Passable Peanut Noodles

Published: Fri, 09/23/22

The Dauphin and his sister are learning to ride the city bus this week. Ms. Fretboard is out of town and, despite having chain-read at least three Terry Pratchett novels in the past two weeks, I still seem incapable of being in two places at once, which is very inconvenient and totally sucks. So the city bus it is. Austin is not known for its public transit per se, but we live relatively central and so far the kids are more or less grooving on it, a response I assume has to do with the usual adolescent ambitions to quit being a passenger and get down to the essential business of hunting and gathering one's own tacos with a tribe of like-minded consumers. To which end, compared to riding shotgun in the family Subaru, being a passenger on the bus is a totally different kettle of line-caught tuna, and apparently more than somewhat empowering.

My own efforts in the empowerment department currently involve exploiting the more regular schedule of the now-month-old school year to start exercising again. Modern-day high school starts way later than I ever remember it doing, which means if you get up anytime before 7am in our house you can have almost an hour of peace and tranquility in which to pursue your outside interests. Which means, I guess, I could have opted to take up Japanese watercolors, but instead I decided to learn to do pushups, because, like running, which you can do in ratty clothes without leaving the neighborhood, you can do pushups in ratty clothes without even leaving the house. Also, like running, pushups is just one thing, so there's not a lot to remember.

Having learned to play the pedal steel, make passable Thai peanut noodles and call fonts "typefaces" all out of various books, I'm attempting to learn to exercise out of a book as well. But I hate feeling in over my head, especially when the challenges are physical. Even when they're intellectual in nature – see "peanut noodles," above – I'd rather start from the absolute ground up to make sure I'm not missing anything, rather than assuming I already know some of the steps and winding up feeling on shaky ground. This fitness book, which of course includes warmups and stretches and advice on how to do things safely and properly, provides schedules of various lengths and intensities to get you to the hundred-pushup mark. I'm here to say that not only did I opt for a ten-week program rather than the seven-week one, I've spent the first four weeks continuing to work through just the first week of that ten-week schedule. I'd much rather spend more time getting the foundations together, slowly building my stamina and coordination, developing a little confidence in the process, and oh yeah, not hurting myself, than move aggressively into an overwhelming amount of repetitions that leave me feeling overwhelmed and wanting to quit by the third week.
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When it comes to music, it's not always easy to know how much material to take in at once, or how long to work on it. As a teacher, I tend to want to illustrate not only the initial idea I'm presenting but provide sufficient context for why we're working on it and explain all the things you'll be able to use it for down the line. That's often waaay more than anyone wants or needs to know at the moment, so my latest Youtube lessons are designed to introduce beginning improvisors to just one idea at a time. This week, I show how to use the form and the phrasing of a classic eight-bar blues to start coming up with your own blues licks; you can find it at the link below:

3 Steps to Improvising on an Eight Bar Blues

More soon,

David
 
For organized, ongoing weekly lessons that help you learn tunes, turn them into complete songs, and start improvising, register for the Fingerstyle Five membership at www.fretboardconfidential.com
 
 
 
david@davidhamburger.com

P.O. Box 302151
Austin TX 78703
USA


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