Tomo Fujita Guitar Wisdom

Hi everyone, thanks again for joining the livestream!

This thread is a place to observe, reflect, and learn from each other as we explore the same idea: Listening. I've included a brief overview of what was discussed in the stream below. You can watch/review the full stream on the Guitar Wisdom playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLENaipLZZvuSe09K52-fo1VPMLrWfJa46

The idea: Listening - Deep listening or listening like a musician is a skill that can be developed over time and a process that can greatly influence your playing. Sometimes it is listening over and over again while truly feeling the groove or emotion of the song; other times, it is transcribing and studying a song in great detail. The idea is that when you hear a song so many times and pay attention to what's going on in the music, you internalize it, you gain experience, and you learn something.

Tomo's Examples: A "great example" is a "short, organized, tight" song. A song that makes you feel something and is clear/simple enough to transcribe.
- Everyday I Have The Blues (sense of phrasing)
- Blue Monk (sense of rhythm)
- Amazing Grace (sense of melody and space)
Each song has something different to teach you. The process is how you gain experience. Mistakes are welcome.

I'm sure I am missing a few important points, but I'll have to review the stream :)
I know we didn't get to answer every question in the chat, so please add your questions and comments to this thread.

Reminder: We are here to help each other! Be kind to yourself, share honestly, and don't be afraid to share something you found helpful. Together, we can learn better.

Have a great weekend!
Sammi

First time catching livestream. Thank you Team GW! Two take aways I wrote down in notebook: 1. Learn One Thing From One Person. 2. Always Try Song in Another Key (for learning and never know what magic might happen.)

Like that fourth catty song at 1:10:19. That's a whammy bar master class.

No but thank you for the stream for everyone, and have a great weekend!
Different songs for different purposes, and finding the parents/grandparents of the material were the main takeaways for me - and the free meal from Tomo.

Btw. I remember seeing Amazing Grace sometimes in one of the song lesson sections. Perhaps I remember wrong..

Considering everything we talked about today, listening, rhythm, phrasing, melody, and spacing, it made me think of how I should balance the time I spend on practicing one thing. I suppose that, with time, we learn to rely on intuition to juggle different topics.

I've continued practicing the fundamentals (chromatic, 1212, 1-string major scale), but I've focused on the Bb Jazz Blues Solo Etude. And I love all the variations that are helping me improve my technique. Sometimes, I get so focused on taking my time and learning technique that I almost forget other things I've been practicing.

But I have a sense, as Tomo does, that I should narrow my focus to fundamentals and simplify the scope of my learning.
My question is, what is the best way to balance all these different things? Should I follow my intuition or ?

This was one of my favorite live streams. It helped me understand and a little bit more and different than before -peeling back the curtain for what listening deeply means. Seeing the transcription notes of everyday I have the blues and multiples parts like horns and bass. It shows the pure dedication that happens.
I wrote down it is sometimes really hard work but you feel good from doing it. And you should never ask how many times you need to listen to something to gain something in return or to be “done”.
Thank you !

I missed the stream yesterday and am about 1/2 way through the replay. So far, my biggest takeaway is the detailed transcription of not just the guitar parts. Apparently the bass player and the horns have something to teach us as well. :-).

Listening to understand every element and musical note of a song transcribed to paper very inspirational. That would take a long time creating a greater understanding in that process. Each song provides a different style type, still a practicing blue monk and an etude note for note, finger movement too. Choosing a song to deep focus with is not an easy task to me because it changes my impressionable level of the song to the musician's perspective. Couple good goal ideas created in this live stream. Thank you for expanding on this topic and explaining in more detail. The idea of internalizing a song to allow variation in tempo, thinking... slow it down and really hear the notes, I am going to check that out. Sometimes two copies of a record because yeah, you really gotta be good to not scratch it, it happens tho :) Am going to check this out with a tune favorite and an standard learning tune, probably T-bone Walker styles. Thank you GW live streams,
-johno

Haven’t had the desire to transcribe a song before or really thought to do that. Now I want to stay up late and dive into one

I talked to a professional musician, a horn player, who told me (paraphrasing here) that his playing only really skyrocketed, when he started analyzing and playing music from the best in his trade, that he liked. I'm not sure if he transcribed per se (that is, notate), but deep listened, analyzed, and learned to play.
Being a student like this also enabled him to copy the phrasings etc. without having to think about how to choose or go about those things.

Thank you Cruz, Jordan, Mija, Scott, Rich, Jeff, Matt, Johno and Clay for watching this live stream and sharing your experience. I really appreciate it! This topic is super important to improve yourself as a musician. Listening, deep listening and learn a lot of details are so helpful to improve your performance skills.

Yes! I always love to learn ONE THING from one person so I listen deeply when people are listening. I try not to talk too much. So other will talk more. I try not to afraid to ask any questions. (Not too many. Maybe 2 questions)

A few songs. Not too many. 3 songs are plenty to learn. Amazing Grace is a great melody!

The balance is very important key as well as “how long” = not too long, not too much. Just like sleeping, eating… I still practice the fundamentals: Chromatic Scale 1212 3212 3432 1234, 4343 2343 2123 4321 only 4th and 3rd string from 1st fret to 9th fret (first finger) repeat this 2-3 times. Then I play simple etude solo. Could be melody or any simple solo etude or classical etude. 3-4 times to repeat. This solo etude could be 30 to 45 seconds. Then I do deep practiciong with R 3 7 / R 7 3 Swing Groove. I would do 10 to 30 minutes or more. This can teach you time feel, muting techniques, chord progressions and more! This part can be exchangeable. I would do blues a lot. Then jazz blues to any Jazz Standards (Only need to know 5-6 tunes.) Do this everyday Narrow down is always great CHOICE! Consistency is very important. I don’t follow only my intuition. Think deeper and do not afraid trials and mistakes.

The Blue Monk melody study is so deep! Muting techniques, time feel, correct picking directions with alernate picking, dynamics, less pressure from fretted hand, picking dynamics and more! You can learn some blues melodoc rhythmic playing from Grant Green, Jack MaCduff etc. Deep lsitening!

Each GW Live Stream. Sammi picks up these topics and she really has been reading everyone’s posts and she got a great sense about choosing these importamt topics. The November Challenge was her idea from her teaching. Plus George’s smart mind warp up things together carefully and deeply. If I run this with only myself then I could confuse you deeply! I listen one this many times without expecting when it’s finished.

I have done some transcripitions in the past. Blues solos, jazz solos, chords and more. Not only writing details parts but also thinking about arrangement or bassline etc. I love horns, keyboard comping too. I was checking my old records in my parents house. My father has been listening these records. I really surprised that I had many records of jazz piano trio! It made a lot of sense! I was serching for chords, comping, bassline = Ron Carter! Many Hank Jones records!

You can transcribe music, chords, solo without writing down those notes on the paper but if you can do this a little.. it is very useful (even just looking at….) where those notes are…. rhythms = tastes and spaces = pacing. Plus same notes and different strings, fingerings, positions etc. Shopping list is good!

Matt - I didn’t know your son is a Berklee grad! Good job! Great team!

Do not worry about transcribing. Better to undestand choices. This reason, knowing a lot of information, jamming and just practicing hours = not really effective. The foundation to build so that techinally to help your musical ideas through guitar. The Leavitt book is one of amazing foundation. It was very helpful for me to focus on my techniques and have learned how important to review each material well and practice it super slowly. Most people would practice with comfortable tempo = good mistake!

Deep listening, transcribing, imitating and learning each material, meldies, solos deeply and slowly! Analyzed chords, intervals etc.

Good job guys!

Tomo

Tomo, thank you for your feedback. This will take time to digest for sure, but I deeply appreciate your passion for teaching guitar. You guide us so well. Thank you. :D

Question for Tomo and Guitar Wisdom.....

Any thoughts on using software for transcribing? I've been playing with a free app called MuseScore that lets you type in the notes onto the staff. Does this seem like it's cutting corners?

Hey John. I get what you're saying. The only reason I was giving MuseScore a try was because it was fall-out-of-bed easy. When you want to change note pitch, you just up-arrow or down-arrow and poof! Melody! I also didn't have big-time goals like creating an entire orchestra score, I was just seeking to get notes on a page. I know it's easy to go down the rabbit hole. The app is pretty easy to pick up, but I almost feel like it's cheating. Analog is more satisfying.

Hi GW team youre doing a great job! i watched the replay on youtube and the topic is related to my question on guitar wisdom book page 81
it said "singing and playing should be an exercise in imagining a phrase in your head and executing it on your guitar. Be careful not to practice singing something you can already play on the guitar.

my question it, can i sing songs pop song or for example a star wars theme then find the notes/phrase on the guitar? i never play on that guitar before.... or it really a phrase that i will create in my head and try to play the notes on the guitar? but the problem i dont have any melody in mind,, the only melody sticks to my head is the one i heard, movies theme/intro and some pop songs
thank you so much, take care always guys!

Thank you everyone! Great inputs!

Keep it simple. Any music, melody and chords.

Pop song, folk song is great! Imagine that melody first. Sing it, think about chords around that melody. Analyze that melody with chords. How about Twinkle Twinkle?

Look for a great melody/chords that make you feel chill!

Tomo