metronome

Wow almost a year since my last post, very slack!

Then Dave from the British Steelies Society said he’d read by blog and that it could be useful to other fledgling steelies.

So I thought I’d try and catch up with it a bit.

One of the things I’ve been doing is practising with a metronome, it feels a bit mechanical but it’s great for improving technique and being able to play things precisely in time. It really exposes where your weaknesses are.

I’ve been following this advice posted by James Crowbear Schmitt from the British Steelies. One of the standard major scale patterns. But played over the cycle of fourths, through all the keys from C to C.

This helps with playing scales with all the notes, even the ones that are difficult to get like the maj 7 on the 2nd string in this case, which might otherwise be omitted due to being awkward to get.

It helps with blocking, the difficulty being muting string 2.

It also helps to learn the positions, this is just simple parrot fashion C, then F, then Bb. I say them out loud when I’m playing them cos otherwise I can never remember where the positions are without working it out.

Another thing this helps with is moving between positions. Obviously 4th/5ths are fundamental to most western music and developing an instinct for these moves (and sounds) is invaluable.

Start on fret 8 C then go to fret 1 F then 6 Bb then 11 Eb then 4 Ab then 9 C# then 2 F# then 7 B then 12 E then 5 A then 10 D then 3 G & back to 8 C

(play it 10 times)- fingers : t = thumb – i = index – m = middle

[tab]

2——————————8m——/——8m—————————-/

3—————————————/————————————–/

4———————————–8i-/–8i———————————-/

5———————-8t–8A——–/————8At–8——————-/

6————8m–8B—————-/———————-8Bm–8———/

7——–8i————————-/————————————-8i-/

8—8t—————————–/—————————————–/ *1t Blam ! yer in F on 1 !

————————————————————————–now go w: that till you get to the Bb & move on to Eb & so on

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