Reply To: What’s challenging you now?

[cynhrossi]

I’ve been learning some new tunes by ear and playing scales. I’m working on Dvorak’s Largo/Going Home, Loch Lomond, and a few others.

I really enjoyed the lesson on The Old Gray Cat because of the challenge of learning those quarters out of order. While I could play each of the quarters when we were doing call-and-response for them, when it came time to connect them, I could not connect them easily. My brain fumbled in frustration and was not sure where I was. I did not readily connect the song as I heard/remembered it and the quarters as Jason played them. So I’m going to try this: go back through the quarters with call-and-response, start chaining the quarters. I’ll use looping as I work through the quarters. I prefer not to use the music, preferring instead to work on ear training.

It would be fun to have a call-and-response lesson with chords.

What I’m reading — The Art of Learning by Josh Waitzken — I’m trying to figure out where the disconnect in my brain/ear is and what I might do to practice through that.

I’ve also just started Livewired: The Inside Story of the Ever-changing Brain by David Eagleman — about plasticity of perceptions; this might enable me to see how to make changes that will help me make these connections. I really love learning by ear. And I’m always curious about how to overcome my frustration, what seems like a wall.