Tomo Fujita Guitar Wisdom

Cool idea Tobi - have fun!

Thanks, Clay! Right now I’m working on E blues soloing ideas and double stops. I want to practice both over a shuffle rhythm and see how they sound when I jam with others.

Thank you Tobi for sharing your own challenge here! I think we all can learn and inspire from your efforts!

I highly recommend to go to that Jam a few times before you jam with them. You can record previous jam so that you may know a few popular jam tunes and the house band's tunes. Alway better to do any preparation.

Tomo

Thank you so much Tomo sensei !

I actually have some experience at this jam, but previously I was only playing bass and sticking to simple 12-bar blues lines. My current challenge is to step out as a guitarist. I’m working hard to connect everything I’ve learned from your lessons—mixing shuffle rhythm with double stops, turnarounds, and those fingerstyle phrases.

The house band and the regulars here love playing 'Isn’t She Lovely,' 'Just the Two of Us,' and 'Feel Like Makin' Love.' I absolutely love those tunes and have been watching your 'Perfect Song to Practice' playlist daily to internalize them.

But I still have to learn those songs and many other lessons here .

And of course practice practice practice

Thank you, Tomo sensei!

It actually took me quite a while to go from learning triads to learning full songs. I tried learning Blues for Alice and Isn’t She Lovely before, but even after learning them, I couldn’t really play them properly. I realized I’m not able to absorb things immediately, especially with songs and some of the lessons.

So recently I’ve been focusing more on daily practice—chromatic exercises, R–3–7, reviewing triads, and the one-string approach. I’m starting to gain a bit more confidence from that.

I also just started learning Blue Monk from the chart. It’s funny—before this, I thought jazz standard charts would be many pages and very difficult. But now I’m slowly getting into it. Whenever I feel like I can’t handle something, I go back, slow it down, and review the fundamentals.

To be honest, even focusing on just three songs still feels challenging for me, but I want to work harder and push myself.

Thank you for being such a great teacher, and for GuitarWisdom—it’s an amazing and very affordable place to learn!

Thank you for sharing Tobi! You should practice more rhythm guitar ... R 3 7 or 4 notes 7th chords... you can apply triad inversions on top 123 set strings. Be able to play 3 different inversions for each chord. This practce will take some time.

Blue Monk is basically simple 145 blues and #IVdim on 6th bar. Jazz Blues R 3 7 is fun too! Jazz standard is one page! Simple!

Okay! Just focus on ONE SONG! That would be great! Just the two of us with super slow tempo! \\

My pleasure! Looking forward to your guitar journey! Please enjoy! Thank you so much!

Tomo

Thanks, Tomo sensei!

I’ll work more on rhythm guitar and triads. Just the Two of Us should keep me busy for a while haha.

Really appreciate the inspiration—I’ve got some ideas now!

That's awesome Tobi! Looks like a blast.
When I play with my band, I follow a similar approach as Tomo's practice advice - I keep my amp loud, and volume on guitar around 8. That way any adjustment I want to make can be done with either my picking or the guitar volume knob.
Thanks for sharing!

Tobi this is a great start, in my humble opinion!

Congrats for getting everyone together and playing, and having people that wanted to hang and listen! Be kind to yourself and your fellow players about that!

I hope you all keep going and I am starting to understand when Tomo suggests to have fun, so have fun!

I agree, hard to hear you, but generally, I heard the blues!

I am not sure how folks solve the sound problem (monitors? everyone turns everything down?) but I am interested to hear how to approach this.

I am also attending a monthly jam but I have just been listening, and enjoying talking to other players. I got up once, realized improvisation is hard, so I am focusing on foundation practice. I want to do what you're doing.

The interactions at jam nights are equivalent to the ones here, they provide motivation and some accountability for practice, and a chance to see dedicated players (some professional) work on their craft.

Hope you keep going Tobi! Thank you for sharing your progress, it is not easy to put yourself out there.

Thank you Clay and Sunil for the thoughtful replies!

Just to clarify what the situation was like that night: I had pretty serious grounding noise issues when using my own setup at the venue. Even when switching to the owner’s guitar and pedals, the signal was still noisy and unclear. On stage, the sound felt even quieter and less defined than what people probably heard from the audience side. Overall the volume and monitoring weren’t really working for me, especially once drums came in, and I struggled to hear myself while playing.

The setup there was also a bit confusing: they were using one shared amp head connected to multiple speaker cabinets on stage, plus PA and monitors. In the end, the overall guitar sound I was getting wasn’t balanced—too much bass, and not enough mids or highs(what I felt like, maybe is not real)

Because of that, I ended up relying on a very basic sound just to get through the set, but it wasn’t a comfortable playing experience.

For next time, I’m planning to bring my own amp, but also work more intentionally with the mic and PA system so the overall volume can be properly balanced in the room. I think I also need to arrive earlier and spend some time with the host/owner to sort out the sound setup before playing, instead of trying to fix it on stage.

Beyond the technical side, I realize I want to prepare more so I can actually look at other players instead of the fretboard all the time, and have enough mental space to really listen and react to what others are doing.

I also want to relax more and enjoy the jam itself. I noticed I was a bit stressed about making this “challenge” meaningful, and I ended up overthinking it instead of just being in the moment. Next time I’d like to talk more with other musicians, have a drink, ask about their playing, and treat it more like a shared experience rather than a performance test.

And of course, be more aware of the musicians I’m playing with and focus more on communication rather than just trying to “survive” the performance.

Really appreciate all the feedback and perspectives here—it helps a lot.

Tobi

Got it - thanks for the detail.

Thank you Clay for sharing your experience. I set my volume as similar loudness of drummer (I don't like to play with any loud drummer!) Loud enough so everyone can hear all the nuances.

I set amp same as most cases and I control by my guitar volume and my picking volume.

Tomo

Awesome feedback, truly grateful to learn from everyone!

Thank you Sunil!

Tomo