AHA! moments
 

No, not the band from the 80s...

I had an "aha!" moment yesterday. Mind you, I'm basically a beginner. I'm working my way thru the Ed Friedland Complete Bass Method books 1-3. I'm nearing the end of book 3, and turned the page for my next lesson on Minor Pentatonics. OK, another scale pattern, no big deal. This one's pretty easy to move around the neck on just like most of the previous ones. I played thru the lesson as far as I could before it was time to drive home (I practice at work). I get in the car and turn the radio to one of my usual classic rock stations for the drive home in Houston traffic. As I'm listening to whatever song it was, it dawns on me - this bass player is just moving around the minor pentatonic scale the whole song! How cool is that?! The next song pops on, and lo and behold - it's ALSO minor pentatonic! I switch to the other classic rock station in town, and whadyaknow...same thing again! AHA! So I just started flipping thru tunes on my mp3 player on my phone, and it seems as if 75% or more of my library is minor pentatonic. AHA!!!

I can't help but wonder what ahamoment is coming next...

Have a good day of practice!

Yes, it's a great feeling when the light bulb suddenly comes on. This is the great thing about the learning process, i.e. anticipating when the next bulb will light up. :)

a minor pentatonic is just a major pentatonic starting on another note ...

Try recording yourself. Nothing is as brutally honest as hearing it straight from the horse's mouth, and believe me you will hear things you didn't notice before.

Do it a lot and your playing will get exponentially better because you are now thinking with portals working on your weak spots, even unconsciously.

Which is also my personal aha moment of the last half year, among others, but certainly the biggest one.

The next thing might be that minor pentatonic is actually implying Blues Harmony !!! ;-)

My last 'aha' moment came while enjoying some downtime, camping, and picking on my banjo. I suddenly realized that the 5 string bluegrass banjo is almost the same tuning as Keith Richards open G tuning, (minus the high G drone on the guitar of course). With that realization came a flood of Stones songs on the banjo.

YEP!
 

I didn't think about it, but you're right. Add the tri-tone (#4) and it is a blues scale. Ha! 2 AHA!s in a day. Thank you very much!

Sooooo..... - THAT was the disturbance in the Force I felt :hiding:

probably so! Gimmie Shelter on banjo takes on a whole different vibe. :hyper:

You now know the entire Ramones catalog!

And there you have it!
 

And there you have it from the author himself. Sage advice...you may know what you know, but you don't know anything so keep going.
At least that's how I took it...

In other words - Hey! Ho! Let's Go!
:hiding: