Got some serious time in with SRV and Bird today. I spent 2 straight hours in the morning playing SRV stuff, first practicing tunes I already know. I'm working through the entire Texas Flood album before moving on. So far, I can play "Mary Had a Little Lamb", "Pride and Joy", "Tell Me", "Testify", and "Texas Flood" reasonably well. After a review of all these, I resumed work on "Lenny", which I've been learning for a few days. Today I made significant progress on some of the faster licks toward the end. It'll be a while before I can play them up to speed, but it's still quite satisfying.

Bird is Charlie Parker. He's one of the main guys I want to learn during this year. I started a few days ago with "Billie's Bounce". It's pretty cool trying to mimic his inflections on guitar. I'm finding this both easier and harder than learning SRV. First, I have the freedom to play Bird's parts anywhere on the neck, whichever way's easiest or most expressive. But at the same time, alto sax parts weren't meant to be played on guitar. Some parts present sticky fingering situations (that's what she said), whereas I can usually tell exactly how SRV plays his parts because so many blues licks are in the same position.

Today's Summary

• warm-up: left finger isolation, slow pentatonics, 1 hr
• SRV, review known material, 1 hr
• SRV, continue learning "Lenny", 1 hr
• ear training, 1 hr
• sight reading in A major, 6 positions, miscellaneous screwing off, 2 hrs
• "Billie's Bounce" head on loop, 1 hr
• "Billie's Bounce" solo, 1st chorus, 1 hr