Song creation and doomy goodness

I am working on a doom riff to turn into a song provided I can either come up with lyrics or get a lyrical collaborator, I'm looking at you Atraxas. I will be posting the you tube link to the riff below and how to play it. I have spent a good deal of time working with a metronome on my picking and right hand skills. I can down pick steadily at 200bpm and alternate pick at 160bpm. I'm also working on galloping and have a little lead I'm playing that let's me work on the first part of a sweep pick. I've been playing roughly two to three hours a day. This time is usually broken into two play sessions since my wrist isn't strong yet. Guitar wise this is all the news there is.

I'd also like to mention that my grandmother passed away this past week. She will be missed by all of her family. We love you gradnma.

Organization

I am working on organizing my time and practice sessions in chess and most importantly guitar. I want to organize it so I'm working on new stuff and learning, especially on the guitar i.e. new songs getting solos to current songs down, without hitting a roadblock or getting bored. I would like any suggestions, especially from you guitarists out there, on how to do this.

I've started working with a metronome to help with my timing and boy do I hate it! Currently it throws me off most likely because I am paying to much attention to it than what I'm playing. I started with a rhythm passage that is only ten measures long. I usually get the timing right on the third run through. The first two run through I am either too fast or too slow. I started at 40bpms and the measure is a mixture of whole notes and half notes. I'm sure I could play it faster, but this exercise is about timing and staying clean while in time. I'll naturally move it up in speed, but need suggestions on how often. I'm thinking once a week I gradually increase it until I can't keep up or it isn't clean by the third run through. Once I hit that maximum bpm I knock it back a bit and practice there for a week and then rinse and repeat the speed test. I need to know when to change riffs and/or songs on this test as well.

My alternate picking is getting cleaner and faster. I attribute this partly to working on Blitzkreig Bop by the Ramones. The alternate power chord stumming is strenghtening my picking wrist quicker and getting it more familiar with the upstrokes. It has allowed me to add the upstrokes to Back n Black instead of always using downstrokes. It definitely feels like progress is being made on my guitar playing and I am quite happy about it.

So, to paraphrase, I'd like any organizational ideas that anyone has, especially when it comes to structuring my guitar practices without becoming to rigid. Fluidity is today's keyword. To not be tied down to a rigid schedule yet maintain a semblance of order so I don't become caught up in the complacency of familiarity.

Guitar and chess. Aren't you just thrilled!

My practice sessions with the guitar are getting longer and I'm usually playing two sessions a day. I also added a Ramone's song, ok just the intro at the moment, to the list. I realize it's only a three chord song, but it lets me practice my upstroke on power chords which is quite a different feel than alternate picking, although it is based on the same premise.  While I was mucking around the other day I found a really evil sound. I kept playing with it and thought to myslelf "hmmmm, this seems familiar." I looked up what I thought it sounded like and lo' and behold it was the opening to Black Sabbath 'Black Sabbath'. I was both elated and disappointed. Elated that I discovered it just by goofing around with different things and disappointed because when I first stumbled upon it I thought I had found something original and truly haunting sounding. I was going to embed a video of me practicing, but although youtube says it uploaded correctly and everything it has yet to show up. I don't know if it has to be approved or what not so it may have to wait until my next blog.

On the chess front I think I'm getting worse. I'm not sure if it is a lack of concentration or perhaps my opponents are getting better. Paul has been crushing me, like he should, and my other games are also very very close. I did have a nice win in 5 minute chess against a 1761, hell it was more of I crushed him, but he did not seem very familiar with 1. d4. In all reality everything is probably status quo on that front, but sometimes I feel like I've hit a plateau. Either way it is still enjoyable to play and that is all that really matters.

Tuesday Oct. 9th I'll be at the Nightwish Kamelot concert :) A huge shout out to my friend Rob Frick for buying tickets. I didn't even know about it until he said he got us tickets for the concert. I'm sure it will be an awesome show.


Finally got it to upload.