Tomo Fujita Guitar Wisdom

Hello all,
I thought it was interesting to see if you had good tips how to remember things or how to let your fingers remember things as you practice. Or maybe we can just share some struggles remembering things. I do certain fundamental exercises daily and I do other things. It takes time to master things (and I am well aware I do not need to hurry), but it would be good to be efficient. One way I know is to space out your practice and gradually increase the time in between (like practice something several days initially, wait some days to do it again, wait a week, wait some weeks, wait some months, etc.). I have not tried it systematically, but maybe I should try. I don't entirely blame my age for not remembering things easily :).

It is kind of funny how I can remember some old things when I was young. It was exactly about 51 years ago (plus or minus within a few days) when I started taking electronic organ lessons. I was a bit shy of 9.5 years old. I can still remember exactly the first song I learned. For sure it was a simple song (8 bars, C and G7 only). I have been aware my brain randomly starts playing the song once in a while, sometimes years apart, all these years. Yesterday, I actually tried to play the song with my electric piano, which I had not touched for about 10 years, and I could actually play it without much problem (no base pedals for the piano of course but I am fairly sure I could play the base as well). I might be able to tune the guitar by playing the song in my brain since the pitch was correct too :). I practiced the song maybe two or three weeks, and it is just locked in to my brain and fingers ever since! Would it be great if I could learn and remember things like that today?
Yuji

Thank you Tomo-san. I’m a patient person but wondered if there were interesting ideas others had😀. I’m getting better at finding different triad inversions at different positions as this is one of things I practice every day. Unlike a keyboard I don’t see notes on the fretboard instantly. On the other hand the guitar maybe sometimes easier to see the degree relative to the root note. Anyway I think I’m slowly improving 🤨😁.
Yuji

Hi Yuji,
Perhaps this falls under limiting. Tomo’s approach to playing songs with R37 and triads really simplifies the music for me. I have found songs are easier to memorize when they are broken down into these small three note chords.

I would say that this was a happy surprise for me when I started using this approach to many songs. I found that it’s easier to practice and to remember this way.

Then, later on, I can add all the extensions to the chords. So it’s putting down a simple foundation and building upon that. It’s also easier to analyze when seen in these small triadic shapes. Prior to guitar wisdom I tended to go right for the big extension chords, which made it more difficult to memorize. Using the smaller shapes has been a game changer for me.

A good example of this is when Kurt played Stella by Starlight with R-3-7. Stella is a fairly complex tune, but when played the way Kurt did it, it becomes accessible to both play and better understand. Smaller chords also makes it easier to repeat many times in practice and therefore remember.

Thanks Ken, Tomo-san,
this may be a slightly different topic now, but I was also wondering about solfege when I practice triads and other things. For triads, I was focusing on using "movable do" initially. I also know using "movable do" works well for a chord progression with all diatonic chords, in particular for a major key. Then I started thinking "fixed do" as well (e.g, fa-la-do instead do-mi-so for the root position for F) when I practice. I need to know notes anyway. Also I suppose most every jazz tune contains non diatonic chords. If a key modulates to something different for a whole 8 bar section or something like that, thinking about "movable do" or the scale may not be too bad. But non diatonic chords can often show up anywhere for a bar or even a half bar. I think that is one reason it is better to think about each chord and degrees of notes within each bar or so (it's kind of like thinking in "movable do" for each chord I would think). Tomo-san, I think here my question is I am not sure how I kind of need to reconcile two ways of thinking as I practice (movable do vs. fixed do, or exact note names vs. note degrees within the chord or scale). Actually I also wonder if I should think about note degrees in each chord or in the scale when chord progression is based on diatonic chords. You actually said already you got to think everything (THE SOUND of those notes & ALL INTERVALS & NAME of those notes.... must!), but some guidance here how to maybe breakdown the work to manageable bits or steps would be greatly helpful. By the way, I watched the Kyoto video. Nice! I think I would need to wait more to tackle something like this. I am for now mostly focusing on simple blues as I see that is plenty challenging already.
Yuji

For me it’s all about repetition and recurrence. For me, I get much better results if I practice 4 times for 15 minutes rather than once for an hour.

Thank you Michael, Matt for the ideas. I don’t want to think how many more things I need to learn, which is simply a lot, in the future. But it would be good to keep learning what I can learn and do now, and it would be good to not keep refreshing my memory what I practiced and thought learned kind of ok some days ago or weeks ago. But right, a lot of repetition is important. At this point it’s difficult for me to easily find notes I play in my head and as I hit wrong notes to find right notes I lose what I was looking for😮😁. I think I got to spend more time for ear training, triad exercises, etc. to have a good relative pitch recognition too.
Yuji

Great conversation everyone!

Thank you!

Tomo

Hi Tomo-san,
it is great to hear that you are making ear training lessons focusing on solfege type singing. I wrote a lot already what I was wondering, but I am writing again a bit differently hoping this is a little clearer where I am while you make more lessons.

There are multiple ways to think what notes you are playing.
- actual notes, say, D-F#-A.
- degrees in the chord, e.g., R-M3-P5 in chord D, P4-m6-R in chord A.
- degrees in the scale, e.g., R-M3-P5 in D major scale, P4-m6-R in A major scale.
- if you use movable do, that would be do-mi-so in D major scale, and fa-la-do in A major scale.

I can't think all of these things at once. When I am sight reading I see for sure D-F#-A first. If I play it without any context I would likely hear do-mi-so first, and hear or see different ways in different situations (while playing slowly or more like analyzing). When you teach triads I know you use movable do for individual triads. But when you play different chords consecutively, say, D triad then G triad in key of D kind of feeling, are you thinking do/mi/so (strummed together) for D triad and then do/mi/so (together) again for G triad? Or fa-la-do for G triad in key of D? I do not remember which lesson it was (I tend to think it was one of recent ET lessons), but you were talking about playing do-re-mi in a solo can sound good. I don't remember the chord progression you were using when you demonstrated but if I remember correctly you were playing the same do-re-mi notes in the same scale for different chords. That would indicate perhaps you were thinking do-re-mi and beyond for the scale or for the key (probably all the chords were diatonic), not for individual chords although I'm rather sure you knew the degrees of notes for chords in back of your mind. I got too many things on my plate, so I watched the lesson only once so far. So at the end, I know we got to think all of the things when we practice, but it would be great if you could provide some ideas if there are some steps I should take or how I could think different ways perhaps depending on the situation in order to recognize notes from multi-dimensional angles.

Thank you!
Yuji

P.S.
sorry, it got long again, I tend to be wordy when I write :). My (elementally level) academic music knowledge is probably 10 times better than my playing ability. I spend a lot of time for the foundational exercises to be able to play better but you might be thinking I better spend more practicing instead of thinking something like this :)

Great conversation, everyone! Another effective way to enhance your memory is by teaching what you know. Try explaining the material in a way that both an 8-year-old and an 80-year-old can understand. Teaching helps you learn significantly, and the process—even if you're teaching an imaginary person—can clarify what you understand well, what you somewhat grasp, and what you don't know well enough.