DavidP's Learning Log

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27

#22 Funny how it goes, just going with the flow

In wrapping up my 4th JGversary post I looked ahead and then plan was summed up as:

I look forward to continuing to play and sing, work on my finger-style and blues playing, produce more original songs, and maybe some opportunities to collaborate and produce some songs with folk here will present (I do enjoy the mixing and mastering).

And all went according to plan for the next couple of weeks. I kept working on a few songs, towards another episode of Songs From The Playroom, and focused finger-style learning on a simple (but still a stretch) arrangement of Deck The Halls to be entered in the JustinGuitar Forum Festive Season contest.

I duly entered with an as-good-as-I-could-learn-in-the-timebox performance. The contest was a success in terms of the quality of the entries, be it my best effort entry or the pro-quality entry that ultimately won but was a disappointment in terms of the number of entries. Something for Justin’s team to think about in future, if the ultimate goal was to bring people to the Forum, to grow the Community.

The limited number of entries played into my hands: I received an honourable mention and a reward for entering:. a Guitar Pro 7.5 license.

And then the unexpected happened …

Over the years, a number of folk here have encouraged me to work on my singing, that it has potential. My brother had begun to tell me in response to my last couple of recordings that he thought I was starting to sound like somebody starting to learn to sing, to become that Neil Young-esque singer-songwriter, rather than somebody growing as a guitar player and singing along for the sake of their being a vocal rather than just an instrumental. I’d begun to try a little Doh Ray Me over the major scale as part of my guitar time.

And then I got an email offering me a discounted price on Chris Liepe’s Discover Your Voice course. At the same time a few Forum Friends had signed up. A case of that old adage “when the student is ready, the teacher will arrive” playing out.

So I signed up and began the course. This Forum is all about guitar, our learning, our support of each other asstudents of Justin, so I will not expound on the course. In fact my initial thoughts had been to keep quiet and one day, when I am ready, to return to AVOYP, a better (hoping with confidence and optimism) singer … much to your great surprise.

Then I got to thinking some of you may be wondering why I am not recording and sharing, what is going on, so have opted to share now.

For the same reason, I decided to delay re-mixing my original David’s Summer Songet, until I have completed the course. The vocal never quite worked. I mashed up the lyrics to be able to sing over the chords and the poem no longer scanned, the melody was a little monotone. I hope in due course that I can tweak those lyrics and produce a far better vocal performance. It may still end up as an idea that never quite works, but should be a better rendition.

The same goes for the originals I was starting to work on.

From a finger-style perspective, I’d been reminded of Justin Johnson’s (Richard/Lieven, I think this is OK but sensitive to focus of the Forum, so you can delete the reference if not appropriate) simple finger drills to help develop control and dexterity of the right-hand fingers. When learning Deck the Halls my right pinky, which serves as an anchor, started to feel some stress during the longer sustained practicing. So I have started every music session doing the drills without the anchor. I think eventually anchoring my hand position by using the forearm on the guitar body will allow for smoother blending of fingerpicking and strumming … we’ll see.

About this time, Maggie aka Batwoman started a conversation about rhythm. Cut a long story short, it felt like the right time to refocus on strumming. I acquired the Strumming Techniques programme and have begun to refresh 1/8 note strumming, to work again on foot-tapping, with the intention to now turn my attention to 1/16 note strumming. We’ll see how that goes.

So I feel I have gone off to a proverbial mountain retreat, to focus for a while on some learning, without less drive to learn, rehearse, and perform songs. I have a couple I am playing as part of guitar time, for fun and to apply learning, both playing and singing, so I’ll be ready to record songs in due course.

And the day I made that decision another opportunity presented. And funny how it goes, having Guitar Pro was such a benefit in working on this project. And when a great opportunity presents, you just gotta go with the flow. Will say nothing more about this for now … good to leave a little unsaid to create some tension that will resolve when all is revealed :wink:

Funny how it goes, but I’ll go with the flow and see what happens, enjoying the adventure, and confident that I can only continue to improve as I apply myself the tortoise way … slow and steady.

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#23 About the 3Ps: Practicing, Playing, Performing

Over the last few months I have spent more time practicing, a little less time playing, and a lot less time performing. After releasing Episode 4 of Songs from the Playroom, wanting to have a record of me performing a few of the songs played live at the Forum events, I was thinking about the 3Ps so thought I’d share.

Firstly, to be clear on what I mean by the terms:

  • Practicing: working on drills and exercises to improve skills and develop technique
  • Playing: learning and rehearsing songs. I suppose there is an element of practice in learning a new song but for me it is more about applying practiced techniques.
  • Performing: playing for an audience, either live or recorded and shared. The proof is in the pudding as they say. Performing may not be for all. Nothing wrong in just playing for yourself.

I’d slipped into the habit of just playing and performing (or producing originals, to add another “P”). I feel that getting back into a more disciplined routine of practice has paid dividends. I’ve focused on a few things and not surprisingly I feel it shows in the performance. And some of that may be in how I feel when the moment to perform comes.

I have personally come along way in dealing with that inner critique, the voice that puts me down. A little healthy self-deprecation is fine but that inner critical voice really doesn’t help me. It is not the same voice that encourages me to strive to learn, to improve, to not be complacent with where I’m at or become overly satisfied when accepting positive feedback and compliments.

I have pondered the matters of self-belief and self-confidence over many years, struggling to come to terms with my own doubts.

At the present I’d suggest that it is practice and playing, but especially practice, the fuels self-belief. The belief that I am ready to perform.

And it is performing that builds self-confidence. Confidence grows when one overcomes the fears and anxieties that come with stepping up and being vulnerable and just steps up.

Hence, I would encourage people to begin to record and share early in their learning journey. It is a progression from the first steps that may be sharing practice routines to form, strum, and change chords, to playing songs perhaps with the aid of the app, to playing without that aid, to performing live at a Forum OM.

We are so fortunate to have these opportunities. To have a safe and supportive Community to offer encouragement, answer questions, point out issues that we might not be aware of. As I’ve said before feedback is a key to learning.

And learning to accept feedback is an essential skill. I find feedback comes in three flavours:

  • Feedback that makes sense to me and that I can apply and act on
  • Feedback that makes sense but is pitched just a little too far beyond what one is working on and able to act upon
  • Feedback that you don’t relate to and one needs to learn to let that go

I always assume that all feedback was given with positive intent, so don’t get upset by feedback. Needless to say that is sometimes easier said that done.

And to this aspect of errors. As Richard rightly said, we should not be setting perfect or error-free as a goal. It may happen, hasn’t yet for me, that one delivers an error-free performance. But as I am very much learning and developing as I go, continually stretching, such a performance would be a positive outlier.

I am no mathematician or statistician, so take this as such.

My performances of a song over time will tend to vary in quality and form some kind of normal-like distribution. I’ll have an average number of errors per song. Some performance may be better, some may worse. Over time, as I improve and the songs don’t increase in difficulty then the average number of errors decreases and the negative outliers less frequent and extreme. I’ve noticed this as I continue to perform. Knowing this helps me to deal with an error when I make one and just keep playing … an error know longer triggers that immediate inner voice of criticism.

As I share this I think I’ve also largely eliminated that habit of the positive inner voice offering that “encouragement” … “almost there, keep it going, don’t mess it up”.

Note this is conceptual. I don’t make a note and record the number of errors, the nature of the errors etc. That is not my nature. I am not a stats keeper, far more intuitive and in the flow, following a structured approach.

So the combination of upping my practice to balance my time between practicing and playing in a session plus working on the way I think and feel about playing and performing, seems to be paying-off for me.

Would love to hear your thoughts, what things you may be doing to enable both learning, enjoyment, and satisfaction.

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#24 Biennial (The SoundCloud Years)

This post is inspired by RC updates made by Gordon, Toby, and Richard. When I started this they were recent posts but it has taken me a while to get to post this.

For the sake of completeness I decided to reflect back on the recordings made and shared on SoundCloud, prior to making the switch from audio-only to videos to be hosted on YouTube.

Firstly, a little bit of fun. Good Vibes to all who can identify the reference in the post title. And to make it a little more fun, if you know then to earn your vibes you need to let me know in such a way that you provide others with a clue but not the answer directly.

Secondly, as I was putting this collection together, I dipped in and listened to the majority of the recordings. I can draw a few conclusions from this:

  1. As a Forum you are all incredibly encouraging and supportive. The singing and production of some of these recordings were tough for me to listen to again. Yet, I only ever received encouraging and supportive comments. So folks, know with certainty that this is a safe place to post your recordings, whatever level of playing and singing (if you choose to sing) you have reached.

  2. Following Justin’s courses, lesson by lesson, will lead to learning and improvement. It has been most encouraging to be able to go back and listen to recordings made four years ago. I urge you to make recordings early in your learning. We often forget how far we have come as we look ahead at all we are yet to learn. Your recording archive will remind you of that, which is priceless.

  3. This is a Forum focused on learning to play guitar, but I have to say, I can now see how much investing similar time and effort into my singing has paid off. Just like learning to play, one can learn to sing, if you put your mind to learning. Yes, there are a super small percentage of people who may be “tone deaf”, the majority have just not yet schooled their voice and ear.

This collection is not complete. Fortunately the first two recordings are missing. They were made using Audacity and my laptop headset’s mic as the input. Why I did this rather than an audio recorder on my phone, I have no idea. The first was a single verse of Hallelujah, which I played in 4/4 rather than 6/8. The second was Walk the Line.

There are also a few recordings that I have re-released on YT so excluded them from this collection.

After struggling to make the first couple of recordings, I jumped in the deep-end and acquired an interface and microphone, downloaded a lite version of Ableton, and began recording by learning songs that related to the stage of the Beginner Course that I was in. By this stage I’d also treated myself to a 12-string. I never fell in love with it and eventually sold it after I bought my Fender 6-string.

I’ve thrown in comments every now and then, just when it made sense (to me) to do so.

Apologies for some of the double blank lines … the editing and rendering seem at odds.

To be clear, I’m certainly not expecting people to listen through this lot. Maybe one or two based on songs that catch your eye or based on some comments. But honestly, there are but a few that I would say are somewhat enjoyable to listen to.

And so to the recordings …

20170326 - The Beatles - Love Me Do
20170409 - Johnny Cash - Walk the Line
20170414 - CCR - Bad Moon Rising
20170422 - Woody Guthrie - This Land is Your Land

20170430 - St James Infirmary Blues
20170430 - Tears For Fears - Mad World (the Gary Jules way)

This next recording is my first real attempt at a multi-track production. I think it was the first time that I entered the Forum song contest, a monthly event at the time —


20170515 - Ben E. King - Stand By Me

There were two things that made me nervous after starting the BC, the first of those was the B7 chord. I picked these next two songs to learn, play, and record songs to slay the B7 dragon.

20170520 - Otis Redding - Dock of the Bay
20170520 - Roberta Flack - Killing Me Softly

20170602 - The Troggs - Love Is All Around

20170616 - Rodrigues - Jane S. Piddy

Another multi-track contest entry. The only way to learn is to do, have to start somewhere —


20170617 - Neil Young - Like a Hurricane

Working out on the F chord —

20170702 - The Animals - The House of the Rising Sun
20170805 - Bob Dylan - Knocking on Heaven’s Door

20170805 - Johannes Kerkorrel en die Gereformeerde Blues Band - Hillbrow

Another multi-track contest entry. I’d discovered effects plug-ins. You can most certainly have too much of a good thing.Then I tried a simpler version. And finally, while in the moment, the third version was just a single take play and sing … the best of the bunch (best being a relative term)


20170812 - David Gray - This Year’s Love (Forum contest versio)
20170812 - David Gray - This Year’s Love (simplified mix)
20170813 - David Gray - This Year’s Love

I was inspired to learn this after watching Mari play and Krista sing it. A simple strummed version. Maybe one day a more Clapton-esque finger-picked version will be doable —

20170818 - Blues standard written by Jimmy Cliff - Nobody Knows You When You’re Down
and Out

Another contest entry. A simple play and sing, which I was quite pleased with, felt like a significant personal best at the time —

20170902 - Tom Waits - Chocolate Jesus

20170902 - Van Morrison - Brown Eyed Girl

This was one of the songs I tried to learn when first trying to learn to play. A good choice as it introduced me to F from the outset. I keep coming back to it. In this version I was playing with effects to give it a more NY and Crazy Horse sound —

20171008 - Neil Young - Like a Hurricane

A second attempt. The full song plus some single note runs between chords. Still 4/4 time. One day I’ll come back and do it in 6/8 —

20171021 - Leonard Cohen - Hallelujah

Shortly after posting Chocolate Jesus I received an invite to collaborate from Schlaffenwagen. I nearly declined, thinking I was not up to it. Thankfully I didn’t and with his ability to add drums and bass, tighten my contributions up, and Kasper on electric guitar it turned out pretty good —

20171029 - Neil Young - My My Hey Hey (Out of the Blue)

A contest entry made only after Mari encouraged me to give it a go. Before recording this I managed to work out most of the melody, Mari correcting and filling in the gaps —

20171202 - Auld Lang Syne

A recording made to exercise triplet strumming. Not the rock ‘n roll chunka chunka that would be more appropriate and stumbled over the instrumental verse. Also struggling with the vocal phrasing, as I can hear so much more clearly now —

20171204 - Bo Diddley - Before You Accuse me
20180101 - Neil Young - After the Goldrush

20180107 - Edwyn Collins - A Girl Like You

This may have been another Contest entry, I don’t recall. Another of my early experiments in producing multi-track recordings —

20180210 - Leonard Cohen - Hallelujah

Next couple were recorded to practice playing a bass note (or often the lowest 2 strings of the chord) —

20180317 - The Troggs - Love is All Around
20180427 - Neil Young - From Hank to Hendrix

This recording felt like one of those “breakthrough” moments. First attempt to record finger-picking, another multi-track production, with a guitar lead —


20180428 - The Rolling Stones - As Tears Go By

20180609 - The Troggs - Love is All Around
20180721 - Rodrigues - Jane S Piddy

20180727 - David Gray - This Years Love

While my primary focus is the singer-songwriter solo acoustic thing, like probably all lovers of music and guitar, there lies within the desire to be able to improvise. Periodically I take a detour from my usual activity and get into the jamming. It is great fun. And in those moments, it seems to me that I improve. And that is without any deliberate learning, beyond knowing some scale patterns, and practice. Maybe one day, I’ll give this focus —

20180929 - Guitar Challenge 06 - Improv over a I VI IV V backing track
20181003 - Guitar Challenge 10 - Ballad indie folk guitar backing (80bpm in D maj)

20181007 - Guitar Challenge 07 - Minor blues shuffle in A
20181012 - Guitar Challenge 08 - Improv over a mild bluesy groove in Bm
20181020 - Guitar Challenge 09 - Improv over a dreamy rock backing track in C lydian

20181020 - The Animals - The House of the Rising Son
20181021 - Bob Dylan - The Times Are a Changin’

20181027 - Guitar Challenge 05 - Improv of Justin’s backing track in G maj
20181111 - Guitar Challenge 01 - Improv over Justin’s 12 bar blues in A
20181116 - Guitar Challenge 11 - Retro 80s synth jam in Gm

20181117 - Fleetwood Mac - Don’t Stop
20181209 - The Rolling Stones - Dead Flowers


20181213 - Guitar Challenge 14 - Acoustic jam in G

This is one of those songs that I always dreamed of being able to play and sing. Another when I listen back I can hear how stilted my singing is —


20181213 - The Rolling Stones - Ruby Tuesday

Supposedly the “easy first song”, well I’ve always struggled to play and sing it. Still do. This seemed a good choice for a celebration of a second year of Justin Guitar —

20181222 - Bob Marley - Three Little Birds

Finally able to have a crack at playing and singing this classic with the riffs. Another I think I do better know (gosh, I hope so :) ) —

20190104 - Neil Young - My My Hey Hey

Inspired by the various folk who’ve played this classic, in particular if I recall correctly Lynn aka Redhodie’s version on her semi-hollow body guitar. Must come back and learn to play and sing this from memory —

20190108 - Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here
20190216 - 4 Non Blondes - What’s Up

Another I’ll eventually add to my camp-fire repertoire —

20190302 - Bob Marley - Redemption Song
20190309 - Stray Cats - Stray Cat Strut

20190330 Nine Inch Nails - Hurt (the Johnny Cash way)

In May of 2019 I decided to have a go at making videos rather than just audio recordings. The remaining recordings that are audio only are either Guitar Challenge jams or collaborations with my wife, Lesley.

20190720 - Bruce Springsteen - Hungry Heart

20200308 - Guitar Challenge 15 - Funked Out Dung Beatle

20200315 - Guitar Challenge 16 - Brooklyn Garage Beat
20200321 - Guitar Challenge 19 - Turn On, Turn Up, Turn Off (a backing track)
20200410 - Guitar Challenge 18 - Big Room Wonderland beat
20200411 - Guitar Challenge 17 - Slider

20201010 - Saturday jam with Lesley

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#25 The three types of songs

Justin posted the video “3 Types of Songs You Should Practice (To Play Guitar Better)” in August 2021. It recommends an approach to learning and improving based on working concurrently on three types of songs:

Campfire - Songs that you can play (and sing if that’s your thing) from memory
Developers - Songs that you are working on as part of practice to develop technique and ability
Dreamers - Songs you want to play in the future, likely above your current play-grade

If you’ve not watched the video, I’d recommend it.

In this year I’ve made unexpected progress developing my Campfire Repertoire . I can’t put my finger on any particular reason but I’ve found myself able to memorise lyrics more easily and effectively, and am markedly more comfortable to perform from memory. Perhaps it is just more playing years behind me or maybe my playing has become more on autopilot, freeing up mental capacity to focus on lyrics and singing.

The repertoire now includes 12 songs. The trick is to keep them all fresh. Ideally I would like to be able to play all 12 on any given day if asked to play a set rather than just one song. Within this set, my ability to play flub-free varies. My aim is to reach a level where flubs become more rare and less obvious to a listener.

The proof of the pudding is in the eating, and I was able to enjoy performing a 4 song set at a local mic a couple of days ago at short notice. You can check out an audio-only recording of that performance here.

While Justin has a sub-category of Campfire songs, I have two types of Developer songs.

The first are songs as Justin defines the category. Currently in that category is Neil Young’s Only Love Can Break Your Heart, another great song from Neil off the After The Goldrush album. Firstly, it includes a G7 chord. I struggled with the stretchiness of G7 when taking the Beginner Course, now I can make the chord. Secondly, it requires a change from G to G7, which is achieved by playing a two finger G (ring finger 3rd fret 6th string, pinky 3rd fret 1st string). This is my first time working on this and as is to be expected, the pinky was initially not cooperative.

The second are songs I am working at adding to the Campfire Repertoire. These are songs that I can play and sing with the song sheet in front of me. Just a matter of memorisation and practice to reach a performance consistency so as to be comfortable to play live. Currently I’m working on Deep Purple’s Wasted Sunsets. Then perhaps Bad Moon Rising, JC’s version of Hurt. I am not short of options.

[ EDIT - shifted focus to Bad Moon Rising and played it at the Community OM5 event ]

Like everybody I have songs in the Dreamer category. I’ll just trot out a few as I sit here: Needle And the Damage Done, Powderfinger, Norwegian Wood, One … I’ll stop there. Right now I practice the chord progression for One periodically, the strumming pattern from Justin’s Songbook. And one day I’ll be able to sing the song at the same time … boy, I find the phrasing tricky over the strumming pattern. The beauty of this adventure is that with time, learning, and practice dreams do come true :grin:

It has taken me nearly five years to reach this point. I have watched others here achieve more in less time (I applaud and celebrate with them) and seen others begin and lose motivation as progress perhaps fails to meet expectation. Learning to play and sing is a joy for me, not a race nor a competition, not a quest to achieve specific time-based goals. So if you are dreaming, then take it one step at a time, at your own pace, and you can make those dreams come true.

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Impressive documentation :smiley: Good thing you already copied it here!

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#26 5th JGVersary

Today’s the day: 5 years since I started my musical adventure with the very first lesson of the JustinGuitar BC. I love to look back on the year gone by and reflect on all that has been achieved since day one. I celebrate, irrespective of how much progress has been made, the time it may have taken. For me a healthy balance between looking forward at the road ahead and looking back at the road travelled, while being always in the moment keeps me motivated and satisfied.

This year was quite a year.

NB I shan’t embed links throughout, you can find all the videos on my channel if you are of a mind to take a look and listen.

It began working on a simple finger style arrangement of Deck the Halls to be submitted in a Festive season contest. Simple it is, easy it wasn’t. It ended working on the Simple Blues Lead project that I have just posted in AVOYP. Simple it was. Easy perhaps an overstatement, but it was pleasing to find it not too big a stretch to get the parts under the fingers and recorded without too much blood, sweat, and tears.

Between then and now, the biggest focus and gain in this year was on my singing. Just after Christmas I signed up for Chris Liepe’s Discover Your Voice course and following it has delivered a huge improvement in my singing. Much like following Justin’s BC did for my guitar playing. It is early days and I look forward to more improvement as I continue to follow his path.

During the year, I opted to cut back on AVOYP recordings while working on the singing. But I did get the call from @Richard_close2u to be the vocalist (I love to stretch a word to its max) on a production of Love In Vain, the Robert Johnson classic, which was based on The Rolling Stones cover. It was a wonderful project and came at just the right time to be able to make the most of my singing lessons.

At the same time, I applied myself a little bit more studiously to practice, rather than just playing songs and having a good time. I invested time in some finger-picking drills, worked through RUST 1 (I still got no further on RUST 2 than counting the 1e&a, foot-tapping on the beat, and an accent on the beat; maybe next year), and worked on learning the notes on the neck.

The second highlight of this year was the Community virtual Open Mics. The brainchild of our own @Rossco01 these events that were held every couple of months on Zoom were the perfect way to continue to build my ability to perform live. It was also good to get real feedback on the progress I was making in my singing (bless you all for all the super encouraging comments on that).

These events build on the YT series, “Songs From the Playroom (Not the Wood)”, that I recorded in which I’d play 3 songs with chat in between to simulate an OM performance.

So when our local music club began to host live OMs again, I was ready. It really felt like a second first time when I went back. The benefits of the singing lessons and our OMs translated into the live OM being a completely different experience. I found myself so much more relaxed and confident. Still a long way to go before I’d dare consider myself to be an entertainer, but the performances were a step up from the pre-pandemic days.

Towards the end of the year, I’d decided to try my hand at power chords again, and long story short, the muse showed up and I produced another original song, “Self Destruction (Wine Women 'n Song”, my 8th. Most of my originals have been acoustic guitar driven. This one made use of the power chords, played on the electric. Loads of fun to get down and rock a little harder.

In between a few improv noodles inspired by @sairfingers and a couple of explorations to make use of Borrowed Chord theory shared by @Richard_close2u

Since moving from SoundCloud to YouTube I’ve always wanted to consolidate my SoundCloud recordings. That was done in this year, the subject of a previous RC episode. I’m almost done with that migration. Just one more original to re-work, re-mix, and re-publish on YT; something for 2022.

All in all another wonderful year. I’m more than satisfied with progress made. I continue to have fun learning, playing, performing, recording, and being an active member of this Community.

I cannot express enough what the Community means to me, the support and encouragement, the friendship, without it I may well have packed up at the first challenging moment 5 years ago.

And now we find ourselves in a new house. A more modern house, with new shiny fixtures, for us to get used to and learn how to use. But a house becomes a home through the people who live their lives in the house. I look forward to making new friends, sharing more experiences, in the years to come.

My Music

My YouTube Channel | SoundCloud Years Archive

Gear

Guitars: Fender Paramount PM-1 Deluxe | Honer Resonator | Epiphone LP Standard Pro | Celebrity CC67 (Nashville strung)
Amp: Blackstar ID15:TVP
Pedals: TC Helicon Play Acoustic
Mics: Samson CO3 | AKG D5 | Shure 545SD Unidyne III
AI: Focusrite Scarlet 2i2
Software Tools: Reaper | Guitar Pro

RC Episodes

#25 The three types of songs
#24 Biennial (The SoundCloud Years)
#23 About the 3Ps: Practicing Playing Performing
#22 Funny how it goes, just going as it flows
#21 My 4th JGversary
#20 5000th Forum post and 4 keys to learning
#19 My 3rd JGversary
#18 First Open Mic and setting up the Playroom
#17 My 2nd JGversary
#16 First live performance
#15 First two originals and winning the Forum Contest
#14 18 month update
#13 My 1st JGversary
#12 Going beyond my dreams
#11 September songs and success
#10 RC up to date, 8.5 month reflection
#9 A severe attack of GAS
#8 It’s not a linear journey
#7 Consolidation, Forum Contest, and BC Stage 4
#6 The onset of GAS
#5 Joining the Community and my first recording
#4 First time playing in public
#3 Beginning Justin’s BC
#2 Starting the guitar adventure
#1 Discovering a love of music

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Wow David. That is quite some RC. I think you’ve regained the longest post trophy!
You perhaps think you’ve not come far but that is a guitar packed 5 years.
Well done and have little love heart thingy from me. (Couldn’t we have a thumbs up or a vibe icon rather than a girly heart?)

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Thanks Gordon, appreciate that. I guess you didn’t need a full packed lunch to read today’s episode :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

I’m happy with my progress and have enjoyed every step of the way.

As for “Good Vibes” that particular sign of recognition/appreciation doesn’t seem to have a close equivalent here. But from where I sit the all the rest of the experience makes the shift worthwhile.

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5 years, that’s amazing. Whether you’ve been meandering or disciplined doesn’t really matter when there is fun in the journey, but you’ve achieved quite a lot in these 5 years regardless of your methods: you’re a guitarist, a vocalist, and a performer! And you know a whole lot about recording!! Enjoy the next 5 years just as much, David. :smiley:

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Just saved that graphic as a reminder !!

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Boy that was a good read or for most revisit. Wow and I thought mine was a long un ! Very comprehensive but a compelling story that will never end as we never stop learning and developing and having GAS attacks !

And a very extensive back catalogue ! You’ve come a long way in a short time sir. I hope this not only inspires other to write and the maintain a Roadcase but to also record themselves and share in AOVYP. However, cringeworthy it may seem at the time when you look back, you’ll see how far down the road you have come.

Thank you for sharing.

Cheers

Toby
:sunglasses:

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This wouldn’t by any chance be a reference to what Steven Van Zandt placed at the top of his list of the most essential albums of all time, calling it:

“The greatest collection of music by the greatest rock & roll band there will ever be” :wink:

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I’d think again and just make a list like you did above for the SC years.
For those of use who have been following each others journeys on the forum it would remind us of what you shared, without having to leave the platform and search YT :smiley:

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Thanks Toby and Brian, appreciate you both taking a look.

I expect, hope, that 5 years from now I may look back and cringe at today’s recordings. Though for me cringe is probably not the word I’d use, if I am true to myself. That was what I could do then, and hopefully we all continue to improve. And it matters not that I may never reach the kind of level that Kasper considered cringe worthy some years back.

And in addition to this RC being my own journal, which I enjoy keeping, if it serves to encourage people getting going then so much the better.

Brian, thanks for playing along … you’re the only one. Now I have trawled the 'net to try and find the SvZ quote but without any luck. Given that you are the only one, you might as well share your guess here.

The SC list made sense to me sense that is a closed chapter of the adventure. If I start a list for YT then I’d need to maintain that. I guess I could do that, especially if I could edit it in perpetuity. Or it could be done as another Post that gets replaced with a new version periodically with a link to the latest version in the latest episode of the RC. I’ll give it some thought.

That would make the RC even longer … an appealing thought :rofl:

@brianlarsen while I was browsing, seeing as I can edit, and never found the answer, I’d love to know what that ‘greatest collection’ was, as per your reply

This wouldn’t by any chance be a reference to what Steven Van Zandt placed at the top of his list of the most essential albums of all time, calling it:

“The greatest collection of music by the greatest rock & roll band there will ever be” :wink:

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Wonderful David…I started reading… will let you know when I finish… maybe next year, like in 2023. Love the story so far.

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Thanks Sandra, glad you are enjoying it.

:rofl: well it took me 5 years to write all those episodes, so a year to read them all is fair enough

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Just read this top to bottom, very inspiring and lots of interesting song choices - I appreciate that you included the recording date when you posted the links.

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Thanks James. Appreciate the positive feedback.

Keeping the Log has helped me to reflect on progress, particularly in the moments when learning something new, struggling, and being afflicted with self-doubt, and a negative, critical voice in my head (less prone to that now but struggled with it in the first few years)

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Im new here and astounded by DavidPs journey. I am only starting out for a few months and am wondering if I will ever get to the standard that not only you but also quite a few others in this forum have got to.

My only hope at the moment, is just to try and enjoy myself and hopefully, learn a few things as I go along.

Great things David, well done
Tony

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@bigbird

Firstly, Tony, thanks for the read and generous feedback.

I don’t know if you sampled some of my earliest recordings, which will show you the improvement from where I started to where I am now. And keep in mind, that when I started the adventure with Justin it was not the first time I’d picked up a guitar so I had a running, fast start, so to speak. From then to now, five years later, is chalk and cheese.

It will show you that I was really no different to anybody else starting out. And one of my hopes in sharing this Learning Log is that people who listen to others on the Forum and wonder, perhaps with some doubts, if they can achieve the same read it and believe that with deliberate practice, slow and methodical, that it is possible.

So with my coaches hat-on (forgive me), I’d say remove the word “hope” and “try” from what you tell yourself. Just stay with “I’m going to enjoy myself, follow the programme, and learn to play” and whenever you are struggling with something and that inner critic tells you that you can’t do it, will never get it right, just add the word “yet” into what you tell yourself. Just like I am doing right now: “I have yet to learn how to bend fluently, cleanly, in time”

Thanks again, keep on keeping on, and will see you over in AVOYP in due course.

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