Congratulations on finishing Week 1 of the "Chromvember" Challenge! Your commitment and hard work shine through, even when progress may seem slow. Remember, don't expect too fast!
Your Week 2 Focus: Chromatic Scale Descending Line
Your Assignment:
- Read this post carefully.
- Watch the video lesson and take detailed notes.
- Practice this exercise for 5-10 minutes, concentrating on 1-2 details each practice session.
- Log your practice by commenting on this thread. (You can track your progress independently, but sharing your updates and reflections in the forum helps inspire one another!)
New Details:
- Play at a slower pace (think of it like reversing your car or walking backward—it requires a bit more time).
- Very lightly press the 4th string before you begin the sequence. Play 4th finger, 3rd, 2nd, then 1st.
- Sustain the fourth note and change position when you are ready
- Play pinky, then gradually shift fingers to the next position.
All the details you worked on in Week 1 with the ascending line also apply to the descending line (posture, thumb positioning, reduced pressure, sustaining notes, palm muting, minimizing string noise, etc.). You can find these details listed in the Week 1 Forum thread and the description for this week's video lesson on YouTube.
*Important Notes*
1. In this video, Tomo recommends starting from the 5th fret and descending. If starting from the 1st fret in Week 1 caused any discomfort in your hand, remember that you can adjust your starting position. For example, if you ascended from the 5th to the 9th fret, then for descending, you would start at the 9th fret and end at the 5th.
2. Concentrate solely on the descending line and repeat it 5-6 times just as you did with the ascending line. While you can practice the ascending line if you'd like, it is not the primary focus this week.
3. If you have any questions during your practice this week, please reply to the comment below labeled “Q&A Reference.” We believe this will help keep questions and answers accessible for everyone involved. We are growing and learning with you, always aiming to implement small improvements. Hope this helps!
Remember, every bit of effort adds up to something. Let’s keep this energy alive and see where it takes you in the coming weeks! You’ve got this!
Best,
Sammi Fujita
Find it easy to press lightly on fourth string at the start, but increasingly difficult to keep it light moving down the neck.
Patience, patience, patience.
Thanks so much for this detailed exercise
Day 8
I didn’t take the time to learn the descending technique for week 2 today so I continued practicing ascending today instead. I focused on going slow with no tempo and finger noise. I found it difficult to go slow without tempo and without speeding up naturally to make up for it, and I also found that when I sped up my wrist and fingers tensed up making my hand and wrist sore. It was very difficult to focus on both of these goals while keeping left-hand pressure relaxed despite me not focusing on that goal its something ive been keeping in mind and it was noticeably difficult today and also in my other practice routine from earlier today. I waited until the last second possible today to do the chromatic scale and I should have taken care of it earlier and focused on taking notes, watching the video and reading the post because of how important it is to stay on track with this challenge. I have no one to blame it on but myself and I’m the one who is suffering from it, so there is some solace in that (as it doesn’t, well I was going to write that it doesn’t affect others but it does. I want to be a session musician so if I don’t practice properly so I can improve I’m affecting anyone I will work for and with in the future, I need to take responsibility and be more proactive in the future about my practice routines and practicing I actually just grabbed my bed desk, it’s been helping with my back to keep proper posture and I just realized my back was hurting for the first time today since I came upstairs with my backpack slung around one shoulder improperly. I’ve been focusing on proper posture this week and today I had the worst headache of the past month so it was very difficult to refrain from using my amp and pedals especially with a new cable that came in today. I might still practice a bit in a few minutes because I’m curious about using the effects loop on my amp, it’s something ive never tried or attempted before so I need to do my research first. I will continue with the chromatic scale tomorrow as I’ve already used my 5 min for the day and I’m intending to start week two tomorrow, though a day late. I’m reframing my headaches as strengths instead of weaknesses because im much more sensitive to the gain of my amp when I have a headache so im hoping to develop some nice glassy clean tones that are crystal clear because im sensitive to treble and bass and guitar is such a mid heavy instrument that im hoping for some nice tone if I shape it during my headaches as a way to be close to my instrument during a time that it is traditionally hard to play guitar during. I’m hoping to learn how to mix and master my tracks better and I find that some music hurts my head while I have a headache and some does not, im assuming it has to do wth the mastering since most remasters I don’t care for and it’s actually really frustrating on Spotify to see my favorite Beatles collaboration album (1) to be only the remastered version, along with almost the entire Beatles collection on Spotify. I want more Beatles songs but the remasters are very difficult and painful for me to listen to even without a headache. That’s my notes for today, take care and I’ll check in tomorrow!
Week 2 definitely harder. What I find is the more I do something the easier it gets. I keep this in my minds eye throughout all challenges. I am focusing on my posture. I realize when I sit with my guitar I tend to lean it towards my face rather than perpendicular. I want to conquer all details and technique. Thank you for this challenge.
Day 9
Hi Tomo,
I did not make it a strong enough priority today to do descending though I did read some of the week 2 post today, my headache came back today though I had proper medication thanks to my mom taking the time with me last night and her being proactive while I was in pain to make sure I had what I needed, it’s still painful right now but im going to practice anyway! Practicing yesterday without an amp even with a headache gave me so much confidence to really branch out and try some different techniques today and to be unafraid of sounding bad and I developed a new technique because I had the confidence and I’ve learned to trust your methods fully because that was one of the things you said would happen is that it would increase our confidence by doing this every day. So here we go agaaaaaainnn!
My focuses for today will be:
Thumb position back of neck and relaxed left hand pressure. I’m not ready to move onto descending yet so I’m going to do ascending today, I just can’t process the new technique right now with my head, I tried to get through reading the post carefully for week 2 descending and my headache started to come back so im going to quickly get my five minutes in without an amp and post these notes! Thanks for reading thus far, here we go!
I actually just took about a 10 minute break to send my mom some links to order some guitar picks (pickboy 1.00 mm and 1.20 mm) and some more guitar strings (D’addario EXL110 and EPN120) which im going to give her the money for tomorrow, having some issues with my amazon account but it should be fixed this week. I went with the tortise shell pick and the rainbow picks and not the grip ones because I feel like there’s a reason the picks should be loose in my hand and also I feel like there’s a reason you choose to let the picks drop instead of going with grippy ones I feel like the looser the picks are in my hand the past few days of practicing with one the better the tone so im trusting your methods fully again! Oh its a good thing I did take a break because I had forgotten to put my guitar strap on! Having it at a proper length has really helped my back the past few days, it hasn’t been hurting as much and doesn’t hurt at all while playing! I asked chatgpt ai about it and it told me that placing the guitar on my thigh in a way that doesn’t strain my back will help and it did! I even set up my microphone next to my bed and had a 2-3 playing sessions where I vocalized and sang into the mic while playing guitar, which was what I first intended when I bought the mic stand in 2020 during the pandemic but had been too afraid to try. I had so much fun! I’m looking forward to practicing more with the mic in the future. Alright let’ssss gooooo!!
I just realized I haven’t been practicing for 5 minutes every day, no where near that amount of time! I’ve only been practicing the chromatic scale for 30 seconds at most all week! I set a timer today after about 30 seconds of practice when I usually stop because im too tired my hands and wrist and thumb and I don’t want to risk injury
I practiced for another minute to see what would happen, thinking that maybe ill relax more and figure something out and I realized I tense up when my hands and fingers get tired and thats when I risk injury and it helped to relax some more while tired and to go slower but I did stop after the minute 30 second mark total because I was experiencing too much pain and even now while typing this my wrist hurts because of that new technique from earlier I over did it with my thumb. I”ll be more careful in the future!
I did notice today that I did the chromatic scale completely differently from before even before the 30 second mark. I was sliding in a weird way today that ive never done before. Sliding but without the finger noise nor any slide noise, not sure how I did it it was super natural and there wasn’t any finger noise until I started getting tired. It was like my hand glided along the fretboard in a way its never done before, no slide noise either like not like a traidtional slide where you have the bend note effect. It was still single notes it was very difficult to slow down and though I wasn’t focusing on palm muting I felt myself trying to do it naturally I had to force myself multiple times not to.
Thats about all for today im gonna go ice my wrist I think I have some peas or ice packs in the freezer.
Thanks Tomo! I’ll try again with descending reading the post and watching video and taking notes tomorrow! Though I may stick with ascending again and see if that slide not slide thing happens! We’ll see!
Take care
Tone