Unplugged

Well, hello, everyone reading my poor, neglected blog.  It's been a long time, but I'm still here, still learning, and still getting better.  Sort of.

There's lots of news in my world these days.  I gave my wife's brother his amp back - my intention was to go down to Steve's and pick up either an Orange Crush Pix 20 LDX, or a VOX DA-5.  However, both were out of stock, and I wanted to play some and pick the one that I liked best.  They have an Orange Crush in now, but no VOX.  I'm tempted to just go and buy the Orange, as I don't think it's a decision I'll regret, but it's a bit more money than I have saved at the moment.  It's also a bit more amp than I really need, but at the same time, it'll last me until they pry the guitar out of my cold, dead hands.

So, I'm without an amp, and back on the acoustic.  And honestly, I think it's a good thing, this switching back & forth.  I have a bit more fun on the electric, but the acoustic DOES make me a better player - I can't cheat to get something to sound right.  If I play it right, it sounds good, if I play it poorly, it sounds like sheer hell.

I'm also on (as of today) to songs that feature F in a major way - specifically, Counting Crows Mr Jones. Awesome song, but F is everywhere in it.  Which is good - I need the practice in transitioning to/from F in a song - it's much harder in a song than it is doing an exercise like the 1 minute changes.

Also, I'm trying to get back on course with doing proper exercises.  Not so much with the 1 minute changes - after I managed to make F work with 1 minute changes in a decent way, I kind of abandoned it.  But, I've replaced it with something Justin calls the "finger gym", and also, a picking exercise for picking individual strings.  The picking one is a little boring, but I know it's necessary, but the finger gym - oooh, that one hurts.  I can't even get through the whole thing before my hand starts to hurt.  At that point, I stop so I don't injure myself.  It's a pretty hurtie exercise, but is good for getting your fingers to work independently.  Also for finger strength.  Hopefully it's worth it.

Anyway, I've not been improving with the break-neck speed of when I first started - but that's to be expected.  I guess most people plateau, and get discouraged.  I'm not discouraged, however I AM having trouble finding the time to get in a practice.  I'm trying to do things to inspire myself, though - we just recently got a guitar rack for the electric - one of the wall hanging ones.  So my electric's out for all the world to see now, and I can't sit on the couch without my eye being drawn to it.  It makes me want to practice, which is awesome - but it's also making me want to practice on IT, and, without an amp, it's not going to happen.

So, that's the state of my world.  Things are good, still learning and improving, though more slowly now.  Added more exercises to my routine, but ignoring some older ones which I shouldn't.  I'll probably get back to those once I learn some new chords, and really need the one-minute-changes.

Also, I'm really chomping at the bit to learn scales - I haven't learned any yet, but the minor pentatonic scale is up soon.  It's the Blues scale, so I'm very excited.  Hopefully one day soon, I'll start to learn how music...  works...  the theory, which I know absolutely nothing about.  I think that's it for now - but I'm going to try to update here more often (though I'm not sure if that will actually happen).