Hi comrades, welcome to the Improvement Megathread! unity

I plan to post a new weekly megathread here every Sunday. I think Sunday is a good day to review the previous week and make some plans for the following week. If somebody else wants to post a new megathread anytime, just let me know.

Here are some ideas for discussion:

  • Do you want to share something you've done in the previous week?

Even if you did only 1 push-up, read 1 page, meditated for 1 minute, or touched 1 blade of grass, let us know about it. When it comes to making progress, everything counts. The most important thing is to make progress, no matter how small.

  • What would you like to do next week?
  • What aspect of life would you like to improve?
  • Do you have any streaks? For example, "sober for one day." Feel free to post your streak every day in this thread.
  • If you don't have a continuous streak, did you manage to abstain from something for a day or more?
  • Did you come across some useful information or resource that might help others?

Of course, this is not a definitive list. And feel free to make a separate post in the comm for any of these topics. This is just a megathread for all the stuff that you want to share but don't feel like making a new post.

Let me know if you have any suggestions.

And remember the Golden Rule of Hexbear:

Always
Be
Commenting

hexbear-chapochat

    • Mokey [none/use name]
      ·
      edit-2
      10 months ago

      As many of you know I'm pretty serious musician and I come from a poor, uncultured background, I've had a tough time getting good but I'm starting to come out the otherside and people are recognizing me.

      This weeks practice, I hit all of these items daily:

      Arm technique:

      [ ] Downstrokes using forearm and shoulder. Use different rates and try to be as relaxed as possible. 5 minutes each arm. 80 BPM.

      [ ] Rebound stroke using forearm and shoulder. Use different rates and try to be as relaxed as possible. 5 minutes each arm. 80

      Foot technique:

      [ ] Left foot Heel Down 65 - 75. Try to get as wide of a swing as possible. 5 Minutes. Target tempo is 90 BPM.

      [ ] Left foot Ankle Technique. 125-135 BPM range for 10 minutes. 175-160 range for 10 minutes.

      Groove Studies:

      [ ] Play jazz ride beat with recordings, work on a consistent, forward moving swinging beat and use repeated check patterns in the left hand to develop the groove. 45 Minutes.

      [ ] Same thing but with a click 2 measures of Quarter note click and two measures of the second triplet only. Flow through and be steady. 120 BPM. 10 Minutes. Benny Greb metronome.

      [ ] Rhythmic Scale 60BPM. Benny Greb metronome. Audiate quarter note and play Quarter Notes, Quarter Note Triplets, Eighth Notes, Eigth Note Triplets, Sixteenth Notes, Sextuplets, 32nd notes and then go back down. Ground time keeping by leading with feathered bass drum. 30 minutes.

      [ ] Rhythmic Scale 30 BPM. Same but mega slow, target weak areas such as sextuplets > 32nds and eighth notes > eighth note triplets and back. You rush and drag these each respectively. 10 Minutes. Sing the Quartner note.

      Transcription:

      [ ] Listen to Recordings, take notes. Bill Evans - Minority from "Everybody Digs Bill Evans" 20 minutes.

      Transcribe: [ ] The trading four section with Philly Joe Jones on the same track, Minority. 20 minutes.

      Total Practice Time:

      3 hours and 30 minutes.

      My goal is to swing and swing hard, most young musicians in my area haven't figured out that a consistent ride beat is what makes you sound good. Mine will be consistent and deep, by consistent I mean, no deviation unless intentional for the entire song. I've already got a good conception of what I want. It kind of sounds like Billy Higgins I realized: Light and flowing but heavy on 2+4, quiet on 1+3. The skip beat is pushing to the next beat rather than anticipating it with the idea of giving my beat a sense of forward motion instead of a plodding, quarter note pulse. The quarter note is ahead or with the bass player and should be driving. I've listened enough to the music to know what I like, I don't like too wide of a skip beat unless its stylistic (Basie Drummers) and I don't like guys who accent 1+3 (It's blasphemy but I don't like Philly Joe Jones cymbal beat)

      • super_mario_69 [he/him, comrade/them]
        ·
        10 months ago

        wise master can you teach me how to do the purdie shuffle? I can't get the snare hit to snare ghost note right. and am I right that it's triplets with 1 and 3 on the ride (or hh) with a snare ghost note in the "middle"? hard to explain, but its fucking me up right now

        • Mokey [none/use name]
          ·
          10 months ago

          Yeah, that sounds right but your terminology needs more work. Long story short, break it down and go slower.

          The motion is a dance and you need to learn the steps for each hand. The other thing is that you need to be able to audiate triplets and really be able to feel them and every partition within the triplet.

          You might need to work backwards and practice playing and audiating triplets to a metronome. Good shuffles of that family demand really clean triplets.

          Separate the hands, don't try to do them at the same time if theyre not coordinating right.

          The right hand (arm, wrist, however you're orchestrating it) is doing the shuffle. When you do a downstroke to start the shuffle. There's a potential for a free upstroke so there should be an idea of motion efficiency and getting strokes for free without any wasted energy. If you're trying to hammer out the shuffle and you feel like you have to work to get all the notes, you're doing it wrong. Atleast for now imo.

          The left hand is filling in the second partition of the triplet. Utilize the tap stroke for this. Put a metronome at like 60, count triplets outloud and try to just play that middle triplet. 1 + a, 2 + a, so on.

          After that you put them together, slowly, and then build the tempo.

          • super_mario_69 [he/him, comrade/them]
            ·
            10 months ago

            Thanks for the advice!! I'm getting there, slowly but surely! I've been kinda lazy with the terminology for sure, I should probably start grinding that part in before I build (more) bad habits.

            • Mokey [none/use name]
              ·
              10 months ago

              I hope it's helpful! Feel free to DM me if you need help working out terminology.

      • material_delinquent
        ·
        edit-2
        10 months ago

        would you say music is talent or practice? I was told I wouldnt be able to learn playing an instrument really and I told myself - "encouraged" by Hitlerite sorroundings - that

        ableism

        I was too autistic to learn music bc I have got no feeling for rhythm

        • super_mario_69 [he/him, comrade/them]
          ·
          10 months ago

          idk if this anecdote helps at all but I have an acquaintance who is a really good DJ of some renown. Rather introverted engineer-type of guy. Only started doing music stuff in his late 30s. He has that impeccable ability to select the perfect track for the perfect moment and keep the groove going, without messing up the mixes. BUT the dude is completely tone deaf and has has barely any sense of rhythm. "How the fuck is that even possible?" I asked of him. "How do you keep track of the bars? How do you match the tempo??" He said he "just spins the disc and ride the tempo until it sounds good" and that he "never even bothered trying to count it out" because he knows he isn't made like that. So he just went and made up some own little fucked up system to keep track of the beats, because he knew he didn't vibe with the established set of rules and methods. Then he just practiced a lot until he got a feel for it. I still don't understand how he does it, but god damn does he do it well.

          But I digress. I would argue that music is more like a language than a talent or skill or whatever. If you don't speak it at all and listen to someone else speaking in it, it'll be completely incomprehensible (but nice to listen to!). There is not a single person in the entire universe who was born able to understand music on a deeper level without studying it and actively using it. Those who seem to have been born innately musical have only learned it because they've been exposed to it from an early age. I can't remember consciously learning my own native language, like, I couldn't tell you now why some verbs have some particular conjugations in some contexts, but I can simply hear and subconsciously understand when something is correct. Music is the same. In time you learn to subconsciously understand what the fuck a C# minor sounds like or how long a 16th note is without having to really think too much about it. I only started learning this shit at 32 years old. damn I wish my parents would have given me an instrument to learn at age 5 so I wouldn't have to go through so much boring learning bullshit as an adult...

          But no, I'd say talent isn't really a thing at all. It's just practice and consistency. More importantly: finding a way to practice that works for you. If you don't vibe with it then you're never gonna enjoy it, and if you don't enjoy it, you're never gonna be consistent. Honestly I always hated the platitude but I can't deny there is truth in it: consistency is key. Playing one shitty six-second song once makes you one shitty six-second song better at playing music. Going to the gym to lift one weight once is infinitely more progress than going to none gym and lifting none weights zero times, and so on. You can absolutely do it, I believe in you.

        • Mokey [none/use name]
          ·
          edit-2
          10 months ago

          My true opinion is environment. You'll learn a lot without really practicing if you're doing it all the time with people. The idea of practicing is to make yourself better as a type of weight lifting. A baby can learn multiple languages organically just by using them, music is the same.

          In my opinion, due to academia and horrible western culture, we have it backwards. Practicing is how you get good and environment is an after thought. That being said the reason why we practice the way we do is a response to our environment, there's not enough environment so we must practice.

          It's unavoidable as a westoid and partly explains why we have many people who are completely illiterate with music but still have people who are absolute masters of the craft. Reality should be more flat where mostly everyone can atleast participate.

          Nothing can stop you from getting good at anything as long as you do the following things:

          1. Practice with intensity and sincerity, use your senses to figure out what is wrong with whatever you're doing.

          2. Find a community, no one lasts long in a bubble. Find other people who are doing the thing and resist the pressures of the world together.

          3. Find a mentor, you learn how to talk from Mom and Dad primarily and also your community, getting good at anything is the same. If you want to be good at basketball, do not shoot 3 pters in isolation all day. If you want to be good at street fighter, find people who play street fighter. Japanese guys arent good at Street Fighter because theyre Japanese or they have a Hadouken bone in their brain, theyre good because theyve had a) The most amount of time with the game. B) The most amount of time with a competitive scene. D) These guys meet up in person and fucking talk about and play street fighter.

          4. Develop a tough skin and resolute sense of grit. I've paid off massive amounts of student loans, failed horribly in more times and ways than I can count or possibly remember. I've wanted to quit many times but ultimately I stuck with it.

          5. Lastly, live your life that's consistent with what you want. Don't be a guy who works 80 hrs a week if you want to get good at something that's not work. All of my major life choices have been in service of: I want to be a musician and I'm not playing around. That being said, I'm realistic, I know what I am and am not and can't just insert myself into the New York scene.

          Response to that

          Rhythm and time are something we should be getting from our parents and our communities, we should all be able to naturally sing and dance many Westoids have this issue, including myself.

          The good thing is that you can develop and get better at it overtime, I'm living proof of it.

          • material_delinquent
            ·
            10 months ago

            thanks. I think I don't have the energy for learning music right now, but I like doing languages very much and I think you make very insightful and important points that I can copy for a lot of things. I never really understood how important sensual perception and the ability to enjoy what I am doing are until very recently.

            • Mokey [none/use name]
              ·
              10 months ago

              For sure, music isn't impossible for you or anyone as long as you are earnest with your intentions.

              • material_delinquent
                ·
                10 months ago

                I will pick it up eventually, maybe, hopefully. now that I am not doing video games anymore, I have way more time lol