DavidP's Learning Log

[DavidP]

#14 18 month update

My Road Case has not been updated for quite some time … the system tells me more than 120 days. I had planned to update it last weekend and just didn’t get to it. So brace yourself, here’s a summary of the last 6 months.

At the start of year 2, I decided to focus on three elements from the orange grade of the BC: adding a bass note into my rhythm play, the minor pentatonic scale and finger-picking.

In a nutshell, I’ve made good progress on all, reflected in a number of recordings made.

I was quite anxious about starting on finger-picking. In my pre-Justin moments of trying to learn I’d tried once or twice and it felt so foreign that I just went back to bad strumming. To my surprise the very first night I tried I made more progress. It seems as if all the other learning has formed new neural pathways that already helped me to get started with finger-picking. Encouraged by that I stuck at it and now have posted three songs with finger-picking, two of which include singing while finger-picking.

One of the first songs I used to try to play previously was As Tears Go By. I made a multi-track recording of this song for the Contest. Three guitar parts being played differently over a drum beat. To my delight, my timing was good enough that it sounded OK, unlike attempts last year where I was so far out that it was just a mess. One part was finger-picked. I also decided to try my hand at a simple solo. Used the approach in which you follow the chords tones through the progression and I think it came out OK … my wife was astonished when she heard it the first time … completely unexpected.

Made a start on recording with bass notes added and would like to do better, but a good start made.

And most recently tried a recording approach to most closely simulate playing live and recorded two songs, knowing up front that however they came out on that first take is how they’d be posted.

During this period I suffered a couple of bouts of GAS …

While in the USA for work, I found the opportunity to buy an electric irresistible. Prices are far more reasonable as a rule but throw in a President’s Day sale … who can blame me. I came home with an Epiphone LP Pro in a quilted finish. Shortly after that I was able to sell my 12 string acoustic which funded purchase of an amplifier.

Just before my birthday I was looking at a FaceBook page of a shop that sells used … yup, risky business doing such a thing without anti-GAS medication. I spotted a resonator and it was already in my mind that I would need such a guitar one day … well why wait until later when you can GAS today. Came home from the recce with a Hohner resonator. My luthier (ok, the luthier that I use), gave it a good service and declared it to be in fine condition.

While enjoying my time out in this treasure trove of musical goodies, I spotted vintage mics and more current models. Cut a long story short, picked up a Shure dynamic mic in the hopes that I’d be able to record vocals more effectively.

That worked out well. The last few songs were recorded using a condensor mic to record the guitar and the dynamic to record the vocal. Now I have a little bleed of guitar on the vocal track and vice versa but able to mix the way I want when recording “live”.

My mixing has also kicked on and acquired some commercial plug-ins that have made it much easier to mix in vocals and to record the electric guitar directly and add amp, cabinet and pedal effects in afterwards.

And I think that is pretty much it. Continue to enjoy the journey. I feel like I have made huge progress over the last 6 months or so.

If you stuck it out to this point … I hope that reading about my progress is encouraging to you. Yes, I still play a number of days a week, but am not (and have never) practised 2 hours a day, 7 days a week … which shows how much progress can be made with a very reasonable amount of practice.

So go to it and you too can live your musical dreams…no worries, keep fretting

[TheMadman_tobyjenner]

I hope you are taking a breather Mr P. Let me know when #20 gets dropped and I’ll go back for a longer read. Always good to see how old fiends got to where they are today and my aging braincells have purged much of this. And yes that was a deliberate typo.

[batwoman]

Look out, David’s gonna break the new website before it’s launched

[DavidP]

@tobyjenner

I hope you are taking a breather Mr P. Let me know when #20 gets dropped and I’ll go back for a longer read. Always good to see how old fiends got to where they are today and my aging braincells have purged much of this. And yes that was a deliberate typo.

Yup, doing this in stages, Toby. “Old fiends”

@batwoman

Look out, David’s gonna break the new website before it’s launched

In the trade we call it stress-testing, Maggie

But maybe your approach to produce a single consolidated first RC post was a better one. I’ve just gone the simpler, copy & paste route. And the fiend hopes that the story will be encouraging to similar folk getting started.

[DavidP]

#15 My first two original songs and winning the Community Contest

I have continued with the same practice routines focused mostly on finger-picking and scales. Since the last update I recorded a version of House of the Rising Sun, singing and finger-picking.

Continuing in the vein of recording songs that could be played through in a single take, even if not recorded with a first single take, I recorded Dylan’s The Times They Are A Changing.

But the big steps forward in this period are the producing of my first two originals. The first Song For Lesley was entered into the Community Contest and I was fortunate to win the Contest … an unbelievable moment with the privilege of a lesson with Justin.

The second Dear Johnny Blues was a simple 10 bar minor bluesy tune that featured rhythm double-tracked, one played with my acoustic and the other with the resonator, which made it interesting, bass and drums plus a short guitar solo.

Speaking of lead, when I was away in the South Sudan on business, I spend spare time on music theory and have made a start on Grade 3. I am now at the point there and in the Beginner Course, where the focus shifts from learning the scale patterns to trying to make some music. Or as Justin would say, using the scale alphabet to make up words and string those words together to say something musical.

So when Omar posted a first backing track to kick off a weekly jam, I decided the time was right. Since the first post I have now recorded a jam every weekend for 5 consecutive weeks. Posting the jam involves getting the track into the DAW, studying the relevant scales, some exploration to develop some feel for the time, rhythm and harmony to be able to produce something melodic that sounds good.

When I returned from South Sudan I downloaded Justin’s backing track in G. But trying to use the letters from G maj to say something was beyond me … the track just seemed so “busy”, I couldn’t make sense of it. Now, a month later, my latest jam was over that track.

This shows that with a combination of theory study, practical application and doing it regularly … which for me was weekly, not even daily … progress can be made.

And apart from all that, I have to say that playing lead over the backing track, expressing myself in what I play and the tones I choose, is great fun and somehow makes me feel more of a musician than playing covers does. Not that playing covers isn’t fun, it is and I will continue. But this addition plus writing a couple of songs, has been another giant leap forward.

I can only say what an amazing experience it was and gave me a the confidence to take a step forward into starting with the IM. According to Justin my E and A barre chords are already looking good, as a Beginner moving into Intermediate. So I’ve started work in a deliberate, disciplined way on 1/16 note strumming.

[ As I port across my RC, have to say that focus on 1/16th note strumming didn’t last long and RUST 2 is still on the to-do list]

We also discussed this matter of “talent” and long story short, agreed that for greatest majority it is about study and practice. I don’t consider myself talented, if I were then surely back in 1984 when I was shown the basic open chords and some songs I would have mastered playing them and been sounding good. But I didn’t. But in the last 22 months, through study, practice, playing songs and recording I have progressed to be able to play a range of songs, sounding OK, write a couple and play some lead.

If I can, you can … so dig in, have fun and keeping making music

[DavidP]

#16 First live performance and jam session

Another big week to remember as I approach my 2nd JGversary.

Firstly, I played 4 songs for a live audience. It came about like this.

I did a speech at my Toastmasters Club about what I have learned about learning, based on my almost 2 years learning guitar using JustinGuitar and with this Community. As I sat down a few folk wanted to know when I’d play for them.

Careful what you ask for …

I played for them this evening (2018-12-04) during the dinner break of the end-of-year Christmas meeting. Set list was:

Rodrigues - Jane S Piddy … because I always thought if I ever “performed” that would be the song
Fleetwood Mac - Don’t Stop … because it’s new in my repertoire and some different feel using barre chords for the chorus
Rolling Stones - Dead Flowers … because it was watching Keef that inspired me to get a guitar all those years ago
Bob Dylan -Times Are A Changing … because it seemed right to do that on my acoustic and it’s in 3/4 time, so a little different

And far too soon dinner was over. What can I say. Just great fun. Generous audience applauding and heard some singing along. Lots of positive comments afterwards. I reckon I could get to really liking performing for people, such a buzz.

But for now one more unimaginable moment to celebrate and savour. I’m full of gratitude for Justin and the Community who’ve helped so much to make the dreams real.

Secondly, I visited a work friend, who recorded some backing vocals for Song For Lesley. She and her husband are experienced musicians, who used to do a two man band show, playing over backing tracks thing as semi-pros. She plays bass, he plays guitar and both can sing. They have a room kitted out with a mixer/PA system, and a full drum kit plus a bass amp.

I arrived and added my amp to the mix. All singing done through the PA to have any chance of being heard over the 2 guitars and a bass. I wonder what the neighbours thought, as it was pretty loud. Must say playing the electric loud was fun, though not easy. So kept the tone pretty clean. They were quite impressed with the sound produced by the Blackstar.

The afternoon was spent playing songs. Some from my repertoire and others that I know but hadn’t played before. Trying to remember the progressions plus get the changes and feel on the fly, song after song was a challenge. I can concur with all who’ve said playing in a band will really accelerate your learning. I struggled a fair amount, but was never totally lost and at times it all sounded not too bad.

Couple of the highlights …

Hotel California. Not the typical 3 or 4 chord tune I usually play plus strumming that is more than my usual chugging away with Old Faithful or similar. And to be playing rhythm with the bass and hearing the solo over the top, just like off the record. Well it felt proper.

Cortez the Killer. Duncan opted to play drums for this one. Singing and playing with live bass and drums, need I say more. Only thing better would’ve been to have Duncan cloned and playing a lengthy solo at the end.

Rocking in the Free World. I ended up just singing over those classic rock riffs. Getting the feel right at times on that was a kick.

All in all a fabulous afternoon hanging out and playing.

What can I say …

Rock on !!!

[DavidP]

#17 My 2nd JGversay

As you may have seen from my posting of Three Little Birds over in AVOYP, today is the day I commemorate and celebrate my 2nd JGversary.

There have been so many highlights this year, most recently written up in updates to the RC. So I decided to do this update a little differently and reflect back on the whole journey. And as they say “a picture is worth a thousand words” so you’ll be glad to get a a picture rather than (another) thousand words from me.

But when reading back over my RC this caught my eye, when reflecting on my thoughts before going to see a Rolling Stones concert film that inspired me to want to do more than just listen to music:

I’d heard Satisfaction on the radio back in the school days and Ruby Tuesday (a song for my “want to play that someday” list) and recall a magazine article all about Keith, Anita and drug addiction. Didn’t know much more that but opted to go along anyway … a change from a night of beer and darts.

I guess my “someday” arrived when I posted a rendition of Ruby Tuesday a few days ago.

All I can say if you want to learn to play is to stick with Justin’s programmes: be patient, be a good disciple (study and practice deliberately) and get into sharing recordings, which provides invaluable feedback and encouragement and you will succeed.

I’m not a special talent. I love music and at times in my life listened a lot, so I suppose I have some sense of things from that. But playing wise, I am not special, just another guy who wants to play and sing. And two years later … I have to say, with all humility, I can play and sing, to a degree. Not like a pro, not ready for paying gigs, but good enough to play and sing some simple songs in a simple way for an audience.

Special thanks to Justin, I’m proud to be a part of his dream (to teach the world to play) and thanks to all my friends here, who’ve educated and encouraged me for nearly two years; I’m eternally grateful.

Enjoy the timeline

Keep on rocking and rolling !!

[DavidP]

#18 First Open Mic and setting up my Playroom

Quick as a flash, 8 months whizz by and an update is quite over due. Every time I thought about posting one update, something else was just around the corner … guess there’s a lesson in that.

So it has been another period full of fun, learning and some big milestones.

On the learning/playing front, I started on the first couple of patterns of the Advanced Folk Fingerstyle module. I had started focusing on the 1/16 note strumming but quickly became absorbed by the finger-picking. Who would’ve thought that the element of the BC that I feared the most would become one of my favourite things.

The crux of course, is to be able to play songs using the technique. And despite some suggestions, I never latched onto a song as I began to make progress. Then came the first contest of 2019. I had planned to enter the original I was working on at the time. Inspired by the rocking original tunes that LBro produces, I wanted to record something different to my usual style. But that song, which became a lament about the state of the world with more echoes of Black Sabbath (to my ears) than perhaps the AC/DC-esque sound I was originally thinking about, didn’t fit the contest theme.

So I decided to write an original, David’s Summer Sonnet, which I entered in the Contest. Subsequently, I just posted up the hard rocker, Two To Midnight, in AVOYP.

[ Edit - I will be re-visiting David’s Summer Sonnet in due course and eventually sharing it on my channel. Two To Midnight has been remixed and released on my channel ]

While I was busy loving the picking, Maggie posted a rendition of We Are Going To Be Friends. For me that is an all time great song, just everything about it. But it sounded way beyond me. Maggie encouraged me, to try it. That shows the power of the support and encouragement from friends here. She had more confidence in my ability and capacity to learn than I had in myself, but with her encouragement I gave it a go and eventually was able to learn to play it. It is one of my favourite recordings now.

By the time I was ready to record that I’d also decided to try making videos, rather than just audio only recordings. Turned out to be not too tricky to do … to record the audio the way I always do, strip the audio from a video recorded with a phone and sync up the audio rendered from my DAW with the video. I had posted a couple of videos before, so had a YT channel, and have now posted a few videos.

Here’s a link to the channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCG2X_TlNs7agW-U0EBCDdbw

I am blessed to have a wife, Lesley, who is also musical and able to play. We began to play a little together, one thing led to another and we recorded a first song together as a duo. I really am a fortunate man to be able to play music with my wife. And again, if you missed that … Bruce Springsteen's Hungry Heart ... take 2

My most recent milestone was to play at an Open Mic. A few people had listened to my recordings, watched the videos and were encouraging me to take this next step, telling me that I was ready. Previously I’d looked for such opportunities and not found any. But searching again, I finally found just the right opportunity. TJ’s Acoustic Music Club puts on regular shows, at which they invite people to play but once a month they also have an open mic event.

So I went along to have a look see. Just a recce, so to speak. Long story short … the music was wonderful. People all above my play-grade. But the organisers were encouraging. Told me not to worry about that and just to come along and give it a go.

So I did. I have to say that of all the steps taken since starting on the adventure, this was certainly the most scary. We talk often about the red light syndrome … how you play fine until you press record. Well, when I stepped up at the OM I new this was a one shot deal … there’s no second take. I got through it, with only losing my way once. Importantly, I was able to just keep playing. This is an important lesson I think … just keep going … get back on track. And at the Open Mic, the audience was just supportive so no issue, no criticism.

Make sure you have water handy … who knew a mouth could become that dry. Between songs I could feel the shaking and tension in my arms, the tightness in my chest and shortness of breathe. But somehow, once I started to play, it was OK. And when it was over, I felt on cloud 9 … pumped up.

You’ll find videos of the 4 songs on my YT channel.

I went back a month later and did it again. It went better. So now I am hooked on performing

The other big news in this time period is how I am now setup to record here at home. Lesley’s Mom was staying with us. It was a blessing and pleasure, although demanding as she aged and became frail. And it also meant that the PC was setup in my son’s room. She passed away earlier this year … sad but a blessing and relief, both for her and us at the time. Since then we have converted her room into a room for the PC, to record and in time for Lesley to sew.

I mentioned how blessed I am … well, another of Lesley’s abilities is wood-working. She made up a desk with a shelf for the PC. GAS struck at I acquired some Yamaha monitor speakers. We now have a music-room all set up, and, again better to let the pictures speak.

It was my pleasure, to treat her to an early birthday present on Saturday … the ukelele that joined our instrument collection.

I think that is all the major happenings in the last 8 months. There have been a number of other recordings along the way, while working the finger-picking. All posted on AVOYP and still up on my SoundCloud.

[ EDIT - My SoundCloud channel is no longer in use ]

As always, thank you to every person here, Justin’s lessons and this Community truly is a wonderful way to learn to play, pursue your dreams, make friends, have fun.

Keep picking and strumming, rocking and rolling !!

[DavidP]

#19 My 3rd JGversary

And here we are, another year draws to a close.

Today three years ago is the day I took out the dusty old guitar and started Justin’s BC. Happy to reflect on how far I have progressed in learning to play. And at risk of repeating myself, find myself reflecting on having done things that I never imagined as being possible when I started up.

Yesterday, to commemorate three years spent learning and having fun, I posted up a couple of recordings. And the feedback was (as always) wonderfully encouraging and complimentary.

And I got to thinking that it is fair to say that we are wired for Community, to be social beings. And for me I feel a deep connection and sense of belonging here, so much care and support from everybody for everybody. When I made my first post just over 4500 post ago, I had no idea just how important the Community would prove to be, both in terms of enabling the learning and also in terms of life in general, in terms of the many friendships I have made here through our shared love of music.

Music wise, the last few months since the last update have passed by in similar fashion.

I have now played a total of 4 Open Mic sessions. Three of those are posted up in the live performance area, unfortunately to date haven’t been able to get the video of the forth performance from Lionel who records everything. For the record I performed the following songs at that event: Blowing In The Wind, Killing Me Softly and Before You Accuse Me.

I missed the final event of the year, being away for work, and am now thinking about the next Open Mic at the end of January. I have performed the last three sessions without using song sheets, either paper or on a tablet. I do feel an extra pressure and stress to remember the lyrics, so am considering using the music stand again. My thinking being that being less under pressure to remember lyrics may help reduce mistakes, be more relaxed.

The other highlight was completing another full production of my fifth original song, Free. You can listen to that in the latest Contest.

So performing, recording original songs, finger-picking … all things that were impossible to imagine when I started. I was particularly anxious about the basic finger-picking part of the BC and it turned out to be something I really do enjoy.

In the last few months, I’ve made more progress on the Finger-Style Module and am practicing a pattern that uses the high e string plus some bass walks between chords. So far have not identified and settled on a suitable song. maybe time to look at some of the easier Dylan finger-picked songs, though singing his lyrics is not always so easy.

As I said in the reply to comments on yesterday’s post in AVOYP, I am feeling motivated to work a little more on my strumming, more wrist to get better control and accuracy … a little more like how Loefgren plays. Then maybe try and get to grips with two of my favourite songs: Norwegian Wood and Needle and the Damage Done, which both need more pick accuracy than I can currently manage.

I also dream about maybe one day playing or busking, perhaps the local coffee shop just up the road … maybe they’d be open to somebody performing in their garden on a Sat or Sun. Then I’d need an acoustic amp with a channel for guitar and mic, perhaps some pedals to achieve similar sound live as what I can achieve now in my DAW when I record myself playing and singing. A man can dream

Who knows.

I do know enough now not to limit myself as to what might be possible as I continue the adventure. An Open Mic was a fantasy, even as recently as the start of this year … now I am a regular.

So who knows.

Speaking of Open Mic, the music club that hosts the event also host shows where 4-5 acts, sometimes solo sometimes a full band, perform. Apart from maybe one day being invited to perform there, I am also interested in perhaps getting more involved with the sound engineering on the night. With my experience mixing productions on the DAW I think maybe I could get into live engineering. And it sounds like fun.

As I say, who knows where the path leads, what opportunities will present over time. All I do know is that I can’t imagine life without my guitar, recording and performing.

The learning, the progress, the achievements, the friendships … in this context, life doesn’t get any better.

Once again, I wish you all everything of the best. Keep at it, follow Justin’s lessons, be active in the Community and I am confident you too can achieve your musical dreams.

[DavidP]

#20 5000th Forum Post and 4 Keys to Learning

Today is a good day for a Road Case update. I happened to notice a couple of numbers the other day and they seemed to be lining up to make this fitting:

30 YouTube subscribers … while I am not on a mission to become a YouTuber with 100s and 1000s of subscribers, it seems human nature that having put oneself out there, one hopes that people watch. So I do enjoy the fact that I have more than just my brother subscribing, but shan’t be investing time in building a subscriber base by getting out there on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and others that I couldn’t name.

40 months of musical adventure … a well rounded number of months since starting off with Lesson 1, Stage 1. How time flies.

4999 Forum Posts … this was the number that caught my eye. And I watched carefully, like a batsman in the nervous nineties (apologies to those west of the Atlantic, to whom a cricket metaphor is likely to be lost and I suppose to everyone else, everywhere else to whom a cricket metaphor is lost), having decided that this update would be my 5000th post.

So here it is. But truth be told, haven’t got much of an update since my 3rd JGversary episode posted 4 months ago…

A few more covers posted. A few more Open Mic performances.

Still working on the picking pattern but have started working on an original song, rather than learning one of Dylan’s.

I have started working on the first basic exercise Justin recommends when starting to develop picked finger style. Working on it with a lack of regular attention that suggests it may be a while before I starting using it in even an incredibly poor emulation of Neil Young.

I have also started working on the palm-muted strumming technique. I have decided to produce an original song using the technique and the typical Oasis chord grips I have watched Johan aka Loefgren use so often.

Oh and the odd dabble and noodle over a Guitar Challenge backing track … to really improve that would require some focus on the Blues rhythm and Lead courses … don’t feel inclined right now.

I suppose, in a nutshell, I am consolidating post the Beginner Course, with the E and A shape Intermediate barre chord shapes thrown in and the introductory folk-finger style modules. But mostly consolidating to improve the level of my basics: playing and singing, recording and performing live.

Most importantly I continue to have fun, feel slow improvement and enjoy hanging out here with all the rest of my Forum Friends.

Not much of an update, so decided to share something a little different …

As you may know I am also a Toastmaster. A few weeks ago I found myself in a position where I needed to give a speech with almost no notice, no time to prepare. So I resorted to talking about something special to me that I thought might serve as generally inspiration to the audience … it was before confinement, so an actual in-the-flesh audience … my guitar adventure.

That journey from wishing and dreaming but believing I lacked the talent to make the wishes come true, to the dreams becoming reality.

I refined the ideas to deliver the speech again on Sunday evening. I thought perhaps some of the folk new to the Community, maybe those like me who’ve already chalked up a 50 years of living, and wonder if it is possible.

Well I believed it wasn’t in me … that I lacked dexterity, coordination and the most basic feel for rhythm. And yet here I am. And I can simplify it to 4 keys, 4 keys to unlock the shackles and take the journey to this point where I think it is fair to say I can play … not like my most loved Neil Young and the rest, not like some of the people who’s postings I listen to with great appreciation … but play play to an OK level, I never imagined possible.

And it matters not. If I am now as good as I am going to get then I will continue to live the dream, actually more than I ever imagined when I started.

So the 4 keys …

1. Find the right teacher. Here we are, students of Justin Sandercoe. No arguments on his qualities as a teacher. And he was the right teacher for me.

2. Adopt a growth mindset. This was important for me, given the limiting beliefs I held about my lack of talent that make learning to play in any decent fashion impossible. I forget where I first read of the Growth Mindset. I do remember Maggie aka Batwoman posting this infographic which sums it up better than my prose can:

And if you’d like to know more, then you can always read Carol Dweck’s book “Mindset”. If a book is too much reading, try this blog post: Carol Dweck: A Summary of The Two Mindsets. And if that is still too much reading then watch one of her TED Talks.

Changing my mindset, and striving to adopt the growth mindset certainly played a part.

3. Deliberate practice

Now this topic of talent and practice surfaces here periodically. Often based around Malcolm Gladwell’s famous/infamous (depending on your own point of view), best-selling book, “Outliers”. Now when giving the speech, I ask the audience who may have read it, heard of it. Usually only one or two have. But ask how many know of the “10,000 hour rule” and the majority know all about it. That makes a point in itself. And I have no intention to open the discussion here. But it is disconcerting how little people need to know to adopt such a statement as their truth.

Moving on from the conceptual ideas about success and mastery expressed by Gladwell, I think one can find value in the idea of deliberate practice. I think, stand to be corrected, that Anders Ericsson did the research and writing. I recently came across this blog post, which I enjoyed on the topic: The Beginner's Guide to Deliberate Practice - James Clear

And if one sets aside the counting of hours, for me it really doesn’t matter. I find this notion of deliberate practice to be empowering. I can’t say how many hours I have invested, how deliberate my practice was. But for the proof is in the pudding and I can play now like I never could before, having made a few attempts over the decades since starting off as a 19 year old student.

But if the matter of hours remains important to you, take a look this article shared here, possibly by Majik or maybe Stitch, I forget: https://www.6seconds.org/2018/02/09/the-great-practice-myth-debunking-the-10000-hour-rule-and-what-you-actually-need-to-know-about-practice/

And this would suggest that nature and nurture have some influence on your ability and capacity to learn something. At this stage, I aspire no more than to continue to learn and improve, primarily for my own enjoyment and satisfaction. So I am not too fussed. The truth of these theories is of little consequence.

4. Quality feedback.

I think it may have been Brian who pointed out that the Forum serves to address a potentially serious limitation in online learning. That of not having a teacher who can observe and provide you feedback. Without feedback you will not know for sure that what you are doing is well done, solving problems can be difficult and knowing what needs to be worked on to improve. I say limitation as I am sure you can serve yourself to a degree, some maybe more than others.

For me the feedback from the Community was invaluable. First and foremost encouragement. It works for me to know that I am not alone. The confirmation of improvement has been invaluable. I think I am getting better, but it helps me when others also say so. And finally the pointing out of things that are not quite right, that need attention.

With these 4 keys, I have come along way. As I have said many times before, I don’t consider myself to be innately talented. The 4 keys plus desire and the discipline to take instruction from the teacher and follow the programme, will lead to learning and greater levels of mastery … a degree of mastery. I may never attain a world class level of mastery, but I can achieve levels more than sufficient for the average hobbyist.

If you are still reading, I salute you and hope you have gleaned something of value and even inspiration from my thoughts and experience.

And with that, let me press “post” on this 5000th post

See you round for more magical musical adventures!

[DavidP]

#21 My 4th JGversary

Dec 16th and time for a RC update to reflect on my fourth year.

I began this year determined to keep working on finger-picking and performing at TJ’s Acoustic Music Club’s Open Mic nights. TJs also host evenings where people are invited to play and my aim was to improve as a live performer to eventually be invited to the Big Stage event. Of course everything changed with the spread of the Corona virus and measures taken to combat the Covid-19 pandemic.

But as they say “the show must go on”. And I can reflect on another year of learning, some progress, fun, and achievements to celebrate.

Once Open Mic events were no longer happening I decided to simulate the live experience by recording a set of three songs with talk in between. I named the series “Songs From the Playroom (not the Wood)” You’ll find these and all my other recordings on my YouTube channel. While recording a video at home is not quite as scary as the real thing, hitting the record button remains the cue for adrenalin to begin to pump. I don’t shake and tense up as much as I used to but still find that learning how to be relaxed and in the moment, keeping the mind focused on the performance and not thinking about the performance or worse inner dialogue starting up about not making a mistake is harder than it sounds.

As I continued to work on how I make the home live videos, I succumbed again to GAS and picked up a TC Helicon Play Acoustic pedal. The purpose being to be able to make live videos that have similar sound quality as what I produce in the DAW but without using the DAW. Eventually the pedal should allow me to play live with that same sound quality, with the guitar plugged in rather than being mic’ed up. An extravagance no doubt but am enjoying being able to make the home videos with a webcam, rather than a phone, the DAW, and the process to marry the two together. And who knows, when the day comes to play on the Big Stage, I will be ready.

In preparing the list of posts below, I noticed that I’d acquired the Hohner Resonator in July 2018. Finally this year, two years later, I was ready to start down the path to learn some finger-style blues. My first step is to learn the first piece, Steady Thumb Blues, from Justin’s Solo Blues course. I posted a WIP video and it remains a work in progress, along with the second piece Walking Easy Blues. My progress is slow, but I enjoy the process, and I know in time I will get better and develop the control of the thumb and fingers of the right hand, be able to make chords and play lead lines, and do all together. And yes Darrell, DaddyStovePipe’s pieces are also on the to-learn list. Justin has also posted up some lessons recently that I have watched and will come back to. For now learning by learning pieces, studies or etudes, is appealing to me.

Along the way some more covers and a couple of original songs. Four years in the process, my progress this year feels less significant than in previous years. I feel like I can’t really call myself a beginner anymore and that disrupts my expectations, self-assessments. The inner judge now starts to mess with my mind pointing out that I ought to be better than I am after four years. And when progress is less dramatic, being more on a plateau of small, almost indiscernible, improvements rather than making the big improvements, I can struggle a little. The mental side of learning has its challenging moments for me.

So I make the most of the little wins. For example, being able to revisit Wonderful Tonight and be able to play and sing it from memory, playing the D/F# with the thumb over the top, and the camera recording, felt great.

And at risk of blowing my own trumpet, I was fortunate to be recognised with a Community Award … totally unexpected when I look at all the other folk who’ve been recognised. I had the opportunity to spend time with Justin talking about song-writing and production. I have written up my experiences and suffice to say, I learned a great deal and was able to apply it to great benefit in the most recent original song I produced.

When I began, I posted all my recordings up on SoundCloud. Having taken the plunge to post videos rather than just audios, I’ve decided that in due course I will close the SC account and just use YouTube. But I did want my YT channel to include the most memorable recordings shared on SC, mostly my own original songs. And in porting them across I decided to remix the songs. An opportunity to see how much I may have improved in that aspect. So far so good and I feel the mixes already released have been significantly better.

As I reflect, I would now consider myself to be continuing to consolidate the Beginner Course skills with the ability to play E and A shape barre chords while working slowly at finger-style, via the Folk Fingerstyle module or the Solo Blues Course. I continue to enjoy producing original songs, when the muse comes a calling. And I have made progress as a mix/sound engineer (that sounds ever so grandiose but can’t think of a better word)

That said, I find myself tending to practice with far less determination and investment in time than when I was doing the Beginner Course and spend far more time learning and playing songs.

Having read how other folk have set themselves what some in the consulting world call BHAGs (Big Hairy Audacious Goal) and are driven to practice, I got to thinking about my own approach. I am quite happy puttering along. And when I look back over the year I think I have improved as a player and singer but haven’t advanced my skills significantly in the year.

And I wonder if that may be due to the fact that when I began four years ago, it was a last chance saloon moment, with me not believing I had the necessary innate ability to really get very far. Having achieved so much more than I imagined I might, maybe the drive to push on to become even better, to set and work towards my own BHAGs, is just not there. I don’t know. Not that I am unhappy or frustrated, I just tend to think, maybe over-think, things.

Time to stop thinking and analysing and just appreciate the fun had, the achievements, the continued progress, even if on a more gentle trajectory. I can celebrate four wonderful years, having made so many friends here in the Community. I look forward to continuing to play and sing, work on my finger-style and blues playing, produce more original songs, and maybe some more opportunities to collaborate and produce some songs with folk here will present (I do enjoy the mixing and mastering).

Thank you all for listening and reading, for all your encouragement and support. Without it I am sure I would have packed it in again in Feb 2017.

Keep on keeping on with your own journey and adventures, sure and confident in the knowledge that if you stick with the programme, persevere, you will progress and achieve your own goals.

[DavidP]

#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

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.

[DavidP]

#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.

[DavidP]

#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

[DavidP]

#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

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.

[LievenDV]

Impressive documentation Good thing you already copied it here!

[DavidP]

#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.

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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

[sairfingers]

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?)

[DavidP]

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

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.

[Mari63]

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.