yeah, Herman Li is a difficult act to follow!
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Edgar
Just got round to reading this and its a great entry Learning Log/Roadcase. Great to hear your back history and you relaunch. You have a good set of goals and ambition, look forward to seeing your development.
Cheers
Toby
Thank you 
.
I tried to set realistic goals. The one I’m more afraid of is to gather the courage to do an open mic 
.
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Now you put it out there, Edgar. You can do it. It’s a super safe place with the only expectation being for people to give it a go, the only result being learning and encouragement.
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Today I start Module 13. Let’s play with some blues 
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Log update: 14/04/2022
Hello there! There’s about time to make a proper update to my learning log 
. The one I did before was just to save the date in which I started module 13
Gear
I treated myself with the iRig BlueBoard for controlling Amplitube, which is the app I use as “amp”. The excuse was that I want to record Enter Sandman and as it has parts with a clean tone and the rest with distortion, I needed the gear to do the quick changes. Besides, it allows using the loop-pedal characteristics of Amplitube, which I heard Justin on an occasion that is a good tool for rhythm for beginners 
.
The thing is that it is harder than I thought to nail the moment to do the change, so probably I’ll end up recording Enter Sandman twice, one for each tone 
.
And I’m still fighting my desire to buy an acoustic guitar. For now, I have it under control since I promised myself to do it after grade 3, but man… it is hard. And even harder seeing your nice acoustics here 
Objectives
Due to the new feature of the songbook to categorize songs, I ended up watching all the videos about Effective Practice. Despite the fact that I think they are for Grade 3 students 
.
Watching the videos made me think more about my guitar goals. Beyond the 12 months goals, I already had set.
3 years
- Getting comfortable jamming with other musicians
- Play some songs with solos included
-
IF I get married. I would like to play at my wedding and surprise some members of my family who didn’t even know I’m currently playing
5 years
-
I want to have completed the advanced course from Justin
-
I want to be able of doing covers (metal-covers
) of songs I love, like the OST of some videogames
Progress
I’m just starting with module 13. Don’t know how much I’ll stay here, but for now, seems realistic to think that I’d finish grade 2 in August.
However, I have detected some flaws in my playing to work on:
- Chord changes to F
- Chord changes to A → I’m trying to improve my A air change since I still placing finger 1 first and then the other 2. And that creates a funny sound (kind of a hammer-on) whenever I change to A
- Sing along with songs → I have trouble with searching for my repertoire. Being from Spain makes that hardly any person knows the lyrics for the songs I learn with Justin since they’re all in English . So if I want to be ready for some moment of action when someone throws a guitar at me, I should really work on singing while strumming. Which I haven’t accomplished much yet.
And that’s it. For now 
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Quiubo Edgar, nice to see you have your guitar roadmap set up and are using it to adjust the route to the traffic conditions. Kind of doing business analysis before, to avoid starting to write spaghetti code. Congrats for your iRig BlueBoard. It looks a good workaround of not having physical pedals to turn on and off.
Thanks for the update, Edgar, well laid plans and practice.
As for the clicking of footswitches … just hurts so much to watch people like Justin on YT clicking the switch so effortlessly, but like everything guitar, no doubt just a matter of practice practice practice
Thank you, mate. Yep I’ve never been found of setting objectives. But for the guitar that has so many things to learn, can be useful to have a compass. For the example I see you are a developer as well? 
You say it. As so many things . You see it and think: “Oh. That doesn’t seem so difficult. I can do it” 
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In Colombia I worked 3 years as an application developer for an IT startup in the late nineties. I am mostly self-taught in that field. The startup was selling an application for managing real estate sales, directed to construction developers. My degree is in architecture (brick and mortar architecture [not IT architecture]). I am a registered architect in Colombia but not in Canada. In the day, I developed applications using Sybase’s PowerBuilder. I was planning to work in that field when I moved to Canada but the rise of .NET derailed the plan. Luckily I found my way back to the construction sector and that is what I live from.
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Oh. I see. Glad that you could return to your main field 
. I’m not a graduate engineering either. I’m a self taught developer too. I did a degree in biology but is almost impossible to get a work as scientific, at least in Spain. I have some phd classmates and none of them are working according to their studies. Development was my salvation
Today I started to get comfortable with the dominant 7th chords and kind of feel the groove while playing the 12 bar blues progressions . Today I had a lot of fun
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Disclaimer and little apology
I haven’t update my LL for a long time, so this will be a big update.
My LL isn’t the only thing I haven’t checked regularly. The last couple of months I’ve been totally inactive from the community. The reason is that I haven’t figured out a time on the day/week to check the posts of new members, AVOYPs, etc. I have a feeling of guilt since this community is so supportive, and this support helped and encouraged me too. So I’d like to help others by listening to their recordings and giving some occasional advice about things I could help.
I’ll keep trying my best to check now and then the community. If I miss some of your AVOYP, please, forgive me 
.
And now, to the update:
Progress on my playing
During these months I ended the blues module. Has been a great discovery for me and a lot of fun to play. I already said this elsewhere, but it is of no surprise that Blues has a big influence on so many music genres, and among them, the one I love the most: Heavy Metal . In this period I’ve recorded 2 AVOYPs about blues. The first one is an improvisation on E, and the other one is Justin’s beginner blues solo.
Right now I’m in the consolidation module where I expect to stay at least until the 15th of October. Even though I could extend to January to polish all the small flaws I have.
Music theory and ear training
In music theory, I’m working on major and minor triads in strings 1, 2, and 3.
I’m feeling a bit more comfortable getting some video-game melodies by ear. The latest I managed to get is Saria’s Song (Legend of Zelda) and I’m pretty close to finishing with the Pokémon Red and Blue Main Theme. I’m thinking of recording an AVOYP with all the melodies I get by ear.
Private guitar lessons
Finally, I decided to get a little extra help on my guitar journey. Even though Justin’s videos are excellent, and the community gives a lot of support and feedback about playing, I wanted a mentor that helps me avoid bad habits and burst a little bit of my progress by watching me play live with some good advice for my routine. And my teacher is the great and well known by the community… Richard!!. I already took 3 lessons with him and we are working on my strumming, improvisation, fingerstyle, and some suggestions for practicing scales.
New Gear
I’m a step closer to being able of playing live in an Open Mic event. I bought an Audio Interface and a condenser mic. So I can now stream guitar and voice perfectly. I have yet to figure out how to add backing tracks into the mix and I’ll be ready to go. I know this isn’t 100% necessary and a lot of you do great open mics only with your guitar, but the music I like sounds much better with a BT and I want to give you decent audio quality. And because I’m a nerd too 
.
The 14th of august is my second guitarversary, and as I’m really close to the end of grade 2, finally got my first acoustic. It is an Álvarez AF66CESHB Artist. Didn’t hear about this brand before, but the sound really hooked me. So I took this one with me.
Playing an acoustic is a totally different experience. And I’m gradually getting used to it. But the first days, chord changes, bare chords, etc… a totally different story regarding distances and strength. Now I’m a bit used to it, but wow, much more difficult to play one of these than an electric one. Now that I have tried it, I can agree with Justin that for beginners is easier to start with an electric.
Jamming
Unfortunately, I don’t know anyone who plays an instrument to jam with, but I do have a friend that sings. So we meet in my humble home studio and record a song for a former workmate’s birthday. Was a blast to record it. We had a full afternoon talking about music, chords, and arrangements. And however, my playing wasn’t perfect or anyway near… was good enough for a day and did the work.
It is really great to start creating things with my guitar.
Music events
Playing the guitar has a great effect on how you experience live shows. I felt a huge increase in my desire of watching musicians and experiment again what being in a festival or live concert is. So I’ve been in a couple of local events and one really really big and important to me. It was the first time I saw them and what a show!! Iron Maiden!
I was, more or less, in the red circle of the photo. As you can see, It was massive.
Iron Maiden isn’t just music. They care a lot about scenography, fireworks, and such. It is really really amazing. And the energy they have? Unbelievable. I was especially amazed by Janick Gers. Who didn’t miss an opportunity to throw into the air his guitar, or spin it like a sling…
The next show will be Helloween 
and Hammerfall 
in February 
. Already bought the tickets 
And that’s all. If you’ve read this far, thanks a lot!
See you!
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Good to read the update and know you are still rocking along, Edgar. Wish you much joy with the acoustic, looks fabulous. Sure the Iron Maiden show must have been spectacular, thanks for the pictures.
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Great update Edgar. Totally understand about inactivity due to everything else eating up time.
That sounds like a fun one and look forward to listening to it. Are you going to tell us what the melodies are or make us guess like a pub quiz?
That’s fantastic news. You are in a safe pair of hands. Wish you all the best with the private lessons.
Congratulations thats a beautiful looking guitar and you deserve it for all the hard work you’ve put into Grades 1 and 2.
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Awesome update Edgar!
Huge video game fan here and those tracks pull on my heart strings as they were the melodies of my youth, lol. I haven’t even heard you playing them and I’m already inspired to try this myself. Looking forward to hearing them if you decide to post.
Beautiful guitar! Indeed a different beast when even playing the same music. Def takes some getting used to but it is such a unique sound that I have never been able to emulate on my electric. Hope to see the new acoustic around in a AVOYP sometime.
I’ve been having similar feelings lately. I’m actually going to see Dethklok live tonight which would be my first live show since starting to learn the guitar. I’m sure the experience is different after you’ve held a guitar in your hands for a while.
Iron Maiden is amazing! Sounds and looks like the show was incredible based on those pictures!
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Great update Edgar, seems you are having a great time and that is what’s most important! Happy NGD as well, will be great to hear you playing it!
Easiest and without time delay issues with Zoom and OBS for me was to plug my phone into audio interface via jack and play BT from the phone and monitor it on the interface - food for thought Check the OM where I played Black Betty which I think was No 8, that’s what I did then.
All the best!
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Quiubo Edgar, I find myself hard to participate in every topic so I just throw my 2 cents whenever I am able to. Participating gives me as much as I can possibly give but balance is needed to have all fronts of life attended as best as possible. Getting those melodies by ear looks to be a good exercise. Happy NGD! Once you get accustomed to the acoustic all will come to what character do you want for a song and then choose which guitar do you want to play.
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Thanks @DavidP , @Socio , @alexisduprey , @adi_mrok and @dobleA for reading and commenting the update 
Thanks, and yet I’ll like to be more active here. Maybe a quick check every other day before starting to work will do 
Agree, nowadays we live in a world full of activities and hobbies we can develop. But the time of the day hasn’t changed. And I “only” have to work and do my chores. If I were a parent I don’t know how I’d do it
I was thinking of putting the title of every melody right away, but a quiz-like video is a better idea
If you like video games is a win-win situation. Besides a lot of melodies are rather simple. I found it a great ear training exercise
That’s right, and that’s the main reason I wanted to buy an acoustic. Well, I wanted an extra guitar really , because I was starting to feel a bit nervous thinking that if my electric had any issue I couldn’t play for a day or so 
. So with an acoustic I solved 2 problems at once
Sure! I already decided that next AVOYP will be me with the acoustic, and maybe with some singing 
How did it go? Playing the guitar makes you appreciate more how good musicians are with their instrument, and how much effort they put into it. It’s a good source of inspiration for your own playing. BTW, didn’t know Dethklok was an actual band. I liked back in the days the cartoon videos of the band, but didn’t follow them
They were spectacular, indeed. Something beyond their songs. Seeing Iron Maiden is a huge experience that I’d recommend to anyone. I already want to see them again .
Thanks, guys , but what NGD stand for?
That’s a good idea, unfortunatelly my audio interface has only 2 inputs, one for the mic and the other for the guitar. I could switch mic and phone just before playing, though . Thanks for the idea!
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That’s New Guitar Day.
Excellent playing, btw.
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