Ok as promised, I’ve recorded my hacked up version of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star
If I’m honest, it probably took me 20 tries to get a clean-ISH run through that my current ability can muster because a lot of the things you see in this clip have all been things I’ve recently learnt / practised a little.
Single string strumming and muting with little pinky and index finger. You can hear all sorts of things still ring out though
The triads are a new thing for me so the changes you can see my fingers scramble and rush to get in place and adjust and fudge my way through
This is just applying things I’ve learnt so far and just having a blast playing a super simple song. When I watch it back, it still just looks like a mashed up bunch of chords and the like, I definitely want to be able strum and pick, but it’s definitely too far out of my abilities at this stage.
@theryanbamford - thanks for some of the tips, it’s the best I could do to show you what I thought of after reading your post and playing in E… although I think because all the chords are on the 1st 4th or 5th or power chords, it definitely simplified things.
Awesome! I think this actually sounds great. It might not reflect the full song but it contains bits from the melody and I think the strumming technique you used here gives it a cool spin and makes it stand out on its own as a neat piece of creativity.
thanks… yeah just really to learn at this stage. You’re right, it’s lost the serene feel that it should have, but I think I need to develop the strum & pick skill and accuracy first haha.
Ok no clip for this update because I have nothing to really “show and tell”. More just practise work… so my routine has evolved a bit:
So in the quest for the holy grail of playing by ear I have slightly changed my routine and included some advice thats sprinkled around justin’s course.
Still have not smoothed out changing to A shape and E shape… it’s getting better though. So just strumming and “playing around” while just switching between all the chords back and fourth and taking care to choose the ones I don’t normally play.
I have started just strumming single chords and picking our root notes in between… usually C, A and D chord for this exercise… to help right hand accuracy for picking. It definitely has improved noticeably, but small gains which will likely take a long term investment of practise time.
I have now started playing by ear but we are talking about random nursery rhymes. My steps are:
a) I find something on youtube and just play a jingle or a riff and pause
b) then just try play it and find notes on the guitar.
c) then adjust the hand position after figuring out the basic notes and make a mental note of what key those notes belong to.
I don’t bother trying to perfect the tune with zero mistakes… once I can sorta play it, I move on to the next tune and rinse and repeat.
4. I’m still doing the major scales in all 5 patterns, BUT I’ve now upgraded it to play the same 5 patterns but cycle through starting at all the different root notes as a stepping stone. Because when I attempted to join them, it was too big of a leap in difficulty. Effectively if I counted right, the 5 patterns split off into 12 little sub patterns or variations so to speak.
6. Still practising Canon in D
Anyway, that’s the progress update I have - I’m pausing my dive into triads at this stage because I feel like there are better gains to be had in the exercises above first.
I really wish I had more time to compile and record so I can SEE where I’m at for progress checks. I’ve been a bit swamped lately but I am proud to report I have not cut back on practise and am thoroughly enjoying learning still!!! (thats a really good sign for me)
Anyway hope everyone is doing well and enjoying their journey.
So my update is as follows regarding my practise / accomplishments:
Transitions TO the E Shape chord still needs work so I’m still doing that.
I am starting to be able to play the Major scales 5 patterns starting from all root notes a lot more consistently funnily enough had an eye opening moment for me - see next line.
I’ve combined 3 different practise exercises (memorising notes on the frettboard, learning triads, chord change speed / accuracy) into one - learning the relative locations of the root notes helped a LOT on this bit:
a) Learning to play the 12 (Major) triad shapes
b) Using my open chords plus B and F to transition to the same triads up and down the frettboard to learn the notes on the whole neck and mixing in some power chords.
Been learning 3 songs still:
a) eye of the tiger - this was my first progression into songs other than nursery rhymes by ear (can’t do the starting 16th note opening at all :/) but can play the chords and vocals which is nice…
b) Blue Bird (just noodling by ear)
c) canon d - still memorising at this stage, about maybe 2/3 of the way)
I really hope to do a recording soon to show what I mean on the above, but I do feel I had a couple penny drop moments in the last week.
