my ukulele progress

Work has been getting in the way of my ukulele practice lately. I hate when that happens. So I've just been goofing off before I go to bed. Today I was just strumming a meditative G Phrygian progression (except I substituted F major for F minor as well as used a C m7). It was nice but it got me thinking if I could break up the progression with some improv, or at least a lick,
 
Even though it is snowing in April I was in the spirit of Spring cleaning. The victim was my ukulele notebook. Most people's notebooks have pop songs that they want to keep as part of their repertoire. Mine is more elemental. It contains elements of songs that I think are essential--stuff like scales, modes, chords, etc. However, the notebook had some things that I don't think are essential. To wit, some chords that are against my philosophy. If you check the first entry in this thread, I mentioned that I wanted to create a personal, ukulele-based sound. For me that entails not asking the ukulele to be anything other than a ukulele. When you ask a four-string ukulele to be an eighty-eight key piano, you are just setting yourself up for failure and frustration.

I'm talking about dom9 chords. They are a five-note chord and the ukulele only has four strings. The ukulele compromises by omitting a note. I don't really like the sound of the chord without its I or V. It sounds etiolated. Plus, I just don't play them. They are a waste of my grey matter.

So I returned to my basic philosophy and tore out my dom9 page as well as a page containing add9 chords and a page devoted to 7sus4 and 7+ chords. The latter three were excised because they were non-essential. I had added them just for the sake of completeness, but I don't use them. If there ever comes a day when I need one, that's what chord books are for. However they do not belong in a notebook devoted to essentials.

I am validated by Abe Lagrimas. He's a professional musician and I have one of his books. He only uses add6 chords and 7 chords (7 m7 maj7 dim7 m7b5) to make songs. If he doesn't need extended chords, why would I? My burden will be to solidify my knowledge and squeeze more out of what I acknowledge to be essential elements instead of looking for other chords. In particular I think I need to cultivate the add6 chord. It never quite seems to fit what I'm doing. It seems like it should fit with what I'm doing, but its special sound always feels like a bad clarinet note--very cringy. My best bet is to study Lagrimas' progressions and see how he off-sets the sound so that the add6 works. I also have some some 12-bar blues progressions that use the add6 voicing for the I chord. I should give them a try and see if I can develop an ear for it.

A good thing about the add6 chord is that the shapes are familiar. Several add6 shapes, for example, are the same on m7 chords. That goes for the major add6's; the minor ones are a bit more eccentric, but at least they don't have crazy finger-spreads like the rootless dom9 chords.

I also need to take a closer look at the diminished and half-diminished chords and figure out how to use their de-stabilizing sound to emphasize my resolutions. I love them and I have played them in some blues progressions that I learnt, but whenever I try to use them on my own, they sound a bit like a goose honking amid some robins.

It sounds like I'm re-tooling, but it actually, no. These are the same goals I've always had and these are the things I do on a daily basis. I've only trimmed down some accrescences. My onus will be to stay on track with this, as well as with my finger-picking goals.
 
here's something I wrote in my diet log:

Okay,

I’ve been re-habbing a shoulder that seemingly froze up and it lost its range of motion. It tolerable now, so there’s my dealio. I lift kettlebells competitively and I am a diesel: big body with a big engine. However we all know that cannot last long. I am, I estimate, 30 lbs overfat @ 195. I have commissioned a custom tenor ukulele to be made from London plane wood


and here it is sawn


Obviously, like any wood the patterns and colors (this can even come in pink) will vary from instance to instance, and it will be up to my luthier’s discretion.



Nonetheless, when the ukulele arrives in mid to late summer I want it to be greeted and received by a master in fighting trim. So I have some work to do.

The feedings aren’t an issue; I am basically a protein and vegetables kind of guy (with a few pints at the pub on Friday and Saturday). I merely have to consciously cut back on the portions so that I am at a deficit instead at maintenence.

The bigger issue is some training to contribute to the deficit. I work 10-14 hours a day and committing to training has thus far just met with failure. Obviously I am over-committing and resultingly doing nothing. So I am going to commit to just 20 minutes a day. That will consist of two things. 1) twenty minutes of jump rope with a 30 seconds on/10 seconds off interval. 2) 300 kettlebell swings with a 24kg. It will be one set consisting of the pyramid: 10 left, 10 right, 11 left, 11 right….up to 15 left and 15 right…and then descend from 15′s back down to 10′s.That will result in 300 and it should take approximately twenty minutes. Obviously after that or the jump rope I will be sweating and if I decide, **** it; I’m already sweaty, I may as well do shoulders to squats…then so be it. But at least I will get my 20 minutes in. That’s the minimalistic plan and I’ll keep up the logging and see if I cannot publicly shame myself into getting down to 165 for my new ukulele.

That's an indirect goal pertaining to my in-coming ukulele. I'm going to keep up with it, as you'll see


For practice I did a few things.

1. a bouncy country blues progression with a dim7 in it:

I | VI7 | II7 V7 | I
I | VI7 | II7 | V7
I | I7 | IV | VI dim7
I |VI7 | II7 V7 | I

2. I experimented with incorporating a C min6 into an Aiolian progression. It was okay to start with it, but resolving onto it was less than satisfying. The C minor was a better ending chord.

3. I also did a roll in D. What I'm calling a roll isn't a banjo roll or the finger-picking technique. It is just what I call taking a set of notes and rolling through the modes with those notes. I do this to approach memorizing the fretboard. A D roll starts on the D of the 2nd fret and rolls to the finish at the 17th fret
 
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I have been focusing on the key of E. Its central chords are amazingly easy, however more nuanced stuff like a major third or sixth is a challenge. I've been rolling down the modes in E starting at the 4th fret and going up to the 19th fret. From there I improvise my way back down to the 2nd fret using my minor pentatonic shapes. Since the key has 4 sharps I am still not very comfortable with knowing all the notes, but I am getting there. G# is giving me special trouble, since I have always called that note Ab whether or not it was correct to do so.
 
My study of E is advancing. I have been playing around with progressions in the modes that are rooted in E minor. It all sounds so buttery. The Phyrgian mode is really easy since the four sharps are flatted. What isn't easy is E minor. I am really bad at it which is weird since it is such a simple shape. And I have heard that from guitar players that it is a very central chord. I have always played it like a G chord with an added pinky, which is cumbersome.
 
well, I'm back from the pub and I see that the Hawaiian D7 thread is still staggering forward. I'll just say I wish if they're going to play a F#dim, then they call it a F#dim instead of a D7 (or a Bm7 w/o a root and its third double-flatted). However, what they do affects me not at all...so, party on, people!

For me, I practiced The Em. I formed the chord hundreds of times. I know that sounds horrible, but it really only takes a few minutes. If people took those few minutes and practiced, there'd be a lot less whining and pining for apps.

I ended thinking of how great a year 1974 was. It had Fly to the Rainbow as well as Sabbath Bloody Sabbath. I was dismayed that Sad Wings of Destiny wasn't from that year. It came out two years later. That started me thinking of a riff from the latter album, and I thought I could hear the kernel of the tune. I was right. The Aiolian mode fit the bill. I would have liked to turn on the amp, but it was too late for that kind of monkey business.
 
Hi there,

FYI E minor is the first chord one learns in standard tuning on the guitar. It is the easiest to finger, much like C Major or A minor on the uke. Indeed it is formed just like the uke A minor but with a fifth string also fretted at the second fret directly below the fretted fourth string.

It is well worth persevering with as many fingerings of all chords including E minor as you can. Developing as much finger dexterity and independence as possible is very important. That E minor fingering needs to become second nature as does the extension of it with the fourth string also fretted (D minor shape but no first finger barre except on the first string).

I tried to explain the Hawaiian D7 but the guy seems less interested in the origin of the D7 bit (which is the part of actual musical interest) rather than the origin of the term “Hawaiian” which seems self evident to me.

Your observation that a Dominant 7th without the root is a diminished triad shows that you are getting more and more comfortable with stacking intervals to form chords. Massively important not just for chords but also for unlocking the patterns in the fretboard. Getting to know where the thirds, fourths, fifths and sevenths are on the fretboard with respect to a given root on a given string .... slowly but surely the fretboard starts to make sense.

Ernie
 
thanks for the encouragement! I've been a bit crestfallen lately. As I have been making progress in some categories, I've failed in others. I have a horrible propensity to tilt my instrument up so that i can see what I'm doing. This is obviously bad ergonomically but it also retards learning things. This tragedy is easily avoidable. All I have to do is take the extra few seconds and put the strap on. That takes care of everything. With the strap on I cannot see my hands--let alone the fretboard. All I can see are the markers on the side of neck. It quickly becomes a sink-or-swim proposition. Plus, those of us in the 21st century sit far too much and it is ruining our posture. Standing more is always a good thing. Anyway, I'm rambling. I promised to clean the kitchen and bathroom floors before sunrise. If I have any hope of playing my music, I have to scrub some floors first. So, let's get started

There. I'm back after some cleaning. I was talking about the strapped ukulele. I think the big difference is the angle. Without a strap I tend to hold the ukulele or even a tenor guitar all squishy against my body. The instrument runs parallel to my shoulders. With a strap, the instrument points outward at about a 45 degree angle. Those are really different angles for the wrist and hand to get used to. I really should pick one--although I am finding that I am getting good enough where I can adapt pretty easily. In the beginning, this kind of variation was a deal-breaker.

Standing is also good because I find there is a rhythm to movement, and I don't mean dancing or anything a twee as that. I just mean standing has a rhythm--subtle swaying or shifting of weight. Or walking has a cadence. It is nice to strum while pacing about my library because you can easily reinforce the downbeats of your music with the footfalls. That, after all, is the etymology of the term, ictus. It is the footfall that accompanies the rhythm of dancing.

And standing is rather useful in that you can move to the music stand and look at the material there, walk away, and walk back or walk to my fretboard chart on the wall or even to some different resources around the room.


Enough with trying to getted stoked about using the straps. I've practicing my modes for fretboard mastery and I really like the symmetry of E. I don't know why I've never played around with E. I suspect it has some technical basis. I don't remember specifically, but I can imagine it being the 80's and me looking at a key signature that had four accidents and saying **** that. You see with flutes and saxes, you have to consciously play the note you want. It isn't like the ukulele. With the ukulele, you could be playing the Ionic shape up at the 11th fret and if you want to play in E...all you need to do is play the same pattern at the 4th fret. Things aren't so easy on other instruments. On the flute, for example, you have to play each note with pre-meditation and you need to know the c,d, f, and g notes are sharp and play them as such.

Anyway, because of that, I probably have been avoiding E all these years. But, as I said, I like the symmetry: natural note, two sharps, two naturals, two sharps, natural note.


One thing I have noticed when rolling through my modes is that with the strap I can barely get through the Aiolian and cannot do my Lokrian without some extreme manipulation. In this posture, things above the 12th fret are very difficult. Hopefully the cutaway on my new custom tenor will fix that. More likely, I will just have to learn to use some body English to get those frets.
 
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My studies in E have been progressing although my annotations haven't. I have recently been infatuated with progressions in the Phrygian and Aiolian modes. More recently the Aiolian mode has eclipsed the other in importance to me. Here's what I've been trying with it

1. working on incorporating the dim ii chord. I like to include the dim right before resolving back to the i chord. However some chords are more satisfyingly placed before the dim chord.
2. I am much more enthusiastic about the less central chords than the regular ones. Perhaps my attitude about the iv and v chords are based in over-exposure. I have always played them due to my propensity for blues-based music. Regardless, the fact remains that I find myself going to the VIb or VIIb chords more and more.
3. I have been experimenting with some voicings other than the triads. For the i chord, a m6 works as the 1st chord of the progression (although reverting back to the minor seems better as the progression resolves); I tried substituting a min maj7 for the i chord and it was too much. I am just starting to substitute some 6 chords and m7b5 chords in there, but I haven't done it enough to form an impression. I think the only thing I remember liking was the sequence: D6 to F#dim to Em.
 
There has been some conversation about the diminished and half-diminished chord lately, and I thought I would remind myself how I feel about them.

First, I never play a true diminished chord; I, like many others, always play the diminished 7 chord. I do this most obviously because the latter has one unique shape whereas the former has different shapes for all the different chords. Also, these two varieties of the diminished chord only have a nuance betwixt them. I tested this out on my wife. I asked her if she liked "this chord." In reality, I was alternating between the dim and the dim7. She didn't notice. So I felt that the two dims were close enough for interchanging. I acknowledge that the two are actually different objectively. However it doesn't matter musically because they serve the same purpose of creating in passing an augmented need to return to the I chord. I tend to think of it like cinnamon. If I ate a pinch of Ceylonian cinnamon and a pinch of vietnamese cinnamon I could taste the difference. I could note one is hotter than the other. However, when they are used in context--i.e., a cinnamon roll, they both do the same thing; they both make cinnamon rolls. I wouldn't be distracted by one or the other. I would just eat it.

I imagine there could be a context in which the primary sound of the dim was the goal and that the dim7 wouldn't work. However, I have only used the dim as a passing chord and the dim or the dim7 work equally well in that context.

I put the half-diminished chord in the same category as the dim7. There is just a nuance between it and the dim. To be honest, I have only rarely used the m7b5 and I don't have the chords memorized--primarily because I have my dim7's memorized and they fit the bill. But the m7b5 tantalizes me greatly. I like to say I'm playing a m7b5; it makes me sound so much more musical than I am. It sounds complicated because of its long name. Less superficially the m7b5 is part of my essential chords list. Early on I decided that I wasn't going to ask my ukulele to be a piano or a guitar and play things like a 9 chord which has five notes. That is just setting the ukulele up for failure. Trying to make the 4 string ukulele be an 88 key piano isn't fair. It is like when people put four doors on a jeep to make it a sedan or put a large engine in it to make it a sportscar. Ultimately it doesn't work. A jeep is a jeep. Once you accept that, everyone is happy. So I don't make my ukulele a poor example of a guitar; I ask it to play four notes and appreciate and love it for its restriction. To that end, to exploit its four-stringedness, I restrict myself to playing triads, 6's, 7's, dims, maj7's, etc. To fulfill this philosophy I really need to work on my augmented chords and my m7b5.

The m7b5 is tantalizing for me also because of historical reasons. It plays a substantial role in jazz standards and I want to tap into that tradition. I don't mean that I want to play standards, but I want to be part of the tradition that uses that chord. This isn't so unprecedented in my life. I only take baths, never showers, and I use a straight razor just to make a connection to the past.

I could use the m7b5 in lieu of the dim7 in contexts where I need a passing chord, but I also think I could use its unique variation as a modulation in the same way as people move from a standard triad to a sus4. I could also use it in combination with the dim7 to create an escalating effect. I could start the pass with the m7b5, then move to the dim7 to create a greater and greater need for resolution.
 
I briefly played around with some m7b5 and augmented chords.

I noticed something about the m7b5 versus the °7: They sound very similar but the ø seems to lilt upward. I don't know if it is a matter of pitch or an emotional thing, but it seems slightly more upbeat. The two are close enough to be interchanged but the ø seems to be a little bit less harsh. That might come into play if I ever have a choice. Right now I would probably stick with the °7 merely because I know how to form it.

The augmented chord is a special kind of ugly. In arpeggio-form it sounds nice, but it is discordant as a chord. I did make a small progression with it, going from augmented to sus4 to major triad, and it sounded nice. It was a lengthened passing chord sequence. My idea was to move from a chord with an altered fifth, to a chord without a third, and finally to a chord that had its third and fifth intact.

I read that the augmented chord is also used in the turnaround of a blues progression, kind of like some of those grating Robert Johnson double-stops. I messed around with making the V chord augmented and it seemed okay, but I will need to replicate it to be sure. Another thing to try would be to experiment with using the augmented voicing on some chords in my modal progressions that I've been playing around with, either making the v° of the Phrygian augmented instead of dminished. Or I could just pop an augmented chord in somewhere else and see what happens.
 
I had to go to a family function and I brought my Kamaka because we need some quality time together. I am still getting used to it. The biggest difference between the Kamaka and my others is that its nylon strings make chords rather difficult to make in the lower frets. Patently I could just put different strings on it, but that seems like cheating. I think of it as breaking in a horse. You want to curb its natural wildness and enthusiasm, and channel it; you don't want to extinguish it. So I want to meet the Kamaka on its own terms. I want to retain its strings and embrace its tinniness. That is, after all, why I bought a custom spruce-top ukulele. I wanted something dedicated and built to play that end of the register. I am still working on it.

Since the above was my priority, I didn't try to do anything new. I was just going over old stuff with the Kamaka. I just improvised with some pentatonic stuff, with some modal progressions, with some fancy strum adornments like finger rolls and raking the strings with my thumb on the upstroke.
 
First, I have to chastise myself a tad for being unmindful. One of my highest priorities is to stop being lame by not even knowing the notes I am playing. E.g., how am I supposed to improvise a melody based on dom7's if I don't know where those notes are on my fretboard? To overcome this I have been rolling through the modes using one key.

I somewhat arbitrarily chose E because it is an easy blues to play and because it is the highest key from which I can play all the modes (the lokrian ends on the 18th and I hit the E note on the 19th just for some resolution). The thing that makes this work for me is getting a static set of notes (in this case E, F#, G#, A, B, C#, D#) and playing them in all their permutations. I.e., E ionian, F# Dorian, etc. As I play I try to say the note out loud and look to see where my finger is. This way, I am seeing, hearing, and speaking the notes. After I feel I have culled enough from E, I am going to do the same thing with a key that has a lot of flats because I have a tendency to be inflexible when it comes to naming notes. I want to be ready to see a note as Db or C#. Right now Db makes me furrow my brow.

I think Db would be the logical candidate for this application because it has five flats, it starts on the first fret and Lokrian ends on the 15th. Let me see, those notes would be Db, Eb, F, Gb, Ab, Bb, C. Damn! That's going to be nasty. The I IV V is going to be a bear. And my favorite progressions in the Phrygian mode won't be much easier since I will need to flatten flats and that will change the name of the note. Confusing. But that's for later.

Today was more of a day for messing around. The only noteworthy things I did were practiced some progressions with a rumba beat (a strum consisting of eighth notes in which the 1st, 4th, and 7th are stressed). I also plugged in my tenor guitar and played with some electronics. Using some overdrive and flanger, I turned on my Fat Fuzz Factory pedal. I turned it on Fat mode (where it accompanies my notes with those of one and two octaves lower) and I turned the gate setting down low. It was as fuzzy as an angora sweater.


I also forgot to mention that once my custom linear tenor gets here in July/August. I will have the option of doing these exercises from the lower three strings as opposed to the upper three strings of the re-entrant. E.g., that would mean the E to start my ionian would be on the ninth fret and I would start it all off from the first fret with the G# Lydian.
 
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I was exposed to some new terms today by Stu Fuchs. Evidently they are classical string musical terms. They are ponticello, dulce, and sul tasto. I know most ukulele players use sul tasto; I tend to play dulce, or rather right where sul tasto and dulce meet. I see an application for the ponticello tone. It is brassier. It could be used to differentiate stresses. For example, in the rumba strum I was toying with, the 1st, 4th, and 7th beat would be ponticello. I can see it could be attainable through practice. Right now it is a bit challenging physically to alternate dulce strums and ponticello strums--it's a coordination thing. However, I've seen it done. Guru Peter Forrest demonstrated a figure-eight strum which did it.

Another little trick I stumbled upon is using the quincunx shape for improv. At least, that's what I call it. Quincunx is the Latin term for the configuration of the five dots on a die. I don't know if there's an English term aside from some clunky periphrasis. Basically the quincunx is just a Dorian with some of the notes taken out. It makes it less scaly and more musical.

Just to use the F Dorian as an example and visualization, on the 5th fret, you play the C and A strings, on the 6th fret the E string, on the 7th fret the C and A strings again. The quincunx works with a pentatonic scale tolerably well because they both have a minor vibe going on. Both the pentatonic and quincunx share the root and that Bb note (the middle dot of the quincunx). So you can switch from one to the other on the Bb. It sounds like something different is going on, but it is more of an interesting transition than something so foreign that it is just a head-scratcher for the auditor.
 
I watched a video...at least, I watched the start of it...of some online guitar instructor counterarguing against those who hold that Jimi Hendrix didn't know theory, so why should they. I didn't more than glance at the video because I didn't want to get bemired in the negativity. But I was thinking that there are some easy arguments to make.

First of all, if we assume that Hendrix didn't know theory, we can say Hendrix was a prodigy. He did what he did because he is who he is. However, everyone else isn't Hendrix. Since they aren't gifted, they have to learn guitar.

However, the easier answer is that Hendrix was lying. He obviously was building his brand and part of that process was telling this narrative about how he is natural and raw and unspoiled by academia. But that is just preposterous. Just think about it. He, as the tradition goes, just sat around noodling and taught himself music. It is a coincidence that all the complicated extended chords he "came up with" are the same chords that are played in jazz and R & B and blues. Give me a break. Maybe he didn't go to the 60's equivalent to a Guitar Center but someone showed him stuff and pointed him towards these traditions.

Whatever. Maybe that video said this. But, as I said, I wasn't very interested. I am more interested in moving myself forward. To that end, I've been messing around with some stuff based around A and its intervals. I copied the voicings that I picked up from observing some jazz melodies. Once you can appreciate intervals, the rest of the stuff comes pretty easy. Don't misunderstand. I do make some clunkers. But I also can just make up progressions that sound acceptable. Here's some of what I remember I did:

A Bbdim7 Bm7 E7
A A7 D Cdim7 A
A F#m7 Bm7 E7

As you can see I am not doing anything great. Just playing basic chords from A and just changing the voicings sometimes. The voicings are the hard part for me. To be honest, I probably never would have guessed these voicings and I owe them to looking at jazz and seeing how they do it there.
 
I thought it best to push myself a little bit. So I decided to steer away from harmonizations that I comfortable with. I thought I'd play around with the Lydian.

Technically it doesn't offer many obstacles. There's the major II which is a bit difficult just because the F# isn't something we play a lot. I just have to decide how to play it. There's the standard way (G shape with the pinky), the F-shaped barre chord, and the standard way except the G string is muted thus alleviating the need for the pinky. The other technical issue is that the IV is diminished. That's not a problem; it is just different. I was again playing around 'twixt the diminished and the half-diminished versions of A and found the differences subtle. For what I've been doing the diminished chord sounds a little better because it is a tad more strident and that's the sound I envisioned. The half-diminished works well, but it has a slightly more ingratiating tone. It works in its own buttery way but sometimes you just want that dissonance. Oh, the final tribulation is the minor vi which is a C#. My preferred method of playing it is 1444. That renders the C# rather high-pitched. High-pitched things seem like the culmination or the turning point of the progression since things usually build up to that climax. I just have to figure out how to use it. It is tricky. It sounds best after the I, but it sounds like you're setting up a I vi IV V progression in the Ionian mode. Deviating from that is rather disconcerting. I'll work on it.
 
For the first time I used my amp with headphones. It felt quite naughty to be making that much noise at that hour. However no one was the wiser.

Since we're talking about my electronics, I had some time ago, changed the tuning on my cigar box guitar to an open D7. It works great for playing bluesy stuff. The only liability is having to learn a new fretboard basically. I had to map out my D7 fretboard and highlight where all the notes in the D minor pentatonic were located. The trick is to memorize the new shapes and the new cluster of sweet notes. It isn't hard...as long as I have my map next to me. I can play respectable stop-time blues filling in between the slides with notes. My wife said it sounded good...except for the tone! I was playing extremely dirty with overdrive, flanger, and fuzz. I still haven't mastered the settings on the fuzz. It is a very crazy pedal and I haven't mellowed it out yet. Since it is new, I am still relishing all the pulsing craziness. Over time I should probably back it off to the level of something more like a fuzz face or big muff.

I started to re-acquaint myself with linear pentatonics. I had been playing three-string patterns on my Kamaka. However I should be receiving my custom linear uke in about two months. I have to admit that I am unrepentedly a linear-favorer. I see that re-entrant turnings have their advantages. I was watching someone online do these descending hammering/pulling integrated with playing the G string. This only works because the G and A strings are only a step apart. With linear, there's an octave difference which spoils the effect since the notes aren't clustered.

However, I don't play that kind of music. For me the linear is better because it can play all the three-string pentatonic shapes, but it also has the five other shapes that span all four strings. And that's where things get fun because you can create your own shapes and stay in key. For example you can play a four-string subdominant shape but stop on the 3rd on the E string. From there you can start playing the three-string dominant shape which also has its 3rd on the E string.

The linear pentatonic shapes have their challenges. The tonic, subdominant, and dominant shapes are very regular, but the supertonic and mediant require some shifting. I like to keep my index finger in the same fret as an anchor. The linear supertonic, however, requires me to shift down a fret on the C string, but move back for the E and A strings. The mediant shape requires moving up a fret on the E string. This isn't unprecedented. On the re-entrant shapes there is also some shifting going on. I just have to get used to the new shifts.
 
I have been toying around with the augmented chord. Stu Fuchs gave me some advice on using the augmented chord for the V chord of a progression. Using that premise I made a new turnaround in E for the final two bars of a blues progression: B+7, Bb7, A7, E.

Aside from that, things have really been coming together for me. Since I've been studying the key of E, I can now effortlessly improvise music with melodies and timing using my pentatonic shapes.

That is great, however I have to admit I haven't made progress on some of my goals such as memorizing the keyboard using the modes of E. And I have totally ignored my desire to create a fingerstyle style that uses the fourth string as a drone. Now that I think of it, the fingerstyle goal probably should be put on the back burner for a while because of the key. I am committed to E. However if I want to drone the fourth string, which is a G...then I think I need to be playing in G. Therefore I need to wait to such a time when I devote my time to G. And G only has one accidental note, a sharp...not very conducive to pedagogy.


Spent some time thinking about the last point and realized it wasn't correct. I don't necessarily need the G for the tonic. I just need a key that allows for the G. As long as it is in the key it will sound alright although its emphasis will be different depending on the G's function in the harmony of that key. So I did some thinking about keys and the more you learn about music, the more you're amazed. Music is connected to the numerical balance of the world: the seasons, the sunsets, etc. So it is no surprise that my query also lent itself to symmetry. Of the 12 keys, the G works with 6 of them. G is in Eb, Bb, F, C, G, and D. The other six wouldn't work. In E, B, and F# the G is sharp; Db uses an Ab (G#); Ab has a diminished G and A has a diminished G#.

I think D would be good for the drone. D has always been my favorite key. My cigar box guitar is tuned to an open D7 and with my ukuleles the G would be the subdominant of D. That would sound appropriate.
 
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I've been having fun.

I systematically thought about add6 chords and m7 chords. I can't really play add6, but I know all my m7's. And they're the same. So all I have to do is remember which add6 is which m7. The one exception is that I play A6 differently. I learned to play it in a typical blues shuffle: A, A6, A7. The A of course is 2100; the A6 is 2120 and the A7 is 2130. Those 6's and 7's obviously are lacking their dominant degree, but they sound good. The implication for this is that if A6 is 2130, then F#m7 is 2130 which is a godsend because F#m7 is regularly played as 2424 which is a very nasty chord. That means that I would play the F#m and F#m7 as the same thing. That might not work in all cases, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. This isn't at all unprecedented in my playing. For example when I need to play F#maj7, I play Bbm. The Bbm is a rootless F#maj7. Rootless chords can sound a little etiolated but the context will be judge of that and how often will I need a F#maj7?

Why is F# such a pill?

Speaking of being a pill, I just stumbled upon a video purporting that music theory is not hard (a thesis I whole-heartedly endorse) but then the person in the video quizzes the viewers with how many keys there are? His answer is 30! I thought: dude, you're being a douche by including the enharmonic keys. The practical answer should be 24 because no one is going to play in Cb or Fb or even use G# with its 6 sharps and one double-sharp when Ab, its enharmonic equivalent, only has 4 flats.

Anyway, that brought my mind back to F#. Gb and F# are enharmonically equivalent and each has 6 accidents. Therefore there is no way to prefer one to the other. However, I have been told that Gb is more common. However I think it would depend on what you're doing with the key. If you're just making a rather simple melody, then either would be okay. However if I were going to play some modal harmonies, I would definitely write them in F#. For example if your melody was in Aiolian, a very popular mode, you have a flat III, VI, and VII. These 3 notes are naturally sharped because of the key, so playing them in Aiolian would be easy: A# becomes A, D# becomes D, etc. If I conceived of this in the key of Gb, it would be a little more awkward because I would be flattening a flat, which any musician worth his weight in tabouli can do...however, since we're talking about ease. F# is easier in this context.

The last thing I'm doing right now, is struggling with a new Am7 fingering. I dislike the typical 0000 chord, so I usually play it 2433. I saw a video of Stu Fuchs playing both the E and A strings with a flattened middle finger and I was very intrigued because I cannot do this at all. I normally use the index for the '2', the pinky for the '4' and my the two middle fingers play the two '3' frets. One of my favorite sequences is Eb7, D7, Gm7 and I play the Gm7 with my index finger barreing the E and A string and my ring finger fretting the C string (0211). But transposing that shape up a note is impossible for me. The index finger isn't part of this issue; it is just replacing the nut and will barre everything and only be responsible for the G string. The antogonists here are the middle two fingers. The issue is that they aren't independent. However I need one finger to lie flat while the other finger remain arched. I'm going to be working on it, because this is for me a very important movable chord. If I can master the new fingering, it is eminently more movable.
 
In that video I maligned above there was one good tid-bit of information: the number of accidents in a key plus the flatted form of that key equals seven. For example, C has 0 sharps but Cb has 7 flats. Okay that one wasn't very practical since no one plays or practices in Cb. On the other hand I know from experience that E has 4 sharps; that means that Eb has 3 flats. That is a nice trick for knowing key signatures.

For some reason I have been getting a lot of recommended videos on that little girl Grace and her ukulele. Yes, she's a millionaire and she has a cool treehouse, but she's not a very good musician. I guess it shows you what fame is really about. Personality, charisma, etc....but playing your instrument is pretty low on the list. I even saw a video where she was tasked with writing an impromptu song about dirty dishes and she didn't do a good job. I tested myself similarly and just rhymed a few words in a micro-narrative backed with a generic stop time blues in G. It isn't that hard. However I would be as ill-equipped for her world as she would be for mine.

I practiced (meaning failed repeatedly) the new Am7 chord. That is going to take some doing.

Speaking of doing, I decided to get off my ass and do something about the gap in my fingerstyle playing. My problem is analysis-paralysis. I have studied and I know exactly what to do, but then I sort of scoff at the simplicity of it and never do it. I just have to practice it. I will start to work through the fingerstyle workbook I have but also make some strides in my own personal improvisation. That means blues-based melodies in G using the open G string as the drone. From what I've seen the drone regularly is the root note. I previously thought I could use another key as long as it has a G in it. And technically I can, but Tommy Emmanuel said doing so would relegate the music to curiosity-pieces. I think I will listen to anyone who has played with Chet Atkins.

I'll be starting basic and just playing 4 drones to a beat and then work in the melody notes on top of the drone as well as on the off-beat between the drones as well as making triplets (drone + two meldoy notes). That's my personal goal. I will obviously also support that with playing whatever little ditties that are in the fingerstyle workbook.
 
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