Loving the MatchMySound feature, really helping my playing
Oh I have been with you off and on for years Justin. I had a small stroke and lost a lot but am coming back and love this blues tune you have on this lesson. I put new strings on my Mini Diesel Maton a couple of nights ago and tonight added some delay and a bit of reverb and it sounds like I know what I’m doing lol. I need a lot of practice for the memory part but I love this sound. Blues are what I love to play and this is a really nice sound. Thanks for this lesson and when I get good enough I will try the new sound play along.
Thanks,
Jan Randles
2 Likes
Hi Jan,
I don’t know you yet, but I’m really sorry to hear that! I hope that you recover greatly and take care so we can all play together for many years to come! Lots of hiking sounds very healthy in any case!
All the best,
Dominique
1 Like
Regarding the lesson - I had some time practicing and it’s something I am really enjoying!
I have just two little things to say:
For the video - I mean Justin is always striving to make his old lessons better while they were already great, so I certainly don’t want to complain! In fact, it’s kind of a paradise here for the guitar learner! 
While practicing I found it nice to have the different licks numbered in the timebar (navigational bar?) of the video and it would have been even easier to find everything quicker if the TAB sections shown in the video would have had the same numberings.
And regarding the matchmysound feature:
I like that you have the sound and the tabs and score synchronized. Together with the possibilty to adjust the tempo (though at 60bpm the bass sounded very weird) it is a great addition to the video.
And I had the same need for some counting in as some mentioned above. If not incorporated in the software, maybe Justin could add a bar of clicks at the start?
Because if you want to play back in the center, you can always rewind a bit further than where you want to start and listen a part of the last bar to get you into the timing.
But maybe that workaround of a counting in first bar would look a bit odd to some of you?
Regarding the recording function with graphical feedback - in my browser (I tried Firefox and Vivaldi on WIndows), I could only record via microphone and couldn’t select the second channel (the one with the guitar input) on my soundcard. I definitely tried and searched in the Windows sound settings. WIth the microphone I didn’t have so great results, but I also don’t see a need for it. I think I can hear pretty well if my playing sounds as it should.
So the matchmysound playback feature, I like it!
Cheers,
Dominique
PS: now I noticed the slowed down bass (60bpm) sounds ok on desktop, the strange sound appeared only on my tablet.
1 Like
My favourite lesson!! The new MatcMySound tool is just wonderful
1 Like
Yes, the count in option was not able to be added in this first round due to how the recording was cropped but going forward it will be there
1 Like
Thanks for this lessen and including the Match my sound feature. I hope there will be many more lessons with this great tool.
1 Like
Hi all.
Really like this lesson!
I just wanted to double check the structure of the 12 bars as it’s a bit confusing with the lead in bar and mixing the bass and lead.
Is the basic pattern this?:
| E7 | E7 | E7 | E7 |
| A7 | A7 | E7 | E7 |
| B7 | A7 | E7 | E7 |
Cheers!
1 Like
Yes, that’s right.
1 Like
Love this style of playing. Any advice on the plucking hand as to what fingers go with which strings. Thanks
1 Like
Wow, player is a great tool. Haven’t even got far enough along to use the recording function yet.
Did noticed that when the player is playing in window mode, and set to page rather than scrolling, the page will scroll down when the cursor reaches the bottom. When the player is set to full screen mode the page doesn’t scroll, the cursor just continues down out of sight. You have to manually advance the page to see where the cursor is.
Is this intentional, changed by a setting, a bug?
I will pay cold hard cash for more aucoustic lessons like these Justin, i’ve felt un inspired lately these are way fun.
1 Like
Hi and welcome to the Community.
In fingerstyle playing generally, the convention is that your thumb plays E, A & D strings.
1st finger plays G string.
2nd finger plays B string.
3rd finger plays E string.
There are times when this convention is given up to a different approach either for a bar or a longer section depending on context, perhaps on a chord shape or other reasons.
But as a start point and guiding principle it is the best place to work from.
Hi Darryl,
@Richard_close2u is no doubt correct, but in this lesson Justin departs from the convention quite significantly. If you watch the video closely you’ll see that he picks the D string with his index finger. On some of the licks he also picks the B and e strings with his index finger. For example, for the lick at 6:00, the G, B and e strings are all played with his index finger.
When learning this piece I slowed the video down and made notes on a printed copy of the tab.
In the original solo blues series Justin frequently played in a similar fashion in some of the pieces and did not stick to “conventional” fingering. And although he made reference to it also said the fingering was a matter of choice as he would mix and match.
I would add I actually found it harder to play that way, put the course to one side. Did some Acoustic Blues with David Hamburger with “standard” fingering. Then went back to Steady Thumb and it was much easier. But as they YMMV
It seems to me there is some logic to Justin’s finger choices here. When he’s playing the bass notes, he uses his thumb (strings 5 and 6). When he’s playing the “licks”, he uses his fingers (mostly index, actually). Sometimes the single note runs use the D string and Justin plays those notes with his index finger.
For the turnaround, he does use his thumb, index and middle for the triplets on strings 3, 2 and 1. I think this is just a lot easier to play than using index, middle and ring.
FWIW, I too use the “standard convention” (also taken from David Hamburger!), but am ready to adapt if necessary. I originally learned using only thumb, index and middle and I still play a few songs that way.
1 Like
Thank you all for the advice. Just starting to become more comfortable with the ‘conventional’ finger assignments so when I saw Justin using his index for some of the other strings it kind threw me off. Again, much appreciate all the advice.
Hi all, I’m after some advice/suggestions - should I be splitting my fingers and thumb when playing this I.e. just the fingers for the lick part and just the thumb for the bass parts. I keep finding myself following the bass bar with my thumb continuing on the next lick, for example bars 10 and 11 I’ve naturally used my thumb for both. Just need to make sure I break any bad habit before moving on. Justin appears to be alternating bars with thumb, then fingers.
Cheers and hope I explained this clearly!
Mike
Hi Mike. I hope I understand you correctly - yes, I would use the thumb for the bass part and the three fingers for the lick part.
But if you watch Justin playing on the intro you can see what he is doing.
And here fits a quick tip for everyone (probably most of you knew this one before me )
You can slow down Justin’s play-through at the start via the cog wheel in the video window - unfortunately, there’s only 0.5x - 0.75x and 1x speed and nothing in between.
This feature helped me a lot and I started rehearsing with 0.5 speed - just stop before Justin starts speaking or you might feel like he’s had consumed some odd drugs 
Happy practicing,
Dominique