chxbgu

I should have known this before I started, but having a good practice day yesterday means that probabaly today's practice session won't be as good. If I only could have figured that out sooner....
All of a sudden everything became hard again today. What's a chord? What's an arpeggio? What's an alterted scale?
A couple of deep breaths and slowing the metronome down helped, but the real issue is accepting how long this will all take. I keep thinking I'm a patient man and then I'm proved wrong by my own actions.
Today I started by continuing on in my Joe Pass book. The only thing I did wrong (in retrospect) was move too fast. I worked really hard to get where I was yesterday. I expected that today would be easy for some reason.
In his book, I'm looking at some rhythm changes lines and some blues lines. They are delightful little lines and worth studying more than I can right now.
I'm bouncing back and forth between reading his etudes and exploring his ideas throughout the fretboard.
I'm trying to get these licks under my fingers so I can use them in my own solos. For some reason today, it's easier said than done.
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Recognizing my frustration is helpful. I took walk outside and got my legs moving.
One of the interesting things about my lifestyle is that I sit down a lot. My spine gets compressed and I don't use my legs very much. Lately for breaks, I've just been standing up and moving around a bit. It gives me a little more pep and focus for the next time I sit down with the guitar again.
After my break, I tackled the Joe Pass book again. This time I took a step back and put my focus on the blues. "Let's learn the dominants before we get to the ii-v's."
It was a good workout. Again, I was bouncing between reading and improvising. I have a photocopy of the page that I'm working on, and I think I'm going to add to my book. It's a great framework for any blues tune.
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I finished this evening with a recap of the Joe Pass Blues Etudes. They are beginning to remind me of the Guliani Exercises. With the Guiliani Exercises, the right hand is trained through a series of 120 examples using only the chords C & G. The exercises trained the hand in a very thourough and focused way, so that when it came time to play a real tune, the r.h. was ready to launch onto the strings and tear the tune apart.
I feel something similar is happening to me by learning this exercises (these and other things over the past year & half). I'm becoming more comforatable with the sound. I'm hearing more bebop approaches in my playing. The b9, b5 & #5 are all comforatable sounds to me, where before I was a little confused on what to do with them. I think these exercises are training my ears and fingers on a more subtler level than I imagined.