6 August 2000
We returned to the blues at the beginning of tonight's lesson; I didn't do too badly considering I'd only had one night of practice.

After the blues, Mark decided that this week we'd work on All of Me in 8-7-6-5. This made me ask about the number of notes in a scale, which made Mark realize that aside from a brief introduction to the scale of F major in the second lesson, we'd skipped over scales—an important step—entirely. Mark explained various scales and the fingerings that went with them, and then we practiced playing them, going up and down the neck a half step at a time. There are apparently two separate fingerings for minor chords because of an intervening half-step; I was less interested in what caused the disparity than in figuring out the pattern so I could memorize it. Mark and I agree that I'm definitely pattern-oriented. Probably not surprising given that I'm a former drummer and temporary worker (trust me, you have to develop a rhythym in filing, typing, and collating just to make it through the day).

Mark's off on vacation next week; hopefully I'll take advantage of the extra time to practice more. Given that it's now 11:17pm on Sunday night and I have yet to pick up my bass this weekend, it's not looking too good... but hell, the elephants upstairs haven't started stomping around yet, and my roommate's not home, so I probably still have time to get in a few licks without disturbing anyone.

18 September 2000
Can I just say how great Mark is? It's been three weeks since my last lesson, and Mark knew right away from the guilty look on my face that I hadn't practiced. It didn't faze him a bit, though. He just thought for a minute, and then said, "let's play some blues."

I was nervous. As Mark scratched bars on musical notation paper and labeled them C7, G7, etc., panicked thoughs ran through my head. How would I remember the fingerings? What if root-3-5-3 didn't mean anything to me after three weeks of bass laziness? What notes are in a 7th? Never fear: "We'll start with roots," Mark said. "Do you know where G is?"

I pressed the third fret on the E string to show that I did. "C?" Third fret on the A string. "D?" Believe it or not, I paused for a second before sliding my finger "up two frets," just as Mark said it. OK, I was ready. We did a round of roots together, and then Mark soloed for two more while I continued with the roots. Next came root-3-5-3—and I remembered it. Whew! By the time we got to the even trickier root-3-5-6-8, my playing was far from steady, but I wasn't as lost as I felt when I walked in the room.

My hand cramped pretty quickly, however, so we moved up the neck to the 8th fret and worked from there. (I'm still having trouble stretching on the lower end of the neck, though my technique is a bit better now. I just need more PRACTICE!) We did one more sequence (I can't remember the numbers associated with it, just the fingering: 1-4-1-4), which turned out to be harder than it sounded at first. The more strings involved, the greater chance a wrong note that throws me off entirely. I think what happens is I focus all my energy on getting the fingering right with my left hand, and my right hand ends up plucking the wrong string.

We played the sequence pretty slowly; Mark suggested an eighthnote combination that sounded nice but I didn't feel ready for just then. He said I could work up to it. That's just what I needed: matter-of-fact encouragement and a slow but steady building up of my confidence.

I came home and practiced until the tips of my fingers couldn't take it anymore.