following these 3 weird simple rules.”   Or forums where one observation is yielded, “I had good success using product x with gear y” and soon you have other people who have never used product x or gear y saying, “Well if you use gear y YOU HAVE TO USE product x!!!”

In general, I would advise people to take any one-size fits all methodology, philosophy, strategy or any  solution with a BIG grain of salt.  Because, in my own experience, there is no one panacea for anything. Just as there is no one filter that will make previously hidden elements of the world fully visible and comprehensible to you.

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Instant gratification and false entitlement

The simple fact is that things that are worth having, have to be worked for.

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As a society, we have mutated this concept through advertising and sold people on the concept that because they do work hard in other areas of their life, that they deserve everything. 

“It might take you 3 years of saving to buy that 60″ flat screen TV.  You’ve worked hard establishing a line of good credit and you deserve to be comfortable in your twice re-financed home.   Pull that piece of plastic out of your pocket and you can walk home with it today!” – where you will set it up, take it for granted almost instantly and then spend 5 years paying it off and paying more than twice the actual cost of the item.  As Pascal said, “A trifle consoles us, for a trifle distresses us.” It should be called instant gratification because you’re gratified in an instant and your gratification lasts just as long.

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Guitar playing isn’t like that.  Certainly pedagogy and information transfer has occurred to the point where people can progress technically much more quickly on the instrument than ever before. 

But the problem is that guitar playing isn’t merely a skill like typing.

More than a skill set, a guitar is a vehicle for expression.  Technical facility might impress people, but if there’s nothing behind it in terms of depth of expression, you won’t make a long-lasting impression on them.

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Having the depth to truly say something, takes time.  Plain and simple. 

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A good way to think about this is something John Harper told me about guitar.  As you play guitar over time, the vibrations of the notes actually affects the wood on a cellular level.  The vibrations literally change the make up of the guitar over time.  This is why guitars that have been “played in” over time sound completely different than they did off the shelf.

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There are plenty of shortcuts to becoming a fast guitar player.

There are plenty of shortcuts to becoming a better guitar player.

There are no shortcuts to becoming a great guitar player.

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Truly great players, have a completely different relationship to music than most other people.  Music not only nourishes them, but eventually the musician starts communicating with the music rather than just the audience.  That conversation helps them gain further insight into themselves and actually helps to develop them more as people.

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Not only is there no shortcut for that – but if you think about it, you really might not want a shortcut in that area. For example,  if you had the opportunity to meet anyone in history would you rather have the conversation with them when you were 4 years old or 34?  It might be exciting to meet them when you’re 4, but you really wouldn’t have anything to say.  It’s only with the passage of time and experience that you can start to meet the music part way and have that conversation. For every person, that time is different but putting the time in now gets you closer and closer to being able to have that dialog.

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Be wary of the cure-all, the quick fix and the over-arching shortcut.  Work hard and work passionately and know that what you truly put of yourself into anything can can ultimately pay dividends for you.

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As always, thanks for reading!

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If you like this post you may also like:

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THE 5 WORDS OR LESS RULE.

2012: HOW NOT TO REPEAT THE MISTAKES OF THE PAST (OR NOTHING EVER GOT DONE WITH AN EXCUSE)

A HOLIDAY THOUGHT THAT MAY HELP THE WHOLE YEAR

ON TALENT, TENACITY AND SELF-DEFINITION

DON’T BE AFRAID OF THE WORK

“A Tale Of Two Cities” – Or A Lesson On Managing Consumer Expectation

Some Observations On Inertia And A Cool Online App For Getting Things Done

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On “It is what it is”

“When You Come To A Fork In The Road Take It”

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Circumnavigating The Wall You Just Hit

INSPIRATION VS. INTIMIDATION

TWO STEPS BACK OR SETBACKS IN PROJECT MANAGEMENT

KEEPING YOUR EGO OUT OF THE SONG’S WAY

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NOW IS THE TIME OF THE CONTENT CREATOR

The Power Of Inertia Or Know Your Flow

STRONG OPINIONS ARE LIKE STRONG ODORS OR SPEAK SOFTLY AND CARRY A THICK SKIN

COMPLEX CASSANDRA OR WHAT ELVIRA MISTRESS OF THE DARK COULD MEAN TO YOU

THE INSTRUCTIONAL METHODOLOGY BEHIND “HOW NOT TO DO THINGS”

“A MAN’S GOT TO KNOW HIS LIMITATIONS” OR LIMITING OPTIONS IS A KEY TO PRODUCTIVITY

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“COMMON SENSE IS NOT SO COMMON” OR WHY THE INTERNET IS PROBABLY WRONG

FOCUS, MUSIC AND THE BIG PICTURE – A QUOTE TO CONSIDER

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“THE LIMITS OF MY LANGUAGE ARE THE LIMITS OF MY WORLD”

DEADLINES ARE YOUR BEST FRIEND

SEEING THE FOREST INSTEAD OF THE TREE

FOCUS, MUSIC AND THE MARATHON MENTALITY

Just a quick note to say that the bound editions of The GuitArchitect’s Guide to Modes: Melodic Patterns, The GuitArchitect’s Guide to Modes: Harmonic Combinatorics and The GuitArchitect’s Positional Exploration are finally done!!  They’re all available on Lulu.com (and soon on Amazon). You can order any of the books in hardcopy (or pdf form) here.  There are also free previews of all the books there as well.

The bad news is that this also means that the holiday (and post-holiday) $30 bundle deal is over!!  Thanks to everyone who picked up preliminary copies!

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The GuitArchitecture books and Pedagogy

I’m going to be making a series of updates on the media and lesson pages next week, but after an explanation I gave about the books when teaching a lesson this week, I thought it might be worthwhile to discuss the books and what they’re supposed to do.

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I’ve talked a lot about music as language and learning music like one learns a language.  As children, we first learn language by imitating sounds.  Gradually we master sounds and associate sounds with meaning.  Then we make more complex associations with words until we form our own sentences and improvise freely in conversations with other people.  Along those lines, one of the first things I get people to work on in studying things with me is learning other people’s songs/melodies/solos/etc.  Because in learning other people’s vocabulary it expands your own vocabulary and builds up your aesthetic awareness of the world around you.  The value of music theory, is an ability to help conceptualize sounds in a fuller way, “Oh that sort of Phrygian thing you’ve got going on there.”  Theory serves sound.  In academic situations, this role is typically reversed and sound is broken down into theory – but be rest assured.  In the real world, theory serves sound.

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As a companion to learning (and understanding) other people’s music – I fully believe that a key component of learning music involves self-exploration.  Players (and songwriters and composers) will often remember a moment when he or she stumbled across a melodic or a harmonic idea and got excited enough to record it or write it down (or deeply regretted not doing so later!)

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Here’s a secret about this experience:

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There’s real power in that moment.

There’s real power in excitement.

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The books I’ve written are all about explaining different processes for generating these kinds of “A-ha” moments.  I’ve included some advice that I gave to one person below for one way of working through the material that may be helpful to those of you who already have the books (and may illustrate more of part of my process for people who are thinking about buying my books).

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As a precursor, all of the information here works off of the 2-string (3 note-per string) pattern visualization method that I’ve covered in parts 3a and 3b of this series, if any of the initial shapes (or connecting ideas) in this post seem confusing, just go back and review the following:

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THE GUITARCHITECT’S GUIDE TO MODES PART 3B – Seeing The Six-String Major Scale

THE GUITARCHITECT’S GUIDE TO MODES PART 3A – Seeing The Six-String Major Scale

THE GUITARCHITECT’S GUIDE TO MODES PART 2 – Seeing The Two String Major Scale

THE GUITARCHITECT’S GUIDE TO MODES PART 1 – Seeing The Single String Major Scale

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A Pedagogical note (taken from part 2)

Since the initial emphasis of this lesson series is on sonic visualization and making sense out of 2-string and positional fingerings, I’m only dealing with visualizing parent scales (Major, Melodic Minor or Harmonic Minor in this case)  as a whole here.

While modes are always associated with a chord or a chord progression, I’m limiting harmonic options only to C Major/Melodic Minor/Harmonic Minor  for now.

Extremely important elements in this process, such as harmony, modal interchange, arpeggios, individual modes and actual music making are the topics for other posts.  Having said that, it is important to state again, that modes (or any scale), in and of themselves, are not music but are only a tool in making music.   Anything I post here should always be filtered through your own aesthetic and utilized, adapted or even ignored accordingly (i.e. take what works for you).

With that in mind here’s a review of much of the information as it relates to C major.  For the Melodic and Harmonic minor shapes – just skip down to the next section.

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Major Scale/Modal Visualization Review

• The guitar fingerboard can be divided into 3 sets of two strings. Any 2-string fingering pattern that starts on the B string can be moved to the same starting pitch on the D or the low E string and keep the same fingering.

• The major scale can be broken down into seven two-string modes that follow a specific order based on its scale degree from the parent scale (Ionian, Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Aeolian, Locrian). The two-string patterns are modular and can be adapted to positional playing (see rules above).

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The modular 2 string modal shapes I use look like this (The numbers represent fingers).

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Here’s a C major scale played  on only the B and E strings:

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Comparing the initial shapes to the ascending pattern, the positional patterns can be broken down into the seven 2-string modal fingerings that ascend in sequential order  (i.e. C Ionian, D Dorian, E Phrygian, F Lydian, G Mixolydian, A Aeolian and B Locrian).

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Since the two-string patterns are modular they can also be adapted to positional playing.  So if we look at a C Major scale played in the 8th position and starting from C:

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This 6-string fingering can be seen as containing three distinct patterns:

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 Two-string sets of C Ionian

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Here are the important things you need to know for visualizing this:

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As the fingering pattern ascends across the strings,

the six note modal fingerings descend to the next modal pattern.  

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Like wise, as the fingering pattern descends across the strings,

the six-note modal fingerings ascend to the next modal pattern.    

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This is true of any 2-string pattern.

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Adapting Major shapes to create Melodic and Harmonic Minor fingerings

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I’ve talked before about the modal microscope and seeing things on the parent major level.  The advantage of this comes into play right here. First, let’s take another look at a C major scale played in the 8th position again:

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Here’s the audio.

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Note:

In all the audio examples, I’ve played the example first as sextuplets – then at a slower tempo (i.e. 16ths) – then as sextuplets again.

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Each mode is associated with chords as well.  Here’s a chart of the triad and 7th chords  for C Major:

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In all of the chord examples below, I’ve taken sample diatonic 7th chord shapes for the E, D, G and B strings with the roots on the low E string. These are certainly not the only way to play these chords, but if you’re not familiar with the voicings they’re not a bad place to start.  Also, while I’ve notated each chord as a 1/4 note, I’ve held each chord for 2 bar lengths (i.e. 8 beats) to be able to play the scale patterns against.

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Also, distortion tends to wash out chords with larger voicings, so for all the examples in this exercise, I’ve used a clean setting courtesy of Scuffham Amps.

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Melodic Minor

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To visualize Melodic Minor Patterns – simply flat the 3rd of the Parent Major scale.

(i.e. to visualize C Melodic Minor just play C major but change every E  to Eb).

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It’s important to note that all of the fingering conventions mentioned here are solely to assist with visualization. Melodic and Harmonic Minor really aren’t directly related to the Major scale sonically.  

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Melodic Minor short cuts:

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Using the Parent Major patterns above here’s a list of short cut’s to help you visualize the patterns.

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Note: in the F Lydian shape – there’s no change from the major shape since there’s no Eb in the 2-string pattern.

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Here’s the initial melodic pattern with the modified major fingerings written above the 2-string shapes:

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Here are the diatonic triads and 7th chords.

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Try playing the initial C Melodic Minor shape over any of these chords..

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Harmonic Minor

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To visualize Harmonic Minor Patterns – simply flat the 3rd and the 6th of the Parent Major scale.

(i.e. to visualize C Harmonic Minor just play C major but change every E  to Eb and every A  to Ab).

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Here are the pattern adaptations.  In a situation like this, it can get confusing to remember a formula like “Dorian b2, b5″ so as an alternative you may just want to try remembering something like “Pattern 1″ for Ionian b3, b6, “Pattern 2″ for Dorian b2, b5, etc.

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Performance Notes:

• This whole process just a short cut for a visualization process to see C Major/Melodic Minor/Harmonic Minor on the fingerboard.  In parts 3a and 3b of this series, I’ve provided every C major positional fingering.  As a first step, you should consider adapting each of those fingerings to Melodic and Harmonic Minor.  After you get the shapes under your fingers, try moving them to other keys as well.

• In addition to using a time keeping device of some kind (like a metronome, drum loop, etc) playing along to a chord or a bass note will help establish tonality and help associate each pattern with a sound).  I’ll get more into application in further lessons, but for now try playing the patterns over any of the bass notes or chords in the mp3s and once you get familiar with the chord shapes, try writing tunes or solos with the material.

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Technical Notes:

• While it’s natural to want to progress quickly, trying to play too quickly too soon results in excess hand tension which will increase the difficulty of what you’re trying to play.  Fluidity comes from focused, relaxed repetition.  

• Fretting hand: When playing these patterns, practice using just the fingertip to fret the notes and use the minimum amount of tension needed for the note to sound cleanly.  Additionally, try to keep the fingers down on the strings when playing and remove them from the string only when necessary.

• Picking Hand:  Try using the above picking pattern on the top two strings or alternate picking.

• Practice the scale ascending and descending and really focus on clarity of notes, hand tension and timing.  Even many intermediate to advanced players can gain something by really focusing on making clean transitions between the fingering shapes.

• Isolate problem areas and work out.  You’re not going to be able to play the sequence cleanly if any of the individual components aren’t 100%.  This isn’t a bad thing.  Things you develop over time are more likely to stay with you (and thus be accessible when you’re improvising).

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Musical:

• Making music from the patterns is a whole other skill set, but you need to know where to put your fingers on the strings while you  bend, slide and phrase your way into making music.  Having said that, since the visualization process doesn’t take that long,  as soon as you get the shapes down I’d recommend to start manipulating them to try to make them more musical to your ear.   See Part 2 of this series for more specifics or the making music out of scales post for some suggestions for how to do this.

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Like I said before, I’ll be going deeper into using these scales (and using them in other harmonic contexts) in future posts.  With any lesson material, I recommend you just go through the lesson at your own pace and return as you need to.  Please feel free to post any questions you might have (or pm me at guitar.blueprint@gmail.com).

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I hope this helps.   As always, thanks for reading!

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P.S. If you like this post – you may also like:

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Books:

THE GUITARCHITECTURE HOLIDAY BOOK BUNDLE: $30 FOR 3 PDFS!!!

The GuitArchitect’s Guide To Modes: Harmonic Combinatorics “Pre-Release” Now Available

THE GUITARCHITECT’S POSITIONAL EXPLORATION PRE-RELEASE NOW AVAILABLE

THE GUITARCHITECT’S GUIDE TO MODES: MELODIC PATTERNS BOOK “PRE-RELEASE” NOW AVAILABLE

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LESSONS

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Modes:

The Modal Microscope And A Sequenced Arpeggio Approach

Slash and Burn – Creating More Complex Sounds With Slash Chords

The GuitArchitect’s Guide to Modes Part 8 – Major Positional Modal Interchange and Complimenting Modes with Chords

THE GUITARCHITECT’S GUIDE TO MODES PART 7 – MINOR POSITIONAL MODAL INTERCHANGE AND COMPLIMENTING MODES WITH CHORDS

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THE GUITARCHITECT’S GUIDE TO MODES PART 6 – THE CIRCLE OF 5THS AND MODAL INTERCHANGE

THE GUITARCHITECT’S GUIDE TO MODES PART 5 – MAKING THE MOST OF ONE PATTERN

The GuitArchitect’s Guide To Modes Part 4 – Modes and Chords

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THE GUITARCHITECT’S GUIDE TO MODES PART 3B – SEEING THE SIX-STRING MAJOR SCALE

THE GUITARCHITECT’S GUIDE TO MODES PART 3A – SEEING THE SIX-STRING MAJOR SCALE

THE GUITARCHITECT’S GUIDE TO MODES PART 2 – SEEING THE TWO STRING MAJOR SCALE

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The GuitArchitecture Guide To Modes Part 1 – Seeing The Single String Major Scale

Making Music Out Of Scales

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Pentatonics:

Making Sense Of The Pentatonic Scale – Diagonal Forms – Part Two

MAKING SENSE OF THE PENTATONIC SCALE – DIAGONAL FORMS – PART ONE

Free Sweeping Pentatonic Minor Scale Lesson on Live4Guitar.com now online

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2 STRING SHAPES OR MAKING SENSE OF THE PENTATONIC MINOR SCALE

THE BAKER’S DOZEN APPROACH TO PENTATONIC SCALES

GUITARCHITECTURE, SONIC VISUALIZATION AND A PENTATONIC APPROACH FOR THE HOLIDAYS

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Chords/Triads/Superimposition/Arpeggios:

CREATING CHORDS AND LINES FROM ANY SCALE – A HARMONIC COMBINATORICS / SPREAD VOICINGS LESSON

AUGMENT YOUR KNOWLEDGE: SONIC SHAPES AND GETTING MORE FROM AUGMENTED CHORDS

Slash and Burn – Creating More Complex Sounds With Slash Chords

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GETTING HIPNESS FROM A MAJOR TRIAD OR MORE CHORD RECYCLING PART 3

Getting Hipness From A Major Triad Or More Chord Recycling Part 2

GETTING HIPNESS FROM A MAJOR TRIAD OR MORE CHORD RECYCLING PART 1

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Getting Through The Gig – Negotiating A Chord Chart Part 3

Getting Through The Gig – Negotiating A Chord Chart Part 2

GETTING THROUGH THE GIG – NEGOTIATING A CHORD CHART PART 1

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RECYCLING CHORDS PART II: TRIAD TRANSFORMATION

RECYCLING CHORDS PART I OR WHERE’S THE ROOT?

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FAVORED CURRY OR SPICING UP CHORD SCALES AND TRIADS PART 2

FAVORED CURRY OR SPICING UP CHORD SCALES AND TRIADS PART 1

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RECYCLING SHAPES OR MODULAR ARPEGGIOS FOR FUN AND PROFIT

GLASS NOODLES – ADAPTING A PHILIP GLASS ARPEGGIO APPROACH TO GUITAR

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Practicing:

MELVILLE, MADNESS AND PRACTICING – OR FINDING THE DEEPER LESSON PART 2

Some Useful Online Practice Tools

POSSESSION IS 9/10S OF THE LAW BUT PERCEPTION IS EVERYTHING OR PRACTICING PART VII

TESTING YOUR VOCABULARY OR PRACTICING PART VI

PRACTICE WHAT YOU PLAY OR PRACTICING PART V

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DEFINITIONS AND DOCUMENTS OR PRACTICING PART IV

TENSION AND THE SODA CAN OR PRACTICING PART III

PROPER POSTURE IS REQUIRED FOR PROPER PERFORMANCE – PRACTICING PART II

PRACTICE MAKES BETTER AKA PRACTICING PART I

I hope this finds you well!  Just a few quick updates.

Book Orders and Lessons Learned

The page has been a little light on lessons (minus the 12-tone post) lately, but I’ve been busy juggling a few other things and getting the book orders out the door are amongst them.  I had been waiting for a few design consultations to come through and both people flaked on me. 

Lesson 1: People flake on things (even when it involves money and they’re “professional”) so always have a backup plan.

Lesson 2: No one cares about excuses – they only care about results.

Rather than wait longer trying to get another designer to work on the book, I went back to Plan A and used the website design as a template for the book cover layout.  You can actually order all three books on Lulu right now, but I’d recommend holding off on it until I get the proofs next week for review.

For those of you who have ordered books – Final – yes final – revisions of the first three books will be sent out by the end of the week.  I need to send a big shout out of thanks to Doug Kearns who soldiered through the texts and caught a number of embarrassing errors that neither I, the other proofreaders or the spellcheck caught. 

The Bundle deal

I have mixed feelings about the bundle deal leaving.  On one hand, I feel like it was a good way for people to get my books at a rock-bottom price.  On the other hand, I feel like I need to honor the original commitment that I made to those people that they should buy now (because the deal is finite). 

For now, I’ve extended the $30 bundle deal until the print editions are received and proofed and then all sales (Pdf and hard copy) will go through Lulu.  I might bring the bundle back in the future, but it’ll depend on multiple factors (including what the demand for it is).

The Lulu Print Edition.

Here’s a bummer.  In order to have an ISBN number (and thus distribution), I’m limited to a perfect binding for the book, instead of issuing the coil bound book I wanted to release. 

For those of you who want the coil bound book, I will be releasing a separate edition of each book with a coil binding but since it won’t have an ISBN, it will only be available via Lulu.com.  The pricing should be the comparable (if not the same).

Au Lab POD Farm and my lost weekend

Much of this last weekend was lost falling down the tech-hole trying to get POD Farm working with AU Lab.  When I initially posted on AU Lab, I had every MIDI Assignment between my MK II shortboard and POD Farm working perfectly, but I violated the cardinal rule of tech,

“If it works – leave it alone”

and paid for it.  I had updated POD Farm, and Line 6 drivers (several times) over the last ½ year and now between the two of them I can’t get the AU of POD FARM to recognize the midi signal from the shortboard.  I can still control SooperLooper with the shortboard via AU Lab (so I haven’t completely lost my skill set in this area), but not POD Farm. 

I didn’t notice it as I hadn’t been gigging with the laptop but when I went to go test things for an upcoming gig, I realized that it didn’t work and that’s where 4-6 hours a day got sucked into. 

“It’s always one button…”

I remember being in a rehearsal a few years ago when a vocalist was freaking out about a problem with the PA set up.  The drummer had commented that there was no reason to freak out as, “Nothing’s broken.  When something doesn’t work it’s always one button away from working.”

In a previous post, I had mentioned how AU Lab 2.2 wasn’t working with my rig and how I had to go back and re-install 2.1.  With the POD FARM AU and the shortboard not communicating – I decided to download the X CODE 3.2.6 update and give it a whirl.  When it finished downloading (it took about an hour), I loaded up a patch and just like before, I couldn’t get audio from the Duet to the channel strip.  This time however, I decided to choose another input and then choose the Duet again (manually resetting the Duet input) and it worked!  It’s a sloppy work around, but it’s getting audio to the AU. 

So sometime’s it is just one button, but that observation isn’t helping with the POD Farm AU midi assign.  (The stand-alone version works fine – it’s just the AU that’s being goofy).

So my initial idea of running POD Farm as stomp boxes in front of the S-Gear amp has been dashed for now, but after watching Joe Gore’s outrageous Mental 99 set last Thursday, maybe this is the setback I needed to get into Mainstage on a real level and try setting up a rig there.

For those of you into Laptop guitar.  Check back.  More developments will be reported on as they occur.

There’s a big difference between being busy and getting something done – so in the meantime, just remember sometimes it’s more than just one button and if you’re looking over the precipice of what could be a tech time hole – make sure to set an alarm!

Thanks for reading!

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Guest Blogging for Joe Gore’s Tone Fiend

Big thanks to Joe Gore for posting my article (and editing my chicken scratches into something coherent) on the wild string sounds of Vietnam on his great tone fiend blog.  If you want to see some crazy guitars (and some crazier phrasing) you can czech out that post here.

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• In other guest posting news, I have a (relatively) new post up on Guitar-Muse.  If you’re looking for a warm-up lick (and some good playing advice) check it out! A cool  interview with Mike Scuffham (of Scuffham Amps/S-gear) is also up here , and you can find all my posts (interviews, lessons, and more) here (it’s 3 pages so just tab through the bottom of the page.

• Books.  I just want to take a moment and thank everyone for their pdf orders (and kind words about the books in general).  It’s simultaneously affirming and humbling at the same time.  So thank you!  If you’ve ordered a hard copy, I still hope to have print editions  by the end of January.  As soon as I get proofed editions – I’ll  get one out to you!

There’s more to come!!

As always, thanks for reading!

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I couldn’t describe what I did musically in 5 words or less to other people.

When asked what I did, I said I played guitar, and then went into a painfully earnest description that was supposed to be informational (but in reality probably sounded more like babbling).

No matter how sincere people are, most of them shut down with information overload and anything more than 5 words describing what you do initially (“initially” is an important qualifier here by the way) is information overload.

That might sound harsh but it’s not meant to be.  It’s simply that even musicians (i.e. people who do this every day of their lives) tend to lose focus after 10 words or so. I might talk about how hearing koto playing worked its way into my comping and they might be looking at me smiling and wondering about the discolored tooth in the front of my mouth (it’s discolored because I got into an accident the day of my grandmother’s funeral and ate a face full of gravel killing the nerve in my front tooth.  It’s also why I very rarely smile with a full open-faced smile.  But I digress….).

To non-musicians it’s even more alien.  They often really want to understand what you’re doing, but experience has shown me that the more descriptive you get, the more you’re going to lose them.  People are busy.  They have a lot on their mind and they’re often easily distracted, so don’t lose them if they’re interested in what you do!

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The restroom pitch

Now I’ve clarified this with the word initially.  For those of you familiar with the term, this is less of an elevator pitch and (in terms of length of time) more of a restroom pitch.  Imagine you walk up to a sink in a restroom and someone is already using the neighboring sink.  The person recognizes you and taps the soap dispenser and asks, “Hey don’t you play music – what kind of music do you play?”  you’ve got about 5 words to get it across before he or she runs the tap water and can’t hear what you’re saying.

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The goal of being able to do this isn’t to limit yourself in a bad way.  

The point of it is to come up with just enough of a description to get someone’s interest and have them ask more about what it is that you do.

Interestingly enough, while the 5-word rule applies to a band bio (keep it short and to the point), it doesn’t necessarily apply to other text-based media.  People who want to read about a band are often willing to read lengthy articles and will actually retain the information – but that’s after there interest is piqued, and the window for that is generally a short sentence or two.

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In person – in an initial meeting  - you’ve got about 5 words to bring them in.

If you’re interested in trying this for yourself here are some tips that may help.

• Try to describe yourself musically in 5 words or less.

• Make it descriptive enough that people get some sense of what you’re doing – but open enough to let their imagination fill in the other pieces.  ”Improvised rock guitar” isn’t a bad start, but people who hear that are going to think “jam band”.  So if you play in a jam band it’s easier to just say “I play in a jam band”.  If you don’t play in a jam band, you might need a better description.

• If you’re comparing yourself to other bands – don’t use any more than two (“Black Sabbath meets Elton John” gets someone’s attention.  ”Take Yngwie Malmsten’s leads with Tony Levin’s pocket and hold it together with Zakir Hussain’s tabla” looses people.  Shred guitar with tabla gets it back again.  Will your bassist get pissed at that description?  Probably – but again the idea is to distill it down to its essence – because the essence is where all the potency is.

While this process will help you describe your music to other people (and thus make it more accessible to them automatically), it has a second (and ultimately more significant) advantage. It clarifies in your own head exactly what it is you’re trying to do.

If it takes 30 seconds for someone to initially describe what they’re doing it’s generally because they’re a little muddled on the goal as well.  Again, it’s something I was guilty of on my own and I now have short descriptions for everything I do.  They’re not all 5 words or less (and they all need revision and improvement)  but they’re distilled enough that people get the gist of what I’m doing.

For example, when people ask about performance I often tell them I play “ethnically influenced rock guitar”, “loop-based improvised guitar” or “improvised music for multi-media”.

When asked about my teaching style, I can explain that as a teacher my goal is to “help students hear the music within” or to “help students sound like themselves”.  Both sentences are a little clunky – but that’s the simplest essence.  That’s what I can boil it down to and if I understand it on the base level, I can always expand on it later. How I do these things is a much longer discussion.  Even though none of them fully define what I do, they help open a door for that discussion to occur and opening doors is what music should do in general.

Give it a try!  You may find out some interesting things about yourself!

Thanks for reading!

-SC

p.s. If you like this post, you may also like:

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2012: HOW NOT TO REPEAT THE MISTAKES OF THE PAST (OR NOTHING EVER GOT DONE WITH AN EXCUSE)

A HOLIDAY THOUGHT THAT MAY HELP THE WHOLE YEAR

ON TALENT, TENACITY AND SELF-DEFINITION

DON’T BE AFRAID OF THE WORK

“A Tale Of Two Cities” – Or A Lesson On Managing Consumer Expectation

Some Observations On Inertia And A Cool Online App For Getting Things Done

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MUSIC BUSINESS 201: SELLING IT VERSUS SELLING OUT

On “It is what it is”

“When You Come To A Fork In The Road Take It”

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Circumnavigating The Wall You Just Hit

INSPIRATION VS. INTIMIDATION

TWO STEPS BACK OR SETBACKS IN PROJECT MANAGEMENT

KEEPING YOUR EGO OUT OF THE SONG’S WAY

NOW IS THE TIME OF THE CONTENT CREATOR

THE AMERICAN IDOL LITMUS TEST

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The Power Of Inertia Or Know Your Flow

STRONG OPINIONS ARE LIKE STRONG ODORS OR SPEAK SOFTLY AND CARRY A THICK SKIN

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COMPLEX CASSANDRA OR WHAT ELVIRA MISTRESS OF THE DARK COULD MEAN TO YOU

THE INSTRUCTIONAL METHODOLOGY BEHIND “HOW NOT TO DO THINGS”

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“A MAN’S GOT TO KNOW HIS LIMITATIONS” OR LIMITING OPTIONS IS A KEY TO PRODUCTIVITY

POSSESSION IS 9/10S OF THE LAW BUT PERCEPTION IS EVERYTHING OR PRACTICING PART VII

FOCUS, MUSIC AND THE BIG PICTURE – A QUOTE TO CONSIDER

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“THE LIMITS OF MY LANGUAGE ARE THE LIMITS OF MY WORLD”

DEADLINES ARE YOUR BEST FRIEND

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(For those of you on the e-mail list, we had a false start yesterday morning.  It’s a gentle reminder to me to avoid working on anything before I have coffee!)

I’m still planning on re-releasing my updated 12 tone pattern book this year but I thought I’d start the process a little early by showing you a cool approach to working 12-tone ideas into your playing.  This is a really long lesson because it’s tough to distill 200+ pages of material into a web post, but just take it in bite sized chunks and come back to it as you need to and I’m sure you’ll get something from it.

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Fire up the video game

When I heard the Praxis Transmutation (Mutatis Mutandis) record, I was blown away with Buckethead’s playing.  It also came at a time that I was getting into a lot of 12-tone music and trying to figure out how to adapt those things to guitar and his intervallic/atonal tapping ideas in particular seemed to go in a completely different direction that the 12-tone ideas I heard Jason Becker and Marty Friedman throw into their playing.

Public Service Announcement (i.e. a brief note about playing out):

Playing out just means playing note choices outside of a given tonality.  By its very nature, playing out requires an ability to play “in” because it requires a contextual contrast. So my suggestion is that you make sure you develop your ability to play in a tonality as well as outside of it.  (Also as a FYI – playing out is easy, but musicians are often judged by how musically they get back in).

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Every once in a while, I get a hankerin’ for what I call “video game licks” (or symmetrical interval legato licks with a lot of gain and an unclear harmony).  Shawn Lane could veer into that territory when he wanted to but for me, Buckethead is pretty much the king of this approach.

In the lick below, I’ve worked all 12 tones into a two-handed idea that uses pick and fret hand tapping. I’ve kept it short so that you can focus on the coordination between both hands, but I’ve included a longer version of the lick after it.  As the lick uses all 12-tones it doesn’t belong to any key so try playing it over various chords or riffs of your choosing.

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Technical Notes:

• If you want to get this lick under your fingers, pay attention to the 3 T’s (hand tension, timing and tone) as you practice this.

• Try to make sure that the motion from the fingers for striking the strings comes from the large knuckle of the hand (for more information on this see the glass noodles post).

• The pattern is a variation on the tapping figure Greg Howe uses in kick it all over.  It’s written in groups of 6 to fit into one bar –  but just practice it slowly as triplets to get the initial speed and coordination down.

• I never got into muti-finger tapping on phrases like this one (I just use the middle finger of the picking hand while I hold the pick with the index finger and thumb), but using the ring, middle and first finger on the picking hand for the upper register tapping you could probably work the phrase up to a tempo 30 bmp faster than this one.

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Click any image for full-size viewing

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Short lick faster

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Short lick slower

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Here’s an extended variation that moves the fingering pattern to the B and D strings.  While the pattern doesn’t keep all of the same intervals as the first example, it has enough continuity to sound like the same 12 tone idea. One recommendation I have is not to get into the dogmatic practice of having to use all twelve tones. If 10 notes work well, use ten notes. In any process like this, use the rules that work for you and discard the rest.

While not notated, this pattern uses all of the same fingerings and note attacks as the first example.

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Longer lick faster

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Longer lick slower

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Here’s how I’m visualizing this and how you can generate a lot of ideas from this one approach.

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The 12-tone pattern vs the 12 tone row

When I first got into 12 tone music and tried to think of a way to incorporate it into improvising, I grabbed some Webern and Berg tone rows (in an over-simplified description – a tone row is a restructured chromatic scale that is used for melodic and harmonic material) and tried improvising with them.

It was pretty dismal.

I found them really hard to improvise with because the row material was difficult to memorize and the number of notes made it difficult to use in an improvisation and then I thought about generating 12-tone patterns instead of working with rows.

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Patterns can be useful in improvisation because:

• they can be used to generate motifs, or themes
• they can be manipulated in real-time and
• they can establish recognizable elements of control in an improvisation.

The other advantage of a pattern is that its intervallic consistency adds an internal drive to melodic ideas.   The notes of the pattern move in and out of various tonalities, so it sounds “out” but not random (although you can modify it to be as random as you’d like.

In the 12 tone pattern book I wrote, I used a chromatic scale as a template for generating symmetrical patterns for improvisation. Intervallically uniform, the 12 notes of the chromatic scale are evenly divisible by the numbers: 1, 2, 3, 4, 6 and 12.  Since divisions of 1 and 12 do not divide the row into a more useable set, they can be ignored.  This leaves:

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6 equal divisions:

(of a descending chromatic scale staring on C)

C B / Bb A /Ab G /Gb F / E Eb / D Db

Taking the first note of each division gives us:

 C, Bb, Ab, Gb/F#, E, D

aka: Whole tone scale (any note root)

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A 12-tone pattern can be created by putting notes in between the notes of the whole tone scale.   Note that the intervals between all the 2-note divisions are symmetrical.

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C B / Bb A /Ab G /Gb F / E Eb / D Db

C A / Bb G /Ab F /Gb Eb / E Db / D B

C G / Bb F /Ab Eb /Gb Db / E B / D A

C F / Bb Eb /Ab Db /Gb B / E A / D G

C Eb/ Bb Db /Ab B /Gb A / E G / D F

C Db/ Bb B /Ab A /Gb G / E F / D Eb

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One advantage to symmetrical patterns is that they work off of divisions you probably already know.  If you can visualize a whole-tone scale, for example, filling in the other notes of the pattern becomes relatively easy.

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4 equal divisions of the row:

C B Bb /A Ab G / Gb F E / Eb D Db

aka: C, Eb, Gb, A (Bbb)

aka: Diminished 7 chord (any note root)

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3 equal divisions of the row:

C B Bb A /Ab G Gb F / E Eb D Db

aka: C E G#

aka:Augmented triad (any note root)

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2 equal divisions of the row yields:

C B Bb A Ab G  / (Gb/F#) F E Eb D Db

aka: Tritone interval either note could be root

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Using the divisions to create a 12-tone pattern

Here’s how I came up with the original example.  Using a diminished 7th chord as a starting point, the rest of the twelve tones could be filled in by playing three additional notes off each chord tone. Let’s say you have D diminished 7th chord (since any note in a diminished 7th chord can be a root it’s also a B, F and Ab diminished 7th chord).

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B D F Ab

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By adding 3 notes not already in use to each starting pitch you can create a 12-tone row. If you work out the same intervals on these notes you get a symmetrical twelve-tone pattern.

B  (Perfect 5th down) E, (minor 2nd down) D#

D (Perfect 5th down) G, (minor 2nd down) F#

F (Perfect 5th down) Bb, (minor 2nd down) A

Ab (Perfect 5th down) Db, (minor 2nd down) C

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Adapting it to guitar

Where this gets cool part 1:

If we restructure the order of the first notes we get two tritones a minor 3rd apart.  Since the E and G strings are a minor 3rd apart this means that the fingering pattern will be the same on both sets of strings.

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Where this gets cool part 2:

As I’ve mentioned before, using standard tuning the guitar can be visualized as three sets of strings tuned in 4ths.  So this means that the same fingering can be used to generate the same intervals on the G and D strings.

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From here, you can see where the approach for the first lick came from.

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Taking it further

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Another nice thing about patterns is that they’re easy to manipulate and draw other ideas from.  Let’s take a look at the first 12 notes:

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You can change the last four notes to create new lines.

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Here are these two ideas in notation and tab.

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You could apply the same two-handed idea we’ve been looking at to any of these patterns or, better yet, apply your own!

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Here are the last two patterns starting with F-Bb

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The next step is to change the middle notes of the pattern.

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This creates 4 new patterns that start with F-E-A, F-E-Eb/D#, F-E-C and F-E-F#.

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Here’s the same idea applied to F-C#/Db

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And finally, patterns starting with F-G.

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To sum up, that’s 16 very different licks all pulled from one approach and one initial pattern.  This is really the tip of the iceberg for this concept but as you can see, you really don’t need more than one approach to get the ideas flowing and use them on your own.

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Note:

Sometimes you get an idea and think that you’re doing something unique. You get all excited about it until (if you’re me) you realize that Dave Creamer addressed many of these points back in the June 1989 issue of Guitar Player. Dave’s article inspired me to continue to research this book and try to present similar material my own way.

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* (I should also mention in passing that (with the better part of a year’s worth of research) – the forthcoming The GuitArchitect’s Guide to Symmetrical Patterns For 12 Tone Improvisation shows all possible symmetrical patterns for the 2, 3, 4 and 6 note divisions above.)

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I hope this helps and thanks for reading!

-SC

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If you’re interested in this post you may also like:

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THE GUITARCHITECTURE HOLIDAY BOOK BUNDLE: $30 FOR 3 PDFS!!!

The GuitArchitect’s Guide To Modes: Harmonic Combinatorics “Pre-Release” Now Available

THE GUITARCHITECT’S POSITIONAL EXPLORATION PRE-RELEASE NOW AVAILABLE

THE GUITARCHITECT’S GUIDE TO MODES: MELODIC PATTERNS BOOK “PRE-RELEASE” NOW AVAILABLE

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The Modal Microscope And A Sequenced Arpeggio Approach

Slash and Burn – Creating More Complex Sounds With Slash Chords

The GuitArchitect’s Guide to Modes Part 8 – Major Positional Modal Interchange and Complimenting Modes with Chords

THE GUITARCHITECT’S GUIDE TO MODES PART 7 – MINOR POSITIONAL MODAL INTERCHANGE AND COMPLIMENTING MODES WITH CHORDS

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THE GUITARCHITECT’S GUIDE TO MODES PART 6 – THE CIRCLE OF 5THS AND MODAL INTERCHANGE

THE GUITARCHITECT’S GUIDE TO MODES PART 5 – MAKING THE MOST OF ONE PATTERN

The GuitArchitect’s Guide To Modes Part 4 – Modes and Chords

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THE GUITARCHITECT’S GUIDE TO MODES PART 3B – SEEING THE SIX-STRING MAJOR SCALE

THE GUITARCHITECT’S GUIDE TO MODES PART 3A – SEEING THE SIX-STRING MAJOR SCALE

THE GUITARCHITECT’S GUIDE TO MODES PART 2 – SEEING THE TWO STRING MAJOR SCALE

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The GuitArchitecture Guide To Modes Part 1 – Seeing The Single String Major Scale

Making Music Out Of Scales

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CREATING CHORDS AND LINES FROM ANY SCALE – A HARMONIC COMBINATORICS / SPREAD VOICINGS LESSON

AUGMENT YOUR KNOWLEDGE: SONIC SHAPES AND GETTING MORE FROM AUGMENTED CHORDS

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FAVORED CURRY OR SPICING UP CHORD SCALES AND TRIADS PART 2

FAVORED CURRY OR SPICING UP CHORD SCALES AND TRIADS PART 1

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GLASS NOODLES – ADAPTING A PHILIP GLASS ARPEGGIO APPROACH TO GUITAR

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Some Useful Online Practice Tools

POSSESSION IS 9/10S OF THE LAW BUT PERCEPTION IS EVERYTHING OR PRACTICING PART VII

TESTING YOUR VOCABULARY OR PRACTICING PART VI

PRACTICE WHAT YOU PLAY OR PRACTICING PART V

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DEFINITIONS AND DOCUMENTS OR PRACTICING PART IV

TENSION AND THE SODA CAN OR PRACTICING PART III

PROPER POSTURE IS REQUIRED FOR PROPER PERFORMANCE – PRACTICING PART II

PRACTICE MAKES BETTER AKA PRACTICING PART I

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MELVILLE, MADNESS AND PRACTICING – OR FINDING THE DEEPER LESSON PART 2

FINDING THE DEEPER LESSON

INSPIRATION VS. INTIMIDATION

WARMING UP: FINGER EXERCISES, THE 3 T’S AND THE NECESSITY OF MISTAKES

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A QUICK LICK – AND A RIG DU JOUR UPDATE FROM HO CHI MINH CITY

“THE LIMITS OF MY LANGUAGE ARE THE LIMITS OF MY WORLD”

A BRIEF THOUGHT ABOUT MUSIC THEORY

I’m back from vacation and geared up hit the ground running!

In regards to the books, I’m currently working on cleaning up some graphics issues with them.  The good news is that the pdf files look A LOT better (and with less typos – thanks to Doug Kearns!!) – the bad news is that the resultant files are going from 30 megs –> 350 megs in size.  It won’t make that much of a difference from anyone’s drive but I’ll have to rethink the distribution method for getting the updates out to everyone.

All three books from last year will be for sale as hard copies by the end of the month.  As soon as I get test prints back – I’ll be mailing out hard copies to those of you who ordered them and sending links to the finals pdfs to everyone who ordered the pdf versions of the books.

I had hoped to have this done by the end of the year, but life and family had to take center stage at the end of the year  and I miscalculated how much additional work would have to go into the final copies.

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So for people who are thinking about ordering the pdf bundle but haven’t  - you can still get the bundles through the PayPal links on the bundle page until the books are up on Lulu.

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A preview of this year:

1. Multiple digital releases (and possibly a dvd) will be out over the course of the year.
2. The Chord Scale and the 12 tone books will be done (hopefully by mid year!)
3. All of the material from the unreleased Guide to Modes book will be finished being serialized on this site by the end of the year.
4. I’m tinkering with a bit of rebranding that may be of substantial interest to the people who have the book (and/or come to the site for instructional material).
5. And a few other things I can’t talk about yet, but will when they’re more finalized.

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That’s it for now!!  A lot of last year was spent really working through the inertia to get the books out – but now that they’re almost fully off loaded I’m really looking forward to buckling down and getting some serious shedding/recording/playing in this year.

I know several people who are already having a rough start to 2012, but I really think that it might be the last vestiges of 2011 getting thrown off instead of an omen for things to come.

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Ultimately, this year will be what you make of it and one thing to consider is that making 365 decisions about any one thing will impact your life and your music.

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I’m going to be doing a lot of work (and posting a lot) on keeping on track with goals this year.  For the people who can commit to the goal, we’re going to get a lot done this year (and for everyone else, there will be plenty of licks, words and distractions here to keep you entertained).  Either way, I always like company so I look forward to seeing you here.

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As always, thanks for reading!

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]]> http://guitarchitecture.org/2012/01/07/1712-book-update/feed/ 0 guitarchitecture http://guitarchitecture.org/2011/12/27/2012-how-not-to-repeat-the-mistakes-of-the-past-or-nothing-ever-got-done-with-an-excuse/ http://guitarchitecture.org/2011/12/27/2012-how-not-to-repeat-the-mistakes-of-the-past-or-nothing-ever-got-done-with-an-excuse/#comments Tue, 27 Dec 2011 16:10:03 +0000 GuitArchitecture http://guitarchitecture.org/?p=4052 Read more]]> (This is a repost of something I wrote for the end of 2010.  The dates and information have been updated, and I suspect this will be one of the few yearly repost traditions I indulge in.)

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I had hoped to get a few more things done before the end of the year, but decided instead to take the last week to wind down and center.  I find that this not only helps me take stock of what worked and didn’t work for me in 2011 but also helps me make sure I’m on track for what I want to get done in the new year.  As George Santayana said,

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“Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”

As 2011 draws to a close, I think back to many conversations I had with people at the end of 2009.  At that time, it seemed like everyone I talked to said the same thing, “2009 was such a bad year.  2010 has to be better.  It just has to.”

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Now it seems I’m listening to the same sentiment with the same people about 2011 and the coming 2012.  And in some ways they have a valid point.  Listening to their circumstances, 2011 certainly offered some of these people a tough blow – but regardless of their circumstances, I believe that, unless they experience a windfall of good fortune, I will hear the same sentiments echoed at the end of 2012.  There’s a reason for this:

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“If you always do what you’ve always done – you’ll always get what you always got” – anon

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While I fully appreciate the merits of planning and goal setting - life will throw you any number of curveballs that may make a meticulously laid out plan get derailed.

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A good plan has to be countered with an ability to improvise (as need be) to make sure that even if your mode of transportation is disabled, that you are still on the path to achieve your goals.

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“Improvisation as a practice is the focus of an idea through an imposed restriction.  This restriction could either be self-imposed or be imposed upon the improviser through other means. Improvisation as it relates to common experience can be seen in the example of the car that stops running in the middle of a trip.  A person experienced in auto repair may attempt to pop the hood of the car to see if they can ascertain how to repair the vehicle.  Or they may try to flag down help.  Or they may try to use a cell phone to contact a garage.  The point being that within the context of a vehicle malfunction, different actions are improvised based on the improviser’s facility with both the situation at hand and the tools at their disposal….life is essentially an improvisation.  As individuals we come into each day not exactly knowing what will happen.  We know that there is an eventual end, but we don’t know when or how it will end.  But we continue to improvise, because it is in both the active improvisation (the present), the skill set and knowledge of that improvisation (the past) and in the philosophical/worldview/goals guiding our improvisational choices (the future) that we create meaning.”

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If you approach life’s problems with the same mindset you’ve always had 

-and your new year’s resolution runs contrary to that mindset –

your resolutions are doomed.

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I say this as a seasoned graduate of the school of hard knocks and as a person who found that while success felt a lot better – failure was a much more thorough teacher.

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2011 had some great ups and downs for me and now there are a number of life and playing upgrades I’m going to put into practice in 2012 to address the things that didn’t work for me.  For those of you who are interested in making a real change the new year – here’s what worked for me going into 2011 that I plan on using this year as well:

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Know the big picture.

If you have a goal – know why you have the goal.  As Victor Frankl once said, “He who has a why can endure almost any how.“

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Take stock of what you have done and identify what needs to change.

Have you done things that work towards that goal?  If so, what have you really done? What worked?  What didn’t work?  And what parameters can you put in place to make it work better?

What decisions did you make that set you back and how could you alter those decisions in the future?

Sometimes honesty is brutal but this isn’t about beating yourself up.  It’s about taking a realistic stock of what worked and what didn’t work for you in the year, reinforcing that things that work for you and discarding what didn’t work for you.

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Revolution not resolution

People typically make resolutions because they recognize a need for change in their life.  For me – it really isn’t about making a momentary decision as a knee jerk reaction to something (which usually lasts as long as the time it took to make that decision).  The long-lasting changes in my life have come from making lifestyle changes, setting priorities and working within those changes.  It’s a revolt against what was done before instead of a compromise for a current mode of operation.

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Positive habits

Making something a daily positive habit (like brushing your teeth) makes it easier to maintain over the long haul.

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“Don’t make excuses – make it right” -  Al Little

People make excuses for things all the time.  No one cares about excuses because nothing ever got done with an excuse.  People (typically) only care about results.

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There will undoubtably be moments that you relapse into older habits.  Instead of making excuses for why it happened – just acknowledge it and move past it. When you fall off the bike, it’s not about sitting down and nursing your scrapes.  It’s about getting back up on the bike again.  As it says in The Hagakure, “Seven times down – eight times up”

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There is strength in numbers

Try to surround yourself with supportive people.

• Not enabling people who will make changes more difficult for you.
• Not negative or judgmental people who will scoff at your desire for change

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Talk to the friends and family who will give honest and supportive feedback.  Here’s another important tip – don’t burn those people out with your goals.  The people around you have their own lives, so if every conversation becomes about you and your goals, you’re going to see less and less of those people!

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In addition to (or in some cases in lieu of) that support, you may want to look into some free online accountability sites like Idonethis.com (post on this here) or Wunderlist.com which maintains a private calendar to help observe progress.

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Be motivated to do more but be grateful for what you have

In a final 2011 observation, I’d like to thank everyone who took a moment to come here and read what I was doing.  GuitArchitecture had a 800 % increase in web traffic this year!  It’s going to get even bigger next year and it would all be impossible without the people reading.  So thank you all again and I hope that 2012 is your best year yet.

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-SC

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Thanks for reading!  If you like this post you may also like:

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A HOLIDAY THOUGHT THAT MAY HELP THE WHOLE YEAR

ON TALENT, TENACITY AND SELF-DEFINITION

DON’T BE AFRAID OF THE WORK

Some Observations On Inertia And A Cool Online App For Getting Things Done

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MUSIC BUSINESS 201: SELLING IT VERSUS SELLING OUT

A Music Business Lesson From The Producers

On “It is what it is”

“When You Come To A Fork In The Road Take It”

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Circumnavigating The Wall You Just Hit

INSPIRATION VS. INTIMIDATION

TWO STEPS BACK OR SETBACKS IN PROJECT MANAGEMENT

KEEPING YOUR EGO OUT OF THE SONG’S WAY

SURVIVING THE GIG

NOW IS THE TIME OF THE CONTENT CREATOR

THE AMERICAN IDOL LITMUS TEST

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The Power Of Inertia Or Know Your Flow

STRONG OPINIONS ARE LIKE STRONG ODORS OR SPEAK SOFTLY AND CARRY A THICK SKIN

COMPLEX CASSANDRA OR WHAT ELVIRA MISTRESS OF THE DARK COULD MEAN TO YOU

THE INSTRUCTIONAL METHODOLOGY BEHIND “HOW NOT TO DO THINGS”

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“A MAN’S GOT TO KNOW HIS LIMITATIONS” OR LIMITING OPTIONS IS A KEY TO PRODUCTIVITY

POSSESSION IS 9/10S OF THE LAW BUT PERCEPTION IS EVERYTHING OR PRACTICING PART VII

“COMMON SENSE IS NOT SO COMMON” OR WHY THE INTERNET IS PROBABLY WRONG

FOCUS, MUSIC AND THE BIG PICTURE – A QUOTE TO CONSIDER

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“THE LIMITS OF MY LANGUAGE ARE THE LIMITS OF MY WORLD”

DEADLINES ARE YOUR BEST FRIEND

FOCUS, MUSIC AND THE MARATHON MENTALITY