[andrew]

Follow up on module 3 calisthenics exercises.

Progressing slowly — couple of specific questions:

1) In video #5 accompanying the bebop calisthenics 3 section, brief mention is made of checking the appendix page 112 for graphic depiction of arpeggio cycles. To what is this referring – I don’t seem to have a page 112 of any download here so far. Can someone point me to the right page/download?

2) In practicing these exercises, I understand it’s better to play one exercise over each pattern at a time, then moving on to the next exercise and doing it again. This I am doing and I can see the benefit. What I’d like to ask is if I should push through all exercises ( by 3 patterns) in each session or if I should stick to one exercise and play it on each pattern until I get it to a comfortable level, then pick another exercise and do the same…or does it matter? Right now, I sit down to play the 24 exercises in the book, and work until I’ve played all in three patterns (using the order of patterns per exercises as mentioned above). It’s sort of daunting but I can do this in the hope that it gets quicker each day or each session but the reinforcement is slow. Any one else experience this?

Best wishes for the season to all.

Andrew

[andrew]

Thanks Richie

That is most helpful. I know for sure I won’t get all through this in monthly slots, I anticipate much longer, but I’m happy — your course is forcing me to engage in far more deliberate practice than I might otherwise, and that’s what the science tells us is the way forward, right?

I think I am learning how much of this skill development is mental or cognitive. The fingerings on most things are always doable by me and I don’t struggle after all these years of handling a guitar with getting my fingers to do most things. What I am really weak on is knowing what I want them to do, controlling this in anything like real time, and understanding why my music is sounding the way it sounds. The callisthenic sections are forcing me to attend thoughtfully to this part of my playing, and while I can only hope the knowledge will become semi-automatic after more practice, I still have to make myself deliberately attend to these aspects and not just rely on my ears. It’s very slow progress but the method makes sense to me.

No doubt I’ll have more questions as we go — thanks for all the support en route.

Peace

Andrew

[andrew]

Glad to read about the speed issue. Module 2 has been a massive load for me. I started it two months ago and still find I have work to do. I can play the 5 etudes relatively well at speed if I use the tab but am trying only to rely on reading just the degrees. I’ve got the metronome out every evening and progress has been slow, slow, slow. I even lie awake sometime at night trying to visualize the fretboard in terms of degrees for the 1, 4, 5 mixolydian patters. I definitely am feeling very comfortable with pattern 1, and with pattern 4, less so with pattern 5, particularly when I try to quickly transition to it from one of the others. I think I am getting there but doing it in real time, at 120bpm remains a challenge.

Not sure if I am asking for reassurance or not, but I’ve postponed starting Module 3 until I am more comfortable. My main daily schedule now is playing the 5 etudes with the metronome, checking accuracy and speed, isolating the trouble spots and getting through them start to finish without mistake at slower spees if neccessary. Still do the individual scale patterns as a warm up every other day to drill this into my fingers. As I say, there’s nothing problematic with fingering these etudes, but playing at speed relying only on the degrees has been a bottleneck for me which I hope to push through eventually. Phew…

[andrew]

New to this series — thanks for posting this Miguel. It’s really helpful to me to see and hear others doing the exercises I am working through.

Best, Andrew

[Author]

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