Lol, thanks Nancy, I’m glad when anyone takes the time to watch me play at playing guitar. 
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The man keeps on smashing it out of the park!
Spot on muting, gorgeous fat tone, stretching to die for and concentrating like a professor. I tip my hat to you Alexis, awesome stuff (again!) 
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You nailed that buddy! 
Looked flawless to my eyes and ears! 
(you mentioned an accidental mute at one point on a D7, but if so, totally inconsequential from my perspective!). Really solid, in-control playing. Super cool tone coming from your fingers with that chunky, heavy rock vibe. 
Brilliant stuff mate! Can’t wait to see what’s next!! 
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Great job with that Alexis. Troy would be proud to pass on the torch to you because you play it so well. Very impressive!
Jeff
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That was great Alex and not easy by the looks of things. Reckon your pinkie must be on steroids with the mega stretches !! Keep on rockin man.
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On The Prowl
Hi All!
I started playing the guitar on January 6th 2022 (I can’t believe it’s been a whole year) so I wanted to post my next AVoYP around this time so that I can talk about my progress throughout the year as well as show those interested where I’m currently at.
First I’ll show one of my first videos recorded early march. This was about 3 months in and where I was at the end of my Grade 1 consolidation. Stand by me - chord progression - YouTube
As you can see I wasn’t super far into my guitar journey, I felt like i could do the old faithful strumming pattern pretty well and I had a grasp of the basic open chord shapes. I also knew nothing about audio recording or video editing. The sound was super low cause I didn’t know how to mess with the gain settings.
Fast forward to today, I chose this song cause it was the next one in one of the books I’m using in conjunction with Justin’s lessons plus it had a lot of different techniques and specifically rock techniques that I’ve learned through out the year.
For my rock study that I’ve been using Justin’s rock song book for I usually go through all of the techniques/interesting things about the songs to consolidate my learning so I thought I’d do something similar here considering it’s my guitar anniversary post. Skip straight to the youtube video for those not interested:
- Chords - A (open A chord, Open A5), D (open D, open D5), G (open G5), E (Open E5 and open E), C (Open C chord)
- Staccato - The A’s in the intro are played short at first for a really cool sounding effect
- Vibrato - There’s a couple of vibrato lines in the song, I’m still not super great at this but this song has helped me a lot with it.
- Hammer ons/pull offs - Lots of these here, really cool sounds, love it.
- Single note lines - There’s some simple single note lines in the song that were really tough for me. It’s getting them in line with the rhythm that’s the problem.
- Arpeggiated Chords - There’s a D and a G chord that are arpeggiated. This is super tough to get in line with the rhythm as you’ll see I mess this up a couple of times.
- String Bending - There’s a single half step string bend in the chorus. I’m hit or miss here but this is the first song that I’ve played that uses this technique so hopefully I’ll get better.
- Off beat accents and rests - Some parts are played in the off beat or the accent and there are rests throughout the song that make it really sound interesting.
So here’s the actual video. I’m not perfect by any means but I think this is a good representation of where I am today with my guitar playing.
NOTE: If you raised your volume to hear the first video you might want to lower it as the sound is right in this one, don’t want to blow your eardrums!
Anyway it’s been a great year! When I started learning last year I felt like I’d probably give up pretty quickly considering it was my second or third attempt. I think finding justinguitar and especially this community has kept me playing. Want to thank everyone who’s given me advice or even just gave my videos a watch or my posts a read. Here’s to another hopefully productive year! 
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Hi Mate, thats awesome and gives a newbie like me some experience strength and hope that i can emulate your learning and lean into the community for support.
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Amazing progress! You sound incredible for having played only 1 year.
How often do you practice and what’s your routine like?
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Hi Alexis,
Great to see that progress,…have fun
Greetings,Rogier
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At first I practiced 20 min a day for the first 3 months while going through Justin’s Grade 1 course (All I could do to get through the finger pain), then I practiced for 30 min a day for about 6 months (my entire Grade 2 + consolidation) and for the past 3 or so months I’ve been playing an hour a day on a modified version of Justin’s recommended practice routine for Grade 3.
I started using another non Justin related book (Troy Stetina’s Metal Rhythm Guitar Vol. 1) around this time as well so I modified the routine to accommodate. Here’s what my routine looks like today.
I follow justin’s Grade 3 for what I practice my first half an hour. The 10 min song practice is what song I’m currently on in Justin’s rock songbook (recommend, it’s awesome). My second half an hour is dedicated to Troy Stetina’s books (Also awesome and recommend if you are into rock/metal).
If you can’t tell from the pic, I use Justin’s practice tool as well, it’s awesome and really easy to use.
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Awesome progress. Well done.
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What a great discipline. You have my respect.
I tried and failed at sticking to such detailed routines before.
If you do not mind me asking, how do you plan for what to do in each of those 5 minutes?
For example, you have 5 minutes for knowledge. For me, figuring out what to learn takes more than that. How do you figure out what to learn in just 5 mins?
Or, for example, you have 5 minutes reserved for a particular exercise. For me, bringing up that exercise takes a few minutes of that already. Then there is the time required for finding and deciding what to do.
How do you manage the deciding and planning side of things?
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Hi Alexis.
You really rocked Troy’s song. I don’t think Stand By Me sounded bad either when you started. I played that song with my daughter on stage using a 12 string. She was the best in her class at 10 years old lol. Have you ever listened to Troy’s band. Oversouls if he still has the band anymore. He played metal and hard rock. Seems to fit your style. Thanks for sharing the progress. Great job. You could be a lead guitar player for a band with how well you play.
Jeff
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It depends on several things but generally I’ll know what I’m going to be doing before I even start the 5 min. knowledge for example will be music theory or sometimes a video lesson on a song that I’m learning. Technique might be specific motions that I find difficult on a song I’m learning (chord changes and the like). Timing is always with a metronome. I usually play chord progressions for a song I’m currently learning with a metronome and tapping my foot. Improv when I’m not working on something specific is almost always a scale. The next song I’m learning in troys book uses a riff in the Blues scale so I’ll be practicing that for in the improv section for a while. Song practice is usually whatever song I’m learning from Justin’s rock song book with a backing track.
As you can see, what song I’m working on usually informs what I’m putting in the 5 min slots.
It’s a beautiful song. Playing a 12 string sounds hard lol!
I’ve listened to his stuff before. I think he’s a really great shred guitarist. My favorite stuff is his instrumental songs. His album Exottica for example is really good!
I don’t know about that lol, but I do strive to get a little better everyday. Hope to one day be able to play through this whole song without messing up once.
Alexis halpy guitar anniversary! You really went far since joining here and your recordings are getting better and better. Now you even added some lead play how cool is that?! Kudos and vibes from me, hope next year will be even better for you 
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Thanks Adrian! It’s been a great year. Hope to get into actual lead playing this year. I have a book on it but still have a long way I want to go rhythm wise. Thinking about the possibilities get me excited!
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Fantastic progress for one year Alexis. You’ve really put the work in. Well done.
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Great milestone Alexis. Your progress shows what being dedicated and disciplined with your practice routine can do in a year.
Sounds like the Troy Stetina training programme is pretty good. The song sounds built for practicing a lot of different techniques, but not too fast. One thing I find sometimes when figuring out songs to learn is that 85% of it is pretty straightforward to get, but the last 15% or so is sometimes way too fast. That one looked a moderate speed but loads of fun to play.
I love playing songs that mix riffs and chords.
Do you have plans or direction for the next year? I’m curious if you’re going to go deeper into the rock/metal stuff or try different things like fingerstyle.
That was pretty impressive! It’s obvious that your dedicated and structured practice time is paying off. I thought you were already doing impressively well at just 3 months in, keeping a steady beat, and making smooth chord changes. What struck me about your current piece in particular was your accuracy hitting single notes, and you really do shine rhythmically. Keep having fun playing!!
Thanks!
Like many other things in life, I’ve found that the more I get into the guitar the more I realize how much I don’t know about it and how many different paths I can take.
So far, I still feel like there is so much more I can learn following rock and metal that I think I’m going to be sticking to that for a while. There’s 1 more song in troy’s Vol. 1 rhythm book then he has a vol. 2 for rhythm (6 more songs), a primer + 2 volumes for lead playing (12 solos) and a book with 21 original songs like this one that go from easy to difficult designed as a supplement for both rhythm and lead. And that’s just Troy!
I still have about 8 beginner songs left for Justin’s Rock songbook and after that I plan on taking a break from the study and start learning my favorite AC/DC and Foo Fighters songs while I go through the Intermediate method. I purchased a year of Justinguitar TAB subscription just for this purpose.
One of these days I’ll get bored of learning rock but luckily, I like all types of music. I want to buy a classical guitar and learn some of my favorite video game music which would require learning finger style. So that’s probably where I’ll go if I want a break from rock/metal. The possibilities are endless!
Thanks Mari, I spend a lot of time on trying to get the rhythm right. I’ll give credit to both Justin and Troy for being great teachers and emphasizing the importance of rhythm early on in both their methods.
I remember watching a video where Troy talks about his metal rhythm method (where this song comes from). He said something like “it doesn’t matter that you can play the song. If you aren’t able to play it while tapping your foot, then you aren’t really following the method. Rhythm is the basis on which the entire method was created”. That stuck with me so I’m glad that at least shows a little.
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