Allen Holdsworth

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQUntzKpLj4&NR=1

Allen Holdsworth live. Good stuff, apparently he is reemerging with an album due out later this year.

Dojo Child Care Opportunity

The Dojo is looking for someone who is interested in taking on a part time job looking after the kids while the adults practice a few evenings a week. Please email me if you have anyone you know that may be interested in exploring this possibility!

Thanks,

- Jay (jayweik@gmail.com)

New Theory of Learning

"New Theory of Learning""New Theory of Learning"

Very interesting article. Found this via unschooling research for my daughter Isabella...

- Jay

Miles, Ornette, Cecil. Part 2.

This book is available via the amazon link to the left...

Miles, Ornette, Cecil.

An important book!

Lessons and Practice

The practice times are yielding some good results. Note recognition and it's scale degree are improving as is accuracy.

During our meeting last week, Jay layed out a lesson for playing 7 modes of the major scale to be played on one string at a time. At first hearing the modes played, some of them seemed odd sounding. While Jay played the chord(s) that ''fit'' the mode, I was able to hear how the scales blended.

I was impressed again as I realized the value of the ''one string at a time'' method used for this lesson. It helps to force me to ''break'' away from playing scales using (only) patterns as a guide. I am learning note names and scale degrees easier by playing on one string.

I'm managing about two hours a day and trying to get that increased.

Thanks Jay,

Bob Ferraiuolo

Since my last lesson, I am adding the note A to the notes I have to locate on the guitar. I am also adjusting my picking style so that more motion comes from my elbow rather than any part of my right hand being anchored to the guitar.

Jay gave me reading exercises so that I can locate all the variations of c in each octave on the guitar neck without having to look at my guitar. It also helps me to practice keeping my eyes focused on the chart in front of me rather than looking down to play the note. This is necessary in order not to loose your spot in a chart.

Jay introduced the practice of identifying the scale degrees of the notes within the chords so I can begin working on chord melody. The scales are played on one string with the melody note on top and the harmonization underneath.

We added a couple more notes to the quest as I learn to better identify the notes in all locations on the fretboard. By concentrating on just a few notes, as opposed to an entire piece of music, I believe I am seeing quicker progress as I reach for the goal of getting my reading skills up to a quicker speed.

I am getting a better understanding of the chord inversions by taking time to identify the scale degrees as opposed to just playing them by ear.

Thanks Jay

Bob Ferraiuolo

john jorgeson

Hi all, i wanted to let you know that a great guitarist is playing a free concert this friday night at the coffee shop "ground for thoughts" in Bowling Green, John use to be one of the three players in the super group "the hellcasters" he is also one of the top sessions players in nashville, and now focuses on playing gypse style jazz..anyways if your free its going to be a good show, and i think it start at 8pm..

grounds for thoughts
174 South Main Street
Bowling Green Ohio 43403
Phone: (419) 354-3266

cheers
noah

In my last lesson jay gave me the note A to find and I continued the study of other notes. Jay showed how use penatonic substitutions to add color tones when soling. We also worked on some dexterity exercises.

The penatonic substitutions Jay showed me have been really helpful in changing up the way i use the penatonic scale. Lately I've felt that alot of my penatonic solos sounds too similar, and these substitutions are really nice for adding different sounds to my solos.

I've also been practicing penatonic patterns, and bends.

lesson 3

I have been finding the note C,F and A on the fret board and "poping" C and F.

I have been playing C mi cells all over the neck, and with that i have been jaming on a C min Blues

I also have been practicing shapes with C mi pentatonic scales

my left hand fingers have been piviting wrong so i have been doing some exercises to help with that.

New Drinking Gourd Podast Available: Obstacles to Practice (3 of 3)

Guys -

This is abit of my Zen stuff, if you are interested, check it out...

- Jay


Jay Chikyo Weik offers a presentation entitled "Obstacles to Practice (part 3 of 3)" given at the Toledo Zen Center on December 2, 2007.

"There are four basic ways that a bodhisattva will guide or help or engage sentient beings to the purpose of helping to relieve suffering. The first one is called Giving, the second one is Kind Speech, the third one is Beneficial Action, and the fourth one is called Identity Action."

My First Lesson

Yesterday was Friday the ninth and I had my first guitar lesson with Jay. I will now summarize the lesson: 1. We talked about posture, dexterity, and correct right hand picking.
2. Jay showed me the Hara, or where you should feel every note.
3. We worked on the C on the Axe.
4. We worked on 3 and 4 note improvisation, instead of 5, 6, 7 note improvisation.
5. We discussed putting the site up as a facebook group too.
I do not have a practice log yet.

The Drinking Gourd Water Keepers Initiative

The Toledo Zen Center and Shobu Aikido of Ohio in partnership with the MultiFaith Council of NW Ohio have begun the work of creating a collection program aimed at reducing the quantity of unused pharmaceuticals entering the environment and reducing the amount of drugs available for diversion, theft, or accidental poisoning.

If you would like to have a look at the conversations and progress that have happened to date or join the email group for this project please go to this Google Groups Page.

It is important that as a community of practice we reach out in meaningful ways to help the world around us, please get involved to whatever degree you can.

- Jay Sensei

Lesson

So far in my lessons with Jay I have been locating the notes C and F on the fret board and committing them to memory while ‘popping’ the note C. This exercise has greatly helped me to get to know the guitar neck and has made me aware of the possible positions that I could use once I know which note I want to play. I practice finding notes and popping them three times a day for about 10-15 minutes each time.

When explaining the concept of popping, Jay told me that I do not want to push my right hand to the next note, but rather feel my hand being pulled to the note by seeing the note in my mind’s eye and then allowing my right hand to be pulled to the next note.

I am also working on improvising with the major scales and soloing on one string at a time. I will break down the way I view what I am playing according to the four ways of knowing, one way at a time. I have been spending more time with letter and number because those are the areas, which I need the most work on. After I jam over a chord progression for a while using each one of the four ways, I try to use all four in soloing to incorporate what I have learned into my playing and to practice knowing what you are playing in all four ways simultaneously.

I also learned that the term ‘perfect pitch’ refers to those people who have the ability to decipher between A 440 and A 441, which is more of a curse than a blessing. This is because having perfect pitch is like looking at an impressionistic painting and only being able to see each individual dot or brush stroke instead of seeing the whole picture. In contrast, relevant pitch is where you can hear a note / chord and think of a note related by hearing it in your head and knowing the relationship.

Congratulations to Jay for being voted best guitar teacher in Toledo by the City Paper.

Geoff

Smoke on Mt. Fuji

3rd Lesson-First Things First

I met with Jay and confessed to my wayward travels during studys. I got off track, went off on my own, and studied from my library a bunch of chord melody, scale application, chord substitution, chord inversions, and chord progressions...............It was so much fun..............but I still can't read worth a darn.
So, Thanks Jay, for putting me back on the track and helping me accomplish my goal - sight reading.
First things first. Back to the reading drills.
Bob Ferraiuolo

Sweep Picking Defined & Demonstrated.

In the clip of Guthrie Govan that padawan Travis shared with us below, he mentions the "sweep picking" moment. Actually, that moment is not really sweep picking, but is two hand tapping. Here is some sweet sweep picking, works just fine with a clean tone as well...

- Jay