Making Musical Progress

The reason my mathematical knowledge continues to expand is that I've gotten into the habit of analysing my diurnal age on a daily basis. It's one of the first things I do in the morning after breakfast. Usually I'll pick out a sequence in the OEIS (Online Encyclopaedia of Integer Sequences) that contains that number and also piques my interest. I'll investigate the mathematics involved and later I'll see if I can reproduce the sequence using SageMathCell. I often find additional information on Numbers Aplenty. The point is that this routine consistently introduces me to new mathematical concepts and improves my coding using SageMath.

However with music, even though I play most days, I tend to play the same old songs and, far less frequently, I'll learn a new song. Only very occasionally will I learn some new technique. I want to improve my playing and so I need to enforce some discipline on myself regarding my music. I should strive to learn a little bit every day. To that end I'm starting with Marco Cirillo's FINGERPICKING GUITAR IN 7 DAYS series of videos. Here's the first of his videos.

 

The same could approach could be applied to my chess playing. It would be nice to make a little progress each day by learning a new opening or endgame technique, finding out a little more about the history of the game or exploring one of the many variants of the game. I've certainly made progress in both my musical and chess proficiency since retiring but I can do better. However, back to the musical exercise:

Figure 1: music notation and tabs for first part of the exercise

Figure 2: music notation and tabs for second part of the exercise

Figure 3: music notation and tabs for third part of the exercise

I'll practise this exercise and then move on to his other videos.