Saturday, January 5, 2008

Rock On!

Pulled out the guitar for a short 7-minute practice, to see what I remembered and how much I've lost/forgotten.

The good news is, I've got a lot of the muscle memory still there. Scales, in particular, were pretty easy.

I remembered nearly all the chords I've learned, though not exactly what they're called. So I can play D minor, but I'd forgotten it was D minor. Same problem with E minor and A minor--I forgot which was which.

My chords sound a lot worse than they did before. Part of this is because my nails are getting long again. Part of this is I've lost a bit of flexibility over the past month. Part of this is I was never terribly good with the chords in the first place, and part of this is my arms are very tired due to an intense Aikido session this morning.

I will need to make the most of my practice sessions, and try to improve, and learn new things. A short practice is all well and good to retain skills, but if the practice is too short, I won't necessarily see improvement during the practice.

My goals over the next couple months will be to get better at the chords I already know, learn some new chords, and pick a song to practice. Ideally, this song will be fun, a bit challenging, and something I can play at an open mike night sometime this year. If anyone has suggestions, let me know.

--The musishian

No comments: