That's me (Miguelito) playing the guitar. August 23, 2007 12:49am

For the first hour, I worked on scale patterns from the Scale Pattern Studies For Guitar by Aaron Shearer--something I used from when I studied classical guitar in college. Just for fun, I worked through some of the patterns from Steve Vai's 10 Hour Guitar Workout which was republished in the October 2007 issue of Guitar World. Then I played through some of my falsetas that include lots of picado, trying to keep my hands relaxed and aiming for a consistent tonal quality.

The second hour or so, I worked on arpeggios by turning some of Moraíto's arpeggio-centric falsetas into exercises.

The book on top is the one by Aaron Shearer. The other book is the collection of Moraíto transcriptions by Alain Faucher. August 23, 2007 12:51am

The third hour, I worked on just marking patterns for various palos from bulerías to soleá to alegrías to tangos etc. The other day I was watching a 7-part video of a Steve Vai master class on YouTube. Anywayz, one of the exercises he recommended I adapted for practicing in flamenco: I put on some rock music---it could be any music, just anything in 4/4. Then I played a 12-beat pattern against it. The challenge here is for me, as the guitarist, to not be distracted by the accents in the rock music as I play bulerías compás. It's kinda like playing for dancer who might be trying out alternative accent patterns whilst depending on the guitarist to keep the basic compás. Then the next challenge is to "lock" into the groove and keep going as long as you can without getting lost. I don't know if this makes any sense to you, but ask me about it the next time you see me in person because it's easier for me to demonstrate.

The fourth hour, I just jammed along with a bulerías Solo Compás CD working on everything from just basic marking patterns to falsetas.

Then I took a break for about an hour and laid down on the couch while listening to some music on Last FM. This nifty little widget gets updated every minute, so it'll tell you what I've been listening to!

What's cool about Last FM is that you enter the name of the artist you like and it automatically chooses similar artists at random. While I wrote this blog entry, I was listening to music that Last FM calculated I would enjoy based on the artist name I typed in: Vicente Amigo.

This is where I worked on this blog. August 23, 2007 1:01am

It's 2:43am and I'm going to sign off and try to get some sleep. As for tonight (Thursday) I'll be going to Taste of Jerusalem in Silver Spring (301-495-3067) to catch the opening night of flamenco featuring dancer Isabelita Otero and guitarist Torcuato Zamora. See you there!