Hello, I am Avishk and I started learning through JustinGuitar app and site 6 months ago. I have reached beginner level 3 and practising to sing along while playing and dynamics.
I love listening to Beatles, John Mayer, and blues/rock. And so tried learning string bending and legato too so I could out my fav solos.
I have tried singing Country Roads by John Denver and recorded the solo of Let It Be through GarageBand and videos through my macbook’s webcam.
I would love to have your suggestions and feedback on what areas i should work upon . Thank You
Well played and sung. The ‘Let It Be’ solo would improve if you practice it a little slower: then focus on eliminating the little errors; when you can play it perfectly at a slower pace then start to speed up towards the speed of the record.
Similarly with ‘Country Roads’ you must focus your practice on developing slow and correct renditions of the verse(s) and bridge; then increase the speed towards that of the chorus. Also, throughout this song, your tempo is varying: try to practice with a metronome or click track and ensure a constant tempo.
Well played and sung @Avishk. I also like The Beatles, John Mayer and Blues / Rock (amongst other things). I’m also in beginner grade 3.
Reaching grade 3 in 6 months is very quick. I spent spent longer than that on the consolidation phases for grades 1 and 2 (probably 4-5 months on each). I would suggest spending longer in consolidation. Not only does it consolidate your skills, but it also gives you some early ideas of where you may want your guitar journey to go. After 50+ years of playing musical instruments, I agree with Justin that this is an important part of our musical journeys. Consolidation is actually my favourite bit of the guitar learning process.
Listening to your recording of “Country Roads” it seems you play upstrokes on the 1st beat of some bars. As a bass player, I’m looking to hit the “1” in most styles of music on every bar (there is a famous Bootsie Collins video in which he demonstrates this). Ok that’s bass not guitar, but in a band situation I’d expect the rhythm guitar player to be playing a downstrum on the “one”. Maybe there are situations where an upstrum works, but I think I’m almost always expecting a downstrum from the rhythm guitar player. (It maybe that the video and sound are slightly out of synch, but I don’t think that’s the case in your video).
Thank you so much for the suggestions @simon_plays_bass !! I tried singing the verses with only downstrokes to experiment with dynamics. As of now I am most comfortable with D DU UD strumming while singing which justin taught, but doing that in verses too was sounding quite repetitive. When I am strumming my hand continuously as Justin taught I am in better control of the tempo too.
When I sing Wicked Games by Chris isaak, i use the D DU UD pattern throughout the song and keep the verses softer and chorus louder.
I will work on getting more comfortable with other strumming patterns so I can incorporate them while singing. I really love listening to guitar solos of Beatles, Pink Floyd , Mayer and other bands so was trying to reach higher stages when Justin would teach string bending, blues licks and other legato techniques.
But I agree I should work more on rythm and other fundamentals too as that will be much helpful later on as well.