Musically, I thought I had a pretty good handle on the basic scales, until last week when a buddy lent me a copy of the instructional DVD, "Groovin' For Heaven." The instructor mentioned the necessity to have a few basic musical scales under your fingers; Major, Minor, Pentatonic.
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| No worries-- I got this! |
I've got the Major scale nailed down, and I remember the requirement to turn a major chord into a minor is to flat the 3rd. While this is true, my perspective in this case was limited to chords. I was missing the whole picture-- the need to not only flat the 3rd, but also the 6th and 7th. Doh!!
From there I went a little further and checked out this handy article on pentatonic scales published Cyberfretbass.com. Here I realized another error in my thinking; I had mistakenly thought of notes in the incorrect degree of the scale. Let me explain...
A major pentatonic scale removes the 4th & 7th from the scale:
C D E F G A B C
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1
This means the scale correctly becomes:
C D E G A
1 2 3 5 6.
My mistake was labeling the note G with the 4th degree of the scale... Ooops!
So back to the woodshed with me-- just one of the pitfalls to being a self-taught musician I guess. And score one for the internet by making the info easily available. Technology to the rescue!
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| A great resource for sharping skills |
The instructional DVD was a pleasant surprise in that it encouraged me to view playing from a perspective I hadn't thought of previously. My music stand now contains three pages of notes I jotted down while watching the DVD. Lots of work for me to do over the next few weeks.
Practice:
I spent several hours working on the upcoming weekends song list. One tune in particular is a revised version of Amazing Grace written by the band Citizen. It's a modern take on the classic, and a pretty good one at that. I had the chord sheet, but it lacked any direction for the instrumental. So after a good deal of critical listening I was able to pin it down. Honestly, I was pretty proud of myself and really got the entire song down pat. The other three tunes are pretty straight forward, so no problems there.
House update:
I got the last remaining quote for replacing the carpet today. Now with all three quotes we are much closer to having a closing date. The seller is providing an allowance up to $4k for new carpet... each of the three quotes are well over that mark-- which will come out of our pocket-- so that's finally taken care of.
Also gathered another estimate from moving from our rental to the house. Man, buying a house is expensive! Most of my moves in the past were coordinated and paid for by the Air Force-- all but one, which was a serious PIA! It's a tricky task to find a reputable moving company that won't gouge the customer. Thankfully it looks like we've secured a good one, though it's still an expensive undertaking.
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| Ron Witwicky providing important fatherly advice |
Boxes. Where can we get our hands on a bunch of boxes?! The more we pack and/or move the more we save with the moving company. I hate going to places asking for boxes. This is something that my wife doesn't understand, and I'm having a difficult time expressing why. Maybe because it feels like I'm asking for a handout... still trying to work that one out. I'd be happy just paying for boxes. But not her. As quoted by Mr. Ron Witwicky; "Happy wife, happy life. Unhappy wife, stone-cold misery for the rest of your life." Time to find some boxes...!
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