my ukulele progress

I really seemed to have made some progress recently. With the ukulele it is difficult to attribute causality because it is impossible to decide whether the specific thing I am doing resulted in the advancement or whether it was the string of specific things over time that did it.

Regardless my knowledge of the fret board has undergone a quantum leap.

And I suppose I could call it applicable knowledge. I have always had knowledge. Early on I made flash cards and I memorized the fret board. I knew what each string played at every fret. However, that knowledge didn’t translate into music for some reason.

Here’s what finally worked for me.

1. while I was waiting a half year for my Yorkshire tenor to arrive, I was stuck with only a re-entrant Kamaka (poor me!). So I got cozy with the first three strings. I decided to focus on the key of E because E is so easy on the uke and because I had avoided E with its four sharps. E turned out to be a great choice as well because E is the highest note on my 19 fretted ukes. So I practiced all the modes of E, from the C# aiolian on the first fret all the way to the D# Lokrian which ends on the 18th fret. Since all the modes consist of the same notes, you always know what note you’re playing. I would say the note as I played it and watch where my fingers were so that I could identify the location. I reinforced this by improvising tunes using the modes. While I did this, I also was practicing my pentatonic shapes, which are nothing more than modes in their own right since the tonic shape begins on the tonic degree of the scale whereas the dominant shape begins on the dominant degree.

2. When my Yorkshire tenor arrived I started to take advantage of its linear tuning to play the modes of E and the pentatonic shapes from the G string. The patterns are basically the same except you have to deviate from “home row” to borrow terminology from my high school typing class. For example, with re-entrant tuning your index finger stays rooted at the same fret as you move across the strings. When you play the same modes from the low G string, you have to move your index finger down a fret on the C string. What I just said applies to the Ionian mode. Other modes were just the opposite. In re-entrant tuning the index fingers moves up a fret on the C string for the Lokrian and Aiolian modes whereas home row is maintained in linear tuning. Regardless, you get the point; the linear modes were the same as the re-entrant modes with some very minor tweaks. Now with the two systems under my belt I could play the same thing but in different places. E.g., I could play the E Ionian from the 4th fret on the C string or the 9th on the G string (or the 16th fret on the C string). All this also applies to the linear pentatonic shapes.

3. At this point something just clicked and I am now playing all over the fret board with ease. Obviously, this is still a process and I am still memorizing notes and remembering that I need to zip down to the fret below the 17th fret marker to play a certain shape, but it is coming along. The take away point is that although my knowledge is still imperfect, I can now go to wherever I want on the fret board and play. Of course my discretion and decision-making is highly questionable, as is my ability to turn this wanking into music. But that’s a different topic.

* * * *

The nib I have had for my entire life recently stopped working. This is very distressing for me—as anyone who has knowledge of pens will surely understand. A writer and his nib build a very personal relationship. I have ordered a new nib and when it arrives I will continue on my quest to convert a bunch of blues licks which are written in particular keys into formulae which can be used for any key. Many of the licks incorporate notes outside of the blues scales. I have taken my lead from this and I have been improvising outside of the pentatonic shapes. For example, a favorite of mine is to start in the Ionian mode, move to the Lokrian and then jump into the tonic pentatonic shape. When you first land in the pentatonic shape there is a bit of tension in the sound, but it smooths out quickly as I move toward the E. With resolution all things are forgiven.

As far as chords are concerned I have been strumming and arpeggiating a certain sequence derived from the harmonic minor harmonization: B9, Cdim7, G+, Am, B7, Em. I can really fall into the groove and get lost in it for a while. It is one of the unsung benefits of using straps: you can sway with the beats as you stand and make it a whole body experience. Also, the resonance it very much improved when you aren’t smothering the sound board. Of course, I have no complaints in that department anyway, since I play a Kamaka or a custom uke. Those things just ring out forever.

Lastly, before I take a nap for work, I was struck on how much I would not be considered a good musician. A lot of times when people ask you if you can play, they expect you to mimic a song that everyone knows. For example, when I was visiting my brother and he happened to pick up his Les Paul, he played “Crazy Train.” That’s what people expect and that’s how they judge you. I don’t do that. I suppose I could do it with some practice. For instance, under the duress of my drunk neighbor’s request I played the opening to “Stairway to Heaven” to appease him, but I almost never do that. I can improvise all over the fret board, but people don’t appreciate that so much. It is just another example of how out of step I am with everything.

I have been devoting some time to unlearning my shapes. Now that I know my modes and scales I need to try to blur their edges. At this point in time their shape in very much in my consciousness. I can move shape to shape, but I do it in the same way. I need to be able to move to any part of the shape instead of always moving to the beginning or end of the shape. I cannot elaborate more on this right now because I need to go to bed for a few hours, but I will try to annotate my efforts more fully at a future time.


There, now I'm back with a little more time to spend. What I was trying to say is that I have learnt my shapes rigidly. I cannot complain; that rigor gave me command of what I wanted to learn. However, now there are limitations. When I move from one shape to another, I have to approach the new shape rather formally, entering the new shape either by its first or last note. The consequence of this is a rather scale-like sound. I would obviously rather conduce something more musical.

So, even though it feels rather contrived, I was mapping out some transitions.
1. from the tonic shape, when I get to its middle string, the E, I jump up to D on the tenth fret. That D is part of the subdominant shape or the dominant shape (depending on which way you go on the fretboard). It is really quite an ingenious move since it gives so many options. And that isn't even counting switching from re-entrant to linear. If you stay within the first three strings, you're playing, e.g., the subdominant shape. However if you descend all the way to the G string, then you're playing the tonic shape. Same thing with the re-entrant dominant shape: if extended to the G string, it becomes the mediant shape.
2. I don't know why I started using numbers. I am not going to enumerate all the little variations I essayed. I will in fact end this list by noting that with this new power comes responsibility. I am developing the ability to move about the fretboard. But freedom does not equal license. Some ideas just don't sound good. The interval is just too wide. For example, I can go from the fifth fret in the tonic shape to the twelfth fret, but that E note--even though it is the tonic note--sounds random. I either need to build up to that twelfth fret by stopping off at the seventh fret in the mediant shape before ending up at that high E, or I could use a big glissando from the A to the E. That gives a sense of the movement. That trick works in even wider gaps. If you're wanking around in the dominant shape at the 19th fret, you can slide all the way down to the leading tone shape in the third fret. It is perhaps not the best sound--going from a B to a G, but as soon as you start to move around in the leading tone shape, all is forgiven.


There is a current thread devoted to practicing, I'm not going to participate in it because I think I would come across as contrarian. Some contributors of that thread claim they don't practice. In fact they seem to treat practice as some sort of anathema. I obviously don't agree. In fact I actually enjoy playing scales or doing other pre-musical activities. Here's what I did today to practice transitioning between chords quickly and without looking:

1. using a random number generator, I generated 12 random sequences of the numbers 1-7
2. those numbers indicate which degree of a key to play and I just chose the key of C
3. then a sequence, say 7425631, becomes BFDGAEC.
4. I played the sequence. I often play to the accompaniment of a metronome, but today I played without. One benefit of playing chords randomly is that it challenges you to create novel transitions.

I did the above with the major triad. Using the same numbers I could practice one of the other three essential systems (according to me): minor triad, dom 7, m7.
Also, it is easy to randomly attribute flats or sharps to the existing sequences, so that BFDGAEC becomes Bb F D# G# A E# Cb. This is an exceptional exercise for me because I have a tendency to privilege certain enharmonic equivalents over others. E.g., I always think of the note between G and A as Ab. This exercise forces me think of it as G#.

Anyway, practicing pre-musical stuff is cool

I took the day (night) off work so that I could pick my wife up at the airport. Having done my uxorial duty, I have now stayed up 'til sunrise. It has been an awesome evening of playing uke--much better than going to work.

Something crazy: I just realized over 20,000 people have looked at this. It seems weird. People have asked why I just don't migrate to WordPress or Tumblr. I have looked at those platforms and they seem too professional to me. If you use those tools, then information becomes a business in which you analyze your audience, curry their favor with graphics, media, and content. I don't want to do all that. I just want to annotate what I'm doing for the sake of reference. To that end, here's some of the stuff I stumbled upon:

1. I put into practice some of the licks I have been transposing. What I enjoyed playing centered around the III and IV. {By III and IV, I don't mean the real III and IV, which in E would be a G# and an A; I mean the 3rd and 4th note in the pentatonic scale}. One sequence I especially like is: IV III #IV IV. I used this lick, along with other things like a Lokrian-based lick I made up, in a stop-time blues in E minor.

2. I just played and played a little progression I had been toying with in E harmonic minor: E minor, B7, A minor, F#ø, E minor, G+, Csus4, B. It is pretty awesome and I can groove on that for a while. [[[ Just as a case in point, if someone vicariously culls information from these notes, they get this weird progression, but if I were on tumblr I would need to get a charming young lady with horn-rimmed glasses and a subtle décolletage to sing a pop song which had been stripped down and transposed to C ]]]

3. I picked up something which Jarmo posted in another thread which I used to make a nice little vamp: a minor, F, B7 B°. The last element was supposed to be a half-diminished chord, but I don't know those off the top of my head whereas I do know my diminished chords.

I'm having a bit too much fun. I should probably clip my wings by practicing stuff that I'm not good at, like some elemental finger-picking techniques for the re-entrant tuning.

I had another bout with Occam's razor today and was forced to realize that the simplest answer is the best. To get around the awkwardness of the G major chord I have been trying to cultivate some competency in using either the F-shaped movable chord or a barre chord. I have had some partial success with these techniques, but ultimately just making the chord traditionally is just so much easier. And this is especially important because I just naturally use the G shape also for the F# and the Ab. And to make things even easier for both the F# and Ab I scoot my index finger over a tad so that it mutes the G string--thereby obviating the need to swing the pinky over to the 4th string. The need for simplicity was especially clear while I was practicing these random chord progressions:

Bb F D# G# A E# Cb
E D Gb F B# C# A

Going, for example, from a D to Gb formed by the F-shape movable chord is, for me, a very big shift whereas going from D to the G-shaped chord played at the 1st fret only entails shifting my fingers slightly.


As I was prepping for a project I intend for tomorrow (make a dish drainer that hangs above the sink) I was listening to a favorite of mine, John Fahey's "Stomping tonight on the Pennsylvania/Alabama border" and I thought I could play it by ear. I did it with just a false start or two. It is just pentatonic: I II III, III II I V I (do that a few times) IV III II I V I (that's the turnaround).

Now don't brand me too much of a braggart. I am bragging, but I realize that all I did was capture the melody. John Fahey is doing this melody with double stops, with chord tones, and with a bass drone.

In a recent thread, people were advising beginners on how much to practice. One answer could have been "as much as you like," which in Latin would be ad libitum. A more literal translation of that is "to your pleasure." Today I didn't play to my pleasure. Rather I played ad dolorem, to my pain. I competitively lift giri and I know about 'hot spots.' Before you form a callus at the base of each of your fingers, the steel handles can abrade your flesh and it gets to a point where, if you don't stop, you're going to get blisters or rips. I got to that point today with the ukulele.

I started off adding some more to my endless E harmonic minor progression. It was a bit of a passing sequence which leads back to E minor: D# dim, F major (in lieu of a B7), G7add4, Em.

Then I started combining some scales that occur really low on the fret board. The G# Phrygian starts on the 1st fret, the Leading Tone pentatonic shape on the 2nd, and the Tonic pentatonic shape on the 4th. The easy solution to combining and/or transitioning betwixt these is the E on the 4th fret. That, of course, works fine, but it does sound a bit standard. I have seen guitar players use a finger pattern recursively and I thought I could use this idea to transition.

I took that blues riff I came across. Its formula is IV III #IV IV. However, if you take that out of its pentatonic context you just take a note, go down two steps, up three, down one. Here's what I did: After running through the G# Phrygian, I commenced the riff at the G# on the 4th fret. Then I went up a step to A and played the riff. At this point, I am in the pentatonic shapes. Just to further emphasize that, I went up to the B and played the riff. So the last two iterations of the riff have been squarely in the pentatonic shapes and the Phrygian is a bit of a distant memory.

I played with this and totally heated up my fingers by excessive note bending and hammering. So I'll have to stop for the day.

I loved reading some of this, but you already started out way ahead of me by knowing standard notation. I'm like you in that I want to know what I'm playing. It's kind of like know how to wrench vs. being a mechanic. One can get the job done, the other understands the concepts and can do so much more.
Maybe I'll start one of these just for me too. I'm getting to where I can play some chords and doing some finger picking but it's playing notes vs. playing music. I do lots of arpeggios and well, I'm having a hard time getting all the notes down, circle of 5, etc. I guess there's something I'm just not getting
Wish me luck

Standard notation can be made easier when you realize that you don't need all of it...unless you're sight reading. If you play stuff you've heard before, then you don't need to worry about the notation that pertains to rhythm and dynamics. All you need are the notes. For example, I grabbed some sheet music to Thelonious Monk. As you can imagine, with all the syncopation of jazz, there was a ton of little squiggles and dots and rests, but I just ignored them because my ear already had all that stuff. I just needed the notes and I played them in the rhythm I had already internalized.

For the circle of fifths I recommend a cheap tool (which I know I have probably already mentioned) which is the Chord Wheel by Jim fleser. It costs about as much as a set of Worth strings and it is great because it does a lot of the thinking for you. It has a little dial and you turn it to the key you want and it tells you what all the degrees of key are, whether they're major or minor when you play them as chords, if the notes are natural, flat, or sharp...and stuff like that.

And don't worry about lack of progress. It seems to come in spurts. For a while nothing clicks, but then suddenly you know a bunch of stuff. I tried (and was successful) to be intellectual about the fret board. I used flash cards and had memorized all the notes, but it didn't really help me. What helped me was finding a musical context to practice the fret board. Since I like scales, I used them but you could use the melody of a song. The key for me was to be mindful of what I was playing. I would say aloud what I was fretting. If you're playing a song, you could sing the notes instead of the lyrics.

good luck

My finger was still feeling a bit wonky after yesterday, so I decided on doing something that wouldn't require its fingertip today.

In a thread about cutaways, someone challenged the forum to actually post a video of playing high on the neck, the implication being that it was impractical. At first, I dismissed this because on a daily basis I play all 19 of my frets. Then I realized that this person probably wasn't talking about finger picking, but chords. I had to admit I don't usually form chords that high. For me, the high end of the neck is for soloing.

So I practiced some chords up there. Obviously the vast majority of these chords will need to be closed because it would be too weird to have a chord consisting of an open string combined with notes fretted at the 15th. I found that the big challenge was the wrist. If you keep the ukulele immobile, then the wrist really needs to twist to get into position. I got around this by just swinging the ukulele to the left (another joy and perk of using straps) so that the higher frets were now in a place in space that my wrist could access without the twisting. Precision is also a must up there because any note not properly fretted gets muted.

I had some success with some barre chords like the 7 chord and the 9 chord. Dim7's were doable as were the movable shapes like the C-shape or the A shape. I played around with a blues progression in C at around the 15th fret. That damned F7 chord was a bit of a pain for my pinky, but the G7 was easy. I muted the G string for it.

One thing which is very noticeable is my need for some new muscle memory. My hands don't realize that I have a cutaway. When I move up the fretboard, my hands curl as if there was still an upper bout. It is only with effort that I can tell my hand to chill and keep the wrist neutral because there is no longer a need for acrobatics.

ripock said:

Standard notation can be made easier when you realize that you don't need all of it...unless you're sight reading. If you play stuff you've heard before, then you don't need to worry about the notation that pertains to rhythm and dynamics. All you need are the notes. For example, I grabbed some sheet music to Thelonious Monk. As you can imagine, with all the syncopation of jazz, there was a ton of little squiggles and dots and rests, but I just ignored them because my ear already had all that stuff. I just needed the notes and I played them in the rhythm I had already internalized.

For the circle of fifths I recommend a cheap tool (which I know I have probably already mentioned) which is the Chord Wheel by Jim fleser. It costs about as much as a set of Worth strings and it is great because it does a lot of the thinking for you. It has a little dial and you turn it to the key you want and it tells you what all the degrees of key are, whether they're major or minor when you play them as chords, if the notes are natural, flat, or sharp...and stuff like that.

And don't worry about lack of progress. It seems to come in spurts. For a while nothing clicks, but then suddenly you know a bunch of stuff. I tried (and was successful) to be intellectual about the fret board. I used flash cards and had memorized all the notes, but it didn't really help me. What helped me was finding a musical context to practice the fret board. Since I like scales, I used them but you could use the melody of a song. The key for me was to be mindful of what I was playing. I would say aloud what I was fretting. If you're playing a song, you could sing the notes instead of the lyrics.

good luck

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You do need all the notes to figure out fingerpicking though, yes? I can find chord sheets for some songs, but can't figure out the picking patterns I hear in the songs. I guess I'd need to transpose notes to tabs. I guess I'll keep at it. I'm much better at scales, picking and chord transitions, but I haven't been able to get them together yet and I haven't really used too many strumming patterns at all. Thanks

captain-janeway said:

You do need all the notes to figure out fingerpicking though, yes? I can find chord sheets for some songs, but can't figure out the picking patterns I hear in the songs. I guess I'd need to transpose notes to tabs. I guess I'll keep at it. I'm much better at scales, picking and chord transitions, but I haven't been able to get them together yet and I haven't really used too many strumming patterns at all. Thanks

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When I get sheet music, it has both the chords and the notes of the melody, so that I don't have to figure out the notes. I never worry about picking patterns; I just pick the notes one after the other.

You're getting it; it just takes time. We're approaching the same goal, but from different angles. You practice songs replicating the strum patterns and I take some chords and make up strum patterns to change the song continuously. Eventually you will need to loosen up and I will certainly need to tighten up. It is kind of reassuring to me to know that, since both our methodologies are triangulating onto a central area, we are both on the right track.

Somewhat recently I said that I had painted myself into a corner with shapes and patterns. I said I needed to learn to unlearn them. That is a really good slogan and might even make a trendy t-shirt but what does it mean, really? What mechanisms do you use to unlearn something?

My idea is to obscure the path I use to transition between shapes. Now I seem to naturally jump when I am at the end of a shape. I propose to jump at other points in the shape, thereby creating another path. I was thinking of it like a path through a field of tall grass. If everyone walks the same path, then one bit of the grass is beaten down into a path. But if there are many paths, everything is beaten down and there is no longer a path.

I am going to be doing this by focusing on transitioning between two shapes, the tonic and the dominant. In E the dominant spans the frets 11-14. Usually when I transition to this shape, I go for the easy target that first B note. It is easy to see since it is nestled between the 10th fret and 12th fret markers. However, if I were required to transition to somewhere other than the start, I couldn't do it. I only have a vague knowledge of the shape's interior. I would be totally guessing if I tried to slide up to a G or D.

So my first goal is to practice mindfully the dominant shape so that I am very comfortable with seeing all its notes. Then I will have a definite landing site. Then I can just be down in one of the lower shapes, but then I'll say let's go up to that dominant shape A and--bam--I'll be there. I'll be making a lot of new connections by sliding up the interior strings (or by switching strings mid-transition) and these new connections will obscure the old connection that I over-used.

One unexpected perk of this method--so far--is becoming very familiar and partial to certain notes. I find myself thinking "I really like that B"; Certain frets are becoming like familiar neighborhoods whose houses and yards I know and appreciate.

The obvious application of all this is improvisation, but I also am using it with the library of riffs that I am converting into keyless formulae. I tend to play the riffs inside one shape. That is limiting me because when you play one shape there is only one place to go if you want, for example, a D. However, you could transition mid-riff to an adjacent shape and get the same note. That would really open my eyes to some new possibilities. And transitioning mid-riff between the tonic and dominant shapes in going to create some shifts in octaves which will either be cool or not. For example, there is a segment of a riff that runs: I V bV bIV. And transitioning to the dominant shape after the first note creates a very different sound even though notes of the two shapes are in the same octave.

And all this is just focusing on the re-entrant shapes. I haven't even scratched the surface of the linear ones. That'll come later.

At work my mantra was bd, eg, ab. Those are the respective notes on the C, E, and A strings for the dominant pentatonic. Do that for ten hours whenever your mind is empty. You'll remember it.

Things are going okay. It is the quiet time, when I can only hear the ticking of the clock and the scratching of my pen (my new nib finally arrived). Yesterday I went to the pub to start off my weekend and I converted some more riffs into formulae. However I hit a rough patch when I came to the section written in D. The problem wouldn't be a problem if I were writing in standard notation, but as it is I am writing sequences using roman numerals for the scale degrees. Hitherto, this hasn't been a problem. When I write "I V" it obviously means from the I note go up to the V note. As the roman numerals increase, so does their pitch. The key of D is throwing some curveballs. It is, in places, descending so that when I write "I V" it means play the I note and then go down to the V note in a lower shape. I hadn't anticipated this and I am clumsily appending little notes to my formulae to remind myself to ascend or descend. Maybe I'll sit down and think of a more concise way of annotating that. Hopefully the other keys will stick to a single direction for my ease. However, this is why I am trying to unlearn my shapes so that I can move anywhere and it not be an issue.

I haven't had much time, but I entertained myself by messing around in the general neighborhood of the dominant shape. I started off with the E Phrygian scale which starts on the 9th fret and which ends on that E of the 12th fret. And when you hit that E there's a lot of options. That's the E of the dominant shape, and that E is also part of the subdominant shape which occurs a little bit lower on the fret board. And if you extend the subdominant shape back to the G string, then it is the tonic shape which includes that 9th fret E which I started on. It is a great way to end the phrase.

I also have been having fun with a dim7 arpeggio shape that I saw a guitarist use.

Work has been kind of nasty lately, not leaving me much time for playing. Evidence of this: the nails on my fretting hand need trimming. When I am playing a lot that never would happen.

I have had a slight setback on my agenda. I was observing the latest post from TenThumbs Productions, a music resource I favor. The lesson was a chord melody for "La Vie en Rose" and I was watching it for chord progressions. It has some good half-diminished chords and minor 9s. However my wife overheard it and requested me to play it. The song is frequently used as incidental music whenever a scene from a movie is located in a French cafe. So I was compelled to learn it.

There are some lessons here for me. The music isn't heard at all, but it is the discipline involved that is a bit foreign to me. With an established tune, you have to play it as written and that's a pressure I am unaccustomed to. Usually I improvise and I at will adorn notes with bends or what not, and I frequently pause and let the silence speak and then resume in response.

Although my spirit was protesting the constrictions, I found a way to placate my need for creativity by making my own lyrics. As I sat on the porch and had some tobacco I noticed a few things: a dwarf futilely raking leaves in the wind, the wind blowing a hole in the overcast sky in a shape that resembled a humpback whale, Domino's is hiring. So I made my own song. It starts "look, a dwarf is raking leaves..." and you get the picture. That alleviated the burden of being bound to the music.

My eyes are getting better musically speaking. Although I have never played a guitar, I can watch a guitarist and play it on the uke (as long as they don't use those pesky base strings). There was a youtube video of someone playing a blues riff. I think it was John Lee Hooker, but even if it isn't the riff is one of those chestnuts everyone's heard. Anyway I could immediately see it. Here's what it is (using the five notes of the pentatonic scale):

5/1 2 5 #4 3 2 3

As I may have noted earlier, things are getting ugly at work and they are just getting uglier and uglier. So I don't really have the emotional capital to invest in really pushing myself musically. So I have been playing some comfortable things. The foremost of which is a scale I know by the name of the Gypsy scale. Knowing what I know about music, I can see that it is just a major scale with a flatted second and sixth. However the sound is greatly different even though it is just slightly changed. It has an eastern quality to it. It sounds like something out of the Middle East or maybe one of the liminal, Slavic European countries. I am tired and nodding off at the keyboard; it is time to go to sleep

In the last few days I have worked over 40 hours and slept 7. I haven't really had time for much playing. The only thing of note that I did was watch a guitar player play the main riff from Jethro Tull's "Aqualung" and I mimicked the fingering on the ukulele and was able to play it. I plugged in my tenor guitar, used my "super crunch" channel with some fuzz, reverb, and delay. That was fun.

I am in that intervallum between putting the pies (sweet potato and blackberry) in the oven and putting the turkey in, and I thought I would update a few items.

My fingerstyle book is collecting dust on the music stand, but it cannot be helped. Life is a sprint with cancer or cardiac disease right at your heels, so you have to live for now. And right now my heart is more intent upon other things. I do realize that eventually the fingerstyle will be essential to my playing. Being able to drone the G string while playing my melodies will complete the package. However, right now I'm working more on the more central aspects of that equation.

Speaking of which, I have been thinking about how the ukulele world thinks that you should play linear or re-entrant. I am finding that both are needed. I am an unrepenting linear fan, but I see how my re-entrant practice plays into it all. I can play in re-entrant (ignoring the G string) and then slide back into the low G string and get the bonus of those lush deep notes. I couldn't do that without knowing my shapes on the top three strings. Also, when I finally get my fingerstyle going, I can play re-entrant pentatonics while using the low G string as a drone.

As far as playing is concerned I have recently been embracing my subdominant shape, adding it to my tendency to focus on the tonic and dominant shapes. The subdominant has the tonic note in the middle making it easy to lead into it either from above or below. And if you extend the subdominant back to the low G string, it becomes the tonic shape.

I have been benefiting from the metronome immensely. Yeah, I can play seven pentatonic shapes and all my modes from both the G or the C strings, but all that isn't really necessary for being musical. I have my metronome set to click on the quarter notes and chime at every measure. It is sort of like snare drum/snare drum/snare drum/high hat. What has been illuminating about this is the fact that in that time frame, I don't have time to play a scale. Unless you're a virtuoso and can play 1/64th notes, you're only going to get to play two or three notes. It has been liberating to have that restriction. In that context, I just play a note or two or sometimes I do nothing and let the silence speak. Being a novice, I am bound by the measure. However since I am an expert in poetry and metrics, I do know that eventually I will start to bridge the gap between measures and play a riff over the two measures. For right now, though, I am sticking to the rhythm of the measure and enjoying it a lot.

Think I will use some of this in my own play. Take the droning of the g string. And playing the melodies with the three other strings. Of course it has to be done that way.

player said:

Think I will use some of this in my own play. Take the droning of the g string. And playing the melodies with the three other strings. Of course it has to be done that way.

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And according to the experts you have to play in G; the drone has to be the root. However, I am not so sure. It seems that it would be okay, for example, to play some blues in E and have the G drone, which would be the dominant note of the scale. Time will tell I suppose.

I have been selectively integrating some modes with my pentatonic shapes. By "selectively" I mean I don't use all the iterations of the mode. I just use the mode which shares some real estate on the fret board with one of the pentatonic shapes. I do this because I can literally see the relationship. I can see that the D# of the Lokrian is just a fret away from the D of the tonic pentatonic shape. In theory, since all the pentatonic shapes have the same notes but in a different order, I could go from the Lokrian and then just jump up to the dominant pentatonic shape and hit that D. However that would require that I would know where that D is. If you give me five seconds or so I can figure it out, but I cannot do it quickly right now.

I have had some success with the Lokrian and the Phyrgian modes. I think I am going to try the Dorian next. Supposedly, it works well with pentatonics. I am going to have to get over a slight bigotry I have against the Dorian. I have always been a little off-put by the way it ends. It has that little half-step interval right at the end which I have never fancied.