Learn to play Chocolate Jesus by Tom Waits on JustinGuitar!
View the full lesson at Chocolate Jesus by Tom Waits | JustinGuitar
Have anyone ever used Excel to study a song? I found it really useful to learn the chord progressions in this tune 
By the way, I have a hard time playing with the original, but found it very easy to play with the Beth and Joe version (look it up on youtube …)
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I haven’t done this yet with guitar and intend not to, in fact, even though seeing chords like this would make the visual learning, pattern loving part of my brain very happy. The reason I am not going to is because I play piano pretty much exclusively by writing the letters above the notes on the sheet music. What this does is help me commit songs to memory, which is a perfectly good way to play piano, but it’s a detriment to my ability to sight read quickly without the letters. I personally don’t want to shortcut reading guitar tab, but I do admit, it would be faster to visualize and learn songs by memorizing chord progression this way. Having said that, I suppose playing guitar is much more memory driven than piano, so maybe it isn’t a bad idea at all.
I like the idea of using Excel, looks much neater than my handwritten chord sheet 
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I thought the bridge was 3 Dm, Am,2 Dm, then 3 E
Can’t speak for the original Tom Waits, as I can’t really hear the notes clearly on that version. But for the Beth and Joe version, 2 Dm, 2 Am, 2 Dm, 3 E sounds about right to my (newbie) ears 
Kudos to you for transcribing. I am not there yet.
I like this idea. I haven’t yet decided how to best write out songs and I hadn’t considered Excel!
I find playing through Justin’s app is great but perhaps not the best way to memorise a song because you’re only ever focusing on the current chord and the next one, and less on the pattern of the song as a whole (or at least that’s how it goes for me). I know there’s plenty of places where you can copy and paste from but I personally learn more from the act of writing something down myself
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@mattswain totally agree with what you said here.
On my own newbie experience, I start out by just following along on Justin’s Guitar App, which I see as sort of a guitar karaoke - lot’s of fun, but you become dependent on the visual cues for more complicated chord progressions, if the app is all you use.
Then, at some point I write down the whole song, perhaps in an Excel sheet like the example here, and use that as a guide while playing - even if still using the app as a backing track.
Then as the final step, I internalize the progression and its variations and no longer need the app or the sheet. I still usually need a backing track on my phone or youtube, because I haven’t got the handle of playing and singing just yet, and also, my tempo is not super solid without some beat.
But we’re all making progress, one step at a time
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Hello I’d love to play this song, usually I just play along with the app. But this time, I decided to study carefully the Youtube lesson. Now the chord progression shown in the video and those in the app looks very different to me, can somebody explain me why they are so different?
Cheers
Francesco Petretti
Hi Justin, why is there felt on the face of your acoustic?
Welcome to the forum Dominic. Justin used to have acrylic nails for finger picking and they made to much noise on the pick guard so he put felt on it.
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I really love this visually! I tried it and it makes it very easy for me to anticipate changes. I’d like to make others but realize it takes a lot of time so… Do you have any others!!!