Leap into March
A week in the life:
Music, Duke/State, and other stuff………….
Music Lesson
The two main focus points of Thursday’s music lessons were 12 Tone Playing/Tritone Substitution and Right Hand Picking Technique. My instructor asked me to play A Pentatonic as well as using a technique known as side stepping over a I-IV-V progression in A (swing feel). Side stepping involves the use of adjacent scales (in this case Abm Pentatonic and Bbm Pentatonic) to create chromatic note choice and to create tension/resolve. Derek Trucks often uses this technique when playing modally without his slide. I jammed on this for what seemed like an eternity – then I played over I-vi-ii-V and ii-V-I progressions (with straight rhythms) – it was unbelievable how much easier it was to inject chromatic playing and tritone substitution phrases over…playing over the swing rhythm had suddenly helped me play these once difficult (and still difficult) phrasings more fluidly.
My “cheat sheet” for Tritone Substitutions:
As for right hand technique – my picking hand is quite inefficient, which is something that has been reinforced due to a decade of not so good technique. It was something I’d worked on for a while and had conquered, but sometimes old habits rear their ugly heads again. So much time and energy was consumed working on my left hand technique (strengthening, legato, and such) I’ve neglected my right hand…So I’m back to working on being more economical picking-wise and redeveloping my floating hand technique.
My assignment was to work on the right hand and practice playing over a track off a Jamey Aebersold instructrual “Blues Progressions” CD – which has unbelievably cheesey titles…I’m working on playing over the T-Bone Steak track.
Duke-NC State Basketball Game
This blog from StatefansNation and the videos below say it all. Basically in the end, Duke showed (with a little help from their friends) why they’re a perennial powerhouse. As for us – it’s encouraging that we played a 40 minute game…while discouraging that it came with 1 game left in the ACC season. I know games aren’t necessarily decided by one play, but it’s hard to argue this one wasn’t. We won’t be forgetting when Greg Paulus kicked the ball upcourt for a transition bucket in the first game – which in retrospect seems to have initial State’s plummet to the bottom of the conference.
Raleigh News and Observer Video
The Good Life
“And I don’t wanna be an old man anymore/It’s been a year or two since I was out on the floor/Shaking booty, making sweet love all the night/It’s time I got back to the good life/It’s time I got back, it’s time I got back/And I don’t even know how I got off the track”
This past weekend I went through a 90s music phase – it started from listening to Jeff Buckley’s Grace CD incessantly for about 3 days – then digging out other records like Siamese Dream and Weezer’s “Blue Album” and Pinkerton. What amazes me is for as much as I dislike Billy Corgan’s voice and I often dislike a wall of fuzzy guitar overdub sound – Siamese Dream is a great CD, and I have a greater appreciation for it now than I did back in high school, this being the exception rather than the rule.
For whatever reason, the lyrics above have been reverberating in my head…where did the good life go and how did I get off the track? Not that things are all that bad, I do remember when life was “the good life.” So if I did get off the track, how do I get back?… I may have some ideas.
Speaking of Weezer, I stumbled upon a paper allegedly written by Rivers Cuomo while he was attending Harvard: The Tough Sex Life of A Rock Star. Quite a humorous read on his 2 year vow of complete celibacy.
“Oh You Don’t Know The Shape I’m In”
Alright those lyrics are taken out of context, but since I bought Levon Helm’s new album today and since unfortunately Richard Manuel died March 4, 1986 – I’d throw in a reference from The Band. Just joined a gym about 5 minutes from my house and <2 min drive from my office. It costs quite a bit more than my previous gym membership, but I need something conveniently located so I actually go to the gym. I already feel better and do feel guilty if I skip a day, so those are both good signs.
(9 to 5) x 2
Found out in a staff meeting along with 100 or so fellow colleagues that my partner in crime was moving to a different group at work…translation of the above equation -> work is gonna be double the load, more stress, though the above equation does not equate to 80 hours. Of course this sorta notification is quite inexcusable. We’re looking to backfill the position – we’ll see how it goes. Oh well.
CD Binge
Another one of my classic CD binges tonight – music is obviously my “drug of choice.” The intention was to buy the new Black Crowes CD (released today), a Danny Gatton CD if I could find it, Joe Cocker live CD (heard his version of Ray Charles “Let’s Go Get Stoned” on Sirius which was fantastic) and maybe some classic soul music. Anyway here’s what I picked up:
- Black Crowes – Warpaint
- Joe Cocker – Mad Dogs & Englishmen
- Ravi Shankar/Ali Akbar Khan – Ragas
- Ravi Shankar – Bridges: The Best of Private Music
- Levon Helm – Dirt Farmer
- Mark O’Connor – The New Nashville Cats
- Bryan Sutton – Bluegrass Guitar
- Bill Monroe and His Bluegrass Boys – The Definitive Collection
- John Coltrane – Coltrane For Lovers
- Dr. John – All By Hisself
- Sam Cooke – Portrait of a Legend
- Otis Redding- Remember Me
