Week 2 - Arpeggio's Arpeggio's Arpeggio's

As the title suggests, this week was all about them Arpeggio's. I wont lie, this week did feel slower and I dont feel I assimilated as much knowledge as I did last week, BUT, this knowledge needs to be taken in slowly and carefully so that I dont disregard it quickly. It needs to become part of me. Another quote that Parker said was "You gotta learn all the theory, then forget it", so I need to make everything I learn part of me. I also had a bit more work to do this week for my studies, but none the less I made progress towards my Arpeggio's.

My Guitar teacher/mentor had always told me the importance of apreggio's, but I guess one never really appreciates the value of something untill you dont have it or need it. Most of the Greats (Parker, Davis, Gilliespie etc) use Arpeggio's left right and centre, they are so important as they allow you to know where in the song you are and also to tell your listeners where you are. So, what I have done was write down all the apreggio's I am going to need, and well now its just a process of getting them down. Fortunately because I have been playing guitar for a while, and my guitar mentor had drilled some apreggio's into my system so far, I know like 50% of all the 'new' arpeggio's I come across.

So, how I am deciding to tackle this new (but so fundamental) challenge, is to learn all the apreggios for all the different chord shapes, and secondly, to play them in fourths i.e. R 3 5 7, 3 5 7 R, 5 7 R 3 (Playing four notes and then moving up to the next degree of the arpeggio). Im doing this because I realised I only know the scales and Apreggio's from their roots. If I see a Dm7, I automatically play the root then the rest of the Arpeggio. I GOTTA BREAK THIS HABBIT. Im hoping through time, I will just see the arpeggio's all over my neck so I can smoothly connect the notes between the chords correctly. So yea, Arpeggio's are the future, scales come next.

I guess this next week to follow will have more arpeggio's, it will take me a while to get them down, but they are the building blocks to good soloing. I also learned 2 new standards. The first is called "Witchcraft". This is not such a popular standard, but I heard the guitarist Jimmy Bruno play it, and  wow I was impressed, he had some walking bass lines, some chromatism, some weird chords. I had to learn his version of the song, and so I did, the bonus is that this is part of my transcribing/aural development process. The second song is well known, its Herbie Hancock's "Cantaloupe Island". Alright, well, onto week 3!!!