What Social Justice People Want From You

South Park: Randy Marsh apology for the "N" word to Jesse Jackson. "Kiss it".

People who make a lot of noise about social justice aren't very clear about what the end game is for all of their noisemaking.

They can't name it explicitly because, deep down, whether they know it or not, their end game is your guilt. And your guilt is their power.

They can win this only with your assent.


DON'T GIVE THEM A FUCKING INCH


Live your life the best you can playing the hand you were dealt. Live like your long-term happiness and well-being are your primary goal.

Sure... help others from time to time, but for your own reasons. Share your truth for your love of the truth. Share your knowledge for the love of knowledge. Share with people whom you enjoy because of their love of their own lives.

Never let sacrifice or guilt become your motive power. Never apologize for your priority of fact over feeling.

Wax On, Wax Off: The Arpeggio Meditation by Daniel Ward

Ukulele Magazine recently featured an article written by Daniel Ward on practicing arpeggios slowly and another article expanding on it.  I've incorporated meditative fingerpicking into my daily practice first thing to get focused on breathing and listening. 

I have also adapted the practice for the key of G Major:

ARPEGGIO MEDITATION IN G MAJOR

Fingerpicking practice, breathing, and listening. Arranged by Francis Luong (Franco)

G                                 Gmaj7
   4/4
    Gtr I
||--------2-------2-|-------2-------2-|-------2-------2-|-------2-------2-|
||o-----3-------3---|-----3-------3---|-----2-------2---|-----2-------2---|
||o---2-------2-----|---2-------2-----|---2-------2-----|---2-------2-----|
||--0-------0-------|-0-------0-------|-0-------0-------|-0-------0-------|


  Em7                                 Em6
|-------2-------2-|-------2-------2-|-------2-------2-|-------2-------2-|
|-----0-------0---|-----0-------0---|-----0-------0---|-----0-------0---|
|---2-------2-----|---2-------2-----|---1-------1-----|---1-------1-----|
|-0-------0-------|-0-------0-------|-0-------0-------|-0-------0-------|


  Cmaj7                               D7sus4            D7
|-------2-------2-|-------2-------2-|-------0-------0-|-------0-------0-|
|-----0-------0---|-----0-------0---|-----3-------3---|-----2-------2---|
|---0-------0-----|---0-------0-----|---0-------0-----|---0-------0-----|
|-0-------0-------|-0-------0-------|-2-------2-------|-2-------2-------|


  G                                   Cm
|-------2-------2-|-------2-------2-|-------3-------3-|-------3-------3--||
|-----3-------3---|-----3-------3---|-----3-------3---|-----3-------3---o||
|---2-------2-----|---2-------2-----|---3-------3-----|---3-------3-----o||
|-0-------0-------|-0-------0-------|-0-------0-------|-0-------0--------||

The Good, the Bad, and PowerTab

I decided to try assembling a tab using powertab which is pretty old these days and hasn't been maintained.  I don't suspect I'll continue using it.  Print output has severe issues with title alignment on Windows 10.

My inelegant workaround is ASCII output, which permits me to adjust the text.  I just don't think I have the patience to PDF, screenshot, and crop after using that dreadful interface.  

screenshot and crop from PDF

screenshot and crop from PDF

How to Be An Asshole and Feel Good About It

(Warning: Turn on the sarcasm filter.)


The Formula

If I care about...

  • (Group 1: the victim... please select one or more)
    • women
    • gays
    • transgendered
    • blacks

...then I have a license to belittle, harrass, and disrespect people who are...

  • (Group 2: the privileged... please select one or more)
    • men
    • straights
    • cys-gendered
    • non-blacks

...and anyone who criticizes my arguments in favor of the same victims.


The Mentality of the Enforcer

"The privileged" (Group 2) have no ground on which to demand common decency unless they first pound their chests about how privileged they are.

Unless they understand the depths of their guilt, we will treat them in accordance with that guilt.

By treating "the privileged" badly, I am being kind.  I am increasing net kindness in the world.  And I am only being mean to people who deserve it.  Their lack of inclusiveness as evident by their lack of making similar noises is all the evidence I need of their bigotry.

There is no live-and-let live with bigots.  You can't ignore them.  You have to shout them down and make civilized conversation impossible for them.

Only by making the right noises can they prove their innocence.  Maybe then they can they be permitted to be heard.

You can tell a person isn't a bigot because they also shout down bigots.  Support these people.

Anyone who disagrees is a bigot or is giving comfort to the status quo.  They stand in the way of social progress.  They need to be treated like bigots.

If I have identified a new type of victim that other people aren't including, I've changed the game and I'm a winner.  I get to mistreat any people who don't acknowledge this unsung victim until they start making the right noises.  I love this game!

In the end, the world is going to be such a kind and inclusive place!

I'm really making the world better!

Pooping rainbows and love out of my ass is amazing!


Franco Q2 2017: 90-day Lookback

Ukulele Practice Everyday

Pretty sure I played ukulele every day in the last quarter.  On the days I didn't feel well, I played for 30 minutes or so and then shut it down.  On the really crazy days, I put in about 4 hours.

I can spend 20 minutes a day practicing a song that is only 2 minutes long and still not have mastery over it after a month.  And so, I have a lot of respect for people who make it look easy.

I've been recording video of my practices.  I was doing this selectively at first but found that I was too nervous about "getting it right" for video and it didn't feel natural.  So I decided to purchase an external 4TB USB drive and now I am recording nearly every minute of my practice.  I burned ~3.2GB of storage just yesterday.  It's an extravagant use of storage, but totally worth it and storage is cheap.

I posted 3 videos to my Youtube channel and 9 videos to my Instagram profile.  I've been embracing a mode of "Document, Don't Create" and it's a lot easier for me to just post something that has rough edges with that mindset.

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The 50 songs project is going strong, albeit slowly.  I now have a combined 43 songs on my "accepted" and "active" lists.  The instrumental solo songs take a good bit longer to be able to play but are very rewarding.  I have found that most of my energy goes toward this and I am fine with slowing down the project for this purpose.  James Hill's site, The Ukulele Way has been the most important resource in my development during the last 90 days.

Also, I finished working my way through Harmony and Theory and I am now pursuing Ear Training during breakfast.

Physical Challenges

Q1 2017 presented a number of physical challenges for me.  A shoulder injury sustained while practicing Jiu Jitsu has made me reluctant to do pull-ups since January and those were a staple of my workouts.  So I've switched to resistance bands and I am doing my own rehab.  I can now do half height (to 90 degrees) pull-ups without too much distress.

And, just a month ago, I found out just how bad it is to add miles really quickly.  I ran so much I limped for a week.  So I put myself on the injured list and I will not be running either of the races I listed on Franco Now: 2017 1Q.  That being said, I did run with The Raven in Miami when I was there in January, so I had my fun.  I am still proud of most of my training but I am looking forward to taking a break from running to heal up.

Time Enough for Heinlein

I read a LOT of Heinlein.  Added many quotes to my Aphorisms page.  I think I've just about had enough of him.  So going to move on to other readings.  Dune perhaps.  And more Sanderson.

Strong Tech

My tech development went pretty well during Q1 2017.  I made a conscious effort to spend more time working on frontend Javascript/ReactJS/BootstrapCSS work and it has paid off nicely.

I have agreed to take on Scrum Master role for the team so I will have study up to understand how I can help the team to better organize and turn our hard lessons into new cultural practices.

And Other Things As Well

I hosted two WDS Local DC meetups.  I do a roll-call in the days before each to ensure a quorum before proceeding.  It works well enough.

I didn't do so well at contacting a friend each day but I feel like I did pretty well at keeping in touch with remote buddies.  I averaged a phone call with a long-distance friend about once every 2 weeks and even managed to get some people on/before their birthdays.

I started the process for becoming a volunteer with the County.  Going to try to focus on assisting Seniors with living during 2017.  And I am hoping that I can incorporate ukulele into this.

Healthcare, Government Mandates, and Individual Freedom

Language choice lesson:  When you believe in the right of government to dictate to insurance companies what they MUST cover, you might also refer to it as government TAKING AWAY coverage when that mandate is removed.  (maximum hyperbole achieved... break out the torches and pitchforks)

But when you actually ask WHY the government has any business making mandates to insurance companies and you don't take it as a given... removing a mandate might be perceived as a movement from coercion toward freedom.

As an aside, it's interesting for me to ponder people who run startups but react favorably to government control of health insurance and medicine.  I think it's contradictory to do so.  Startups do well because they enjoy a large degree of freedom on HOW and WHAT they do.   And often they see no problem with DISRUPTING things like regulatory taxi cab franchises imposed by the government.

But, somehow medicine doesn't get the same treatment.  I mean it's life or death!  So questions like these don't automatically fall on the side of freedom:

  • Will government mandates will manage not to reduce innovation and investment? (blank out)
  • Don't insurance companies have a right to try to structure different business models that might change the entire industry? (blank out)
  • Wouldn't burdensome government regulation give advantages to larger businesses than smaller ones? (blank out)
  • Who the hell would want to start an insurance company given a trend of increasing regulation and decreasing freedom?  (Maybe the world just needs another social media app)
  • When costs get too high, how long will I have to wait for a procedure if I don't have political connections? (blank out)
  • When waits get too long, will I have to call my senator to get things moving along?

In the end, we still need to answer for Liberty.  Does it matter?  Do we still believe in it?  And if so, by what right do mandates like the ACA force us to pay penalties for our only real right: to get to decide for ourselves what we will and will not do.

A lot of people think of a guarantee of health care or basic income as a matter of kindness.  They think of it in terms of what kind of guarantees a prosperous society can provide.  But will society remain prosperous if we go about destroying the foundation of prosperity? What about freedom? 

Folks, I don't see it as a country that believes in freedom if the government can tell a person they MUST buy insurance or pay a few hundred dollars to the government for no reason.  

What will they tell us we must tomorrow?  I mean... all a government seems to need is the right justification, the right notion of duty which will get them 51% of the vote to support it.  And that's assuming a weak one.  

What could a guy who doesn't even give a shit about freedom like Vlad Putin require?  Because a guy like that can get elected.  (The people who use kindness as a motivation for instituting government control of medical care tend to assume benevolent government but that is neither a law of nature nor statistically probable)

Look... those of us who believe power corrupts and absolute power corrupts, absolutely, HAVE to ask this question: What happened to universal and inalienable rights?  Because everything I hear about these days sounds fucking alienable to me.

Government should begin with the premise of every person having fundamental rights to act according to their judgment in pursuit of their lives, barring violations of the same rights against others (force and fraud).  

In the age of pragmatism, these ideas are dated.  It's old-school to even believe in principles.  It's laughable to believe in absolutes.  Whatever... I am what I am and I have never been good at winning the popularity contest.  

My friends might be surprised to know that I'm with the Republicans that want to repeal the ACA entirely.  Frankly I don't even think that would go far enough.

My vision for better health care is a government retreat from regulation of it.  No mandates.  Less regulation and thus more new entrants and more stale model disruption.  New smaller organizations to organize and share the burden of medical risk (which is supposed to be the job of insurance companies).  No artificial state boundaries.  Delete tax deductions for health care insurance premiums for employers and make the playing field level for individual buyers.  Voluntary charities to help provide insurance to those in need.

Probably won't happen in my lifetime. 

Observations on Resentment

This morning after reading a vague emotional post by a woman who has decided to write off white women...

Two friends and I set up a rule — no more white women for 2017. We are not accepting friend requests online or in real life. We don’t have the energy required to vet people and then wait for the other shoe to drop.

Can't help but muse that people who truly develop self-esteem can't get this upset by not being seen by others. People who establish good boundaries are not subject to surprises by who she thought other people were.

You cannot base your self-esteem on accidents of your birth. Your race. Your height. How good looking you think you are.

Neither can you base your self-esteem on your relationships. The people who try this always end up resentful and bitter. (And, apparently, more than a bit racist.)

I suspect the most important thing to your self esteem that you can do is to look at the world and decide what you're going to try to be. Then do it. Then check in and ask yourself how it's going.

It is my prediction that people who are intentional and rational harbor fewer resentments toward others. There are probably fewer incidents of misplaced trust as well. When you begin with the idea that no one else owes you anything, every kindness is a gift rather than an expectation. The people in whom you take pleasure are enjoyable for their own sake for as long as those interactions last.

What is the relationship between expectation and resentment? What is the relationship between ideas about moral duty and expectation? How is it that people you barely know can "betray" you so badly you are "waiting for shoes to drop"? What would happen if you just accepted people the way that they were and interacted more with the ones you sincerely enjoy without trying to change the ones you enjoy less?

These are all questions of attitude. And they are worth muddling through for a person who seeks to understand themselves and spend more time acting out of self-worthiness than resentment of others.

That's a worthy goal isn't it? To spend more time acting out of your self-worthiness. Sounds good, anyway.

Moral Trickery Files: Ancestral Guilt

Here's an opportunity to practice philosophical detection. Consider the headline and main quotes of this article:

African Union criticises US for ‘taking many of our people as slaves’ and not taking refugees | The Independent

“The very country to which many of our people were taken as slaves during the transatlantic slave trade has now decided to ban refugees from some of our countries,” said Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma.

The statements of politicians worldwide are loaded with moral trickery... fallacies intended to confuse you so that you simply concede the point.

I wrote the following as a comment to this article on a friend's wall.


I must reject the person quoted as a person who panders to the notion of Ancestral Guilt. His assertion deems Americans today to be as equally guilty of slavery as the ones who actually perpetrated it in the past.

Effectively, one could abstract this and say that the speaker believes that You and I assume moral guilt for the actions of those who came before us. This is a mess, because where does it stop. Could the same tactical maneuver be used to re-assign the blame earned by Muslims that kill onto the ones that do not?

Further, what of the African collaborators involved in the slave trade?

"The historians John Thornton and Linda Heywood of Boston University estimate that 90 percent of those shipped to the New World were enslaved by Africans and then sold to European traders. The sad truth is that without complex business partnerships between African elites and European traders and commercial agents, the slave trade to the New World would have been impossible, at least on the scale it occurred."

"...The African role in the slave trade was fully understood and openly acknowledged by many African-Americans even before the Civil War. For Frederick Douglass, it was an argument against repatriation schemes for the freed slaves. 'The savage chiefs of the western coasts of Africa, who for ages have been accustomed to selling their captives into bondage and pocketing the ready cash for them, will not more readily accept our moral and economical ideas than the slave traders of Maryland and Virginia,' he warned. 'We are, therefore, less inclined to go to Africa to work against the slave trade than to stay here to work against it.'"

Perhaps history forgives the villany of African slavers because there is no political gain in flogging it.

Much as I agree that Trump's order is an immoral clusterfuck, this article's premise is objectionable due to the moral shell game described above.

A Thousand Years by Christina Perri - Ukulele PDF

One of the songs I've been working on the last couple weeks has been "A Thousand Years" by Christina Perri. I love me some ballads in 6/8.

What's nice about this tune is that I've had to learn it on the Bass Guitar in the past to play with Mama's Black Sheep when I used to play bass more and they let me come out and play.

What's nice was that the song was already really familiar to me and I like it a lot despite a source that is guaranteed to revoke anyone's man-card: the movies from Stephanie Meyer's Twilight Series.

Screw the source... it's a good song. And getting it down on Ukulele was even more enjoyable than learning it on bass because the chords have really nice musical lines.

Below are Youtube Links to recordings of this song by my beloved friends from Mama's Black Sheep and the original recording by Christina Perri.  Have a listen to both and tell me which one you think is better.  

The Mama's Black Sheep version is publised on the depicted "Live at the Bevy CD/DVD set" and you can buy it at their Sheep Shop.

Civility's Requirement: Live and Let Live

In the context of politics, civility cannot thrive unless all sides believe that a fundamental task of government is to establish and protect the ways that people who disagree, who perhaps even hate one another's ideas, can disagree/hate peacefully, each being left alone to live according to their own mores on their own property.

Today, I predict we will witness an impressive amount of uncivil behavior.

Rationality: Willingness to Observe and Not Being An Arrogant Fool

Rationality depends on 2 things:

  1. Being willing to look a phonemena and make observations about fact.
  2. Accepting/learning that it is possible to look at coincident facts in some phenomenon and come to the wrong conclusion about causality at work in that phenomenon.

If either of these 2 aspects are absent you can still make assertions but you may not say that the assertions are rational.

Rationality is thus at odds with hubris, which assumes your own infallibility.

It is also at odds with faith.

An application of rationality to an assertion which begins as faith can be regarded as rational but can no longer be regarded as faith, which eschews the need for evidence. The more one rejects the need for evidence, the more one's faith is said to be strong.

No Mere Cog

Many people hold in esteem the concept of believing in something "greater than the self"... or being a part of something "greater than the self". It's not something they question a lot... just sort of sounds right.

What if the challenge of being a human being is not to find something "greater than the self" but rather to realize that you are a self that is worthy to stand apart on his or her own merits. Yes, you take part in things, but the things are not who you are.

To desire to be part of something "greater than yourself" strikes me as similar to the desire to be a cog in a machine.

I don't know anyone who aspires to be merely a cog. I know unique and beautiful human beings all trying their best to find new ways to be more fully themselves.

90-day Look Back - 2017 1Q

90 days ago, I declared my key projects: Franco Now: October 8, 2016

This post is a look-back at what I actually did with my time.

Key Projects

Ukulele

I did really great at making Ukulele my #1 priority in my non-work hours clocking 60-120 minutes of practice and study a day. I bought two Hawaiian-made Ukuleles: one from Kanile'a and one from Kamaka. Very exciting.

Practice/Study includes the following areas:

  • Right Hand Techniques: Strumming, Fingerstyle, Dynamics, Rhythm
  • Left Hand Techniques: Chord shapes, Hammer-on/Pull-off
  • Chord progressions
  • Solo Instrumentals
  • Harmony and Theory
  • Swing

Practice materials and songbooks include:

Also, a nice resource is being a regular at the NVUS Ukulele Meetup.

#Uke50ByHeart

The project is organized around memorizing 50 songs by heart but there is no formal restriction on how easy/hard the songs are nor whether they are vocal or solo instrumental.

Vocal songs involve more to memorize and risk that song will not fit my vocal range and ability and may need to be transposed or scrapped.

Solo instrumentals take longer to practice but are really gratifying and are not subject to my feeble and unpracticed vocals.

As of 1/2017, I now have about 15 songs that I have played through 5 times or more without a lead sheet. This is my crude measure of a song being roughly ready.

Other Projects

Nearly everything else was not given much time. I haven't done any sketching or lettering for a couple months now. I might like to add that back in but will continue strong with the Uke while it calls to me.

WDS Local DC has been slow to start but I booked 3 dates for 1Q 2017 and we will see how those go.

Clojure and functional programming is done during work hours only and is given a LOT of time since I am paid to do it.

Practices and Experiements

Follow the Sun

#FollowTheSun has changed given the winter. Presently, we shutdown for bed around 9-930 and go full lights-out at 10pm or thereabouts. Wake up time is around 730a.

Cash Mostly

#CashMostly is going strong and will likely be a permanent part of how I manage money. I was chatting it over with a friend and he asked me what good it does at all for me. I replied with a question: what good does it do to give money with every single swipe to a small set of corporations that seem hell-bent on lobbying the Federal government without any scruples? I'd rather not play their game. Choose my rules. Determine when my convenience is really important and take on a bit of diligence as a practice against always choosing convenience at the expense of everything.

Exercise and Movement

I gave myself a break from running after finishing the Army 10 Miler. Now it's time to start training in earnest for the Rock and Roll Half Marathon. My next race.

Winter has been more sedentary than I would like but I get out for a run a couple times a week.

Time Theming

I've gotten used to ignoring my daily themes. This is probably a sign of imbalance or a need to reconsider priorities.

Time with Friends

Mixed bag here. I've done a great job of scheduling phone time with friends afar. And I've done a really poor job of keeping in touch with friends in-person. I pretty much saw my local friends about once during 4Q (except the ones I work with).

Weekend morning hikes help with this. And perhaps some board/card game days would also help.

Reading

I read the following books to completion during 4Q 2016:

I did not read what I set out to read... instead just whatever was interesting enough to keep my attention.

I am presently reading Time Enough for Love (also by Robert A. Heinlein). I don't know what will be next.

Aphorisms

I am collecting great quotes from the things that I read in a new section of my website: Aphorisms

Circle of Fifths... A Case for Rote Memorization

In general, I don't approve of rote memorization... learning by repetition. I think it's a cultural value-judgment that has served me well in general but I think it has been holding me back in music.

So, I have decided to pursue rote memorization to bolster my understanding of fundamentals of musical notation and theory. It's a lot like learning basic arithmetic for the first time. I am counting on my fingers and writing things down that would be simple enough to do in my head with practice. And in time, I trust that I will be able to ditch the paper (though I suspect my fingers will always come in handy).

The Benefits So Far

So far, I am already getting faster. If you had asked me to name the notes in the Eb major scale a month ago it would have taken me more than 30 seconds to answer and I might have needed fingers or paper. Now I can pretty quickly arrive at Eb F G Ab Bb C D.

I also a second approach to that which I can use to double-check my work. Having memorized the order of flats, I know that the scale of F has one flat, and Bb has 2, and Eb has three. The order of flats is Bb Eb Ab Db Gb Cb Fb.

Thus, the Eb major scale, having 3 flats, includes the notes: Bb Eb and Ab.

What to Rote Memorize

The C Major Scale

If I were starting out, I would grab my favorite instrument, a metronome, and sing along as I play the C major scale, which has no sharps or flats: C D E F G A B.

The Pattern for Major Scales

Then I would recommend that you read about the pattern for the major scale as expressed in half and whole steps. Half steps are very easy to see on piano: any keys that are directly adjacent (with no notes in between) are said to be a half-step apart. On the bass guitar, any notes that are adjacent frets are said to be a half-step apart. Whole steps have a single note in-between.

Once you understand that, you try to take in the fact that the major scale is a relationship of 7 notes as follows:

R - W - W - H - W - W - W - H - (root-octave)

or, as applied to C major

C -w- D -w- E -h- F -w- G -w- A -w- B -h- C

Notice:

  • Given any two neighboring notes, most have a whole-step between
  • ...except for E-F and B-C... they are only a half-step apart.

The F and G major scales

Given the notes separated by only half-step, scales other than C have to be altered using sharps and flats to achieve the same tonal pattern.

F and G each have one altered note in their scales to maintain the same relationships between the scale tones.

F has Bb, G has F#... and the scales look like this with the whole/half steps written between:

F: F -w- G -w- A -h- Bb -w- C -w- D -w- E  -h- F
G: G -w- A -w- B -h- C  -w- D -w- E -w- F# -h- G

Major Scales express altered notes either by adding sharps or adding flats. Never both. So the next thing to memorize is the order of sharps based on the circle of fifths.

The Order of Sharps and The Circle of Fifths

This is a badly drawn section of the circle of fifths diagram relevant to the scales that have sharp notes:

Here's what I committed to memory by raw verbal repetition: F C G D A E B. I won't go into detail on how the order of fifths came to be but the name gives you a hint (C is the fifth note of the F scale, G is the fifth note of the C scale).

What matters is that it is a time saver... And here's how I use it.

  • Remember that C has no altered notes. Start with C.
  • Looking at the circle, observe that G is the next note on the circle (the next major scale). The G major scale has one sharp.
  • Continuing in the same direction around the circle... The D major scale has 2. A major... 3. E major... 4. C# has 7 (all notes sharp).
  • The order of sharps is always the same and travels in the same direction as the root notes, starting with F.

If we apply this to the table we can determine the altered notes for each of these scales:

G:  F#
D:  F# C#
E:  F# C# G# D#
B:  F# C# G# D# A#
F#: F# C# G# D# A# E#
C#: F# C# G# D# A# E# B#

To take this exercise further, I have started to memorize the scales as altered. For example, G and D:

G: G A B  C E D F#
D: D E F# G A B C#

If you do this daily, you will begin to be able to intuit the scales.

The Order of Flats and the Circle of Fifths

Here is a similar section of the circle of fifths diagram relevant to scales that have flat altered notes:

And here's how we use it.

  • Again start with C, which has no altered notes.
  • We travel in the opposite direction this time heading toward F, which has one flat.
  • As we continue, Bb has 2, Eb has 3... Cb has 7.
  • The order of flats travels in the same direction as the root notes travel and starts with Bb.
  • Bass players: note that the order of flats is very similar to the notes of the open notes on your bass in ascending order (for a 6-string bass: BEADGC)

For sharps I memorized FCGDAEB.
For flats I reverse it: BEADGCF.

And so we end up with a similar table of altered notes:

F:  Bb
Bb: Bb Eb
Eb: Bb Eb Ab
Ab: Bb Eb Ab Db
Db: Bb Eb Ab Db Gb
Gb: Bb Eb Ab Db Gb Cb
Cb: Bb Eb Ab Db Gb Cb Fb

And similar to the sharps, I recommend memorizing the full scales in actuality:

F:  F  G  A  Bb C  D  E
Bb: Bb C  D  Eb F  G  A
Eb: Eb F  G  Ab Bb C  D
Ab: Ab Bb C  Db Eb F  G
...

Do this patiently and you will begin to develop a sixth sense for the sharps and flats in a key.

The Circle of Fifths

both.png

This is what I draw at the top of my practice sheet each morning before I begin. It establishes the order that I need to work through to memorize the scales.

As I practice each morning, I write up one of these on a blank sheet of paper:

Why Rote?

My goal with rote memorization of these facts is to have them available to me instantly when I need them. Effectively, I want to put thinking about them out of the way so that I can focus on the rhythm, tempo, and feel of the music I am trying to practice.

Every attempt I have made to avoid memorizing this information has led to something slow and boring. Given the choice between that and "fast and boring", I will choose fast.

More Resources

If you want to get deeper with these concepts there are two resources I can refer you to:

  1. Harmony and Theory (affiliate link to Amazon) - This is the book I am working through and it will teach you the theory behind what I have mentioned above in detail. It is the number one book recommended by Anthony Wellington.
  2. Bassology by Anthony Wellington - A lot of what I am getting serious about today was originally presented to me by Anthony Wellington, a brilliant teacher who specializes in Bass Guitar, but whose knowledge goes well beyond. He teaches you how to practice and think about music and if you think you need some direct coaching over Skype... reach out and see if he has any openings. I cannot recommend him highly enough. And, regardless you can just follow his Facebook Page.