February 18th, 2023
How it’s been going:
I’ve been very busy guitar wise and because of that I’ll separate this section into 2:
- JustinGuitar - I’ve finished grade 3! well, the part of it that’s released. I really loved the more loose structure of this grade. It allowed me to pursue what interested me while also giving me some sort of structure to follow. I didn’t master anything by any means. I’ll be spending a lot of time going back through the transcription videos and really digging deep. Also finished the 9th song in my JustinGuitar Rock songbook study: Sunshine of your love by cream (more details below). The last 2 videos of grade 3 that Justin released (Vibrato and intro to Barre chords) have been extremely helpful to me so I’m looking forward to watching the new lessons as they come out.
- Metal/Rock Guitar - I’ve finished Metal Rythm guitar Vol. 1! The final song of that book is awesome (details below) and I had a lot of fun recording and playing it. I feel that this book combined with justin’s content has really given me a solid base to move forward with in terms of rhythm. There are still a lot of books in the series so like Justin’s content, this is just the beginning!
What I’ve been Playing:
- As Darkness Gathers- The 6th and final song in Metal Rhythm Guitar Vol. 1. The Rhythm is pushed, there’s some single note fills and riffs, plus a lot of palm muting. Perfect capstone song to end the book. It’s heavily inspired by Metallica’s Enter Sandman (The main riff sounds exactly like it). AVOYP Here.
- Sunshine of your love - 9th song in my Rock study and my goal of recording my self playing all 50 songs in Justin’s rock song book. This song is tougher than it looks! have to make sure muting is on point and the rhythm is good. I think I did pretty well considering but I probably counted 6? times I hit a string I meant to mute, lol. AVOYP Here.
- Hair Rock- This is a song from one of Troy’s stetina’s books called Total Rock Guitar. It’s meant to be a supplemental book with 23 instrumental songs of various Rock styles that are arranged by difficulty. This is the first song so it’s pretty easy (though I did mess up once in the recording). I won’t bother posting this in the AVOYP section cause I don’t need any advice or anything on it but if you’re interested, here’s the youtube link: AVOYP Here.
- Should I stay or should I go- 10th song in my Songbook study. I love playing it, it’s super fun and also the right amount of challenging. There’s a part with G and F E shaped barre chords sans the bass note but I’m playing them full barre chords since I’m on grade 4 anyway. I only just started this song so no recording for another maybe 3 weeks.
The Plan:
- JustinGuitar - Instead of consolidating Grade 3 I’ll just move to grade 4 while justin finishes grade 3. I’m trying to move pretty slowly through this so I’ve only started messing around with E Shaped barre chords. This is perfect timing since Should I stay or should I go has some in there to slowly get me used to them. Half of my practice time is dedicated to this so a lot of chord perfect/OMC in my future. So far the hardest is D → G (E shape).
- Metal/Rock Guitar - Now that I’m finished Rhythm 1 I’m going to start rhythm 2, but I also want to start messing around with troy’s other books. Specifically Metal Lead Guitar Primer and the Total Rock guitar supplemental songs. So I’ve decided to split my second half of practice in half (again, lol). I’ll be spending 15 min on Metal Lead Guitar and 15 min on Vol. 2 of rhythm or Total rock guitar. I think I’m going to start playing the first 3 songs in TRG then start alternating between a chapter/song in each book. I’ll see how that goes for a while.
New Gear/Purchases:
I bought a mic! Not for singing, not yet at least. I bought it so I can record my acoustic guitar instead of trying to get my electric guitars to sound like one. This will be great for when I get to the more acoustic oriented songs like behind blue eyes and I think I remember you for my songbook study. So far it’s pretty awesome for when I’m in work meetings lol, but we’ll see how it works recording instruments.