It’s my 4th week in FTR08: diminished triads. I feel kind of stuck, but it’s the best “stuck” I've ever had so I’d like to share.
In the 1st week, through Tomo’s famous one-finger, one-string approach, I immediately noticed that the sound of a diminished triad was so foreign to me, so all I did was to sing along. Like what we did in the July challenge.
In the 2nd week, I basically did the same; just that I sang along with the major triad and the minor triad as well. One finger, one string.
In the 3rd week, I finally started to practice playing the full diminished triad on the 3,2,1 strings. I did a little twist though: the focus was to get familiar with the sound, rather than the playing technique. Thus I’d play major/minor/diminished triads back and forth to make sure I recognized them. It was especially challenging for me to differentiate major and minor after hearing a diminished one — somehow a minor sounded like a major after hearing a diminished.
This week I’m doing the same, but all of a sudden my hearing has changed. There was one night when I watched my son playing the game Hades 2. The theme song was on and I noticed “wait … I know these notes!”. I grabbed my guitar and picked out the melody line in just a few minutes. A few days ago my niece sent me an acoustic cover of Night Dancer from imase and I noticed “ohhh wait … that sounds familiar”. This time it took longer, but I still got the whole chord progression right.
I’m thrilled since it’s not possible for me just a few weeks ago.
The takeaway for me here is to not rush through lessons. I’m stuck there for a reason, and it’s probably a very, very good one.
What an exciting story! That's amazing, Yen! If we faithfully follow Tomo's method, we can see wonderful changes. It's very encouraging. Thank you for sharing your experience!
Funny I was playing various D# Diminished chords voicing's this morning trying to better understand the ear training thread Tomo did videos on and I then see this post. Perfect timing!
I have always thought of diminished as something foreign I occasionally had to deal with. lol. I need to rethink that.
Now off to do the lesson you mentioned FTR 08. Thanks
I have never thought about learning what the chord sounds like before trying to play it on guitar. Good stuff, Yen. Thank you.
-LaVoy
Great story Yen! Thanks for sharing this!