Adrian's Learning & Practice Log

Community Hub Learning Logs
1

Hi Everyone.

I have been on JG since Sep 2024 and started posted videos of me trying to learn a month or so later. In July 2025 I started BLIM3, the first 3 months went quite well but October was lost due to a 4 week planned holiday in Australia and on our return several issues with a builder who was supposed to have finished repairing our garage after and accident. I decided to rejoin BLIM4 in January 2026 and that is mainly what I have been doing since the. I have been posting my Practice Log on there but thought I would now do it in the Community.

It is 18 months since I posted here as I spent 6 months going through Grade 2 and 3 trying to be ready for BLIM3. I joined BLIM3 in start of July 2025 and the last 3 months were heavily impacted due to a 4 week holiday and other unforeseen issues at home. As a result I decided to rejoin on BLIM4 which has been great and that has just finished.

Some exciting news for me, i posted on BandFix and a small group of musicians within 2 miles of where I live have invited me to audition and join them, a lady vocalist, keyboards, bass and drums, if it works out I will be Rhythm and Lead.The Lady and keyboard player have been together playing for about 12 years and the others have joined in the last few months. They do a mix of material, pop, rock blues and a bit of Jazzy numbers. they know I am getting going again and are very happy for me to learn with the others building a set of numbers. They practice every week and perform 4-6 times a year locally at present. All of them are in their 60’s and have been told they are a ‘No Judgement’ band, and I will fit in fine. Fingers crossed :scream: :grinning_face:, hoping it works out, we meet up tomorrow to get started.

This is how my Practice Diary looks now, I rarely manage to get everything done each day but get to do all at least twice a week.

Daily Warmup 20MINS, scales(MinorPentatonic. and Major and minorr) in various positions, a Power Chord exercise, hammer on and pull offs up and don 1st string, double bends on 1st and 2nd string, alternating pattern from 12fr 5st to 17 fret 1st string and back in 1/16ths. speed picking exercise.

Strumming

Muted String Practice 5 MINS
Strum SOS -Down Strums With The Metronome 5 MINS
Strum SOS - Relax & Feel Good 2 MINS
Strum SOS -Add Some Ups But Don’t Stop 5 MINS
Strum SOS - Missing Down Strums & The Pattern 5 MINS
Strum SOS - Distract Yourself 2 MINS
Strum SOS - Exploring Your Strumming Patterns 5 MINS
Strum SOS - Strumming in 4/4 to metronome 6 MINS
Strum SOS - Strumming in 6/8 to metronome 4 MINS
Strum SOS - ALTERNATING STRUMMING PATTERNS WITHIN A SONG 5 MINS
Strum SOS - SONG STRUCTURE & DYNAMICS RELATION 5 MINS
SOS Strum- Practice Songs 15 MINS

Technical
Triad Practice & Memorisation 5 MINS
Blues String Bending Technique 5 MINS
Blues Vibrato 5 MINS
Mini and Micro 7ths 5 MINS
Slide Guitar 5 MINS
Lick Practice/Revision 15 MINS (primarily to engrain the licks)
Target 3rds 5 MINS
Rhythm of Lead Exercise 5 MINS
Gospel Slides 5 MINS
Blues Improv in selected key(s) 10 MINS

Songs -

there are other songs not listed as they are part of BLIM
Song - Help the Poor 5 mins
Song - I’ll Play The Blues For You 10 MINS
Song - The Thrill Is Gone - BB King 10 mins
Song - ‘Reelin’ In the Years’ - Steely Dan 10 MINS
Song - Samba Pa Ti Santana 10 MINS
Song - Sweet Home Alabama by Lynyrd Skynyrd 15 MINS (trying to relearn it)
Song - Barracuda 10 mins

4 Likes
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Thursday 09 July 2026

Friend left midday so limited to afternoon practice

Dailly Warmup 15 MINS

Band Songs

Heart Of Gold - Neil Young 40 mins, looped the Intro a bit at slower temp to practice the subtle different strumming.
Proud Mary - CCR - 40 mins, I think I am getting the rhythm better now

Friday 10 July 2026

Much better session today once I got back from the dentist at 11am.

Dailly Warmup 15 MINS

Songs

Song - I’ll Play The Blues For You 10 MINS
Song - The Thrill Is Gone - BB King 5 mins
Song - ‘Reelin’ In the Years’ - Steely Dan 5 MINS
Song - Samba Pa Ti Santana 5 MINS
Song - Barracuda 6 mins

Band Songs

Heart Of Gold - Neil Young 60 mins, overall in 2 sessions, looped the Intro a bit at slower temp to practice the subtle different strumming. I am starting to get the rhytym for both intro, verse and chorus more accurate.

Proud Mary - CCR - 60 mins, overall in 2 sessions. I did not have the rhythm of chords quite right and studying GP realise the t they use an open G , on 4th, 3rd and 2nd strings, before the F.

School’s Out - Alice Cooper, 60 Mins.I have played this many months ago to an average level, it is a fun song and though the band might like to think about using it.

2 Likes
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Saturday 11 July 2026

Did a bit of practice today but is very hot in the SW of England 27-28C indoors and hitting 34C in the shade. It was noticeably affecting my playing.

Dailly Warmup 5MINS

Songs

Song - I’ll Play The Blues For You 10 MINS
Song - The Thrill Is Gone - BB King 5 mins
Song - ‘Reelin’ In the Years’ - Steely Dan 5 MINS
Song - Samba Pa Ti Santana 5 MINS
Song - Barracuda 6 mins

Band Songs

School’s Out - Alice Cooper, 30 Mins. I am getting there with this one and managed to play it all the way through once with some mistakes though.

2 Likes
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Sunday 12 July 2026

Again very hot today an oppressive 28C in the house :scream:, I? hid i my little music room whee it was just 25C I managed to do very little and what I did was not that good a concentration levels were low. Also I noticed finger tips were getting soft, possible melt down form increased speed. :rofl:

Gave up after 1 hour

Dailly Warmup 5 MINS

Songs

Song - I’ll Play The Blues For You 10 MINS
Song - The Thrill Is Gone - BB King 5 mins
Song - ‘Reelin’ In the Years’ - Steely Dan 5 MINS
Song - Samba Pa Ti Santana 5 MINS
Song - Barracuda 6 mins

Band Songs

School’s Out - Alice Cooper, 20 Mins. Played it through badly

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Monday 13 July 2026

It was cooler yesterday morning, and we managed to get the house down to 19C by 8am. I started practice ASAP. I spent quite a lot of time on ‘Sweet Home Alabama’ in the morning. In the afternoon it was band songs, I am trying to learn and play these as accurately as possible and have the GP files for them. If necessary I can revert to straight forward strum patterns for ‘Heart of Gold’, Neil Young does several variations of rhythm patterns in the song, I presume this is as it is recorded, and probably does it more simply when played live, which I will likely do.

@jvlynch from our study/buddy group called on WhatsApp just after 2pm, for us to check out if we could improve Jam set up using WhatsApp or Zoom. There is too much latency on WhatsApp, and surprisingly with me playing the backing track un the UK and Jim playing along in USA there was latency but it was minimal. We found the best way was to use my SAMSON USB Mic set to figure 8 between monitor speaker and guitar speaker, with Zoom sound coming back to me on MacBook speakers, this meant that the Mic did not pick up fed back sound and I hardly hard it as the USB Mic did not pick it up. I suspect the latency will likely vary depending on when and where and some days will be worse than others we will see. We have found another platform specifically for Jamming, jamulus.io, which is supposed to remove latency but is more complex to set up and requires paying for a dedication server connection at the time. We will see if we can work with Zoom for now, but suspect it may become frustrating.

Restarted practice a 3pm and I had to stop at 4pm as temperature had risen to 28C in the house and concentration was none existent by then.

Dailly Warmup 10 MINS

Songs

Song - ‘Reelin’ In the Years’ - Steely Dan 5 MINS
Song - Samba Pa Ti Santana 5 MINS
Song - Barracuda 6 mins
Song - Sweet Home Alabama by Lynyrd Skynyrd 60 MINS, starting to improve.

Band Songs

Heart go Gold - Neil Young, 30 mins
Proud Mary - CCR - 30 Mins
School’s Out - Alice Cooper, 10 Mins.

3 Likes
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28C is about 82F from my reckoning. That’s warm for sure. I see a/c in your future. Split systems are nice. No ductwork required.

1 Like
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Tuesday 14 July 2026

House was cool at 18C early this morning, managed to start practice at 8:30. Stopped for early lunch at 12:30 after working on ‘Sweet Home Alabama’

At 13:30 I started on ‘Heart of Gold’ this was a mistake, the indoor temparature had risen above 25C and was affecting my concentration levels again. It was no good and at 14:30 I had to stop.

Action for tomorrow is to do Warmup and follow with Band songs, and if able then to other songs after.

Dailly Warmup 5 MINS Pentatonic Scale practice in positions 1, 2 & 3 at increasing speeds with 3 different patterns 20 mins

Songs

Song - I’ll Play The Blues For You 10 MINS
Song - The Thrill Is Gone - BB King 5 mins
Song - ‘Reelin’ In the Years’ - Steely Dan 5 MINS
Song - Samba Pa Ti Santana 5 MINS
Song - Barracuda 6 mins
Song - Sweet Home Alabama by Lynyrd Skynyrd 60 MINS, got further today and started learning the solo

Band Songs
Heart go Gold - Neil Young, 50 mins
Proud Mary - CCR - 5 Mins

1 Like
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Wednesday 15 July 2026’

Focused totally on band songs today and started looking at new one, I had to pack up at 14:30 as house was too hot.

Dailly Warmup 10 MINS Pentatonic

Band Songs
Heart go Gold - Neil Young, 60 mins
Proud Mary - CCR - 30 Mins
‘No Matter What’ - Badfinger, this is a great song that I remember from when I was a 12, it has 3 guitar parts, one using a Lesley Speaker, I think I have the main Riff under my fingers, I need to get the rest together slowly.

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Tthursday 16 July 2026

A bit cooler this morning, and started at 9am, when for Warmup, a run through of my repetoire songs, and the Band songs

Dailly Warmup 10 MINS a slightly improvement for hammer ons and pull off exercises, and fast alternating Pentatonic note rum from 12 fr 5th string up to 17fr 1sr str and back twice

Songs

Played through all these twice, as kept making mistakes, my timing was off of some reason, maybe a bit tired due to this heat.

Song - I’ll Play The Blues For You 10 MINS
Song - The Thrill Is Gone - BB King 10 mins
Song - ‘Reelin’ In the Years’ - Steely Dan 10 MINS
Song - Samba Pa Ti Santana 10 MINS
Song - Barracuda 10 mins, I played through it twice as kept making timing errors.
Song - Sweet Home Alabama by Lynyrd Skynyrd 15 MINS, focused on the main Riff/Intro as not getting it right.

Band Songs
Heart go Gold - Neil Young, 30 mins, revised it and play through it twice, need to get better rhythm accuracy as notated in GP

Proud Mary - CCR - 30 Mins, I revised this in Justin’s guitar video and spent some time going over the Intro as was not getting the G and F chords quickly enough and was throwing me off rhythmically. Managed to play it through twice with some mistakes. I started working on the Riffs at the end of Verses and Chorus.

‘No Matter What’ - Badfinger, I think this will take some effort to get it to sound good,

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Friday 17 July 2026

It is still quite hot down here house was 19.5C at 8:00, started at 9am with Warmup, the run through of my repertoire songs, and the Band songs

Dailly Warmup 30 MINS another slightly improvement , I also worked on Pentatonic scales position 3 4 & 5 at quite quick tempo, with various patterns, not perfect but improving.

Songs

Played through all these twice, to try and get better, did better with each today.

Song - I’ll Play The Blues For You 10 MINS
Song - The Thrill Is Gone - BB King 10 mins
Song - ‘Reelin’ In the Years’ - Steely Dan 10 MINS
Song - Samba Pa Ti Santana 10 MINS
Song - Barracuda 10 mins, I played through it twice as kept making timing errors.
Song - Sweet Home Alabama by Lynyrd Skynyrd 30 MINS, practiced Intro, Verse 1, Bridge, Chorus and Solo1, some better than others, it’s going to take a while to get it right. Intor and verse is near there though.

Band Songs
Heart go Gold - Neil Young, 30 mins, I am finding getting the rhythms right for each part tricky, I could simplify it but want it to sound right.

Proud Mary - CCR - 45 Mins, Managed to play it through twice with some mistakes. I started working on the Riffs at the end of Verses and Chorus. Started work on the solo which is interesting, can just about play it at 80%

‘No Matter What’ - Badfinger - only did a little on this as out of time and tired.

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Saturday 18 July 2026

Daily Warmup 20 MINS another slightly improvement . not so good today, I think this hot weather is taking its toll and late nights watching World Cup. Limited time today and packed up at 12:30pm

Songs

Played through all these twice, to try and get better, did better with each today.

Song - ‘Reelin’ In the Years’ - Steely Dan 10 MINS
Song - Samba Pa Ti Santana 10 MINS
Song - Barracuda 10 mins, I played through it twice as kept making timing errors.
Song - Sweet Home Alabama by Lynyrd Skynyrd 10 MINS

Band Songs
Heart go Gold - Neil Young, 10 mins, I am finding getting the rhythms right for each part tricky, I could simplify it but want it to sound right.

Proud Mary - CCR - 10 Mins, Managed to play it through twice with some mistakes. I started working on the Riffs at the end of Verses and Chorus. Started work on the solo which is interesting, can just about play it at 80%

‘No Matter What’ - Badfinger - 20 mins got a bit more done on this today starting to come together a bit more

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Sunday 10 July 2026

Only had some time this morning to practice to was quite focused.

Daily Warmup 10 MINS, pleased I got 86% average accuracy across all exercises, the 15% inaccuracy was primarily in the hammer/pull offs and the tricky 1/16 note alternate string picking. I will focus on these separately to get improvement

Songs

Improved playing on all these a bit today.

Song - ‘Reelin’ In the Years’ - Steely Dan 10 MINS
Song - Samba Pa Ti Santana 10 MINS
Song - Barracuda 10 mins
Song - Sweet Home Alabama by Lynyrd Skynyrd 10 MINS

Band Songs

Proud Mary - CCR - 10 Mins start working on the Riff

‘No Matter What’ - Badfinger - 30 mins Intro and Verse getting better, Chorus rhythym change is getting better, start working on have the Riff at end of Chorus and had a go at the Solo.

1 Like
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I am not sure at the moment this band is right for me for several reasons. I am OK with about 1/3 of the songs but the rest are not what I would naturally choose to play, Proud Mary’ is a good one as are about 8 or 9 more. Investing a lot of my time in material I am not that bothered about is concerning.

It is taking me quite some time to learn the songs and the impact is I either stop doing any other guitar practice that I enjoy or spend nearly all day doing both.

I realise doing anything on guitar will have benefits but the question is do I want to learn Pop type songs when in fact I prefer to learn Blues or Rock genre material. I am also beginning to feel quite pressured by it all, perhaps because it may be too much for me to take on.

1 Like
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@AJSki2fly I get that about not liking the songs. I get some at the local uke group I just loathe. One night, a guy wanted to do all show tunes. UGh. Painful. Especially when he over sang and over played them all. You’d have thought he was auditioning for a lead part in Sound of Music. Anyway, maybe go with the flow a bit, see how it goes? Once you have the songs down, it’ll go easier. You’ll get rhythm practice playing with other people. By then it’ll be fun and 2nd nature. Then you can close in on the blues tunes, or maybe suggest they all learn a few.

2 Likes
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I am meeting the keyboard player and singer later today for a practice of 3 of them, ‘Heart of Gold’, ‘Proud Mary’ and ‘No Matter What’. I want to find out what their expectations are off me and how they see a guitar fitting into the songs in terms of overall presentation. If it is purely as a rhythm machine then it may not be for me. the reason I need to understand this is the keyboardist tends to be OTT and flowery, probably because they have been just singer and keyboards for some time, and added bass a year or so ago and drums recently.

i will see how it goes and take it from there.

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Sounds like the person in my uke group. One in every crowd. I try, as do the others, to focus on the good ones in the group, those that are there for the sheer enjoyment of playing.

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I asked the lovely Richard @Richard_close2u for some advice on how to approach the long list of Band Songs which I am finding challenging to learn. He asked me to post them here so it would not only help me but possibly others. The list is the current set I believe they have others up their sleeve that they have played in the past.

To put some context on this I am current working on 1, 2 and 21, practicing each day.

I think only a few songs have had key changes from the original but have not checked them all through yet.

Yesterday early evening I met with the Keyboard player(Don) and singer(Sue), both are very nice. We started with ‘Heart of Gold’ which went OK but I made too many mistakes IMO, and rhythm playing definitely could be more consistent, I was annoyed with myself as I had played it quite well earlier in the day, a case of nerves I think.

I had suggested a version of ‘Reelin In The Years’ - Steely Dan, Sue asked me to play this explaining Don had said she should sing it in the key F major as she found it too high in A major. I am not sure how I could easily do this as it is basically one big solo and shifting it would I suspect be problematic. I played it and Sue liked that but struggled with the pitch of it.

We then went onto play ‘Proud Mary’ which I managed to to get through with some rhythm mistakes on the C - A -G - F chord Riff, Don stopped playing when the solo came up which through me as he expected me to play it, I am still trying to get that right.

I came back in playing the chords. We started ‘No Matter What’ and did the Intro and Verse and then I got lost mainly due to screwing up the Bridge and getting lost, the structure is not engrained yet. I have only been working on this a few days. At this point I asked to stop as I needed to practice it more and finish up

Don and Sue both seem very supportive, they have been playing together around 14 years, Sue knows nothing about music she just sings as guided by Don. Don has played of over 50 years and has music diplomas and teaches music, he sights reads and plays. The band will not be playing until early next year, as they have missed various slots for different reasons, so I have 5 - 6 months to get as much as possible together. Sue suggested that when we we had 4 or 5 songs in good shape we could do an open Mic to give me experience and get over any stage nerves, so that was encouraging. I have explained it is only 2 years since I started playing again and that I a finding learning new material hard, and getting to grips with good rhythm playing. Don said I just need to practice and practice and it will come, Sue said not to worry and it would be fine, she also said the drummer is still learning the songs.

So I think they are quite supportive, but I think need to come up with a method to tackle this in an effective way.

  1. Proud Mary - CCR in Cmajor.
  2. No Matter what - Badfinger (A).
  3. Lying in the Arms of Mary - Sutherland Brothers and Quiver in C major.
  4. Bus Stop - The Hollies in A minor.
  5. Have you ever seen the Rain - CCR in C major.
  6. There goes my first love - The Drifters in F major.
  7. Let it be - The Beatles in C major.
  8. Daniel - Elton John In C major.
  9. Kissing in the back Row - The Drifters Row in C major.
  10. Eight Days A Week - The Beatles in D major.
  11. Your more than a number of little red book - The Drifters in A major.
  12. Take it as it comes - The Doors in A minor.
  13. Red light spells danger - Billy Ocean in D major.
  14. One way or another - Blondie in D major.
  15. The letter - The Box tops in A minor.
  16. Because the night - Patti Smith in B minor.
  17. Down on the beach Tonight - The Drifters in D major.
  18. Love Man - Whitesnake. A major.
  19. Living Proof - Bruce Springsteen In A minor.
  20. Glitter girl - Harry Escott, Rina Mushonga in B minor.
  21. Heart of Gold - Neil Young in E minor.
  22. Keep on Running - Spencer Davis group in A major
  23. Maybe love is in New York City - The Pretenders in A minor.
  24. The Zephyr song - Red Hot Chili Peppers in A minor.
  25. Hippy. Hippy Shake - The Swinging Blue Jeans in E major.
  26. Love letters - Alison Moyet In C major.
  27. The first cut is the Deepest - Rod Stewart in C major.
  28. Angels - Robbie Wiliams In E major.
  29. Will You - Hazel O’Connor in D minor.
  30. A Little Respect - Alison Moyet in Cmajor.
  31. It’s a sin - Pet Shop Boys in C minor.
  32. Two out of three ain’t bad - Meat Loaf in A major.
  33. Big in Japan - Alphaville in D minor
2 Likes
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You’re crazy! That’s one heck of a challenge…

Personally, I figure it takes me about two weeks to learn a song (rhythm plus a bit of the solo), and another two weeks to get it sounding reasonably clean… at least by my standards.

At that pace, 33 songs would take me well over two years!

Much respect, my friend… but you’re going to have your work cut out for you! :sign_of_the_horns:

1 Like
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Which brings me to a question: how long does it usually take an experienced guitarist to learn a song and get it to the point where they’re happy to perform or share it?

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Yes I am finding it rather daunting, at that moment I think if I do 15 or 16 to a reasonable level I will be doing well.

From having known a couple of professional musicians, after a while they have played so many different songs and of similar types that they can perform a new one within a week of rehearsing for a performance. If you think about it a session musician will turn up to the recording studio, be given the music/chord structure and be expected to play it well within a couple of goes, and possible put a solo together as well.

1 Like