Scrivener November 18th, 2007
The song I’m learning for this week is from The Decemberists’ album Picaresque, “Of Angels and Angles.” It’s really not too difficult, though I still seem to have to play it through a couple of times before I can start to get the feel of the rhythm right.
Tags: guitar
Scrivener November 7th, 2007
I mentioned in a bulleted list somewhere, but I’ll say it again anyway, my song for last week was “Guess I’m Doing Fine” by Beck, from his album Sea Change. I practiced a lot last week and was really enjoying playing it, but then left my sheet music at home when I went to my lesson yesterday and couldn’t quite remember the second half of the song. I still played enough to show that I could get all the chord changes, but I was bummed that the first time in a month where I’ve really practiced well I didn’t get to show off like I wanted to.
The song for this week is “Lost Cause” from the same album, where I’ll get a lot of practice picking out individual notes from each chord. Should be challenging, but fun.
I learned “The Golden Age” a while back, so I’m pretty sure that I can play more songs from Sea Change than from any other album.
Tags: guitar
Scrivener November 4th, 2007
- Last week, something clicked for Youngest and she’s been gung ho about cooking. On the days she’s home with me, she’s been making herself grilled cheese sandwiches, with supervision by me but no real assistance, and she’s been wanting to help more with dinner too. Eldest has been wanting to watch shows on the Food Network, and youngest is watching with her too. I know Eldest will be a foodie, but maybe there’s hope Youngest will be too.
- Florida State beat Boston College last night! Woohoo!
- I forgot to say on Tuesday, but my song for this week is “Guess I’m Doing Fine” from Beck’s Sea Change, the second song I’m learning from that album. It’s sometimes described as his break-up album and I’ve been listening to it a lot these days. I also want to learn “Lost Cause.” I also want to learn some of the songs from Mutations, but my instructor says he’ll need to listen to those ahead of time a bit and I keep forgetting to burn them on a disc.
- I’ve done better about practicing guitar this week. Still not quite up to normal for me, but better. “Guess I’m Doing Fine” isn’t too difficult chord-wise but it’s got three different strumming patterns within it, which still gets confusing for me. It’s fun to play.
- Ex took the kids to North Carolina with her mother for the weekend. It’s weird having the house to myself for so long, but I actually managed to sleep in both yesterday and today. I haven’t slept so late in years.
- I like my self-portraits for today and yesterday.
- I finally managed to get the cell phone company to divide our family plan into two individual accounts. It was a frustrating process requiring multiple trips to the cell phone store. The first time there was on a very difficult day and the clerk kept asking me to repeat information and was very slow, and I got really frustrated with her. Once she’d given me a pile of paperwork to fill out and told me all the documents I had to come back with, she apologized for it being such a hassle and I said, “Oh, that’s ok, really. It’s not really about you–no matter what you did, I’d be a difficult customer today.” And she said, “Oh, your day will get better” to which I replied, “No, it really won’t. It will be better eventually, but not today.” She insisted that it would get better to which I said, “I’m dividing the family phone lines for a specific reason” and then she was taken aback and told me that she’d pray for me, which didn’t help much. Yesterday, though I went back and dealt with someone else. It was still frustrating, especially when she told me I didn’t need most of the paperwork the other clerk had told me I had to fill out, but when I said that I was getting divorced, she said “I don’t know whether to say congratulations or I’m sorry,” and I said, “A little of both, thanks.”
- I hung out at Octane for a long time yesterday. Stebbi and Thor showed up, and I got to say hi to them briefly. Unfortunately Thor was not still in his Halloween costume. They make the most beautiful cappucinos at Octane–the foam was so pretty it seemed a shame to drink it. But I did anyway.
- I’ve been having fun with the camera the last week or so. I hope to start doing more drawing again soon, too. And I’m supposed to be getting more freelance writing assignments soon. Alll good.
Tags: guitar
Scrivener February 22nd, 2007
52: Takamine, originally uploaded by Scrivenings.
Tags: guitar, takamine
Scrivener February 5th, 2007
Nothing’severgonnastandinmyway, originally uploaded by Scrivenings.
“Nothing’severgonnastandinmyway,” from Wilco’s Summer Teeth (though the version I’m learning here is actually from a bootlegged copy of Tweedy playing a benefit for the Kawasaki Research Fund at Chicago’s Children’s Memorial), is in 4/4 time with the basic strum pattern down, down, down-up, down-up (on the split measures, strum the first chord down, down and the second one down-up, down-up), though when Tweedy plays it he often throws in these little fluttery strums, most often on the third beat.
Tags: chord chart, guitar, iPod, Summer Teeth, wilco
