July 12th, 2023
How it’s been going:
Another 2ish months since my last update! As before, it’s been a crazy busy couple of months work and life wise. Luckily, I’ve been able to pick up the guitar most days and have been playing pretty consistently. I also got to play at one of the recent justinguitar open mics. This was a really great experience since I don’t really play in front of people besides my immediate family. I think I did pretty good overall, I messed up on the solo for the song I did though (Holiday by greenday).
I also started Justin’s grade 5 and Troy Stetina’s Metal Rhythm Guitar Vol. 2. Feels good to be moving forward, but it’s not all sunshine and rainbows as I’ve been slacking on my rock song study. I was able to record teenage kicks and am in the middle of learning Ballad of Jayne by the LA Guns. It’s just been at a slower pace than what I was doing before and just haven’t had the time to really dig deep.
Did songs in the AVOYP section and have a couple more cooking.
What I’ve been Playing:
- Teenage Kicks- This is a great song to practice some barre chords since it uses simple E and A shaped ones. I enjoyed my time with it and was glad that I was able to at least attempt the solo in my recording. AVOYP Here
- Lucky Day- First song in Metal Rhythm guitar Vol. 2 and it is FAST at 152bpm. This was great to do right after teenage kicks since it also uses barre chords but much much faster so I feel like it is taking it up a notch. Lots of one minute changes in my practice to get from power chords to A shaped barre chords up to speed. AVOYP here.
- Holiday - Song I played in the justinguitar open mic. As I said above, I think i did okay when I played it live, but I didn’t hit the solo properly. I ended up doing a more polished version for the AVOYP section of the forum. I did get the solo right that time, though I made a small timing mistake in the middle of the song. AVOYP here.
- Ballad of Jayne - Next song in my rock study. Lots of layered parts in this one. Justin teaches the acoustic part in the songbook, so I think I’ll be only playing that part in my video. I don’t play my acoustic nearly as much as I should, so focusing on that part allows me to really dig deep to getting it right.
The Plan:
Not much here, I’m gonna keep pushing! In terms of Justin, I’m doing a little of grade 4 and a little of grade 5 since I’m working on a lot of barre chords. I already have a couple of songs with them in it and I’m closing in on the intermediate section of the rock song book which has a lot of songs with them in it. I’m excited to move forward there.
For metal guitar, I’m pushing forward with troy’s book and have gotten to barre chords there too. I’m really excited for the rest of the book because it gets into some really awesome topics/songs including 16th note rhythms/syncopation, drop d tuning, triplets, and some really heavy sounding riffs in the songs.
anyway things are starting to get longer than I like so till next time…