Officially onto Grade 1 Module 3 today and it has been fun. The pacing of things seems absolutely spot on as the preset Practice session in the app slightly sneaks things up a level by reducing the time on Chord Perfect for the easy Em and Am chords, lobs in an extra chord for the Anchor practice and adds in some strumming practice too.
Seven Nation Army is a nice little riff and playing that encouraged my wife to dig out her old bass from a cupboard somewhere. It was good to watch the video on the use of a capo as I was wondering about how to use that alongside the Beginner Songbook and that all makes sense now.
Adding some focus to strumming was great and adds such dynamism to a song. Great day, again, and I’ll practice a few more songs later to round out the day.
I’m a naturally cautious person so I keep holding myself back with these Modules.
My instinct is that I can already move to Module 4 because I’m just relearning chords that are still lurking somewhere in the depths of my brain and they haven’t been too hard to find so far. But I think I’ll still do another day of practice just to focus on a bunch of chord change patterns including all 5 chords learned so far.
That’ll be tomorrow’s task. Another hour of practice done today primarily on the acoustic, just cycling between the preset Practice sessions and a couple of songs, three times in total.
I do know that the Dm in Module 4 is a wee bit of a faff but more than anything I’m looking forward to the Sunshine Of Your Love riff. Love a bit of Eric.
Hi Charlie, better to be a bit cautious and have it truly embedded. It is a marathon not a 100m dash. Take your own time and only move on when you feel ready. At this stage as you’ve started to work on strumming techniques, it may be worth looking at the strumming techniques course part 1 which could undertake gradually in parallel with Grade 1. You may also want to consider investing in the Time Trainer Application to work on your rhythm.
Charlie, I’ve been reading and ‘liking’ your updates.
Based on this one perhaps now is the moment to record you playing a song and share over in #record-yourself-progress-performance:audio-video-of-you-playing. You’ll get plenty feedback and encouragement that will help you assess where you are and judge readiness to move on.
I haven’t really gone down the “upload a song” route, but here’s some video just now of me beetling about and flicking between the chords we’re taught across Modules 1-3 of Beginner Grade 1 and a couple of riffs. The video / audio quality is a bit duff as it’s through a Chromebook, but hopefully you get the gist.
I get a bit tangled up with Sunshine Of Your Love but get there in the end. I’ll let that slide as I’m not actually on Module 4 yet, I just got curious.
At this stage I’d obviously be interested on feedback about everything, but in particular if my weird pick holding is an issue (it just feels natural to me), if the execution of chords and transitions between chords sounds good and clean, and if my freestyle strumming is at all in rhythm
The Sunshine of Your Love and Seven Nation Army riffs clearly need work, but I haven’t played them much. And actually recording stuff is a really useful exercise as it applies pressure but also lets you critically evaluate things. Good mental hurdle to overcome.
Making good progress. Chord fingering looked chord, changing smooth, strumming you were keeping your hand moving.
On the Peter Gun riff, I’d encourage trying to keep the hand as still as possible, work on that finger stretch between index and pinky.
For the otehrs try and resist the urge to play it as fast as you want to. The more time you spend playing it super slow to learn it, the faster you will get it up to that target tempo playing it clean and error free.
And the original suggestion was in response to readiness to move to the next module. Based on this, I would suggest move to the next module and keep working on being able to play some songs that use A D E Em Am start to finish.
I’m onto a third consecutive day of just practice, practice, practice and the practice some more with Chord Perfect and chord changes to and from Dm. I won’t lie - it’s frustrating me that this is my bogey chord. Not quite sure why it’s being problematical but it’s the chord changes in particular where my brain seems to have a moment and forgets which finger goes where.
But…it is getting noticeably better day by day and I’m not moving on until it becomes instinctive. I’m also being careful not to neglect the other stuff learned so far, so whilst my focus is on teaching Dm a lesson, I’m giving its A and E pals a regular airing too.
I’ve also got to actually go into the office a few days this week which feels peculiar and that’s eating into practice time, but on the plus side I threw a nice new chair in the car today before heading back so it solves my guitar chair conundrum. It’s a fancy adjustable one and the arm rests swing down so I can practice in comfort
Hi Charlie, I can totally relate to you with that Dm chord. That was the one chord that really caused me headaches. I was OK with the 1, 2, 3 fingering but I’m a stickler for following Justin’s prescribed programme as I want to be the best that I can become. One thing that helped me out was playing A Girl Like You. I alternated my practice of the song with and without the Capo. The one thing I remember when learning that song was this video Edwyn Collins - A Girl Like You - YouTube it really emphasises the foot tapping. Watch the guy that looks like Ron from Harry Potter. As for returning to the office, how did you get on? I’ve got that coming soon and not sure how it’s going to be as it’s been a lot of years working from home. I’ll probably have to take it gradually as it’s a big change, I can’t imagine going onto a ram packed tube train again.
It was fine. It’ll be interesting to see how the (touch wood) endemic era plays out because plenty of employers recognise that a Monday to Friday 9-5 office-centric setup isn’t really necessary, efficient or cost-effective any more. In fact, it probably hasn’t been for a few years now that technology enables an awful lot to be done remotely.
There’s no way I’ll go back to that routine either at my current employer or any future ones because I just won’t accept it. Work now fits round my life, not vice versa, and that’s how it should be. I think there will be some general fumbling about for loads of employers as they try to find what works best. For me a daily commute and cardboard sandwiches doesn’t work best.
I’m more than happy to do face to face stuff and workshops etc. where a situation dictates, but I’ve already said any notion of a “rota” of being in the office on prescriptive dates to “touch base” can do one
Thanks for the video and I’ll be sure to add that song into the mix. I’ll get there because I’m too stubborn not to.
Such an annoying mental block with this Dm. My One Minute Changes are improving and I like them to be good as well as fast, so they’re solid efforts and averaging around 50 for my most challenging combination which is Am and Dm. So that’s good. My Chord Perfect - also good.
Stick Am and Dm together in a song and the wheels bizarrely come off.
I’m moving between Chocolate Jesus, Bad Guy and Fallin’ on the app as they’re very heavy on the Am and Dm changes but the amount of times Dm just goes sloppy drives me nuts. My main issue is always my 2nd and 3rd fingers just doing their own thing. Sometimes they meet for a chat on the second string; sometimes the third. They land in the right fret every time but just like hopping from string to string!
I know I’m improving and am just waiting for things to click. More practice to do later…
I have a distant memory that Dm is a chord I also struggled with and I have to admit I still find is relatively unused chord in most songs I play. That said I’ve used it heavily recently on Uptown Girl and Sunny Afternoon (which forces me to use my pinky on the B string which took at bit of getting used to). Am and Em are used significantly more.
Incorporating it into songs you really enjoy is the key to breaking the back of most difficult chords. It will then over time become less of a struggle. At least 50% of learning guitar OR anything new on guitar is literally grind to get your hands to do things automatically…then it starts to become easier.
It may have taken the best part of a week, but Dm is definitely on the right track. I’ve been borderline obsessed with nailing it and have been doing loads of Chord Perfect and One Minute Changes, alongside a couple of songs. I’ve probably spent 30-60 minutes a day on this and I’m almost happy enough to draw a line and move onto the next Module. Maybe one more day…
I’ve looked ahead and neither C nor G are problems for me to remember and execute, so really this Dm was just a bump in the road and I should be able to get some “new” chords under my belt and gain a load more transitions and songs to work on in the coming weeks.
This was a bit of a slog but it’s interesting to see how those pathways in the brain eventually carve out a memorable path to a new chord. Stick at it if the going gets a bit sticky; you’ll get there with a lot of repetition and perseverance.
I can remember one of Justin’s earlier videos saying something along the lines of “Don’t beat yourself up if progress begins to stall. Stick at it and if things really aren’t clicking after a while, just move on anyway or you’ll get really annoyed”. Solid advice.
Fantastic Charlie. All that effort you’re putting in is going to pay you dividends when you get to the consolidation stage. Keep working on those songs to put into practice everything you’ve learned from the modules and to memorise their chord transitions.
I’m now as happy as can reasonably with Module 4 so I’m going to move on. It isn’t perfect but it’s good enough and streets ahead of where I was at the start of the week. One Minute Changes from Dm to the other 5 chords so far are up to 60+ and they’re clean. I still have issues landing chord changes when strumming in songs but that should ease off with more song practice.
It’s weird - there are sections in Chocolate Jesus with 4 bars of Am transitioning to 2 bars of Dm and I find that harder than when in later sections it’s 2 bars of Am to 2 of Dm. It’s almost like my fingers settle down in bars 3 and 4 and don’t fancy moving. I’ll try to teach them to be less lazy.
Hi Charlie, That sounds like a good plan. I find that I can hit those PFC when learning new chords, but when it comes to applying it to songs, it’s all proves more difficult. But trust me, keep practising applying it to songs, and eventually, it just clicks into place. How are you getting on with your strumming and rhythm? I’d recommend getting Justin’s Strumming Techniques Course, It’s well worth the £8. I downloaded it and saved it onto a usb so that I could plug it into my TV and strum along with Justin.
It needs some focus for sure, but it’s a lot easier when the practice songs are songs you know. I do find myself wandering off-piste a bit and freestyling a little It’s rhythmical but I do find myself just experimenting with different patterns in songs that I know well.
Obviously not what I’d necessarily do if playing a song through “for real”, but it feels like a nice creative exercise nonetheless. There are some strumming variations in Module 5 so I’ll make sure to give them some attention.
Have you considered doing this free-styling over a drum-beat? If you can crack the knack of playing in time with drums it’ll serve you well (I’ve struggled with that and only in the last year been able to start to free-style over drums in an OK way)
No, this is on my list. I’ve literally just downloaded a Metronome app onto my Chromebook so that will help.
Module 5 is the most fun I’ve had so far and that’s almost entirely down to the fact that I’m now getting to tinker with some Pearl Jam and Nirvana. It’s such a motivator to start being able to play recognisable songs and riffs from music that you love. The Come As You Are riff gets a little unclear as it progresses so I’ll have to Google the tab for that but playing Black by Pearl Jam is the highlight of the course so far for me.
excellent, Charlie.
