Decided to learn The Crow, the Owl and the Dove. So far, work in progress (just the intro done slowly): Stream Work in progress by GNS1991 | Listen online for free on SoundCloud
Sounds like you’re off to a great start well done
I try to play every day but my shift now doesnt always allow this so practise when i can. I dont have a structure for practise as such. Of i am learning a new song or solo i start either learning the next bit or refining the bit i worked on last time. Once i have worked on this, i then revert to my playlist 1 where i have about 18 songs i can play reasonably well and shuffle through this for as long as i can. Good to end practise with something you can play and enjoy
Well, purchased my accoustic guitar on May 13 so a few days shy of 4 weeks. Grade 1 module 4 completed. A,D and E major and minor chords, anchor finger work, chord perfect work, one minute changes, strumming patterns and a few songs. Practice every day for about 45 minutes. I think I’m doing well and I’m getting better. Hope everyone else is doing the same! Cheers!
You’re doing fantastic and have a great plan. Keep it up
A couple of weeks ago I played sort of a mini concert for friends with about 20 songs from my repertoire. The problem is I always looked at my notes and gave a hard time memorizing the lyrics and chords. Some pros have said they use a tablet on stage so it’s not completely frowned upon. On the other hand Justin mentioned you don’t always want to pull out a song book at a party lol. I guess we do what we can and work on improving right? Hope you gave a good day- sounds like you have a solid plan.
Decided it’s time to practice something more challenging than just strum out the entire song to a familiar rhythm and/or finger picking pattern that I cooked up in my head. So, today’s wrote down the progression (basically, intro riff, main riff, chorus and outro riff) for Paint it Black by Rolling Stones. Let’s see what I will be able to achieve by next Friday or so.
I feel I’ve been stuck in a rut (besides having been busier than usual in the past few months), so I decided to continue with music theory and checking out other patterns of the major & pentatonic minor scales as well as getting a taste of other scales.
It’s often said that we shouldn’t learn scales for the sake of only learning them, but I think as long as we’re driven by curiosity there’s nothing wrong with it. Also, when I play along to certain songs using portions of the above 2 scales, sometimes neither of them seems to really fit, so I’d like to expand my “scalar” consciousness and find out more about the melodic possibilities in non-major scales.
The first one I checked out was the harmonic minor scale, mostly because it had the least information provided over on the website. I read the Wikipedia article about it which has the scale formula and tried to find a comfortable fingering for it - turns out I “discovered” pattern 1 of this scale. After a bit of practice (alternating this one with the major scale of the same root note) and noodling I realized that omitting degrees 1 and 4 gives me the riff to Politican by Cream which I “deciphered” a few weeks ago, before knowing what this scale actually sounded like. Call that a welcome surprise.
So I think I’ll follow the strategy of spending some time on a given scale by checking the formula, looking for a comfortable fingering, then do the related lesson on the website and see how much of it I can use in practice.
After looking up some chords for ‘Hallelujah’ on UG, and experimenting blindly with finger style, I came to a conclusion that I was not that far off with the picking structure of the song
Graduated to Beginner Grade 2 a few weeks ago.
From my teenage years, some of my favorite songs are also not terribly difficult to play.
Def Leppard Switch 625 is an instrumental tune. It follows Bringin’ On The Heartbreak from one of my favorite rock records of all time, High 'n Dry. The rhythm guitar is delicious. There’s a 3-5-5 / 3-3-3 / 3-1-1 ‘arpeggio’ type of riff for the first half of the song. The four chords that accompany the lead is a cycle of 4 power 5th chords. Turn up the fuzz and rock on.
AC/DC Dog Eat Dog from Let There Be Rock is another killer progression that’s easy to pick up. Angus Young is a fellow short-fingered guy, and he (at least early on) relied a lot on strings 1 through 4. And you might recognize some “stuck 3 & 4 chords”
Finally, take a look at any song you like by Tool, my band of life (next to Led Zeppelin). Adam Jones is a guitar genius composer, but there aren’t really many guitar solos in any Tool song, at least any virtuoso type solos. Look at Eulogy from Aenima. The solo is two notes played masterfully in two different octaves. Adam Jones doesn’t dazzle with technical prowess (in my opinion) and so much of Tool songs are slow and approachable for most guitarists… just tone down your guitar to thunder rumble level Drop C.
Learnt “How Do You Mend a Broken Heart” by Al Green which I think was actually written by the BeeGees. Playing around with the Jazz chords from JustinGuitar Jazz lessons made me think of this song so I played it. I guess it’s the opening Emaj7 that’s the hook.
I’ve almost completed Justin’s Practical Music Theory course - I try to do a lesson every weekday morning before the kids wake up (unplugged electric, haha).
I always have a song or two on the go that I’m learning. Right now it’s Layla (original version). I don’t think I have the chops to do the long solo at the end, but maybe the acoustic guitar piece of that outro is something I’ll try. I’m AWFUL at learning the ENTIRETY of songs, so I really want to push myself to go beyond just the main licks of something.
Also on the horizon - I’ll be setting up an assessment with the band director at my local music school. Later this year I’ll be slotted into a band for their “Band Chops” program. It’ll be my first time playing in a band setting (well, I had a band in high school for like, two seconds lol). Soooooo…I need to practice a few songs that I want to showcase my ability. Need to select my repetoire…