"There's not the compositional investigation now. You don't have people who are really composing their asses off. They want to be innovators on their instrument, using the past as a library to that end. Playing music with the knowledge of music history. Then it comes out like an exact remake of the past. All cream and no coffee. To compose, you're going to have to bleed a little." WAYNE SHORTER
 
Recently, I was in a discussion about some of the more abstract and atonal language I use when I improvise, specifically, where I learned it. At the time, I started listing a few known sources, like Triadic Chromatic Approach and Dave Liebman’s thoughts, but I also listed were many of my own theories and investigations. I didn’t think much of it at the time, but someone posted the above Wayne Shorter quote which triggered me.
 
The fact of the matter is that the improvisational language, that they heard, was in fact developed by me. It certainly is inspired by things I studied or heard, but honestly, most of it was me grabbing a piece of paper and hashing out ideas. Or simply investigating possibilities on my instrument or in my head. When something tickles my ears, I try to remember it and explore it some more.
 
I think too many musicians are looking for simple answers. They take everything from other players, they have Coltrane licks, Hendrix licks, Brecker licks etc… string them together in some fashion, often amazingly, to create their music.  I’ve always been turned off by this approach.
 
I’m not sure what it is about me, but I just don’t like being the same as other people. When I went to NAMM and heard the million people playing guitar, all I could think was…”ugh, I need to remove that from my playing….oh…that guy does that, time to ditch it”. It just seems to me that there is no point in me copying someone else’s playing.
 
This is not a knock on transcription, which I think believe is a vital study tool to learn how to speak music. It teaches you how to phrase and how the arc of a good conversation goes. However, despite the value in learning the lines, I think it is repugnant when musicians play what they learned as licks.  And I know that many of the greatest musicians that ever lived do this. I just don’t get why anyone would want to. Except that it gives them some kind of weird badge of honor for figuring it out (I know the other reason is because they like/love the sound of it).
 
In fact, everything I don’t like about my playing specifically comes from the rubbish I can’t seem to wash out from the influence of others on my playing. It is natural, as you progress as a musician, to be able to hear something and play it back, fairly effortlessly, kind of like playing the “are you copying me?” game my kids so enjoy. Can you really have an honest conversation if you’re just copying everything someone says, including saying the same thing back to them slightly different? It’s annoying is what it is. It’s annoying is what it is.
 
Are you copying me? Are you copying me?
 
How about this, how about you just investigate for yourself?
 
I hate those kind of questions you see online all the time, “what can I play on a Dminmaj7b9 chord?” They drive me crazy. You know why? Because they should just figure it out on their own. Why not just try coming up with your own ideas? Why not explore the sound? Create your own scales, or methods, or whatever to play over it? Why would you even want to use the same scale everyone else is using? That is a perfect way to go unnoticed and unoriginal.
 
I know this article might get a lot of criticism, but I don’t care, I think the copy mentality we live in and the easy answer mentality suck. It’s wholly disappointing.
 
I think it’s a shame when musicians stick to a “method” that someone else created. I get it when you’re starting out or learning something new, but after some time, it’s time to move on for your artistry. If you’ve been playing 20 years and are staunch student of somebody else’s methodology, you are not an inventive musician. (The exceptions are when people had to create a new language within the method, but if you are playing back verbatim someone else’s musical language based on rules, etc…)
 
You might think that this means I’m anti-classical musicians, but I’m not at all. There can be a lot of creativity in the way the pieces are played. Yes, my sentiment would hold true if you were just following the rules, but the great classical musicians develop their own rules, techniques, and ideas on how to execute the songs in the most expressive way they know how.
 
The inventive process goes way beyond what notes you play, it’s also in how you play them. Where you hold your pick, what techniques you employ, what tones you use, how you phrase, how you bring out notes or squash them, how you perform the music are all part of your artistry.  
 
Here is reality: There are no real rules in music. I mean, who the hell thinks there are rules? Who is this “master” that defines music? (Sho Nuff?)
 
Music is a man-made construct and you and everyone else has the same rights to create music in any fashion you see fit. If you want to use completely different pitches (what we describe as micro-tonality), then so be it. If you want to only use two notes to compose all your music, there is nothing stopping you. I know the rules help us communicate with other musicians, and this can be important, but knowing the rules that have been defined by the group makes no one a greater musician than someone who doesn’t know or follow these standards.
 
Say you want to stay within certain boundaries, like the 12 tone western music system, which is what I choose to do, there are still boundless approaches that can be taken to be creative. Experiment with ideas and concepts. Like, what are all the possible 8 note scales that aren’t the same? Or how could you make a scale that takes 3 octaves to turn around? Or what happens if you create a song built on all 7ths for harmony? Etc…. You might find something very interesting.
 
No, you don’t have to play a major scale, or Lydian, or minor pentatonic from the major 7th or whatever on a major chord, you can play whatever you want on a major chord. You can create your own rules. You can never play a major chord or any tertian harmony, for that matter, for the rest of your life. People may tell you that you have to follow the rules, but you don’t. You can create your own musical paradigms, rules and ideas. And guess what…. YOU SHOULD!
 
As a bonus, this goes way beyond music. Why are you simply following all the rules and expectations society set for you? We all woke up clueless on this floating rock the same as everyone else. You don’t have to work at a job you don’t like, you don’t have to live in a cold city. You don’t have to go to college. You don’t have to be a house wife. You don’t have follow the script of everyday life. Why aren’t you creating for yourself? Why are you expecting others to give you all the answers? How about creating your own path? Your own methods?
 
Let others ask you how you did it and instead of giving them the answers, tell them you created your own path and encourage them to do the same.  (They’ll probably flip you off).

Reading through “Talent is Overrated” comes to the conclusion that “deliberate” practice is what sets the greats from the not so greats, meaning just because you practice doesn’t mean you’ll get better, it has to be for a purpose. Then in the book it goes on to show you how to create deliberate practice, frankly, I didn’t need to read through the descriptions very thoroughly because I knew exactly what he was talking about. It’s the practice we all dread.


Earlier in the book he mentions real practice being dreaded more than just about anything else, it’s the kind of self-reflection that is not fun. The sad fact is he’s right. The only way to get better at something is to suffer a bit. I’ve found the exact same thing to be true in everything I do. I can’t think of any achievements I’ve made in music, engineering, or life that there wasn’t a bit of suffering in the process.


It’s funny, I look at my playing and abilities sometimes and I say, “I know exactly what I need to do”, and I really believe I do, but it’s not the fun kind of practice. It’s the hard, long torturous kind. And I’m not talking about running scales for hours, or playing till my fingers bleed, I’m talking about learning something new, working on something new.


You see, I believe, we get to this point after doing something awhile, where we say “I’m pretty good now, others think I’m pretty good” so we get this ego about ourselves. When you learn something new though, you have to go back to being a mentally incompetent. You have to be willing to admit to yourself you’re not the tough shit you thought you were. The funny thing is it never gets any easier. The great ones out there if they have any talent at all, it’s a talent for torturing themselves. You just don’t get good unless you check your ego (which hurts) and are willing to suck for a while at something.


For instance, I have a long line of transcriptions I’d like to do, I know they’d be helpful, not to just learn what they’re doing, but to actually be able to play them back. I’ve also had to be particularly specific with my metronome play lately, as I’m not happy at all with my time. And worst of all, with the metronome, I have to go slow, very slow, so slow I wonder if I can play the damn thing. It’s frustrating and it’s mind-boggling, I mean, hell I’ve been playing for almost 20 years, surely I don’t have to work on time. But you have to. The best all do, and that’s because they never forgot the suffering, the endless plea to better themselves.


Another thing I’d like to work on is my timing in particular when I’m playing legato style, and tapping. I’ve got some great stuff happening in both, but it always sounds lame (to me at least {ego speaking}) because the time is especially uneven and floating. I know I have to work on it, but a lot of times I start and make it about 5 minutes before I hate myself because it’s not going as easy as I like. I know I need to slow it down and progress is slow, but I can’t do it most of the time, it hurts too much. Invariably I’ll then somehow trickle into the “I’m amazing” phase where I’ll do all this crazy jamming showing off my stuff, to myself only, and 20 minutes later realize I just wasted my time learning nothing and only feeding my ego. Another attempt failed.


I used to do these 8 hour marathon sessions when I was in my early 20’s I had no responsibilities, little friends, and just worked. I’d get home from work, and just play till I fell asleep, when I woke I’d play till I had to go to work. I was very organized about my plan, though at a certain point that type of training has very diminished returns. The practice wasn’t focused, it was just large and bulky. Much of the time I was just working on stuff I could already do.


This leads me to believe you really can’t effectively practice for very long. The limit might be somewhere between 30 minutes to maybe 2 hours a day, but it would have to be broken up. You can’t just put 2 hours of effective practice in a row. You might play through scales as a “warmup” or have a warmup piece or tune you do, but I think you might just be wasting your time. A lot of times I think, I’ll play the blues, and then move onto something else, but now with an infant at home, I might only get 15 minute sessions here and there, and by the time I’ve warmed up I’ve already run out of time and learned nothing new. The more effective thing would be to find something I don’t know, or am not good at, or want to be better at (not the blues), and work on that from the first second on. Try out a new concept, or work on giant steps, or whatever else might need time.


It’s really simple actually, to have effective practice, work on the things you’re not good at, or don’t know.  I mean, I can say all day, “I wish I could play like Holdsworth” the fact of the matter is I’ve never learned any Holdsworth, I’ve never transcribed his solos, I have his instructional video, but I’ve never went through any of it, for more than a few minutes. I could play all that stuff if I actually worked on it, I could learn (might take a while) I could practice it, probably starting really slow, and at some point, probably not even that long, I guarantee I could play it. Would learning one solo or tune make me him, no, maybe learning 10 solos would be a good start. Quite the investment, but it’s ridiculous of me to complain about progress if I’m not even willing to try.
How good would you be at calculus if you practiced algebra all day? How good of a painter would you be if you only drew with pencil? How good at jazz would you be if you practiced Liszt all day? You can’t get good at something unless you work on it, and that means torture…err…effectively practicing.


Till next time….

I’ve hardly had the ideal situation as a musician where I can practice endless hours upon endless hours and just spend my life doing music. I’ve been married about 6 years and have a baby. In the meantime noticing my music brethren struggling, I decided to get a degree where I could actually get a job, so I worked on an engineering degree. As you might have heard, engineering is freaking hard, especially when you’re a right brain thinker (completely) and not particularly square. However, my appeal comes with logic, I might be in la la land most days, but logic is my foundation for how I think, this makes engineering a peculiarly good match. Saying all of this, it’s been a struggle to progress musically, but progress I have, and progress faster than many of my musical counterparts who practice a lot more, and have a lot more time to do such things. Some days I’m lucky to get 15 minutes in (read: at least half the days), and this is frustrating. Frankly I could spend 12 hours no problem everyday and not get bored, though my progress might not be much better than it is.

I’ve found that because of my limited schedule, I’m much more particular about how and what I play. This is the first step. Too many of the musicians I know just play mindlessly all the time. These are the guys that sound exactly the same now as they did 1, 5, 10, even 20 years ago.  The same licks, the same bad sense of time, the same cheesy vibrato. Yet, if you ask them, they play probably 2 to 3 hours a day. How can this be? How can they “practice” so much, yet never make progress? I think it comes to understanding and drive. Something I’ve noticed from not having the guitar in my hand as much, I have time to think about what I’m trying to do. When there’s a new concept I can actually digest it.

I think one of the biggest problems with guitars, in particular, is we teach the hands before we teach the head. Many times, we never teach the brain anything. I would be very interested in rewriting the guitar pedagogy completely at some point, because we have non-thinking droves of players doing exactly the same thing. Advancement for them is tedious. People ask me now what they should practice when they just start out, and my answer today is much different from even a year ago. I tell them, “learn to play with your ears, and what you hear in your head”, “explore”, “check out sounds”, “Figure out tunes on your own”. I think as a teacher my approach should be more steering instead of pushing the gas. I can show a thing, but it’s up to the student to spend the time to hone it in. That doesn’t mean dropping the ball on them, or not answering questions, but it should be more asking on their side, and less telling on my side.

For years I’ve taught the “right” way to hold the pick, and 8 months ago I completely flipped how I did it. Even after deciding to switch, I didn’t want to disrupt the “standard” by having my students also change, even though they should. Still, picking really isn’t important in a way, if you spend time listening you’ll figure out what sounds good. Too many times we get stuck in these systems and scales that were only designed as a palette, there is no hard fast rule on these. Music is about listening, not playing what’s on the page, or making sure it’s in C# major tonality. Major is just a name, C# is just a name. God didn’t come down and name all these things. We’ve mistakenly gone down a path of calling things “tonal” or “atonal” when it should just be music.

I’ve been going through my own musical “schooling” detox for the last year, trying to teach my mind to forget all of that nonsense. This is not a popular stance. Many people like their systematic ways to do things, they like the structure, of course they can’t steer away, it’s against the laws of nature. This doesn’t mean you should play atonal, or tonal, or whatever those all mean, I’m saying to just play, and figure out what sounds good.
I’ve kind of ran amuck of my initial purpose of this post, but I think it all comes back to practicing in my head over practicing on my instrument. When I’ve had the guitar in my hand for too long, I begin to stray more and more towards what the guitar wants, and not what I want. All these built-in patterns, and ideas that were ingrained from too many redundant “technique” sessions. I hate when I play like that. I hate when I’m thinking about the mechanical aspect of the guitar and not the music, it is never better that way. Like Chris Crocco told me, it’s basically this, “You want to play an A, so you play an A”. That’s all there is to it, and yet we make it so much more complicated.

So back to evolving without the instrument. I think a couple of things are important in this respect.

1.) There is a limit to how much  you can learn if you don’t at least learn the basics of music nomenclature. I know I just went through how the system is just a “word”, but it’s not the naming of things that’s a problem, it’s the shackles involved by many when using them. Without at least an understanding of what’s going on, it’s hard to make any progress. I’ve met a lot of people who don’t read a lick of music, etc… but are pretty decent, they adamantly say they don’t want to learn, because it will restrict them. What they don’t realize is every song they play is in the same key, or mode, all the time. They think they’re progressing, but they end up just sounding the same. Often they sound like a better version of themselves, but their color palette is very limited.


2.) You are severely limited if you only know how to read music. This goes both ways, and there a lot of these folks too. They always trust what’s on the page, but couldn’t play, or quickly figure out even “brown eyed girl” or something, without it written down. I suppose this is why I’ve gravitated to jazz over classical as the years have gone on. Classical, in general is about properly representing the composers intent on what was written. Generally rock bands, never want to be held down by the man and learn any music, it’s a rebellion after all. Jazz on the other hand needs you to know both. I think some the paradigms in jazz are a little excessive, but ultimately they have the most well-rounded education of any genre (western world anyways). I do play jazz gigs, but I try to think of jazz as an idea, not a style. Jazz to me is not swinging 8th notes, or laying heavy on the ride cymbal, it’s a thought of mind, using improvisation and composition in some continual harmony. Most see it differently.

Once you’ve allowed yourself to accept both schools of thought, I think a lot is possible. The best thing I’ve done in this regard is write a lot of stuff down. It can be words, it can be thoughts, it can be music, charts, chord charts, fretboard diagrams, technical riddles, theory exercises. Whatever mean allows you to solve something. For instance; I’ve been working on coupling non permutated triads by half step (see George Garzone (www.georgegarzone.com) /Chris Crocco (www.chriscrocco.com)), it wasn’t till I wrote a bunch of stuff down that I discovered that every major triad, and minor triad, can go to any minor, diminished, major, or augmented triad. Meaning if you want to go from Cmajor to F#major by half step, not a problem. Or what about Ab major? By writing things down I got a concept to try out and discover. To me, something like this is very powerful and useful. This means from anywhere I can go anywhere. The implications are huge!

If I would have just practiced on guitar doing these triads, I would have never discovered this…just wouldn’t have happened. I do a lot of data mining at work, and it’s the same kind of thing, once you have the data there is a lot of ways to look at it. How you put it together can give some interesting results. These are the kind of advantages of mental practice. Of course, if you know nothing about music right now, this means nothing to you. If you only read music, you won’t have freedom to try these things out.
There is a lot to contemplate on this topic, I feel like I could go on, but I must end for now.
Till next time!

I have a lot of thoughts going on in my head about this topic. I’ve got some various responses in different areas, so I thought I’d continue. I started reading “The Talent Code” and of the 3 books I’ve read recently about this topic (also: Outliers and Talent is Overrated) this is the most fascinating to me (I’d still recommend reading Outliers first). The reason this book is so interesting to me is the approach to the study. Outliers is more of an anecdotal approach, and Talent is Overrated is more plain. Talent Code seems to go into the whole thing with a little more detail and scientific backing. Though it goes into this “magical” new biological discovery with Myelin equating to skill, I don’t think that’s really where it’s fascinating.

What he does go into is “talent hotbeds”. These are the areas of the world that seem to have talent dumped into the water stream. Brazil in soccer, Korea in golf, Russia in tennis, Florence back in the day for art, etc… etc… When you look deep into these countries, besides some potentially obvious benefits, possibly weather, there is something more to their dominance. The fact of the matter, weather is hardly a concern in places like the US, where it’s possible to have just about every climatic advantage possible.  When you look deeper you find out there are almost always specific reasons they are getting better, and a lot has to do with how they practice. Notice I didn’t say how long they practice, but how they practice. Yes, people in Brazil are playing a lot of soccer, but so are other parts of the world. We want to ascribe it to genetics, or all these other magical things, but none of that proves to be true. It comes down to other things that come to play. For instance, up until the 50’s Brazil was just average at soccer. Where was there advantage then? Surely, genetics haven’t changed that much, maybe Chuck Norris procreated there or something? But I doubt that’s it.

When he looks deeper (well actually someone else did, he just writes about it) it’s found that they actually have a small court, smaller teams, heavier smaller ball game that has taken the country by storm over the last 50 to 60 years. This game requires faster reaction, more passing, and tighter spaces than soccer does. And it’s extremely popular. In fact half of those fancy soccer moves you see were invented in Brazil, in this particular game. It’s been said that a lot of Brazil guys think soccer is really slow and they have to run acres to even touch the ball. This is why when they’re surrounded by people it’s no big deal, in the other game they’re always surrounded by people. The funny thing too, is most of the elite players didn’t even start actual soccer to well into their teens. The other game is called “futsol”, and it’s cheap and easy to play everywhere, unlike soccer where you need a large field (not abundant in Brazil).
Why does this matter? Well because the practice is much more focused and much more precise. In futsol players see the ball a lot more often. With the heavier smaller ball you have to be more precise on how you kick it, it takes more control. When players first start they really have to hone their skills by slowing it down and making mistakes, till they figure it out. Through all of their studies, it is found that making mistakes is how you learn, autopilot is bad.

This gets me thinking about practicing music, how often do we go into auto pilot? It happens a lot, and we idolize it often. We think “if I’m not thinking than its better”; this is particularly true in jazz, though in a performance, it’s a little more okay. But in practice, what could you possibly gain from autopilot mode? It can be satisfying, or fun, but certainly not productive as a learning tool.


The fact that this was pointed out in this book is anything but discouraging for me. It gives me hope, and more direction. Sometimes I wonder how it is I learn, but never really pieced it out to being about failing to succeed. Maybe that’s not the best way to put it, but it hardly hurts saying it. It allows me to feel okay with the fact that I will struggle, but it’s when I struggle that I actually gain. Have you ever noticed when you stop and work something out slowly, that you can usually do it after a little time with it? Have you ever just tried to play through something, even though you’ve never worked it out, only to find out months later you still don’t have it? Of course you have, that’s what happens. You have to tackle that issue head on, and you’re going to probably struggle at first.

I’m very excited about this thought, sometimes (like I mentioned in a previous post) my ego really is reluctant to feel low, but I know it has to happen, the struggle. It was coming clear to me before, but now I think it’s crystal clear. I actually started practicing yesterday differently, instead of just trying to “play” anytime I lost focus, or when I tried to play through something not thought out, I stopped and tried that thought again until I figured it out. Sometimes I play and say, “Oops I messed that up, well next time it comes around I’ll get it”, but I never do, it never gets fixed till I take time with it. As far as a practice tool now, going back immediately is the best option. Fix it, work it, and then move on.

Yesterday I was playing, and I did this descending two note per string pentatonic thing that went all the way across the neck, when I did it, and I’ve noticed this before, I always slopped up on the A string, didn’t know why. All the other strings sounded pretty clear, but the A string was pretty much non-existent, just noise. When I stopped and took it slowly, I noticed I pretty much would just jump it with my pick, it would kind of scrape, but at that speed you just couldn’t notice it. So I slowed it down, kept myself relaxed, a failed a bunch of times, slowed it down some more and got the right feel. Started speeding it up, and failed, slowed it down, got my foundation, and sped it up again. I did this over and over for about 5 minutes, and finally got back to the original speed, all the notes were there.

Magic, right?

Till next time….

The upside to a downsize

I thought it would be a good time to write about something that has been significant in my life over the last year and a half, and maybe it can be helpful to someone else. This thing is me losing 65lbs over the last 18 months. Here’s my story, my strategy, my thoughts, and gained wisdom for how I lost weight, and what it meant.

When I was an 18 year old boy going to college I was a swimmer. I trained 5 to 7 hours a day and I ate like a fool. I probably ingested 6 to 8000 calories a day on average, while maintaining 6% body fat. I was a machine, and I had the abs to prove it. At this point I actually weighed about 180-185, which for my height was supposed barely in the normal range (heavy), but trust me bones were sticking out everywhere. I couldn’t have gotten much skinnier, my abs were sticking out even when I didn’t flex, I mean working out 7 hours a day can be a lot. What does 7 hours a day look like? 2 hour practice in the morning, 1 hour lifting session in the afternoon, 3 hour practice in the afternoon, and I’d run at least 5 miles every night. This on top of school work, practicing music, and girls. But then, it didn’t matter I had no real responsibility; I could do whatever I wanted.

That’s also how I ate, I just ate whatever I wanted, I couldn’t gain weight, and I just chowed down. I had the ability to eat a lot, I wonder sometimes if I could have been a competitive eater, because I could just stuff it down. Large pizza and breadsticks, alone, the cafeteria at my college was all you could eat. I routinely had 4 or 5 full plates of food. I never missed a meal, and added many through the day. Run’s to the border were common after a run at night. I ate a lot, and I was really good at doing it.
Something I’ve learned is you don’t forget how to eat like that, not really anyways. This is was found to be my biggest problem. Still, when working out so much, it didn’t matter, in fact, it might have been necessary.

But one day, I decided to move to NYC and play music, I was training no more. I wasn’t working out 5 hours a day. I was just trying to find work. Because of my limited budget and the expense of a place like NYC, I didn’t eat at the same intensity, but I still had this desire to try and gain weight. I always thought I was too skinny, and no matter what I didn’t I couldn’t put on weight (never noticing that I’d been an athlete my entire life). I worked out here and there in NY, but I never really got in that much time, there was a time I realized my belly was adding fat, but I still thought I could see my abs a bit, so I didn’t worry. Another thing is, in the 90’s you wore baggy pants, so I didn’t notice the need to buy new clothes for awhile. Still, I went from 185 to about 205 once I left NY. That was around 2003. As time went on, I got married, and we had some regrettable things happen to us, and in my despair I ate more. I never gained huge amounts, but maybe 10lbs a year for 5 years or so. I got to the point where about 18 months ago I weighed 255lbs.

The amusing thing is I didn’t really think I was that heavy. I used excuses, like its muscle weight, etc… I went through a phase of power lifting, where I probably did gain a few lbs of muscle lifting. I lifted heavy, and I did it about 6 months consistently.  However, it wasn’t till one day that I realized I needed to change. Before I get there, I had attempted a few times before to lose weight with marginal success. I thought, I could start working out again, eat whatever I wanted, and be fine, I usually would lose about 5lbs over 3 or 4 months, if I was lucky.

So here I was 255 and I had a new gig. I needed a white shirt for the engagement because our cat had destroyed the last one, and a couple others were like mini me versions. Still I didn’t see the problem till I went to the store. I was always an XL kind of guy, thought it was in my shoulders, and frankly never cared much. We went to the store, and the XL didn’t fit, wouldn’t button, then the XXL was tight, really tight. I refused to buy an XXXL, I wouldn’t do it. Then I needed a belt, and it was the 43 inch belt (smallest tight tight tight loop) that I needed, I wouldn’t do it. I was a little overweight, but certainly not fat….but at the store; I knew I had a problem. It wasn’t acceptable to me anymore. I thought, really??? Really?? You let yourself get to this? I wouldn’t do it. I bought the XXL shirt, but not the belt. And I remember thinking how frumpy I looked at the gig. I was miserable.

I decided to change. Really change. I didn’t have that before, I had tried to workout and lose, etc…but it never worked, it was like something snapped and I needed to make some changes.

Being the previous athlete I was I had gotten used to protein shakes and protein bars, so I started stocking up. While in swimming season I always dropped soda (at which this point I probably had 4 or 5 a day), so I decided to drop soda. I started protein shakes as direct replacement for breakfast. Every morning I traded cereal and donuts for a shake and some omega 3 capsules (my blood pressure was high).  I just used water in the shakes, no milk, just to keep the calories low, plus water is basically free.
Dropping soda was difficult…it’s like crack. I wanted one so bad all the time. I’d gotten into the habit of having one at different times during the day. Still, I knew I had to eliminate it. My first rule is to drop soda completely. It’s just a drink; it’s completely full of simple sugar calories that do nothing for you. I’ve also heard that drinking diet soda is not good. Your body still stores fat, because it’s such a weird substance it messes with your insulin. Luckily I find diet soda repulsive.

I also started doing workouts with a kettlebell. I did swings, and various other stuff. It gets your heart going for sure. I tried running, but it hurt, my legs couldn’t take the weight (doh!).  Still, I don’t believe this did much for my waist line, in fact with all the working out I’ve done, I’d only account maybe, maybe 10lbs to working out, more on that later.


The protein shakes worked really well for me. You see, I’m hypoglycemic, which means my sugar levels can drop, this especially happens when I have a lot of simple sugars. Even cereals, and especially donuts, leave me feeling awful about 2 hours later, green skin puking awful. The protein shakes and fatty acids really get me through the morning with no incident, keeping my blood sugar levels in check.  I’d advise replacing one main meal with a protein shake. You can add fruit, or milk or whatever, it will still be better than what you were probably going to eat, and protein is generally really reluctant to turn to fat. The fatty acid is actually really good (fish oil) for burning fat. When your body sees fat coming in, it will use it. Your body gets better at burning fat that way, and that’s a good thing. It also helps keep you feeling full.

So what happened after the first wave of changes…? I lost 20lbs in probably a month and a half. Just from soda and the shakes alone. But it slowed down and I thought there must be more things I can do, I was still eating too much. Next rule: no seconds. I mean no refilling your plate. Whatever I fit on the plate was it. No extra slices of pizza, no second helping of pasta, just one go. This was difficult for me, but the idea was easy to follow. I didn’t make it too complicated, the first thing I needed to do was stop eating so much. I didn’t worry about how many calories there were, just eat less substance. This also got me into the habit of leaving stuff on my plate. Not taking that last bite of pasta, or whatever. At this point I was not communicating well with my wife what I was doing, so we weren’t really on the same page. Also, she was pregnant, so food was always around. Or I tried to make it that way, for her and my beautiful little one.

The next rule of thumb I took was lower carbs big time. So I’d already eliminated them from breakfast, but man am I fond of carbs.  Chips, pasta, breads, rice, etc… etc… “Yes sir!” I’ve never been a huge “sweets’ guy, but a bag of Doritos is like heaven. I didn’t completely remove these things, but took much smaller portions. I had to be diligent about this one, I’d take small scoops of rice, a handful of chips, and that had to be it. Very difficult for me.

Another rule of thumb, I started drinking a lot more water. Water is amazing, it will help you feel fuller, and it’s basically free, not to mention no calories. So have at it, drink as much as you can. You should be peeing like a machine. Another benefit is it helps eliminate water weight, and will help rid you of fat. Fat is oily and you need a lot of water to move it out. I guarantee you’ll lose weight if you do nothing but increase your water intake. Most will be water weight though, but that can be 5 to 10lbs easy.
I began running at this time, and after another 3 or 4 months I was down in the 2 hundred teens. I remember going to Europe for 2 weeks, and eating bad there, but with all the walking, and meals all over the place (leading to less calories) I actually came back about 210 from 217 or so. At this point I really started running, and the weight was coming off, by 8 months later from my start date, I was down to about 199 for the first time in years, but school started up again, and a baby was coming so I got slack. My shakes in the morning stopped, I occasionally would drink soda, or a lot of beer (the good stuff, not beer flavored water i.e. Light beer). Chips became more common in the house, and I stopped exercising. Over the course of about 10-11 months I was back up to 210. It took me a little while to get up there, but I ate like crap again. Do that a couple more years, and I’m back to where I started.

Actually during that last year I had started P90x, and got serious for 45 days. I hovered around 205 during that time. I did lose some fat, but didn’t really lose much weight, which is fine. It kind of got to the point where it just took too much time.
So I went on a family vacation this past July (mid month) and I realized that though I was down 45lbs or so from a year previous or so, I wasn’t happy with where I was, it was a shame to me that I’d gained that back. So I came home and weighed 208 or so. I decided to start up again. I implemented all my rules: No soda, limited junk food, protein shake in the morning, added water, no seconds, limited carbs, and another of having almonds when I was starving (great tip!!!)

Today I’m down to about 192. This is 8 weeks after vacation. I’ve lost about 16lbs so far. My goal is 180, and see where I stand. I’ve continued to have pretty good weeks. I’ve had some bad days, but I just do the best I can. We actually had beer and pizza last night, but it was a bad day, the kind that makes you sad for years, so it was acceptable. I was training for a triathlon since we got back, but the last couple weeks I chose guitar over working out, but my diet has continued, and I’ve continued to lose weight. Working out won’t lose your weight, eating differently will. Trust me, I work out hard. Much harder than pretty much anyone I’ve ever met. I know how to push my body, I’ll run 7 miles, or lift, or swim, or whatever, no pain no gain kind of attitude. And with all that maybe 10lbs have come off, maybe. Most people will do a quarter amount of the work and half the effort, and expect more?

Running an hour (which most can’t do) burns about 600 calories, which sounds like a lot, but it takes 3500 calories to burn a lb of fat. So even if you ran an hour a day, you’d at most lose a lb. I’m betting most can’t even do that. Also, that doesn’t give you freedom to eat whatever. Have a little ice cream and a soda then wave goodbye to those 600 calories in 5 minutes flat. No comparison. It’s so much easier just to eat less, and eat more wisely then to work it off. Lower carbs; don’t eat simple sugars, and no seconds.  Start there, and see how you do, I bet you’ll see results.

Other thoughts:

-At some point I think it worth counting calories, get an idea of how much stuff is worth. I don’t really count anymore, but at one point I looked a lot of stuff up, especially restaurants, some dishes can be 300 calories different and the same amount of food.

-Not having junk food in your house is a blessing, but have something to munch on, nuts or something or there probably be junk food in the house.

-Peanut butter is your friend. A spoonful can help you get through some major hunger pains.  Don’t get fat free, they just add sugar. The fat in peanut butter is Omega 6, it’s actually pretty good for you, and won’t turn into fat around the body.

-Here’s a big one, don’t go out to eat so much. You’ll not only more weight, you’ll save a ton of cash. I’m betting at least 500 bucks a month, if you go out a lot. We have.

-I know this works, I’m completely confident I’ll get down to 180 if I stick to it. It kind of sucks in a way, but its super easy really. Just don’t eat junk and eat as much. It’s not magic, it’s not a pill, or a membership; it’s making sensible decisions.

-It’s just food. Just food! It’s fuel. Your dog eats the same thing every day and he’s happy. Yes, it’s delicious, yes it can be amazing, but life is way more amazing, seeing the world, hanging with people, going to concerts, sex, art, babies, etc… are so much more amazing. Just eat what you need, and move on and enjoy your life. Of course, you should occasionally have an amazing dessert, or great beer, or whatever you fancy, but not every day. Save it for special occasions.

Till next time.. (probably a couple lbs lighter).

Thoughts on “jazz sucking”

Recently it has come to my attention that Kurt Rosenwinkel, among others (like Jason Marsalis), have pointed out that the current jazz scene “sucks” and real music needs to start being made again, maybe it is my argumentative nature, but I’m inclined to disagree.

Kurt says on facebook:

“yo- most jazz now sucks. at least not the good s—. please can we all just make sure that the music doesnt suck? and get real if it does. take care of it. please! FWiW MF’s thx k”

Before I start to disagree let me first say, there is some really crappy jazz out there, and further some really crappy music, at least to my tastes. Some of it can be accounted for taste, some just plain sucky-ness, but it’s out there. I would never claim there not to be “sucky” jazz, but to make large generalizations is foolish. I think it comes down to the same principal as why people think life was so much better in their earlier years, or in times before they were born. “Remember family values”, “Remember when children could play out in the streets”, “remember when…”. We always look at life in this backwards focus, and just think it was so nice. Sometimes it’s because we were kids during that time, and life was so carefree, giving the impression of a better time. Most 10 year olds didn’t pay taxes, or struggle to make ends meet, and they didn’t notice if their parents were either. They were kids. The other one is if you didn’t live during that time, but didn’t it seem cool? Like the 50’s/60’s in jazz, or Woodstock or something.

It’s not that some jazz doesn’t suck now, but people act like there was time when it was all good. When everyone who played was amazing, and no one was doing anything lame. I realize jazz isn’t as popular as other music, but it still has quite the following today, yet when it was supposedly doing so much better, there are only a handful of artists we even talk about.  So am I to assume that only  100 people actually played jazz during those times?  I’m betting there were thousands, upon thousands more. Hell, look at your local universities with jazz programs (the faculty), how many of those guys are famous? And they’re still not the norm, because well, there the best among the best in that area. Still, there are thousands of other players out there, and there have always been that many.

Going back a little to what I said on “talent” in previous blogs, I think there is this major misconception that some people don’t “suck” when they start playing, but frankly they do suck. Everyone does. It takes a lot of work to get good at something, even marginally good, and jazz is not something you get good at over night.

The actual suck side of things (one aspect of Rosenwinkel’s comment) where guys don’t have the chops or musical integrity yet, should be expected. We’ve all been on the bandstand, and we’ve all been owned. It seems like a cheap shot to go after those folks. Also, included are the people starting out who don’t work on basics, but try to play Giant Steps before playing the blues. In some ways, that can be annoying, but I imagine if someone really didn’t like the blues, but loved GS, would probably eventually sound really great on GS, even if they can’t play the blues. I can think of a couple “jazz” guys who aren’t particularly bluesly, but can play their asses off on some pretty great/complex stuff that “bluesy” guys wouldn’t have a chance at.

Saying all this, the other aspect of the comment comes from a “taste” preference. Maybe these cats don’t like what style guys are playing now, and that it sucks to them. But how does that mean “jazz” sucks?  Kurt isn’t exactly a traditionalist, and I’d hardly say a perfectionist looking at the quality of electronic programming done on “heartcore” (not a high level by any standard), so why doesn’t he suck? (Sidenote: I adore Rosenwinkel’s music, I think he’s a step above the rest when it comes to writing for jazz, and his playing seems to get better every day, he’s an amazing musician).

Do I like the “smooth jazz” scene? Not at all, I just can’t dig any of it, but a lot of people do like it. I think it kind of sucks, but not because it’s poorly played, just because it’s generic and cheesy.  Still, I don’t really consider it jazz in my head, even if it’s labeled that way. I don’t imagine Rosenwinkel and Marsalis consider it jazz either, but I could be wrong? So in that case I think they’re more likely talking about the newer scene of guys (of which Rosenwinkel is a big proponent), but they’d be calling themselves out. Maybe it’s the guys like Crocco, Bryan Baker, Nir Felder whom they don’t like? Guys playing less tonally? But that kind of stuff has been going on for a long time, and these cats can play like crazy.  So then I guess they’re going after the students of these people?  The one’s who like these artists, people like me?

I’ve considered Red Side Visible a form of jazz since its creation. Even the guys in the band don’t agree on that association. Still, to me, it’s jazz inspired. It’s not rooted in the blues, it’s not rooted in swing, but it’s full of “jazz” musicians, and the improvisation was meant to be challenging in a jazz sort of way.  I think I confuse jazz with improvisation some times, but to me jazz is a spirit, where improvisation is a thing. We get interesting reactions from people, jazz people think we’re too metal, metal people think we’re too jazz, others think we’re too noisy, but most just like what we’re doing, because it’s creative.

I don’t really care what you call it, and I imagine these “jazz” artists who are “sucking” don’t care either. It’s about making music, not about making jazz. I think anytime you try to make something (unless you were hired to do it) like a style, you’re missing the point. I try to just let the music be whatever it is, sometimes it requires crazy atonal shred, other times simple, clean, repetitive prettiness.  Sometimes it’s funky, sometimes it’s swingy, but I try to always make it music.

So I guess my points are: Everyone sucks when they start (so not worth calling out), there was never a time when there wasn’t suckiness in jazz, fringe jazz people will always run into resistance, and sometimes people are labeled the thing that closest represents them (which may not jive with someone else’s definition). Ultimately, I think it’s sad what Rosenwinkel said, I don’t think it’s productive to music, I don’t think it’s productive to jazz, and I don’t think it’s useful for society. How about encourage people to check some things out, or get them interested in what you think IS good.  When you check what people have said about this mostly hateful things are spewed out, which is completely counterproductive for the world.

Till next time…

Now that we’re firmly in 2015, some apparent trends are at play. One of the greatest is the death of record labels. Though, there are stories of great relationships, it is apparent they were detrimental on society and to music as a whole. Sure they brought you many of your favorite recordings of all time, but most at the expense of the artists themselves. However, the good news is they continue to become more and more irrelevant every day. Sadly, they’re tyranny left baggage.

In a discussion today with some co-workers, it was obvious that music has lost a lot of it’s value with the regular person. The ease of access to free, or nearly free, music has essentially brought the value of a recording to nothing. When probed about this lack of value towards music and how the artists themselves are getting screwed by it; the response, that spoke of great volumes, declared how the record companies were screwing them anyways. So, why would they pay for it if they know they’re not getting any of the money?

I think this line of thought is fairly prevalent for today’s everyday person. Society looks at recorded music and says, artists don’t/can’t make any money off of it anyway, because the record label will screw them for it; Why buy it?

Think about this line of reasoning for a second, despite the fact that record labels are falling apart daily, their tyranny of darkness has damaged the very psyche of society so deeply, it has effected musicians ability to sell music. Recorded music has no value, because people perceive that the musicians never really made money from it to begin with. It has given people (in America at least) the right to just take what they want from it. At least in their heads this is acceptable, because “screw labels” right!?

Can you believe it? Even with the death of labels, their bruise on music still reigns supreme (and very discolored)!

People, stop, support your artists. Believe me, every album that is bought is an important one to support more music for the future. Forget what you think about labels, and whatever autobiography you read that made you disdain these labels. Of course they’ve screwed the artists, but the artists get screwed even more if you don’t buy the damn album. So much time, energy and especially money goes into the value of making a record.

We should support our artists so the music will continue. Buy music!

I’m a huge fan of the internet. The information super-highway. There is an overwhelming amount of information out there for those seeking it. You can practically find out any information you could ever want with the click of a button and a clever search term. But this is also what is so annoying about the medium. The endless parade of shit content websites with all their “SEO” perfect keywords. There’s no heart or soul in any of it. So many of these Niche Sites are actually created by people who know nothing about the niche and spread their nothingness to others.

In fact, it’s so ugly that I think that Google can’t keep up most of the time. How could it possibly know if the information is any good or not? Especially when it all mirrors itself anyways. Backlinking from one site to another spouting off the same non-sense over and over again.

What’s even more sad, is people eat this shit up. They will click anything that is cleverly “yellow” highlighted. That annoying over the stop sales crap. Who wants this? I find it very peculiar.

People bitch about commercials on TV, ads in Newspapers/Magazines on Websites, yet what do they do? They spend their time going to shit websites, because of the same sales tactics.

My BS meter just goes berserk. Please stop feeding these machines. Google should hire me to look at a website, see if my BullShit meter goes off and then let me re-rank the website.

Actually we should make that…. An app that goes through websites, determines there level of BS, using something like the IBM Watson algorithm, that sorts through all the data on the website, realizes it is hogwash propaganda sales garbage and flag It as junk. Remove the marketing and AdSense links etc.. Just to try and sort through the garbage.
Do you know that people sell E-Books now that just basically republish links to other websites. Again, we should make an algorithm that makes E-Books by just collaborating a bunch of links to blogs (you know the really “legit” stuff…blogs….right!?) and labeling whatever the person actually types to learn about. Then only sell them for 2 bucks or something, so the person is less likely to complain about the cost, since it was “Only 2 dollars”.

The reason it is so annoying is it is really easy to get bad information on the internet. You end up wanting to search for something useful, but come away buying an E-Book with links in it. Or just randomized blog posts. Or you just get endless sales copy of some vague reference to your actual interest.

I know Google tries, I am sure Bing and others try to (who knows though), but it would be nice to stomp it out a little bit. I read that Google implemented strategies that hurt much of the SEO optimization people did, but with all the ClickSurprise or whatever websites that dominate the rankings, it’s still far from optimized.

Probably the only thing that could even work (though impossible, since people apparently love being sold to) is for people to blacklist shit websites.

I realize with the ton of pages on the internet, and because of how great and grand it is, this task of relieving ourselves of this sales garble is almost an impossibility, it will just continue to be one of the sucky things about the internet.

Remember: Be skeptical of everyone, especially yourself.


Happy searching….(mostly happy searching)

Decided to do an analysis on the Rolling Stone Magazine’s named top 10 guitarist ever!
Rolling Stone Top 100 Guitarists

List of just top 10 presented by StereoGum.com

So if you wanted to know how to become a legendary guitarist, below are some of the criteria that matches these individuals together.



First here is the list, including (main amp, main guitar, main influences, and main scales used (since most are famous for soloing)).

1. Jimi Hendrix – Plexi – Strat – Muddy Waters, B.B. King, Howlin’ Wolf, and Robert Johnson. – minor Pentatonics/Blues Scales
2. .Eric Clapton – Plexi (in cream) – Strat – Muddy Waters, Sonny Boy Williamson, and Robert Johnson. – minor pentatonics
3. Jimmy Page – plexi – Les Paul – Elvis, BB King, John Renbourn, Roy Harper, Keith Richards –minor pentatonic/natural minor
4. Keith Richards – Fender twins/ some vox –Tele – Muddy Waters, Chuck Berry, Robert Johnson –blues and minor pentatonic
5. Jeff Beck – plexi and fenders – Strat – Les Paul, Cliff Gallup, Ravi Shankar, Roy Buchanan, Chet Atkins, Django Reinhardt, Steve Cropper and Lonnie Mack –minor and mixolydian pentatonic
6. B.B. King – fender super reverb – 335 style –T-Bone Walker, Lonnie Johnson, Sonny Boy Williamson, Bukka White  – Minor Pent, also Minor pent with 9 and maj 6
7. Chuck Berry – Twin reverb -335 –Muddy Waters, Nat King Cole –minor pent/ blues scale
8. Eddie Van Halen – Super Lead/ Plexi – Super strat – Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix – Blues Scale, symmetrical scale
9. Duane Allman – Marshall plexi, some blackface –Les Paul/SG – John Lee Hooker, Jimi Hendrix, Elmore Jones, Miles/Coltrane –minor and major pentatonics
10. Pete Townshend – hiwatt , vox and marshall – Many guitars, – John Lee Hooker, Bo Diddley, Hank Marvin, Link Wray –pentatonics, chromatic

** Note: these are purely observations. Not meant to be taken as jabs at the players. I think they’re all great. I just thought it’d be interesting to find the correlations between them all. Cheers!

• All men. As sad as it is, but it’s the most obvious thing about them.
  1. If you aren’t packing, you aren’t legendary I guess.
• All blues based players.
  1. You better check out Muddy Waters and Robert Johnson!
  2. Chord progressions for all songs almost all variations of 12 bar blues
  3. Sorry no neoclassical dudes here. Also no jazz progressions really.
  4. Most Rock n Roll players with upbeat music…not a lot of sad music, despite the blues. It’s not a downer to listen to any for the most part.
  5. Some political stuff, antiwar especially, but generally a lot of music about women and money troubles. (typical blues stuff).
• All play electric guitar fairly exclusively.
  1. Throw away that acoustic guitar!
• All use bending of pitch (either bending or slide or whammy bar), mimicking blues singers, steel guitar and harmonica
  1. Everyone has spent time defining bending and vibrato. Very rare to hear any of them play without it in every line. None have a straight sound.
  2. Get your vibrato and bending shit down!
• All use a more legato style of playing. No strict alternate pickers. They do the play a note, pull off or hammer on, play another note kind of thing.
  1. If you pick every note, you’re probably not going to get that many fans.
• Attire: They all look the part
  1. They are not all pretty, but they are all skinny, haha. They also dress to impress.
  2. All the above had fairly over the top attire. No one was ever caught (until way later in life) in regular clothes. Generally pretty flashy stuff actually.
  3. Get your attire together, to be a great legendary guitarist, there are no exceptions.
• Essentially no odd times. Essentially no influences outside of blues and jazz (rock n roll aside).
  1. Also none of it swings. It’s all backbeat music. Straight 8ths, with 8th note as the foundation. 16th note funk used but not often.
• Minor Pentatonic rules. Maybe a bit of blues scale. Not many using anything substantially outside of that, however, there are variations of the scale (adding a 9th, or removing the 4th in minor blues scale)
  1. If you’re playing other scales, it’s probably not going to fly. You can get away with the occasional mixolydian or dorian thing, but melodic and harmonic minor is pretty much a no-no.
  2. There’s actually not a lot of chord outlining here either. Occasionally they’ll actually play the major 3rd on a major chord, but mostly they’ll use that minor pentatonic vibe.
• The highest gain guys are Eddie and Hendrix. But really it’s still that Plexi sound with overdrive that rules the list.
  1. But they’re even not that gainy really, still have that smooth sound, and would sound wussy next to Meshuggah, haha.
  2. Actually notice, there is essentially no Mesa Boogie, Orange, Bogner, etc.. amps. Stick to the basics son.
  3. Also, mostly all single channel amps. If you’ve got some 4 channel thing-a-magig, give it up dude.
  4. Don’t believe any of these guys even know what an effects loop is either. So ignore that feature.
  5. Does anyone up here even use delay? If so, it’s for special effects only, not for their tone.
  6. The foundation is overdriven sound with reverb. Fuzz and wah are acceptable effects. A few other stragglers too. But not as the main sound.
• Chords don’t really get more complicated than 7th Hendrix (7#9 chord) aside.
  1. As described in step 11, don’t expect to play straight strum chords though, they’re playing with the notes and adding suspensions and stuff in their playing, if they even play chords.
• Riff Centric
  1. Just about everyone has some signature riff or lick that everyone knows. Simple blues based riffing. None (aside from Townshend) are really “strummers”. Definitely the riffing bunch, if they even do that (I’m looking at you BB).
     1. Lots of 2 note simultaneous stuff too. But not strumming or funky kind of playing (mostly ).

• None have a really clean sound. They’re all at least slightly overdriven. Actually it’s pretty hard to find anything where any are playing “clean”. The sound needs some hair on it, or bust.
  1. Why even buy an amp with more than one channel?
• Strat’s and Les Pauls’ rule the list, with Strat really leading the way.
• All got famous in bands with singers. Not one instrumental guy. Jeff Beck now changes that perspective, but so has his audience size.
  1. Also, all got famous with male singers. For what it’s worth.
  2. 4 out of 10 are the singers themselves.
• Band size ranges from trios to 6 pieces, but the typical instrumentation is guitar, bass, drums and singing. Some came from bands with 2 guitarist, and some had keyboards. BB had some horns too (but he’s also the only straight up blues guy in the list). A trio or quartet is the most prevalent.
• Most use really light strings. A few guys use 8s, some use 9s (with low E of 40 instead of 42). A few with 10 to 42s, but downtune to Eb. Duane, being a slide player seems to have used heavier strings.
• Youngest guy on the list is EVH, who is currently 61 years old.
  1. None has really made a significant album (which increased their legacy) since the 80s.
     1. Also this list was probably the same in the early 90s (and probably mid 80s). So the last 25 to 30 years or so nothing significant has happen in guitar legend status.
  2. This means guitar is probably dying and there will never be another legendary guitarist in the ranks of these folks.
  3. They were essentially innovators because of the time of their births. Electric guitar wasn’t as saturated with technology. These people exploited the newest technologies of their heyday. All of them.
     1. But once they got their shtick, most (except for Beck) stuck with their shtick forever.
  4. They were almost all in their early 20s when they became notorious, but none older than 30 in getting famous.
  5. If you’ve read this far, sorry, Tough luck.
     

Different options for dominant chords:
R23456b7 – Mixo
R23#456b7 – Lyd Dom
Rb2b33#4#5b7 – Alt
Rb23456b7 – Mixo b2
R23#4#5b7 – Whole Tone
Rb2b33#456b7 – h/w dim
Rb345b7 – min pent
Rb34#45b7 – blues
R2356 – maj pent
R2b3356 – maj blues pent
Minor pent from each scale degree of mixo scale(diatonic):
Major, Dominant, Minor (Blue note)

Root: CEbFGBb – R,b3, 11, 5, b7 (#11)
9: DFGAC – 9, 11, 5, 13, R (b13)
3: EGABD – 3, 5, 13, 7, 9 (b7)
11: FAbBbCEb – 11, b13,b7, R, b3 (7)
5: GBbCDF – 5, b7, R, 9, 11 (b9)
13: ACDEG – 13, R,2,3,5 (b3)
b7: BbDbEbFAb – b7,b9,b3,11, b13 (3)
b9: DbEF#G#B –b9, 3, #11, b13, 7 (11)
#9: EbF#AbBbDb – #9, #11, b13, b7, b9 (13)
#11: F#ABC#E – #11, 13, 7, b9, 3 (R)
b13: AbBDbEbGb – b13, 7, b9, #9, #11 (9)
7: BDEF#A : 7, 9, 3, #11, 13 (4)

Major Triads against scale degrees (mixo)
R: R,3,5
2: 2,#11,13
3: 3, #5, 7
4: 11, 13, R
5: 5, 7, 9
6: 13, b9, 3
b7: b7, 9, 11
b9: b9, 11, b13
#9: #9, 5, b7
#11: #11, b7, b9
b13: b13, R, #9
7: 7, #9, #11

Minor Triads
R: R,b3,5
2: 2,11,13
3: 3, 5, 7
4: 11, b13, R
5: 5, b7, 9
6: 13, R, 3
b7: b7, b9, 11
b9: b9, 3, b13
#9: #9, b5, b7
#11: #11, 13, b9
b13: b13, 7, #9
7: 7, 9, #11

Diminished:
R: R,b3,b5
2: 2,11,b13
3: 3, 5, b7
4: 11, b13, 7
5: 5, b7, b9
6: 13, R, b3
b7: b7, b9, 3
b9: b9, 3, 5
#9: #9, b5, 13
#11: #11, 13, R
b13: b13, 7, 9
7: 7, 9, 11

Augmented:
R: R,3,#5
2: 2,#11,b7
3: 3, #5, R
4: 11, 13, b9
5: 5, 7, #9
6: 13, b9, 11
b7: b7, 9, #11
b9: b9, 11, 13
#9: #9, 5, 7
#11: #11, b7, 9
b13: b13, R, 3
7: 7, #9, 5

Sus2:
R: R,2,5
2: 2,3,13
3: 3, #11, 7
4: 11, 5, R
5: 5, 13, 9
6: 13, 7, 3
b7: b7, R, 11
b9: b9, #9, b13
#9: #9, 4, b7
#11: #11, b13, b9
b13: b13, b7, #9
7: 7, b9, #11

Sus4:
R: R,11,5
2: 2,5,13
3: 3, 13, 7
4: 11, b7, R
5: 5, R, 9
6: 13, 9, 3
b7: b7, #9, 11
b9: b9, #11, b13
#9: #9, #5, b7
#11: #11, 7, b9
b13: b13, b9, #9
7: 7, 3, #11

(We’ve done: R35, Rb35, Rb3b5, R3#5, R25, R45)

Technically:
1) all variations of R35 are also variations of: R36, R46
2) all variations of R25 are also variations of: R11b7, R115