🏆 is this the right strategy for you?

(here's what winners do)

RIFFS:

What a time to be alive.

So much information. Freely available to anyone with an internet connection. It creates a new problem: overwhelm.

How do you decide what to do next?

Is this the right strategy for you? Or maybe that other one over there? Or gee, I like that guy’s playing, maybe I should try that exercise he suggests?

That’s kind of what PracticeOS is about.

It’s a quick (free!) course that gives you a framework for thinking about improving your playing. Take it and apply it to whatever you’re thinking about doing next.

But then what?

Intensity IS the strategy

Winners do the obvious things with more intensity than you do.

Sure, you should avoid that handful of common mistakes. But action beats all. Imperfect strategies, with violent execution. You can course-correct along the way.

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RECS:

“Winners do the obvious things with more intensity than you do.”

That’s a direct quote from Shaan Puri in this video:

It’s ostensibly about money, but the lessons are more widely applicable:

• Luck is important but insufficient.

• Skills & mindsets are what create opportunities to get lucky (and stay that way).

• Hard work doesn’t matter as much as you think.

• Sure, there’s a minimum threshold for hard work…

• …but who you work with and what you work on are more important.

• You need 1) a community and 2) a mentor.

• Your community: like-minded people on a similar journey.

  • Proximity matters—living together is better than living near each other, which is better than having a group chat, which is better than listening to their stories on podcasts/YT/socials. But take whatever you can get.

• Your mentor: someone ahead of you on the journey

  • They don’t have to be way ahead of you on the journey.

  • A little bit ahead is often enough.

  • Don’t formally ask them to be your mentor…

    • Instead, ask them for specific advice…

    • act on it…

    • then report back.

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CHARTS

Over the weekend I played with my longtime mentor and his new mentee.

Dave & I played a set together, then Dave & Katherine played a set together.

I joined them for the encore and we played Me & Bobby McGee:

I transcribed the Janis Joplin version for you.

In this Dropbox folder you’ll find:

• PDF chart,

• Sibelius file,

• & musicXML file for Me & Bobby McGee

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SMARTS

1

The key(s)

Me & Bobby McGee starts in G… but key changes up to A:

2

Arranging with the capo

Me & Bobby McGee is I, IV, & V in two keys:

Dave played those open position chords. So where would my part fit in?

I capo’d way up on the 7th fret:

3

How did I think to do that?

It was nothing more than knowing the chords in each key (and which keys had nice jangly open chords to use):

4

The chart doesn’t obscure the form!

The chords follow the vocal melody. Sometimes the last chord of one line is also the first chord of the next line. (In this song it happens a ton.)

When that happens, I don’t cram all alike chords together:

too hard to follow the song’s logic!

Instead, I try to make the form obvious:

these four-bar “chunks” are much easier for our brains to grasp

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That’s all I got this week.

See you next Wednesday,

Josh

ps. If you’d like more help with your guitar playing & musicianship, go check out RhythmOS.