Tomo Fujita Guitar Wisdom

Hello everyone, and welcome to Week 1 of the July Challenge!

Your focus this week is on D Major Triad Inversions.

Your Assignment:
- Watch Tomo's video lesson below
- Take notes!!
- Practice for 5-10 minutes every day
- Use this thread to share your daily progress and connect with others!

This video provides all the necessary information to get started, with details outlined in the description. If you have questions, don't be shy! This thread will be a place for questions, answers, and everything in between.

Enjoy!
Sammi

Taking notes and ready to give this a go. This is the goods :) cool how the D string takes a play in this too. Thank you - johno

Thanks for designing the program that challenges us to really slow down and pay attention to every detail. Maybe it's because I often have a quick packed daily schedule, I've often found this attitude is not only necessary for improving my guitar playing, but also for better quality of life.

Just like the November challenge, slowing down this way has revealed so many things I've never noticed before that I ended up only focusing on learning the D triad by the one string approach for my practice session today; just going up and down, singing it all along. I found that I just know it from the theory, but actually I don't, let's say, "feel" it.

* My hand was surprisingly tense when going up and down the string.
* The 5th was somehow hard for me to "hear" it internally. If I tried not to look at the fretboard, I couldn't immediately tell whether I hit a lower note or a higher one when I hit a wrong note.
* The interval of "So -> Do" and "Do -> Mi" somehow sounded quite similar to me.

I'm excited for these revelations :)

I'm so happy we are doing this! Great idea.
I'm trying not to look at my left hand.
My new shorter scale Ibanez AZES31 guitars are so much fun!
Kurt

Yeyy lets go! I already started practicing D triads a few days ago. It was easy for me just by shapes and sound, now I will slow down, take notes and start doing it the right way naming degree and notes. Will start by taking notes and later this day will transfer it to the guitar!
So excited!! ☀️

Day1 Wk1 - Awesome! the power of slow :)
It's too easy to sing the intervals then play but forget to be mindful of the actual notes. Three gold nuggets to be had.
Thank you so much :)

Plan of action!
I have noted down 7 points,
1 Solfege
2 Note names
3 Note number
4 Intervals between notes
5 Thumb/finger position
6 No noise
7 Play without looking
My idea is to practice each one separately until it is easy then move on to the next. Then review them until all come easily.
Piece of cake?!!! Not sure a week will be enough though;)
Great fun for us all, thanks Tomo

I'm in! Locked and loaded! This is so motivational! I'm like a kid opening a new toy on Christmas day!

Thanks for setting this up! Excited to start this challenge on Day 1.

Do you recommend using a metronome while doing the week 1 exercise?

Thanks!

- R

Thank you all for sharing your wonderful thoughts so far! I truly appreciate the great insights and ideas you’ve contributed. Even though there are only 3 triad inversions, there’s a lot to focus on, and it’s completely normal to feel a bit overwhelmed at times. Remember, the one-string, one-finger approach from Tomo's lesson can be a helpful grounding exercise whenever you need it. Don’t forget to take notes and check in often. I’m excited to hear more from everyone soon!

Week 1 Day 1. Thank you for putting this challenge together. I missed the last ones but have already started this one. Already realizing that I don't really know all the note names I've just memorized the shapes. I will slow down and concentrate on everything you showed me. I appreciate everything you do.

Hello my friends!
Here we go, this is my first video for Day 1 of the challenge:

I had some difficulty with the root position, I tend to naturally go for the barre fingering instead, so I’ll focus more on this one in the next days.

Today I just focused on naming the notes: D, F♯, and A.
Next time, I’ll try to think more in terms of degrees and Do, Mi, So.

Movable Do still messes with my brain a bit 😅 But if I think in solfege (Do–Re–Mi–Fa–So–La–Ti) rather than using the Latin note names (Dó, Ré, Mi, Fá, Sol, Lá, Si), it feels a bit clearer to me.

Trying to explain better, In Portuguese, we use Dó, Ré, Mi, Fá, Sol, Lá, Si as fixed absolute note names, so Dó always means C.
So when I hear “Do–Re–Mi” used for different keys, my brain goes: “Wait... isn’t Do always C?” 😅 It feels a bit like someone suddenly saying “apple now means banana” depending on the key! 😅
I'm getting used to thinking of “Do” as the root instead, slowly rewiring my brain! Will get there someday! 🙏

See you all soon and good luck with your practice!

Love these challenges! I've been working a lot lately and wanted to get some more direction in my practice so the timing is perfect.

I love the sound of D triad with 4th string. So, I want to enjoy this harmony when I practice every day.
Thank you.

Very excited this challenge is happening. I'm trying to concentrate on one string playing to learn to hear the individual intervals. Also trying to recognize the differences in the inversions by ear when using the shapes and by singing along.