New "Chord Profile" vids posted, new perfect pitch course found

I posted a playlist called "Chord Profiles" on my youtube page, youtube.com/kristinparkermusic
You'll a hear a chord and then a little melody that makes use of that chord. Listening to stuff like this has helped me with my ear training.

I'm also excited about http://www.pitchpaths.com
Cheap, so far effective perfect pitch course.

I spent an hour or two trying to record 12 bars . . . there was a bend in every bar and I want every bend to be perfectly in tune . . . still haven't gotten it yet.

I read about Marian McPartland, the great jazz pianist and someone was commenting on how fantastic her ears are. I'm spending most of my time working on ear training because I believe that all the greats just hear more than the average person does. And, maybe it's just wishful thinking, but I think all this ear training stuff can be learned. Some people are born with more to start with, for sure, but practice makes perfect.

So here's to ear training!

I'm also working on memorizing scales on the guitar by range. I now know where to quickly find the lowest scale for every key on the guitar. Some of those scales appear in multiple places, but I got it covered. Most scales are represented by three octaves. As soon as I get the location of all three octaves for every key nailed I will buckle down and get the youtube education vids up in earnest.

Daily Update

Piano:
Working on strengthening the 4th finger by doing finger independence exercises targeting just it. Right now, I'm at 60 for both hands.

Voice:
Glad that I finally found my mix (what I refer to as my 'cheesy sexy voice'). Now it's a matter of making that mix very consistent. I'm working on Words Get in the Way and seeing if I can keep the tone throughout the song.


Guitar:
I'm feeling in a bit of a slump with the guitar, so I turned on my favorite Led Zeppelin DVD, "Live from Royal Albert Hall" and that was invigorating. The great thing was that my ears picked up a lot more than they have in the past. I'd say it's about a 60% success rate or so. So that means my ears are sharper than they were six months ago.

Ear Training:
I've been listening to lots and lots of vocal music, just trying to follow along and say the scale degrees of the melody in my mind. A few days ago, I listened to a Michael Jackson playlist and noticed that my ears were much sharper. Not only did I pick up more scale degrees, but I heard everything about the production with greater clarity. Percussion instruments and aspects of the arrangements I had missed before jumped out. The next leap for me is to graduate to instrumental music. But every time I try some easy listening, something in the pop jazz domain, I lose track of the melody which shows me that I'm not yet ready for it. I have to stick to pop songs. I'm also frustrated right now with my inability to quickly recognize harmonies beyond major and minor. I can sing several different kinds of seventh chords and recognize them when they are played slowly, but when the music's flowing (and when it really counts), the harmonies evade me. I can't wait until I can listen to music from the acid jazz genre and name the chords as they come.

Songwriting:
I have a lot of great song ideas, I think. I just don't have the chops yet to make them sound right. I really want to be a great guitarist. I'm stubborn on this point. I really want to be able to perform my songs in different ways and improvise around them when I play them. I want the fills and solos to sound fresh and professional and I want to have charisma at my instrument so that I can really rock out. I know that the audience will be able to sense insecurity and holding back. I want to be able to go all out when I perform. So I'm putting songwriting on hold yet again because it's back to the drawing board with my technique.

major scale segments

Here's how I divide up the major scale for purposes of fingering:

7-1-2
1-2-3
2-3-4
3-4-5
4-5-6
5-6
6-7-1

It's a pleasing coincidence that there are seven segments, just like there are seven pitches in the scale.

Finger independence helps with sight reading

Working on the finger independence trills has dramatically helped my technique and I've noticed that this has helped my sight reading. When your fingers are equally strong, then you don't have to be as picky about what finger you use to play what; this helps to make sight reading speedy because you don't have to pause every few bars to work out the fingering.

Register of primary diagonal for each pitch . . .

Okay, here's the main diagonal I envision for each pitch on the guitar:

A4 and A3 (both diagonals necessary)
A#4 and A#3 (ditto)
Bb#4 and Bb3
B3
C4
C#4/Db4
D4
D#4/Eb4
E4
F4
F#4/Gb4
G4
G#4/Ab4

That makes the middle C octave the octave of choice for each diagonal on the guitar, with the exception of the A#, A, Bb, and B diagonals.

That means the guitar is, primarily, a middle-range instrument. Lower sounds and higher sounds are like special effects.

#4 Drills to tighten things up . . .

Wow, seeing the diagonals makes things soooooooo much easier. I don't get lost moving my way around the fretboard, I can slide inside and outside of different shapes and I know exactly where I am on a piano keyboard. I still hit some wrong notes, though. Here's some stuff I'm gonna do to tighten things up:

1) visualize all box shapes in my head, starting with just the top octave of each shape. Will do this for major and minor pentatonic right now. My first goal is to tighten up playing "on top" of the diagonal.

2) practice horizontal sliding scales in each key. This involves spelling the scale in my head and then play it sliding to the left, or down starting at each root located on the diagonal.

An "a-ha" moment!

Yay! My work on diagonals is paying off. I saw a grand diagonal of E4s all the way across the fretboard from string 1 to string 6. That was exciting because it was a moment of complete peripheral vision: in other words, I can see where a particular scale is in every place it happens all over the fretboard in one glance. That has never happened before . . .

Trill tempos 3-4

RH = 100 bpm
LH = 84 bpm

#3 Singing with closed vocal chords

I've gotten pretty good at "releasing" the tone, that is singing without straining by engaging the throat muscles we use to swallow. I've trained those rogue muscles to relax, but at the expense of having my vocal chords properly. So my tone is light and free throughout my range, but it isn't very powerful and it sounds a bit light and operatic. Turns out pop music is the hardest to sing correctly because it requires the vocal chords to come together securely to create a tone that has very little vibrato and is very close to speech. Most singers, to get that sound, strain their voice and engage their swallowing muscles: that closes the vocal chords without fail, but the tone is tight. Releasing the tone (not using the swallowing muscles) but still keeping the vocal chords tight is a real trick that few singers have mastered. Maybe only the greats. But, at the risk of sounding cocky, I'm gonna get there. To drill, I sing a loud "Aaaaa" throughout my range. It's ugly as hell, but saying "aa" as in "bat" or "cat" forces the vocal chords to stay closed.

By the way, keeping the vocal chords closed and tight together is what it means to "press in" . . . a term some singing teachers love. Pressing in is not exclusively about singing louder or pumping more air through your body, although that's part of it. The foundation of it is keeping those vocal chords tight together, which results in volume and proper breath support.

#2) Intervals on the guitar

I've made a flashcard for every interval you can create above an open string, all the way up to a 13th. Some of my guitars go up to a 14th, but 14ths are sounding too theoretical, so I'm starting memorizing 13ths. What I do for each interval is envision of the name of the note and register of that note formed above each open string.

#1 Interval Flashcard Drills

So, this is what I'm doing with my flashcards as of now.

1) sing all intervals up and down
2) sing all major chords, root, 1st, and 2nd inversion using the flat, natural, and sharp spellings for each family
3) ditto for minor chords, augmented chords, and diminished chords
4) sing all dominant seventh chords up and down
5) sing all major seventh chords up and down

Remember . . . if you can sing it you can hear it . . . if you can hear it, you can play it . . .

How is everyone doing?

Hi Everyone,
Making these lesson vids is so fun. Has anyone tried 'em?

Hey! First posting ever!

So I've gone the whole nine yards and started a youtube channel, etc. First thing I posted were a few ideas on piano technique. Everything else that's coming is guitar related. It's going to be intense, guys. And so worth the work! Curious if anyone else sees the fretboard the way I do.