[quote="Nugglechops, post:20, topic:406462”]
. Seems more like a computer game where I’m just watching for the next chord to appear rather than learning. I
[/quote]
not really , you can use the backing track and not look at the screen , just use your ear to play on the beat
I also don’t sing and have faced this problem for years. The first stages of learning guitar involve chords, strumming, notions of rhythm, etc. Aside from learning some standalone riffs, you’re not really playing melody lines and so without singing, the songs are not really recognizable. And by “first stages”, I mean the first 2-3 years. Maybe middle of Grade 3 in Justin’s course, something like that.
So, if you don’t sing, what to do?
My personal solution was to close myself in my bedroom and sing along, no matter how bad I was. I was like the tree falling in the forest when nobody was there. I played songs that I loved (mostly Dylan) and it felt good, even if I couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket, as the saying goes.
Another option is to play along with the original recording. Most teachers highly recommend this and I found it to be pretty satisfying.
Option 3 is to get friendly with someone who can sing. For a while I dated a gal who could sing like a songbird and I played a lot while she sang. It was great.
Play with other people. Somebody will probably sing and even if they don’t, getting a good jam together is fun. (Not so easy to arrange for many people, including myself.)
Eventually, you will get to the level where you can start incorporating some melody into your playing. In a previous thread, I posted some ideas of how to start on that. Mind you, Module 5 is not advanced enough for this advice, but eventually you will get there:
Perhaps but at that point I’m thinking I may as well just play along with the original track then if I’m not going to use any of the visual cues?
@jjw sorry on phone and haven’t worked out how to quote post and stuff but your whole post very relevant.
Yeah I’m happy to sing along on my own to get the structure of the song right and stuff and always had that in back of mind as some of what I’d do privately…
I’d like to be able to play along with recordings also as main thing. (As I said in a other post, this seems better than the app as an option, I’m struggling to see the benefit of that. I’m old but it hits me more as some sorta guitarband type of thing and not long term helpful, especially as most of the lesson I’m doing from the site don’t have the song on the app).
I’ve also had a quick play around with Moises, an AI app thing where it will analyse tracks and remove various parts.so you can fill in. Not the be all and end all but maybe has a place in fitting all this together.
Failing that my missus does indeed sing very well and perform in an alternative / rock choir type group. Just not sure our relationship is ready for this extra stress! Ha
if you use moses yes
Id would not recommend to play along the original if the guitar is still on the track
this way you can hear yourself play better
Well you are very lucky if your partner can sing. It can be a good thing to do together. I would love it if my wife could song while I play the guitar. Since she isn’t a very good singer (and freely admits it), I’m trying to persuade her to learn the bass as something we could do together.
Hi Nugget, welcome. Although you already have received plenty of good advice I want anyway to share my personal points of view on the subject you brought in and hopefully contribute to the encouragement and guidance other community members have provided.
For me as soon as someone can play some clean chords, change between them on time, and keep a steady rhythm while strumming a song, that someone knows how to play guitar at the most basic level. I think that meeting those qualifications is the borderline between not knowing how to play guitar at all and knowing something about how to play guitar. From there is either not progressing at all (at some points me) or an endless path of guitar playing development (thanks to Justin Guitar lessons, at some points me too).
I think that you should keep advancing with the modules whenever you feel the exercises you are practicing are reasonably under control. On the first modules Justin provides specific benchmarks for doing so, but gradually you’ll have to be your own judge about that.
This one is a hard one because you’re the only one that has the answer. What do you want to get from your guitar playing? It looks to me that in case someone pass you a guitar to show your skills you want to be able to do so by playing something recognizable and not a chord progression that could be many different songs or just a chord progression. It happened to me. I was in a BBQ and was given a guitar to entertain the guests while the host attended the grill. I wasn’t ready for that. At the end after my wife rescued me for a while to eat instead of playing, I was able to come back and play my very reduced repertoire when I felt the spotlight was not so high on me and the expectations I was going to play at the same level than the host that is a skilled pianist had waned. To be ready to show those skills I think that you only need to be able to play from memory at least one song. It can be one that one way or another is recognizable and you had plenty of suggestions above that you can try. For me Yellow Submarine and La Bamba are the ones I can play that have a very distinctive pattern and I don’t think are so hard to throw some vocals here and there. Justin classifies Yellow Submarine as a Grade 1 song while La Bamba classifies as a Grade 3. I’m a Grade 2 student. Both took me a while to get decently fluent with.
Playing and singing is not easy, but because it has been always my preferred way of playing guitar I feel somewhat comfortable doing so. Once in a high school performance I was told to lip sync by the director because when I tried to sing I was soloing on top of my classmates and also probably not in tune. No bad feelings about that. It was supposed to be a choir, not my own solo performance. Same than with the guitar I think that lowering the expectations and creating a vocal version that suits the vocal skills can be the way to go. And also same than with the guitar singing is something that can be developed over time. When preparing a song for making an AVOYP or for performing at an open mic my first audio recording for personal use is pretty ugly, but it let me identify where I’m trying to go beyond my vocal capabilities. if someone wants you to play a song that you know but requires some melody on top of it you can always ask if he or she would like to sing along.
Justin has developed his courses by allowing his students to build first on being able to accompany campfire songs and therefore chords and strumming patterns is the main thing and he gradually introduces picking individual notes, blues patterns and other skills. Other courses like one I tried before and I’m now reviewing again starts with picking individual notes reading them on a score and later introduces the chords. I think that just knowing some basic chords and simple strumming patterns is not something to feel bad about. All of our guitar heroes at some point were only able to do that. At this moment could there be thousands of guitarists touring around that if part of band could be playing basic chords and simple strumming patterns if that is what suits the song even if they are able to play more advanced stuff. Also many of the music we listen could incorporate a guitarist playing a few chords and an all down strumming pattern.
Sorry for the length of the post and keep having fun with the guitar.
Edit: corrected three words
Hi Nugget, welcome onboard! I just wanted to let you know that based on what you wrote you seem right on the right track of learning.
Do play along with the original recordings, it’s one of the best exercise you can do!
On YouTube you can slow down the speed if required (I guess you probably know already), that’s a tool I use a lot since speed is a bit my enemy.
That’s how I started singing. My wife sang to the first song I learned and once she’d sung it probably 50 or 60 times I started singing along in the chorus quite accidentally and without thinking. Been singing on all my songs ever since.
I’d say what everyone else did, singing is key for me. No matter how bad (and my singing is real bad), it’ll make it sound like music. Also, it makes it easier to play a song all the way through, with bridges, instrumentals, etc., and that makes it easier to vary strumming patterns, get into dynamics, etc.
My second tip is you might wanna get into fingerstyle. If you know a few chords, you can play easy fingerstyle arrangements, like these from Six String Fingerpicking https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCIZqFsnKXvCIMpF5XaVTYKa4lYpoTokJ. Justin also has a few lessons on it that are worth ‘cheating’ with the modules for.
Incidentally, don’t think you need to rigidly follow all the lessons, now that you got the basics down. I jump around quite a bit, depending on what sounds good, and if it turns out I need some other basic lessons for it first, I can always go back and find them.
Dead Flowers is one of my all time favorites to play on the guitar. I can play it inside out.
I was made for loving you
dancing in the dark (needs a capo for original version, sounds just fine without)
I wonder - Rodriguez
knocking on heaven door
heavy cross - Gossip, only two chords
dirty old town (has a nice easy intro)
the chain - fleetwood mac
wish you were here
into your arms - Lemonheads
three little birds i find tricky because of the reggae beat.
try to strumm freely until you got the rhythm, change from louder to quiter and back again. Dont worry about what the original song sounds like.
Singing seems to come naturally to some people, if you find it tricky, stick to strumming for now. stay in the beat, even if you dont get the chord right, keep playing.
Until you can keep the beat even when jumping out of a plane.
We all hit a plateau, sort of, every now and then.
M.
When you say the strumming course, do you mean the one that you get life time access to when you are a subscriber of the songs/lessons app, or do you mean the dedicated for pay course?
Oh and to the original poster - I’m in the same place you are/were. I just started going ahead. Your hands and brain will tell you when you’ve skipped ahead too far 
Then just go back.
I did it as it was available when I subscribed to the app but I think the same thing is available on the website as a paid course. It was very helpful and well worth the time invested as my strumming is a lot more solid.
