Ben's Log

Community Hub Learning Logs
1

Hey All,

While I get my act together on keeping a log of my progress with some recording as well. I figure I may as well TRY keep some sorta diary-ish here.

----------- edit ---------------------------
FOR FULL TRANSPARENCY… I HAVE NOT PASSED GRADE 1 PROPERLY and HAVE NOT LEARNT THE STUCK CHORDS YET EITHER… I’m jumping around the material a little but hopefully not too much.

So post no1 - catching up on 5 weeks of updates:

Week 1 - 6th April 2025 - 12 April2025
1st April - 5th April - watched through beginner grade 1 on JustinGuitar without a guitar.
6th April 2025 - Bought and picked up my first guitar (electric) and started learning:

  • Chords A, Am, E, Em and D. D was the hardest one for me sticking out my ring finger.
  • I had to rewatch the clip and demonstrations from Justin a few times to follow.
  • Week 1 spent just doing the transitions
  • Also felt very awkward holding the guitar, slipped and slide all over the place. Felt like i had to hold my strumming arm up all the time or drape my arm too far over the guitar.
  • Also worth noting against advice, I started with a “medium” plectrum from the shop and spent some of my practise time muted string strumming (this part was the easy part for me I felt)

Week 2 - 13th - 19th April 2025

  • watched most things in the beginner grade 1 and looked at the material to build a set of things to practise.
  • Started to learn old ye faithful strumming pattern
  • Learning the string names and eddie ate dynamite good by eddie.
  • Still working on first riff, knowing the chords without reviewing which fingers and which strings. Struggled a little at the start knowing which strings were and were not played initially and purely just focusing on chord changes.
    Generally speaking, I couldn’t really do any of the above in week 2 properly. I couldn’t strum without concentrating and would accidently hit strings when I didn’t want to and vice versa.
    The chords that far exceeded a few seconds of prep time to play was Dm, C and G.
  • I also skipped the second riff if I’m honest and picked a very difficult song and just memorised maybe a few bars to just have a bit of fun.

I watched how to pass grade 1 at the end of week 2 to see what I had to focus on.

Week3 - 20th - 26th April 2025
Struggle town on switching to the G or C chord from any other open chord I’d learnt. While On some chord changes I could get to 2 sec per change. It wasn’t sufficient for some of the play along songs I was testing.
I focused purely on:

  • G and C for the whole week
  • Still mucking around on the hard song and my Jusin taught riff.
  • Worked on Old ye faithful strumming pattern.
  • Started memorising Low E string notes (5min every so often during the week)

Week 4 - 27th April - 3rd May 2025

  • Started learning the F chord. Index finger really hurt. and the middle finger felt really odd trying to place it on the string for the chord.
  • At this point, all I’ve been doing is cycling all chords in two parts. Slow when I make a lot of mistakes and then some time going as fast as I can while strumming old ye faithful.

Honestly I cannot consistently last a whole minute on chord changes once a sec. And I’ve decided to keep it in my practise routine till i feel i can change chords confidently.
Difficult most awkward changes for me are:
A → G
C → G
Dm → D

I had to break a habit of placing one finger at a time as well and really slow right down to move my fingers in slow motion to simulate the air change.

At this point I also started learning the E minor pentatonic and Open C major scale.
It’s worth noting I skipped song memorisation of 5 songs!!! I do NOT recommend that :slight_smile:

… I’m currently on Week 6, I’ll type out week 5 and 6 together after week 6 is finished…

2 Likes
2

Well it sounds like you have been busy Ben, and why not it is the only way to learn keep it up mate cheers Hec

3

Welcome and happy learning!

If I can offer one piece of suggestion, it is “take it slowly”. I got the impression from your post that you’re tackling Grade 1 as a whole, beginning to end. My suggestion is to go one module at a time, and only progress to the next one once those concepts and techniques are well mastered.

My own pace when I was going through Grade 1 was about 2-3 weeks on each module, then moving on to the next. I just had a look in my own learning log (handy thing to have!) and it seems it took me 8 months to complete Grade 1 and move on. I started Grade 2 on Jun 22 and if I’m completely honest, I have not “closed it” just yet, as there are many things I don’t feel are up to standard yet and I don’t want to rush into G3.

Such a tortoise pace as mine may not be suitable to to you or most people, but somewhere in between may be a good way to consolidate the material without moving forward at to haste a pace.

Have fun and enjoy the journey - that is more important than the destination :slight_smile:

4

Hey heckler - thanks for the advice.

I originally had that intent and then quickly got to a point where I wanted a few things to practise because I ran out of things to practise since it takes time for it to sink in and learn.

I’ve moved on to build a set of things to do because it keeps me engaged that way. I’ve been practising about 2-3 hours a day.

Having said that though, I’ve stopped midway grade 2 because my practise routine is now filling up my time that I allocate for it which is nice. Keeps me engaged when I get bored of one thing because I can switch to other things to practise.

I’ve also been reading a bit of theory on the side as well.

Honestly it’s been pretty fun so far - very happy I stumbled across JustinGuitar.

5

Ok I was hoping to have a link to a clip of my progress, but it’s fallen to the bottom of my to do list because to my suprise, the sound picked up by the mic I use isn’t the clearest, so will have to fiddle with it.

Anyway I’ve completed week 6 as of the Sunday that just passed, so the break down for each week is as follows:

Week 5 (4th -10th May 2025)
I actually developed some elbow pain on the fretting hand at the start of the week so had to break up my practise time and take breaks. Also had to fiddle around with trying to relax the arm more and found it was rotating the fretting hand (left) anti clockwise too much that caused the pain.

Anyway. No progress on any more of the lessons and just practised the following:

  1. Chord changes. Focusing still on G and C but also started building the muscle memory for F chord.
  2. I’ve been practising the C major scale open position and I think position one?
  3. The two songs I’ve been slowly learning is Canon in D JerryC version and Blue bird by Ikimonogakari.
  4. I’m still playing the string note memory game for the 4th 5th and 6th string for about 5min at a time.

Week 6 (11th - 17th May 2025)
The practise was pretty much the same but with a sprinkling of some ear training and the first 3 positions of the C major scale.
Also, chords are being still focused on G, C, D transitions and F, C, G transitions

All in all, it’s been very fun but my practise routine is growing!! I haven’t found practise to be a chore and time flies by when i practise which is a good sign!

Biggest weak points.

  • Need to start using the metronome more
  • need to relax more
  • I also find my guitar keeps sliding out a bit and I have to keep correcting it so the strings don’t face the ceiling.
  • lessen the movements to press the strings on the fretting hand and the pinky feels weak
  • hoping the strumming hand accuracy will improve.
6

Hey All,

Another week. (I’ll probably stop doing weekly updates since things are taking longer and longer to practise) but will show updates when there are some changes or struggles along the way.

As promised, this is a link to a recording I made today. One take flaws and all:

I’ve barely memorised 1/4 of the song so far…

I’ll be continuing to post updates. But this one is just one of the songs I mentioned I started learning from day 1. I’ll post another update with the core material from Justinguitar lessons next week on my chord changes, scales etc.

I’ll have to find time to combine some of the original recordings I did in the first 6 weeks just to show the struggles / fun :slight_smile: as well later on.

Apologies if I’ve broken any forum rules, hopefully the link is ok in my learning log!!

-------------- edit ------------------
forgot to add, the sound isn’t great because I don’t have an audio interface and I’m just letting my desk mic pick up the sound in the room!!! One day I’ll fix it…
---------------- end of edit ------------------

Cheers all,

Ben

7

Hey All,

Ok just another update on chord changes. I’ve only recorded my current progress on my A chord changes recommended in the beginner grade 1 consolidation section.

I’m still practising everything else and will look to do a recording of my other ones as I progress.

Hope everyone’s enjoying their guitar journey!!!

------ edit -------
just realised I’m wearing the same top now that I saw the videos side by side!!! that’s just pure coincidence haha

Cheers,

Ben

8

hey guys, not an update per se, but wondering if anyone can provide some advice / guidance.

I have a question when the fretting hand moves say to the 12th fret and beyond (e.g. closer to the body of the guitar and jams up in terms of space close to the body…

Normally the thumb “pad” rests at the mid back section of the neck pointing to the ceiling… when I get to the higher frets… it gets awkward and my hand doesn’t feel flexible enough to keep the thumb in that position… it’s either the thumb print / pad points towards the base of the guitar… e.g rotates clock wise if i’m looking down at my thumb… OR if i want to keep the thumb print on the neck of the guitar i end up pointing the thumb towards the end of the neck…

What am I “MEANT” to do to have correct hand form?

This especially becomes a problem if I’m trying to play the low E string with my pinky on the higher frets… not so much of an issue on the lower frets…

Any advice anyone?

Thanks in advance!!

9

Thumb vertical at the back ofthe neck is a default position.

In reality, your thumb, handposition etc is going to be changing often , depending on what you’re doing, and where you are on the neck.
Find what works for you, and post it here for comment. You’ll get lots of opinions :wink:

Cheers, Shane

10

@sclay - Sorry for the slow reply. I was hoping to record what I mean, but instead have been trying as you put it “what works for me” and experimenting.

In the meantime, just a small update on my learning journey.

I mentioned I was learning the C Major scale a while back - but it seems I don’t use the metronome enough (at all) so we are going to fix that!! Here’s a clip of my C Major scale with and without, time to slow things down it seems.

Also, still working on my song in the background!

P.S. I’m still working on the chord changes but focused more on the F bar chord and generally just strumming and having fun playing with the open chords. I think I’ll probably start to use the metronome while strumming too.

1 Like
11

Hey All,

Been practising my chord changes still and including some barre chords. Trying to play my scales on the metronome as well. Recording of where I’m at including errors - I think this is the end of my 9th week on my guitar learning journey.

Also about the problem I had with the thumb placement, I talk about where I’m placing it at 5min onwards, please let me know if you think that’s a poor approach. All the recording prior to 5min is the scale playing with a metronome (with errors).

Any feedback is most welcome and appreciated!

Cheers,

Ben

1 Like
12

Hey Ben!

Good to see you using alternate picking early in your journey, this can be tricky for some people to relearn once they get too far down the road using only downpicks. As for your thumb placement, I think it really depends on the person and the situation. I’ve heard people say that it should always be on the back of the neck, but I’ve also seen plenty of players play with it wrapped over the top. Near the end of Grade 2 Justin actually talks about some of the benefits of wrapping it around the top, and he mentions how it might be tricky for some people to learn if they always play with it on the back of the neck. I use it to mute my 6th string on 5 string chords, and play different root notes in slash chords. For Barre / power chords it’s always on the back of the neck providing supporting strength, and then for scales / melodies it’s really situational. I don’t think there’s a really “right and wrong” way to do it, it’s more about finding a way that works for you. If switching between Barre chords and open chords was a problem for me with my thumb moving from the back of the neck to over the top, I would probably try to find another way, but it works good for me and I find the most comfort playing that way.

Keep us updated!

13

Alright, that really makes sense. Thanks for the feedback. I took a sneak peak a while back and after I had learned the open chords, I had to completely relearn them because of the muting thing.

It’s the scales / single note picking when I’m on the higher fretts thats the issue and I wasn’t sure. For now I’ll try place it on top but without muting and see how that fairs. Will post another video soon because the song I’m learning for the main melody bit is all the way around fret 14-19 area and the hand felt weak or awkward with thumb at back or to the side.

14

Hey All,
Hope everyone’s making progress on their guitar journey and having heaps of fun!

So… a proper update on what I’m doing!!

  1. I’m still working on my open chords. I still can’t do all 25 of the important changes recommended in Grade 1 consolidation while strumming, so going to have to pay special attention to Dm and E which seem to be my weakest links at the moment.
  2. I’ve been working in the E shape and A shape chords in my chord practise and moving them around.
  3. I’ve transitioned from the online learning the notes of the frettboard to the guitar now (no sharps or flats at this stage) for all strings. Still really slow but just trying to memorise and internalise - feels like when I was trying to learn to touch type on the keyboard :slight_smile:
  4. The C major scales is still happening in all 5 patterns just to get the muscle memory on the pattern and I’ve just been playing around a little with the C scale trying to make some kind of melody for fun.
  5. last by not least, still working on my song of choice.

This is a link to the latest update on the song (I’ll post one on my chord changes or my frettboard learning as the next recording.)

I THINK this is my 10th week so far. I’ve lost count. I should count by months now I think

Cheers,

Ben

15

Hey All,

Man time is going by quick. Trying to keep up practise. So to keep things transparent, I’ve captured how my chord playing REALLY IS. Spoiler alert, it’s rough and definitely could spend more time improving the accuracy.

I have found that even if I can do the one minute changes, strumming on top is then a different ball game again so will keep at it both strumming and just changing chords as accurately as I can for practise. Dm, G and E changes to other notes is definitely trouble for me.

I also said a few weeks back that I had started learning the fretboard notes, so I’ve also recorded my transition to the guitar now to show how it’s progressing. Learning the notes hasn’t been the most exciting, but it hasn’t been too bad once I got to transition to the guitar and not rely on a fretboard diagram constantly.

Either way here’s to recording for the above update for anyone that’s interested.

As always, feel free to leave any constructive feedback and point out what I’m doing wrong - I can’t improve if I don’t know!! :slight_smile:

Chord playing through the 25 changes recommended on JustinGuitar and some barre and power chords (sorry it’s a little long)

My update on learning the notes on the fretboard:

Thanks in advance and hope everyone’s doing well in their guitar adventures!

16

Ok… maybe I’m missing something, but I found a great source that isn’t available or it’s spread out maybe on this site somewhere else?

But I was googling around and stumbled upon two great things :slight_smile:
One was “Justin Dog Walks” which I found pretty cool…

…and the second thing…

Does anyone use Justin’s classic course modules? I found some pretty cool helpful information in there… is the classic course covered in all the new grade structure spread across all the modules?

As for an update, still working through my chord changes specifically the E shape barre chord (F Chord) which is still slow changing to it.

Made some progress on the songs I’m learning Canon and went back to trying to figure out how to make Twinkle Twinkle Little star “cooler”.

Made a mental break through and been sitting through a fair bit of theory to understand the major scale and the relationship on the frettboard and the 5 patterns and it clicked that I can actually play all the major scales even though I only really practised on C major when memorising them and as a result still working on memorising the frettboard so I can start to recognise root notes better! (and the notes that are supposed to sound good in a given key)

Anyway, my practise routine is certainly growing, but I do feel like I can never change chords fast enough when I’m just mucking around and strumming whatever I feel like.

If anyone has any tips on how to make a simple song like nursery rhymes more “full” and play the melody, please feel free to chime in. I’ve tried a couple things, but not quite what I had imagined.

17

Hey Ben, I’m not really sure on making nursery rhymes sound better, Justin has a good Greensleeves video in the second module of Grade 3 but it uses a bit of a more advanced figerpicking technique and might not really be relevant here. As for the chord changes, practicing those and measuring your progress is a great way to get better at them. I’ve found the best way to progress on chords for me is to learn songs that use them, and trying to keep up with the full tempo. Once you’ve got the changes down quick enough to use them in songs, it’s not as necessary I feel to have to constantly practice changing between them, as your finger independence, dexterity and coordination continue to progress in other ways and change between chords is a relatively easy feat. Once you’ve got barre chords down you can basically use them up and down the neck to do any chord any where, and modify them slightly to change them up a bit like with dominant 7th chords or major 7. I guess what I’m trying to say is it might seem difficult right now but once you’ve got the process down, having to work on chord changes becomes a much quicker thing that doesn’t take so much effort so don’t let it get you down.

18

Hey thanks for the tip - I’m somewhat using the metronome in place of a song and strumming. To simplify things for myself, i’ve decided to just stick the plectrum. Hopefully I don’t regret it later.

Had a look at the module you suggested and also check out the Grade 3 third module. The one about playing individual strings while strumming. Gives me a glimpse of how it could help so I’ve started just playing one chord and then picking the root note re-peatedly in between the strums just to build muscle memory - I do not have the skills to actually apply it, so for now it’s just going in my practise routine till further notice.

The reason why I picked a nursery rhyme is because it’s the most basic song I can think of to try play some chords in between while playing the individual note melodies. What I can’t quite work out is why when play a chord in place of the note (E.g. note A switched for an A chord) it doesn’t sound good.

My suspicion is it’s one of (or all of) the below:

  • I’m not in the same range/octave or have directionally moved to the wrong pitch
  • the order of the notes isn’t right or something based on my reading of triads and inversions.
  • The other possibility being I haven’t paid attention to the chord progressions. E.g. if i’m playing Twinkle in C major (no idea how I tell what key i’m playing the song in haha), then I’m meant to use C, Dm, Em, F, G, Am

The last one I haven’t been able to test yet since I haven’t learnt all the minor chords and triads yet.

It’s just an exercise I’m personally working through to try understand how chords and single notes get played together rather than a looping backing chord track while you play a melody on single notes.

Sorry, it’s the best way I can explain it.

As for the dominant 7th chords, I’ve read about it, but not really tried, my hands are currently full from the above exercise I’ve decided to try.

Also as a side note, definitely impressed on your progression. I have no idea how you’ve fit all that in for such a short period of time. I think I’m up to 3 months and been doing 2-3 hours a day on average for practise. You have a LOT more songs under your belt…good stuff!! :slight_smile:

19

Hey Ben, thanks for the kind words. I think you and I share a very analytical mindset with lots of reflection and introspection and I think that’s been a key driver behind my progression. I do use other tools outside Justin Guitar, like Ultimate-Guitar, Yousician, and I went through an old music theory course on Youtube by Scotty West called Absolutely Understand Guitar. It’s a long set of 34 hour long videos but it jump started my music theory understanding quite a bit, everyone recommends it on Reddit and I can see why. That analytical mindset helps me reflect and try to understand what I need to work on and how in a given point in time to align with my current short-term and long-term goals. For example right now I’m working on some songs that have solos with speeds that are beyond my skill range, so I’m working on those. I’m also working on Sultans of Swing but the second guitar solo uses some really fast parts that I need to get quicker at so I’m working on some arpeggio exercises as well. I was happy to see Justin actually has a finger-picking arpeggio video / module on that very topic and it has been really helpful.

As for your thoughts on Twinkle Twinkle little star, I think you’re on the right track. You’re right on the money that the chords being used would reflect the major / minor versions based on where they lie in a given major scale. Playing chords in the open position is kind of tricky because as you’ve seen they don’t all seem to fit into the same set of intervals. For example, an F chord:

image
image752×612 21.7 KB

One might expect that the F chord would sound a perfect 5th higher in pitch than a C chord, but we know that’s not the case. In reality, only the base note is a perfect fifth higher, and it contains two of the same notes at the same pitch as the F chord.

image
image752×612 21 KB

I THINK, and I could be wrong as I’m also new to all this, that if you wanted to reflect the entire pitch difference expressed in the actual song, that you’d have to use chords that move the same set of intervals as the individual notes do in the song. This would primarily involve barre chords, unless I’m wrong.

For example, take the key of E. The chords in the key of E are E, F#m, G#m, A, B, C#m, D#dim.
Take Twinkle Twinkle Little Star in the key of E for example. If we tabbed it out as such:

e|-0–0–7–7–9–9–7-----|-5–5–4–4–2–2–0-----|
B|-------------------------|-------------------------|

e|-7–7–5–5–4–4–2-----|-7–7–5–5–4–4–2-----|
B|-------------------------|-------------------------|

e|-0–0–7–7–9–9–7-----|-5–5–4–4–2–2–0-----|
B|-------------------------|-------------------------|

We can see the notes follow this pattern:

E E B B C# C# B - A A G# G# F# F# E
B B A A G# G# F# - B B A A G# G# F#
E E B B C# C# B - A A G# G# F# F# E

If I play these all as barre chords with the E shape, (E major being an open chord), taking care to use minors on the right chords (C#m, G#m, F#m), to me I think this sounds about right. Curious to hear what you think. I learned from making this reply too because your comment had me thinking.

20

Nice one! thanks for the in depth view Ryan!!.

I was reading it on the way to work and had a few things I wanted to try when I got home. Anyway I’ve finally managed to try a few bits and pieces and I think I’ve made a break through.

You’re typing out the note sequence actually helped. I knew about moving the E shape barre chord but was try to attempt something slightly different. Anyway here’s what I did:

  1. I copied your key of E which you gave me a reference point and used my scale practise and started the song on frett 7 of the A string which should be E if i’m not mistaken.
  2. I worked out the notes because I have memorised and can play all the 5 major scale shapes. I don’t know which one it is, but the one where you start the scale on your middle finger on the A string.
  3. The pitch is a real issue. So the combination I used for the song to “change” it (I won’t use the word improve because I feel like I’ve butchered the song haha) is: B power chord, E power chord, the E chord using the (A barre chord ), Triad (string set 2,3,4 root note A, string set 3,4,5 root note A as well). The rest I’ve used single notes for everything else and strumming to change things up.

My extra thoughts: I had to try like a bunch of the triads to just listen to which sounded like they fit the song. Just used a diagram of the 12 triads for majors. I haven’t figured out why the ones I’ve chosen sound better, but i think there are some notes that are too far away in terms of intervals or gone in the wrong direction in terms of pitch.

I can’t record it right now, but I’ll try do it tomorrow or the day after to show what I landed on.

At the end of the day it’s still pretty much chords, triads and single notes mixed in together, so I’ll have a think about it some more and try maybe a different basic melody to experiment and learn.

P.S. you are spot on that I’ve been analysing what I THINK I need to learn to reach my goals and have supplemented a few things with other online materials. But for the most part JustinGuitar has provided almost everything I’ve needed especially when I stumbled onto the classic course somehow.

One thing that’s worth noting though, there’s definitely an advantage if you don’t play the whole song on one part of the neck so you can incorporate different things like slides to make it have more character and have options on how to play it. Other than that, staying in the same spot makes the song a little easier imo - one step at a time though.