Tomo Fujita Guitar Wisdom

Hi Everyone,

I just joined and wanted to say hi.

I started on guitar when I was in 4th grade a little bit but never had one of my own, just used the music teacher's in school. Years later in HS I got a bass and so that has been my instrument for the last 30 years. Played in rock-ish bands mostly and some jazz combos in college.

Now that I don't play out other than a once a year reunion fundraiser with my college band, I decided to focus on guitar. I've always had guitars around from being in bands but never focused.

My theory and knowledge is a hodgepodge of past lessons and self-learning. I understand modes and intervals and how chords are built off scales, etc. but I'm kind of academic in my approach. My formal knowledge is way ahead of my ear or application of that knowledge. For instance, I can tell you what the intervals are for Mixolydian and a little about what chord that would work over, but throw out a chord progression with different chord changes with more complex extensions and stuff and I'm just going to stare at it.

As a bass player my favorites are Steve Harris of Iron Maiden and Gary Willis from Tribal Tech. If I had a magic wand I would play like Leland Sklar. Guitarists I would say Steve Morse, Adrian Smith, John 5 and fingerstyle players like Tommy Emmanuel. I grew up on metal but hanging with music majors at college led me to all kinds of different music. Other than Maiden, my favorite bands/musicians are: Johnny Cash, Naked Raygun (punk), Children of Bodom, Tribal Tech, Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, John Coltrane, and The Monkees (it's just a thing, dunno, Mike Nesmith is an underrated songwriter IMO) and lots more.

I ended up here because I need a structured way to learn. I looked at some other teacher/sites and while some were promising, this seems to have the best systematic organization of information and I really connected with Tomo's teaching style and he cracks me up with out of left field comments sometimes.

Looking forward to hanging out here!

Here is Tomo's comment:

"Thanks so much for subscribing to my Guitar Wisdom. So great to see your post!"

Welcome! I joined a couple months ago without any real theory or ear training in my background but always loved music and listening to many different varieties of instruments. The bass is very cool too and I have heard that bass players have much better rhythm than those who focus on solely melodic instruments so I am sure there will be plenty that carries over. Good luck with it all!

The rhythm thing is actually one of the most frustrating things so far. I play bass fingerstyle so my right hand picking is behind where I want to be. I do lots of metronome exercises to work on it, I hate feeling sloppy when it comes to the pocket.