Let me riff a bit on playing the guitar again. I go through these awful periods where I don’t play guitar. In fact, I haven’t played any guitar in more than six months. It always helps to get out of these non-guitar funks if I have some sort of plan as to what I want to do. Of course, any decent plan starts off with some sort of freewriting/brainstorming. Let me break down a few things in outline form.

  • Keep in mind that what I am really concerned with is musical practice - guitar is just an instrument. I really need to fully consider composition and piano proficiency and a few other things separate from the guitar. Guitar just happens to be my primary instrument, though, so for the sake of efficiency I just makes sense that I work out musical ideas on the guitar.
  • jazz: Work up, again, the Morgen fingerstyle stuff that I have had memorized in the past. Work out some lead sheet arrangements of the same tunes, learning to play the melodies, basslines (two-feel, walking, etc.), and comping. See if I can work out a solo accompaniment part so that I can accompany a melodic instrument.
  • blues: Work on some nasty Chicago blues stuff, and then see how it connects to the more country stuff that I play. Also, reconsider Wes Montgomery
  • improvisation: I need to re-invigorate my single-note playing somehow. I could focus for a bit on pentatonic scales as a way to simplify things a bit. Practice them along with Arnold’s Metrodrone sound files.
  • comping: I need to get back to working on walking bass for the guitar. I just need to memorize the stuff. And use a fucking metronome.
  • reading: Read something regularly. Learn to play the Bartok piano stuff on the guitar as well. Read from scores. Read the Omnibook. Work on my rhythm playing and reading through Arnold’s books on rhythms, Goodrick’s book Factorial rhythm, or any other source I can find. Read from the Real book. Memorize some fucking tunes, but also breeze through sight readings of various other tunes.
  • composition: Get back to working on Schoenberg’s Theory of harmony. Write out the exercises in different keys and play them at the piano and on guitar.
  • piano: Play all compositional exercises from Schoenberg. Continue working on Bartok’s Mikrokosmos as well as Haerle’s book on jazz chords for class piano.
  • ear training: Continue working with Arnold’s ear training sound files and sight singing exercises. Keep in mind that ear training has always paid off for me, so I should take more joy in this too-oft maligned aspect of musical training.
  • score reading: While this really goes with composition, it also touches on ear training, reading, piano, as well as guitar practice. I won’t spend much energy on writing about this one.