Certainly time to move on Valerian. Pretty solid throughout especially when the song tempo picked up. Good work. The only thing I would add, was the volume was very low and looking at YouTube you have a lot of headroom on your recording level. Apart from that you are all good !
Thanks for the feedback ! 
Hey everybody,
inspired by all the other recent video posts, I‘ve decided to jump into cold water and make my first AVOYP as well 
.
Right now, I‘m in consolidation phase of grade 1 and played for this video one of the 5 songs I try to memorize. It‘s ‚Three Little Birds‘ by Bob Marley. I didn’t use a strumming pattern, but tried to fingerpick it instead. To make it a bit more of a challenge 
. And at least to me, it sounds better that way (although not every chord change and picking turned out as smoothly as I wanted it to be 
).
I‘m very much interested in your thoughts and tipps to improve my playing .
Hey that’s awesome Nicole 
With singing too, great job.
Only tip would be not to dwell too long on minor ‘faults’ the performance was really clean, don’t be too strict with yourself before moving on
Great share Nicole. Beyond Grade 1 already I think!
Hi Nicole that was terrific, way beyond Grade 1 in my opinion. You are doing great and nothing to be shy about! 
Hi Nicole,
That was unbelievably good, the singing and fingerpicking were really great and an AVOYP more than worthy and in that respect very well passed for grade 1 (but you know better yourself whether there is still something to learn in grade 1, but purely based on this 
grade 2 
)…I am impressed 
Greetings,Rogier
@liaty @jkahn @adi_mrok @roger_holland
Thanks so much for taking the time, watching my video and - of course - for your positive feedback . I haven‘t checked with the mirror, but I‘m quite certain that I blushed while reading your reply’s 
.
And yes Dave, I‘m a kind of perfectionist. It‘s not easy for me to move on, as long as some faults still happen. And to be honest, I feel quite comfortable in grade 1 .
I will definitely move on - in some weeks or so 
.
Thanks again to all of you 
.
What a way to consolidate grade 1. Fingerpicking and singing, very impressive Nicole. What a great job you did of the song. Great things to come, I think.
Thanks a lot for your kind reply, Stefan. I’m glad that you like my version of the song 
.
Well done Valerian on your first recording, it was great! With steady strumming and good chord change you’re definitely on your way to Grade 2.
That’s a great first up recording. The fingerpicking was fluent and the vocals were beautiful. Well done Nicole!
Well done, really nice. Great idea to finger pick it with such easy chords in that song.
Thank you, Bob. I thought, finger picking would make the song more interesting, as I’m not able to play it Reggae style, yet 
.
Well done Nicole, you have such a lovely voice too! I’m just about to post my first AVOYP - its nerve wracking so well done you on reaching that all important first milestone xx
Bravo, Nicole, takes some doing to make the first recording and yours is delightful. I really enjoyed your intrepretation and you showcased good clean chords and changes, right-hand technique beyond expectations of grade 1, easy on the ear vocal. Lots to love.
What you may want to experiment with as you progress is playing alternating bass notes on the E and the D chords as you did for the A chord. For the D chord you could try the open A string. While we learn to play just the thinnest 4 strings when playing a D chord in order for the lowest note to be the open D string, which sounds good in most chord progressions, the open A string is also a note in the D chord, so works well when playing alternating bass notes. For the E chord, my preference is to alternate between the open E string and the D string. Given your ability to play the A chord as well as you did, you may enjoy exploring this idea.
Once again, well done and look forward to your next recording.
Bravo, Valerian, a big deal to make that first recording and you did great.
Based on the final part of the video with the full strumming you showed steady rhythm, mastery of the pattern and did well with the chord shapes, especially Dm which can be challenging.
My only suggestion would be to work on your foot-tapping. That may help you to keep track of the beats in the bar which I think can be a little more tricky when playing the same chord for 2 barres as is the case in this song. And along with that to keep the hand moving. That movement doesn’t necessarily need to be a full motion between the single strums in the first portion, just enough to keep a groove going with the foot.
Congrats and have fun in Grade 2!
@BobW72 re: It’s Easier. Bravo on that, well done. From start to finish you have a good vibe going here and do it with a seemingly quiet confidence in your ability to play it through from start to finish and to play through any minor fumbles. Yes, of course, there are tweaks and improvements that you need to work on. I’m not going heavy on critique here so will limit it to one observation. Your 3rd finger is slow on the D chord so try working on improving your speed of simultaneous fingering.
Cheers Richard
@oliver_bendix re: Ain’t No Sunshine.
Sparse and simple is just so effective on that song. You still need to be sure and confident on the chords - arguably more so given their infrequent yet vital nature - and you pulled it off just fine.
I couldn’t help but watch your cat also - especially it’s twitch of the ears at your high notes!
@direvus re: House of the Rising Sun x2
Uploading both videos provides a really useful snapshot into your progress over several weeks Brendan. Bravo all round.
There are improvements as others have mentioned. You may look occasionally and think that you don’t hold your chords long enough - especially the D major. However, what you are doing is ensuring you arrive at the F barre on time. In the early stages being in the right place at the right time takes priority over staying on a chord for its full intended duration. So no worries there. Just keep working on the changes to build better speed between them.
Kudos and vibes. Cheers, Richard