As Dire As Walking
Published: Fri, 10/28/22
But I did it, and as I got to around the six or seven minute mark I told myself what I always do: just keep running. This is how I remind myself that I enjoy running best when it's no big deal – when the point is just to run. I have a specific distance to cover, but it's no more than a twenty-five or thirty-minute trot through the neighborhood, so I'm no marathon man. And I definitely don't track my time. I just like how running feels, especially when I can reach a kind of relaxation within the run. I want to be running, but for it to feel about as dire as walking – to settle into a comfortable pace and have the stamina to sustain it. I know I've hit that if it feels like I could run longer than I planned, if I decided to. I never do, but that's how I want to feel in the middle, and that's how I want to feel at the end – like I could keep going if I felt like it.
I want to feel that way when I'm practicing, too. I like the sense of anticipation when I'm about to run, and I want to feel like that when I'm about to sit down in the studio. I know how far I'm going to run beforehand, and my rule is, no matter how I feel as I'm approaching the end of the run, I don't go any further. So when I practice, that's not open ended either. I practice with a timer, and a metronome, and try and have specific things to practice that day, ideally defined for five or six days at at time. It doesn't always work out that way – currently, I'm not crushing it in Seinfeld terms. When I've been working instead on a loosely rotating collection of four or five different things, trying to figure out what to focus on next, I can feel the difference.
Luckily, one of the best things about getting finite and specific about what to practice and how long to practice it is that those are also two of the best tools for getting back in the groove when you've broken your streak. For every day that goes by, it gets harder and harder to think "Now I'm going to start practicing again." But if you say "And at 9:30am I'm going to sit down and do this two-measure groove in A minor at 80 beats per minute for ten minutes," at least you know how to get started. It may feel stiff and unwieldy and maddening at first, but you might look up in the middle of the third or fourth day and realize, "aw, heck yeah, I could work on this all day!" Which is a great feeling, if it happens, but you should probably still end the day's practicing when you were planning to. That way, even if you keep playing, for another ten minutes or another two hours, you'll still look forward to practicing tomorrow.
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One summer at the National Guitar Workshop, I had this kid Steve in my class. Steve was full of talent and overflowing with enthusiasm, but his favorite contribution to the proceedings was holler "Modes suck!" any time that subject came up. I know lots of adults who feel the same as Steve, and the way most people are taught modes, I don't blame them. In today's lesson I try and demystify the situation, starting with simple way to relate the Dorian mode to the minor pentatonic scale on an open-position blues in E. You can find the lesson here:
How To Use Modes On The Blues
If you've got a question for me about modes, or improvising on the blues, leave it in the Youtube comments below the lesson. If I can, I'll incorporate my answer into an upcoming video.
More soon,
David