Hi! I am Ari. This is my third time attempting to learn guitar, but my first time taking it seriously. Last time I got about as far as I am right now, but I was learning on a friend’s guitar whereas now I’ve bought my own guitar. I think that that practice helped me complete module 1 faster this time around.
I figure I should try and make a post every time I finish a module or every three weeks, whichever comes first, and that should help with accountability.
Once I hit 60 changes in a minute, I started balancing valuing quality rather than just speed. I was very happy to see that I still hit >30 changes even with that.
The song I went with for Module 1 is Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way by Waylon Jennings. It is the first song in the JustinGuitar 101 song Beginner Songbook I bought (the new one that is mapped to the current lessons rather than the old lessons). Also it’s probably my favorite of the module 1 songs (along with Blowin’ Smoke), and it seems like the easiest one to play since the actual rhythm guitar in the song is doing the same thing you’re doing, just four strums per bar rather than one. Here is a recording of me playing it on day 7:
I am struggling to pick a song for module 2 since there are so many options lol. The songbook says “Bear in mind that ALL the songs in this book should be revisited a few times as you progress”, but I can’t imagine he’s actually suggesting you learn all 101 songs in this beginner songbook, right? It is nice to have all these options, but also intimidating!
Anyway, it felt very good to see myself slowly improve over the course of this past week, and I look forward to continuing to slowly improve over time!
Random side note regarding Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way:
When I first heard the song, I kind of didn’t like the lyrics, because it sounded like an appeal to tradition. He dislikes the “rhinestone suits and new shiny cars”. “Are you sure Hank done it this way?” It seems important to him to do it how Hank did it, not this newfangled way. And I’m not a fan of that! If I were complaining about samey country, my version of that lyric would change to an excited “Where do we take it from here, rhinestone boots and new shiny stars? But it’s been the same way for years, we need to change.” An appeal to a different kind of shininess than is common in country or than it sounds like Waylon Jennings likes.
But the melody and vocals stuck with me so I read/listened to the lyrics properly and looked further into the song, and what he’s lamenting is the loss of soul from country, and I love that. It’s not the rhinestone suits specifically, but the corporatization and sameness and whatnot. I found a live performance on YouTube where he changes the final “I don’t think Hank done 'em this way” to “I think he did it like he wanted to” and I think that’s a great line to end the song on. Instead of saying don’t be different than Hank, it says do it like you want to: i.e. be an authentic artist, which I vibe with a lot and I think is what he’s actually saying
I have a few comments to make. Firstly, you’ve made good progress and your rendition of the song was absolutely fine. You hit the beat and found the fingerings every time.
I like the fact that you are making charts to be clear and precise about your progress. I do the same over on my learning log. I also think that shifting to quality rather than just going for higher speed in chord changes is wise.
I think the word ALL in the notes means that all of the songs you choose to play should be revisited, rather than all the gazillions there are there.
Finally, a comment on songs in general. I feel free to modify any aspect of any song I play, and I often do make changes. Usually this is to make the material easier to play, but not always. Sometimes I embroider, sometimes I simplify. I have lyrics that I prefer to the original, mainly due to me mishearing them some time ago. Making your own version and being happy with the differences seems like a valid step towards ultimately writing your own material. By all means work slavishly to copy a solo, or something specific, if that’s your goal, but don’t feel you fail if you cannot reproduce what you hear - most recordings are the result of complex multi-tracking that a single guitarist can never hope to emulate.
I recreated the charts from https://www.justinguitar.com/ebooks?ebook=onboarding in my preferred spreadsheet software (LibreOffice Calc). Note that in order to make that line graph, I had to use a pivot table, which can be a bit annoying, but worth it for pretty chart!
Module 2 complete. My goal this module was to learn Three Little Birds by Bob Marley with four strums per bar at full speed. This is about 74 strums per minute with three chords compared to about 28 strums per minute with two chords in my module 1 goal. For the first week and a half or so, I just tried to play it at full speed, hoping that over time I’d get there. This was not working, so I slowed down a bunch and slowly ramped up my speed. I think I ramped up too quickly though trying to get there within my arbitrary three week timeframe. I did not get to a point where I am satisfied with my performance, but I’m getting bored, and I’m not sure that I’m actually getting better or if I’m just developing bad habits, so I’m moving on to Module 3. It’s frustrating to be playing worse than I did last time even though I’m playing something more difficult, so if anyone has any tips from my text or videos to improve my chords, I would much appreciate it
With the Peter Gunn theme it was a similar deal, except I started out at 50% speed and then decided to try to ramp up quickly. I didn’t have the thicker pick initially, so I thought that would significantly improve my performance when I got it, but it wasn’t that much better, so today’s video is me attempting to play at 75% speed.
I started keeping track of the bpm about halfway through, so today’s chart has some numbers:
Module 02
Time
Practice Item
M
T
W
T
F
S
S
M
T
W
T
F
S
S
M
T
W
T
F
S
S
02:00
Chord Perfect – E Chord
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01:00
Chord Perfect – D Chord
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01:00
Chord Perfect – A Chord
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02:00
Anchor Finger Practice
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01:00
One Minute Changes – A to D
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01:00
One Minute Changes – A to E
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01:00
One Minute Changes – E to D
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01:00
Peter Gunn Theme Riff
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120
120
168
180
192
204
216
228
204
180
10:00
Song Work
✓
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56
59
59
63
63
67
67
70
70
74
74
The ups and downs in this chart are correlated with how much sleep I got, how much I’m valuing quality of chord compared to speed, and me improving a little over time:
My goal for Module 3 is to learn Fever by Peggy Lee and Use Me by Bill Withers with four strums per bar. The former is a song I’ve always really liked, the latter is a song I never heard until now, but I’m very glad to have now heard because it’s perfect. I would like to hit full speed, but I think what I’ve learned from module 2 is that it’s better to go slower and maybe not get there than to prioritize getting there.
Hi Ari,
you’re doing very well, you’re staying in rhythm and moving regularly, your strumming is perfect for Module 2. Your downstrums are still a little faster than your (silent) upstrums, which is normal in Module 2, even if it seems a little choppy. Please don’t try to learn it any faster, it’s all about rhythm here, not speed. Soon in Module 3 you will learn the smooth, relaxed up/down movement that will make strumming much more enjoyable, then you can increase the tempo and playing songs becomes much more enjoyable.
Congratulations on your progress and have fun!
Cheers Withold
I am satisfied with the rhythm of my strumming even though it’s not perfect: it’s close enough for where I’m at. It’s the chords that I don’t get to in time or that don’t ring out that I know I need to improve.
At the moment, you are still placing your fingers one after the other, and that works great and is fast enough, and it’s totally fine for now. You’re keeping the rhythm and everything is okay. Precision is more important in the beginning so that your muscles remember the positions. You will soon learn a better technique where you place all your fingers at once and can play much faster. You will practice this with air changes in Module 7, so everything in its own time. For now you’re doing it great!
Module 3 complete. I’ve been losing a little interest, getting a little bored of doing the same thing every day, and work has gotten stressful and it’s awards season and tax season, so I’ve been practicing significantly less than before, so the finger pain is back, but I’ve really enjoyed playing Use Me. Fantastic song, and I winged strumming to sound kind of like the song. It’s pretty awesome to be able to play more complicated than just four strums per bar, and to play at full speed on a faster song.
I was struggling early on with the chord changes for Use Me, so I added One Minute Changes Em to A to get some extra practice.
Module 3
Time
Practice Item
M
T
W
T
F
S
S
M
T
W
T
F
S
S
M
T
W
T
F
S
S
M
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W
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F
S
S
M
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W
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F
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S
01:00
Chord Perfect – Am Chord
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01:00
Chord Perfect – Em Chord
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01:00
One Minute Changes – Am to E
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01:00
One Minute Changes – Em to D
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01:00
One Minute Changes –Am to Em
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01:00
One Minute Changes –Em to A
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01:00
Anchor Finger Practice
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02:00
Strumming
80
80
80
80
51
51
100
100
136
137
120
02:00
Seven Nation Army Riff
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05:00
Fever by Peggy Lee
68
68
68
68
68
68
102
102
136
136
136
136
05:00
Use Me by Bill Withers
101
51
51
51
59
101
101
101
156
156
156
156
Chord changes for module 3 were significantly easier than module 2, though I still take three steps to make a D chord rather than one step like an Em or two steps like an A.
Never got particularly good at Seven Nation Army, here is unedited practice session from today. All three recordings this time around have less effort put into them, I think I did three takes for each song and only one for the riff whereas I did four takes per song for the other times:
I used Fever to practice the two strumming patterns, switching halfway through. It doesn’t go super well with the song, but I figured given that I’m not following the key changes anyway, it’s eh
For Use Me, I made up my own strumming. This is not my best performance, I know I matched tempo better other days, but it is time to move on, so this is what I got for now. Super fun to mess around within the structure of just playing the two chords for two bars each
Other miscellanious notes:
My callouses have turned to dead skin that can get in the way of changing chords sometimes
My guitar is starting to get sweaty, and I’m not really sure how to clean it
I’m not sure how to go about successfully avoiding the largest string when playing chords where it’s not played. There hasn’t been any instruction on how to not do it, only telling us not to.
