Hey everyone, Quick personal update, so you know what’s been going on. Over the holidays, I had a small accident that sent me to the hospital and left me dealing with a broken foot, so I’ve been a bit offline and less present here than I wanted. The good news is I’m recovering and getting back to things. I’m returning gradually, catching up on messages and reconnecting with you all, even though I’m not fully back to my normal pace yet. Thanks for your patience, and huge thanks to everyone who’s stayed engaged and kept practicing in the meantime. I appreciate you all. Gabriel

Hey everyone, hope you’re doing well. Lately, I’ve been sharing some thoughts on how to build your own phrasing using pre-existing material — lines, phrases, and licks you’ve learned from other players — and how to transform those ideas into something that feels truly your own. I thought it might be helpful to show how this process actually looks in practice, at least how I’ve been approaching it in my daily sessions. So I decided to record two segments from my study session today. I literally just hit record and practiced, capturing the full time blocks exactly as they happened. This is part of what I call the Idiomatic Cell Approach, a framework I use to assimilate and internalize external material until it becomes part of my natural vocabulary. In this case, I’m working with a line from Pat Martino’s Linear Expressions book, but the same process can be applied to simpler material too — for example, the 3-note lines we use to approach the thirds of the chords that we worked on in lesson 4 with the Bullseye Method. - The first video shows a 5-minute assimilation block, where I work through each idiomatic cell individually and then combine them. - The second video is a 5-minute call-and-response block, where I use those cells as **Conversation Starters** for short improvisations. You don’t need to watch the full blocks, but I thought it could be useful to show what this process looks like in real time. I hope it gives you some ideas for developing your own vocabulary with whatever material you’re working on. As always, feedback is welcome — I’d love to hear what you think.

Hello everyone, I'm back. I spent far too long working on this tune. But here's the result. To keep my wife from going crazy, I now need to focus on another tune. Your comments are always welcome. Thank you in advance.

Just a quick video covering just the guide tones from Etude 12.7.

Marc had challenged me to re-record ATTYR at 140 BPM. I was practicing it faster with the intent of going back to 140 BPM. This isn't perfect, but I did manage it at 160 BPM - the fastest I have ever played anything. This recording starts with the melody, then comps using a Charleston Rhythm then does one time through comping with more fills. I lost steam at the end and missed the ending but I thought it better to post and move on.