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.