It is time for me to go ahead and start my Learning Log. I’m going to start with a brief description of where I am on my journey so far, I’m not as organized as some folks here with regards to detailed goals, at least not at this point.
As I have mentioned elsewhere, although I had a few lessons when I was about 12 years old, I really decided to try to learn to play guitar in about October, 2019. I picked up an inexpensive Jasmine acoustic guitar — actually it was free, I got it through a rewards catalog at work — and signed up for lessons at my local Guitar Center. I took weekly lessons for about 3 months. I was not especially impressed by the quality of the lessons, but my goal for the lessons was really just to get started and learn the very basic stuff with hands-on tutelage so that I could then proceed with online self-directed learning, so those lessons were “adequate” for that task.
I joined Justin’s site in December, 2019. I was very enthusiastic and enjoyed Justin’s style right off the bat, but life got a little busy and there were some health issues, etc., and I got knocked off the beam for awhile. I didn’t stop playing completely, but I stopped advancing for the most part.
I renewed my commitment to learning and improving in mid-December, 2021, so I have been back at it for about a month this time. I discovered the NEW Community almost right away, and it is amazing!
So, Learning Log - most of that stuff fits more with “Introduce Yourself” than LL, but it’s part of my learning history so I’ll leave it. This may be a bit of a diary style LL, hopefully that’s ok.
After the initial burst of enthusiasm from mid-December to mid-January, I was starting to feel a little frustrated because my practice is so up-and-down. One day I feel like I’m almost making music, the next day I feel like I’m absolute rubbish. I took a few days off from structured practice.
This afternoon I went back and started watching Nitsuj’s last few practice sessions at the end of Grade 1 and playing along with his practice. For the first time in about 3 weeks it felt good! I was able to play along quite well with Get Lucky, Mad World, Eleanor Rigby, and even This Year’s Love. The 6/8 of This Year’s Love had been just eating me up every time.
Before I did the Nitsuj I had made one change to my practice routine that I think paid off. I had been doing lots of One Minute Changes and was able to do 50 - 75 bpm, depending on which chords, but like so many others I was having trouble making smooth changes during songs. I also didn’t like the quality of the chords. So I spent about 30 minutes doing Perfect Fast Changes instead of OMCs. I had been trying to combine the two and improve the quality during OMCs, but something about consciously focusing on PFC seemed to relax me a bit. I found that I was able to land all of my fingers on the chords pretty much simultaneously with PFCs and it wasn’t all that much slower than OMCs - at least 70 good changes / 2 minutes for all changes.
So I was feeling a lot better about the quality of the chords I was playing and then found myself doing really well just mirroring Nitsuj while he did his song practice.
Then I decided to see if I that newfound confidence would carry over into playing songs with the app, without being able to watch Justin/Nitsuj. I ran through some of the basics like Hey Joe, Black, and 3 Little Birds, and also played Get Lucky, Mad World, This Year’s Love, and Eleanor Rigby again without Nitsuj. It was by no means perfect, but it was relaxed and fun and felt really good. The mistakes were minor, I was able to change chords cleanly and keep that strumming hand going up and down steadily, and I didn’t get flustered when I did make a mistake or two.
So looking at the criteria for passing Grade 1, I am very confident that I pass on all except for memorizing 5 songs. At this point, I will continue to work on memorizing songs, but I am ready to give myself an overall passing grade with Grade 1.
Aside from the memorization, my biggest areas that need improvement from Grade 1 are rhythm and riffs. I can play the riffs well enough that they are recognizable, but not with any real fluidity. I also struggle to memorize the riffs (theme here, my musical memory sucks!).
I have already started working on Grade 2 a little bit. I like the “stuck 3&4” chords and will have to start working on them in songs. I have started on the dreaded “F” barre chord. To be honest, I never thought I would even be able to do the mini-barre F, but I have managed to do that — not particularly well, and not in a song yet, but I can form the chord and make it ring clearly some of the time; it will get better. I feel like I am close to being able to play barre F, or as someone pointed out to me, that’s the same as saying I am close to being able to play E shape barre chords since it is a moveable shape.
I’ve mostly been playing on my Taylor Academy 12e (picked up about a year ago), so steel strings, 7/8 size, on a guitar that’s designed to be beginner-friendly. I’ve also got a Yamaha Pacifica 112v electric (Boss Katana 50 Mk ii), but it feels completely strange to me. Finally I have a Yamaha nylon string acoustic. So, 4 guitars, just graduating from Grade 1! As I move more into Grade 2 I suppose I will start working with the Pacifica more often since it is more suited for the barre chords, power chords, and blues trajectory.
As I said above, this is more of a diary entry than a real learning log, so we’ll see how it evolves. I wanted to get it started.
Next up, I will record myself and post some recordings so that I will have a document that I can refer back to periodically. Hopefully I will be able to see definite improvement that way. If not, perhaps it will motivate me to work on the areas that need the most improvement. I will get some recordings posted here within a couple of weeks.
I am sure you are doing great 
). That sounds like a good idea to revisit the earlier modules and plough through again, hopefully the muscle memory will kick back in and you’ll fly through back to where you were quickly enough.
…As long as you don’t play guitar anymore 
??? don’t do it anymore 
…