Shed Journal Entry

The past few days have been a bit out-of-the-ordinary for me.  I've had a lot of free time, so this is a bit over the top when compared to my usual shed time.  

Started at ~12 pm and stopped around 3 am.

Metronome is usually substituted with a track of some sort, anything with a groove.  Had to use quiet metronome yesterday.

Saxophone:

Overtones

Improvising w/fx and without.  Used things that are difficult for me as the thematic material for improvisations.  Covered more ground that way; improvised and dealing with fundamentals.

Only had 45 mins to shed horn due to noise level.

Guitar:

MBQ heads

Then basic warmup; 

1234->4321 permutation exercises, entire fretboard - alt. picked, half starting w/downstroke half starting w/upstroke.  Oh, and hybrid picked.  String displacement on same exercise.  [Concentrated on good technique (small, smooth movements) for 5 mins (timed it), then improvised with them for a while focusing on 'good time', thematic development, and evolving momentum.  Worked w/metronome and without]

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Alt. picking drop two voicings, then econ. picking same voicings; stacc. and legato.  [Concentrated on good technique (small, smooth movements) for 5 mins (timed it), then improvised with them for a while focusing on 'good time', thematic development, and evolving momentum.  Worked w/metronome and without]

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One excerpt from Walt Weiskopf's book "Around the Horn", and one from "Beyond the Horn".  Both great books, but Beyond the Horn has some very fun things in it.  [guess what.. "Concentrated on good technique (small, smooth movements) for 5 mins (timed it), then improvised with them for a while focusing on 'good time', thematic development, and evolving momentum.  Worked w/metronome and without"]

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Some augmented gestures from the Slonimsky book.  [same approach as above]

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One-hour improvisation in Ab, all eighth notes, no-stop.  If I goofed, I had to start over.  The more time went by, the looser I had to make my standards of "messing up".  At some point I'll make it all the way through with the same standards I start with.

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Triads all over the neck; as 'chords', picking variations, voice-leading note-by-note to next triad, etc, etc.

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