Nothing to update for a while

I didnt really have anything to say, which is kinda bad. Now i do. I randomly got that desire i once had to practice. It feels fucking great. A lot of things have interfered with me wanting to practice, and it comes down to one thing...STRESS. The biggest forms of stress are my parents, weight lifting, and work. On top of that, when im stressed i try to do things that are easy so i can relax. I relax to get rid of stress. I did too much of that. Today i dont have work, and I think it is impacting my day a whole lot. Also by just relaxing and not focusing on something like guitar it makes me even more stressed out because i need to practice. Ive played for a good 2 hours now, and my hands are starting to get tired...boooo. Im gonna try to get up to 4. I want to keep this up. I feel like i will start improving like crazy once again.

that was a quick break

So i did my best not to think about guitar. Then i was so bored and felt so empty. I went for yet another walk just to get shit off my mind. Came home and got on my guitar. It was a cool feeling. Then after an hour or two my fingertips started hurting. Now im aching to play again

I just need a break

Im pressuring myself too much to play and to be really really good. I work terrible under pressuer. Its one thing to push myself, its another to pressure myself. So i am taking a break from practicing guitar. Trying my best not to think about it. Its hard when i see the callouses on my left hand fading. Also need a break from death metal hmmmm

random update

ok So i am in the middle of listening to summoning's oathbound. I just got done listening to blackfield. I feel like im high right now. Not that ive smoked weed or anything. I feel very laid back, relaxed, and zoning out. I am listening to music thats spacey sounding, but very capturing at the same time. I feel like this is what feeling high is supposed to be about. WHenever i have gotten high, it has never felt like this. Thus I believe that music is what makes me high.

Learning a bunch of jazz chords lately.

I recently had time to jam with my brother and ricky. Jamming is so liberating to me now. I only get to practice and play by myself and all that, but man when im playing with someone else, i just let everything flow. I also noticed my overall technique has improved greatly. Im so happy. My hands looks so fucking relaxed its great. I also never get any pain in my left hand like i used to. My pinky sitll needs a slight bit of work, otherwise my fingers look very well curved as they should be.

Just in a great mood tonight, tired, relaxing, thoughtful, captured by music.

Bass guitar, visions, etc

Ok. I borrowed my friend's bass guitar and have been playing it a lot. Its pretty different from guitar. I have a lot of fun playing with my fingers and i love its overall timbre. Its literally like a whole new world, and its fun as hell. I basically use the rules for classical guitar picking and apply them to bass, it works like a charm. I can work on what i play on guitar to get better at bass as well.
I have also been thinking about adding bass to my own music. Especially when I have been playing guitar. Ive had many different bass ideas. I already started to make up my own song on bass too. Thus i have decided to buy one for myself

Onto guitar before i forget. Ive been learning some cool technical songs. Im learning this classical intro to In My Own Greed by SPawn of Possession. Once i get it down im going to add in rests, and rhythm variations as there would be in jazz, just to have some fun. Im changing up my practice routine nearly 100%. Im going back to playing more than practicing, but its more of a practice-play. I will improvise and jam on stuff but make exercises out of it or incorporate the exercises i need to work on. It makes it a lot more fun and practical. Im also not recording my practice time. It just gets me so unmotivated. It makes it seem more of a chore when i do it that way. Since then i have been picking up the guitar more often than not, so im glad to see it working. I have been noticing improvement again as well.

One thing i started working on was my left hand's finger placement. It seems like the way to be very accurate is to press the middle of your fingertip onto the string in order that no flesh touches the fingerboard. I should be able to look down at my finger and see passed the gutar. Im finding this makes it much easier not to slip. I think you get a better sound from it, but I am not sure of that. Im not sure of any other benefits but this feels better and more accurate to me. I shall contemplate the benefits more and more as time goes on.

Now...onto a rather strange topic. For a while now I have been getting visions as i listen to music. I did not realize this until somewhat recently though, perhaps a year ago. When i get very familiar with an album or band and I listen to it, i picture things in my head. A lot of the times its a swarm of colors that make other colors that dont exist in our spectrum. I also see textures and "forces". If you give me an album i can tell you what colors it brings up and the cool thing is each time it will be the same. I have tested myself on ceratin albums and they all bring up the same colors. I also see my guitar strings different colors depending on what i play. When I play for a long time and put my guitar down, i can in a way see them still very vibrant with colors. For instance, my low e string is red, and A string is blue, my high e is a bright silver/white. Im not sure of the others just yet. These come and go at different times sometimes.

Ive been listening to music i usually dont. More death metal, jazz, and other random stuff. Its been very fulfilling.

80% of free time?

Ok 90-100% of free time just isnt doable. I need time to rest my mind, to listen to music, and talk to friends. Once i get upt to 6 hours thatll be sufficient. Today I got up to 3, and will definitely get one more in. I just gotta find some more things to practice. Time to work on some songs or something. Ever since I learned to fret as well as pick with my rear deltoids (rear shoulder muscles, right above your latissimus dorsi) I have not had my left wrist's tendons swelling or hurting which is a very good sign. I can also play better as a result. One thing ive noticed when I play scales is that my fingers are someitmes too far over the strings and im trying to correct that. Rule of thumb is that you should be able to play regularly and then be able to slur (hammerons and pull offs) without repositioning your hand/fingers. So thats one thing Im correcting myself on. Also, As a result of my improved fretting technique, I can concentrate more on placement of fingers and hold them in a position high on the neck for longer periods of time. Why is it good to fret and pick with your rear deltoid muscles? Well they are connected to your arms number one. They are the largest muscle that will be able to control your arms. Smaller muscles such as triceps, biceps, forearms, even hand muscles, can not take a lot of tension because well...theyre small. My former guitar teacher told me not to press hard with my thumb (i think it was him?) on my left hand. Good advice but he didnt offer an alternative to it. After thinking a lot about it, you can see why its good though. Also, body building (my new sport) has helped my guitar playing. Not only does it require the same sort of mental discipline to get sufficient results, but it helps a shit load on creating a muscle-mind connection. That might not seem like much but when you start knowing how to isolate muscles such as your deltoids, it effects your performance greatly. Isolating a muscle means using one muscle for a particular movement and making sure other muscles arent used in helping the primary muscle with the exercise. Sometimes other muscles are used to stabalize though. I am in no way saying or implying that you need to body build or lift weights to develope the muscle-mind connection. You can do exercise movements without weights for one. Also a lot of it has to do with relaxing. Once you can relax well, you will become more apparent to tension and will be able to feel where that tension is much more easily.

On to my next topic
Ive noticed there are several phases of practicing guitar or any other art. This will be able the guitar though. Generally for me, in the first hour of practice, its all about warming up. The warm up is key to playing fast, to playing well, on time, accurately, and to express yourself better. Warmingup means to get the blood flowing through your muscles and making them more flexible for a period of time. Well not just your muscles, but more imporantly your tendonds. Warming up will lessen the stress on them, thus allowing you to move more easily.

Phase 1.5 This is sort of part of phase one and not so much its own phase, but it is a significant part in any sort of art as well. Establishing the muscle-mind connection as stated above. The benefits to this are pretty obvious. Become aware of the muscles you use, how you use them and how to RELAX them. All important concepts. Making the muscle to mind connection will allow you to establish coordination with all of your fingers. Building your fingers' strength is very important.

Phase 2 is to broaden the muscle to mind connections? So far thats what it seems like. After you make the first connections you must broaden them so that you can expand your fingers better, shift better, move aroundf the guitar better.

Im still in the process of examining the art of practicing guitar, so right now I have those 2 phases down. For me those are the first things to do when practicing. It usually takes a good 45 minutes for stage 1 and 1.5.


This then leads to my final topic. Guitar/music philosophy. I think at a certain age, at a certain and experience/time with music and more specifically guitar, one starts developing their own philosophy on the instrument. That is learning to apply other concepts not directly related to the instrument, to the instrument. I cant tell you what my philosophy on guitar is, i doubt anyone can, but there are many philosophies on the smaller spaects of it. I think my own philosophy is starting to develop at this point. Its happening whenever I think about guitar/practicing/music outside of being involved with it. Music can be applied to nearly everything in life it seems and thats one quality that makes it so meaningful to myself.

Anyways, im not sure what else to put in this post or how to make it more in depth yet. I just figured i would post before i forget all this. Just making simple observations. I learned a lot of this just by thinking of it. THat is ultimately the best way to learn...to THINK.

Hmm im thinking of devoting 90-100% of my free time to practicing guitar. Im not sure if this will be a good idea or not, I might get burned out too quickly, but with all that practice I will impro0ve so fucking much that it might be worth it. Right now socializing is out of the question, all my friends are away. I will still be body building and may be reading/walking at random time, you know the usual daily activities. Hmm I felt really good when I did 6 hours a day during the summers. I felt like i accomplished a lot. So extending that by a few hours would be even a great accomplishment. May be when I wake up and get ready for work, part of that time could be 20 minutes of guitaring. Like id practice some scales before i work. When i get home id eat and take a quick rest and then get back to practicing. In essence practicing guitar will be bettering me as a person. I will learn more in general thus becoming a better teacher and gianing more of an understanding. I will develope greater technique. I will be able to communiocate my ideas musically much better and create better pieces.

Only bad thing i see to this is i might get sick of it. Im not worried about that though. That didnt happen when i practiced 6 hours a day
so today is the day where my laziness stops and I will put in the time and discipline in my art.