Well first and foremost I want to thank everyone for being party of my ongoing internet forum. So many guys here have contributed such valuable stuff and have helped me monitor the success of my students that I really owe all you guys my deepest appreciation and gratitude.

As everyone knows I publish lots of freebie videos on YouTube and thats the basis for a lot of people getting curios about the world of serious guitar technique and study. There are over 550 videos up on YouTube that really contain more than enough information to get anyone pointed in the right direction.

But here, I have been reading all this stuff about Blogging online and starting a blog and so many videos and articles about setting up Blogger or Wordpress, and what not that I get overwhelmed with where to start. Well how about my existing forums? You bet I could use THESE as my blog right?

Yeah guys - so this forum will be where I start my blog. So this is blog Number zero (0). Why zero? Because it has no useful content about guitar or music theory or anything its just like an introduction so to speak. But here in this column is where I intend to post the blogs and blog material. So stay tuned as much as you can and I promise you it will contain useful information! -=>PB

Well everyone should know my numbering scheme has been derived from Buckminster Fuller's Synergetics combined with my mentor the late H.C. (Harv) Pennington's works and writings. Fuller's Synergetics books had a profound influence on me and I worked for Harv Pennington in the very early 1980's on and off for a few years. Harv was a true Renaissance man (i.e., Writer, Astronomer, Mathematician, Programmer, Scientist, Business owner, Gun enthusiast, combination democrat/republican/libertarian (you could get him started on a 2 hour diatribe very easily!). But mainly Harv wrote a lot of books on computer programming, data recovery and then later hisinterests strictly shifted to Astronomy. You can still find his Astronomy book for sale online here and there if anyone has an interest.

Anyway Buckminster Fuller's Synergetics numbering systems is as follows:

100.00
100.10
100.20
100.20
100.40
100.50
100.60

110.00
110.10

etc. Mostly kind of following a similar number system used in the Basic Programming language.

Harv Pennington's number system was derived from making data backups onto (then) available 5.25" floppy disks:

1A
2A
3A
4A
5A

this was done because back in those early days of computing and programming, many times the finished result was really never finished (as it is still). And so you may have needed to INSERT some ideas into the system or into the code at a later date.

So with basic Programming language (Fuller's preferred numbering system although in his day it may have been FORTRAN or ADA!)
you have :

100.00
100.10
100.20
etc

and you need to insert some code between 100.10 and 100.20 so you could use:

100.00
100.10
100.15
100.20

That left you even more space to add any fixes even later on.

Harv Pennington's system was:

1A
2A
3A
4A

so if you needed to add or insert data between 1A and 2A you could do so:

1A
1B
1C
1D
1E

2A
3A
4A

and so on.

I use Both systems for my numbering system. Harv's for my Daily Practice videos, Fuller's for my full length chapters and videos outlined in my lesson syllabus. I hope everyone starts to adopt these!

-=>PB

Lots of guys want to practice better when they find the time and it does get frustrating to figure out how to do it. You have guys like Frakh or Ursin who have no problem sitting down for 8-10hrs a day and just hammering it. Other guys like Nick Jaquet are attempting to also do superhuman hours on just trills and sarod picking. That’s actually the best way to practice if you HAVE THE TIME. What about those of us who barely have any time? First thing to realize is that you will NEVER get to the level of a Steve Vai or Yngwie Malmsteen or (insert guitar god name here) if you have no time to practice. These kins of guys are Virtuoso's and they spent 10 hrs a day for years practicing hard. Some people argue with me on YouTube saying that "Steve Vai says he doesn’t practice and Yngwie says he doesn’t practice, bla bla." Well these same morons who argue that thinly backed up notion are only trying to JUSTIFY their own extreme deficiencies in practice ability and fro that matter deficiencies in skill level if at all. Steve Vai and Yngwie DID spend 10rs a day practicing for quite a number of years before they BECAME good. Once you get to that level (10 years later) then you can pretty much rest on your skill level and just play out. However, many of these types of virtuoso players are not content with staying at their current skill level and continue top press on by practicing. Some of these guys include John McLaughlin, Allan Holdsworth, Pat Metheny, Frank Gambale, and many others. They are always pressing on to the next level.

So you have to practice a lot to get to the next level. If you have a day job and school and family and all that - it can take away quite a lot of time from your daily practicing and more importantly it takes away your ENERGY. So for guys who have a lot on their plate (Sorry I keep addressing everyone as "guys" - I am sure there may be some "girls" here too, so you girls are now officially part of all the "guys.") Anyway for guys who have a tight daily schedule - you wont be able to ever get to the Yngwie level unless you are able to commit to 5 hrs a day of your free time. If you can muster 5hrs a day then it can be done in a few years. If you only have 3 hrs then it might take 8 - 10 yrs to get there. If you don’t have more than an hour a day then you have to realize that you wont achieve virtuoso skill level for a long long while - I only know of ONE guy who did it at age 43 he practiced an hour a day and he did get very good within 10 years but he was pit bull diligent and daily regimented. He had that kind of personality. WWII style!

So how do you make the best of practice time? Get a metronome and get a kitchen food timer. You can set the timer for 10 or 15 minute increments and focus in on any particular aspect of practicing - as long as you do it again the next day and then again the next day and so on and so on every day the same thing - for a WHILE - not permanently forever. If you jump around and practice DIFFERENT things every day then you are not practicing you are noodling around randomly and you wont make hardly any progress (again this point is argued vehemently on YouTube by almost every idiot troll on there - and you guys know why - because the somehow have to make themselves feel better because deep down in their cold hearts they all know they suck and it helps them justify that feeling!)

So practice with a food timer, study with a food timer, read with a food timer, limit your internet waste of time surfing with a food timer, you get the idea. Until you develop a John McLaughlin level of discipline you need all the extra help you can get and that includes using electronic devices like timers and turning off the phone, unplug the computer from the internet, don’t answer any texts, don’t answer the door, don’t call anyone and chat, no no no no. Focus hard for that 10 or 15 minutes and do it again later in the day and the next day and the next day and the next. The only thing that is officially OK to interrupt you is if your girlfriend walks in and takes off her clothes. Then stop the timer and put the guitar down and become as human as possible!

-=>PB

Yes Damon I long for the old days of the MS-DOS or UNIX green screens!! In my case I used more of Amber monochrome monitors all the time. Back in the very early 1980's I used to work on the VAX-PDP/11-780 Mainfraimes in one of the computer labs at Harvey Mudd College (here in town - Claremont Colleges). They didnt use Unix (much to the bitter dissappointment of many, many faculty and students) but instead used VAX/VMS operating system on VT-100 terminals which had WHITE text on a BLACK SCREEN. NICE. They did add some nice WYSE terminals later with the green text on black screens - YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!! OLD SCHOOL!!!

IN fact - this is why I have the numbering systems that I use in my Lessons and Scaletone form system - because of the fact that we had to do everything on an ASCII keyboard and that was IT!

Thats why I chose this platform for my BLOG. Simple - TEXT BASED BLOG. No tons of sales crap or ads or constant irritating stuff that everyone all has in their fancy blog posts. Green text on a black screen for MY BLOG!!! Can we do that in WordPress???

Finals all done (did well in one class (A) and took a B in another class - a dissappointment for me personally) - took a few days off to detox from caffiene - this weekend went up to the Mountains and tried to get started on a book when I was up there staying in a cabin. Ahh well... Back to the videos now. Look for them later this week!......

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