That’s the extra spice I was talking about Firas 
Great work mate!
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Thanks for the advice and the encouragement Sandro 
Beautiful vibe!
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Thanks James
@firasR some really nice sus action in there. I think it was sussing out. About half way thru. I really liked the tone.
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Thanks Jason I love the simple but subtle tone change of those sus chords and hope to learn more about them in future lessons. I love that song so much I still practice it every day.
I liked this alot. You’re making good progress!
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Thank you Tosh Glad you enjoyed it.
Nice, great song. I particularly liked the break with the sus 2 and 4 chords, and also thr smooth rhythm changes.
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Thank you Greg! I’ve recorded some of these songs a few times already and getting great feedback from everyone each time that I’ve tried to incorporate in each new recording. Such great songs to learn and grow with
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Sorry, I didn’t see the question or maybe I didn’t read it anymore. I don’t remember. I stopped playing for months. Not because I lost interest, I just had an awful phase of depression. I didn’t do anything. But I’m back at it again. Playing daily. I’m still in grade 1 though, module 7. But that is mainly due to getting distracted by just jamming and recording and playing all kinds of stuff and not sticking to the plan.
I feel like I play the best guitar I ever played but I still can’t play 5 songs.
I really like your choice of songs, which was the reason I did respond in the first place. I’m a big reggae fan, “Hey Joe” was my first choice and I love “Ain’t no sunshine” and I want to learn it.
I can play The Mavericks “Dance the night away” but it’s only 2 chords, so it’s not that hard. I can play “Hey Joe”. I don’t want to learn “Three little birds” but I got another reggae song which just uses E, D and A, so I got this covered. No idea what to learn for the 5th one but I still have to work on the reggae song and Bill Withers anyway, so there is no rush to decide.
Saw your last post here was in february. Are you still playing?
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Hey @Allaxxor, welcome back to the community! I’ve also been away myself and your post inspired me to jump back into the forums and share some updates on my progress in my journal, so thank you for that
I’m glad to hear that you’re back playing and enjoying it. I’ve been through a rough time these past 6 months as well, and playing the guitar late in the evenings has really helped me through a lot of it. So keep on rockin’ my friend and hope to see some of what you’re up to as well in the near future 
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Hey firas,
listened to your new recordings in your journal and I’m impressed, it’s pretty solid! Hearing, you even jam with friends makes me jealous, this sounds like a lot of fun.
I read your response right away and it motivated me to work harder, play longer! Still can’t play the 5 songs though. It bugs me, I just can’t focus. Although I’m so curious what awaits me in Beginner Course Grade 2, but I don’t dare to move on. Man, 5 songs, how hard can it be?! 
You even have a guy now to teach you? Ouf, I have to step up my game to keep up with you!
I can relate to what you said about the guitar helping you to deal with difficult times. For me it’s music in general but the guitar is proactive and it just feels good.
Wish you all the best!
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Thanks @Allaxxor Glad to hear that my progress helped motivate you!
About your frustration with playing the songs, I’ll share my experience (which might be completely different than yours) as it might spark some ideas for your own practice to experiment with. I also struggled with learning the songs and even now learning some solos can be extremely frustrating for me every time I attempt to learn a new one. Of course, being as obsessed as I am with my guitar playing, I’d practice longer and longer but I noticed I was playing worse, and retaining less (keep in mind I practice at night after a long day at work and my gym workouts 4 times a week so I was already tired). My 1 hour practice sessions (plus or minus 15 minutes) turned into 1.5 and sometimes 2 hours but I was making less progress. So I dialled back my daily practice session length, and limited my new song learning to 15 mins. a day, and the rest of the 30 - 45 minutes was working on my daily exercises or new lessons in the modules. While it felt like I was doing less, after the first week, things would start to click and I started to develop some muscle memory with the song I’m practicing, then I could work on polishing different parts of it. Some songs would take 2 weeks, others took me 4 weeks (the B.B.King - The Thrill is Gone solos over 2 months now and I’m still work on the vamp/outro solo but I love practicing them every night).
So take from the above what you will, not so much the specific frequency or length of practice, just the general idea of less practice but of higher quality over a longer period of time curbed my tendency to become frustrated, bored, and lose focus which eventually led to better results for me.
And the final insight I had was when I dropped my expectations of how long it should take me to learn a song or solo, I found that I enjoyed my daily practice sessions more which led me to making better progress over time.
Just some food for thought and experimentation
Hope you continue to enjoy your music and guitar playing, and make the progress that encourages you to keep on going!
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Thank you for taking the time to write such a detailed description of your experience to share it with me! I appreciate it.
It’s true, you can play for “hours” and learn nothing and then in 10 minutes you learn everything. I experienced that too.
I neglecgted to learn the songs while doing the basic course and it was a mistake. I thought I’m able to play every open chord in the lesson and even more but now I realize that learning the songs is a major thing!
It just teaches you so much. So now I’m more focused on this.
But yes, we don’t know the moment when it clicks, so just keep it on is the way to go!
Thx again for the food!
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I always love to read people’s experiences who have started this course and really progressed. I’m quite new here, only 2 months in. It seems everyone has very similar experiences and it really does work
I took practice at night often after hard days and when my family are in bed so I have to stay quiet. I paused after doing most of grade 1 to polish my technique and practice some songs for just a few minutes like yourself and found this very helpful. I’m now refreshed and ready to start grade 2.
I hope in another 12 months I’ve learnt as much as you, you seem to be doing very well.
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Hey Dean! Glad to hear you’re finding benefit and inspiration from these earlier posts.
Others more experienced than me here, have emphasized how important consolidation is after each Grade and I completely understand why now. I was in a rush to complete Grade 1, but the month I took after that to consolidate everything and learn some songs is what made all the knowledge gained real and applicable for me. After finishing Grade 2 (about 6 months after starting) I stopped charging through the lessons and modules, and I’ve basically been consolidating and applying everything for the past 6 months.
For the sake of full disclosure, I also started working with an online guitar teacher a few months ago, as I wanted to delve into and focus on learning the blues which has helped me tremendously. That being said, I don’t think I would’ve benefitted from those private lessons if I hadn’t had the solid foundation Justin’s beginner Grades established for me. I still refer back to Justin’s lessons in the earlier grades 1 & 2 which I believe are the core foundation which allows to delve into more advanced songs and techniques now, and if I struggle with any specific techniques (barre chords, vibrato, etc.) I look up Justin’s lessons on those and go through them. I also use Justin’s song lessons to review songs I played earlier when I start to forget them, which has helped me take the leap and start a weekly jam practice session with a friend of mine that plays a digital piano (I still can’t believe that I’m doing that, I’ll have to post a new thread with a few of those videos as messy as they are). Most importantly, I use Justin’s Practice Assistant tool every day I practice (6 times a week now). I donate monthly to Justin’s site (along with other subscriptions) because this tool is a game changer and keeps me on track. I customize it to what I’m working on every few weeks, and I login evernight without having to think about what I need to practice, I just get to it. I’ve shown it to my private guitar teacher, and he agrees that it’s amazing and he’s never seen anything like it.
Finally, I can’t emphasize enough the amazing community here, all the support we give to each other, and the encouragement and inspiration I get from folks here (an example of this is is this guitar challenge thread which inspired me to post a video of a solo I’m learning since I haven’t posted any recordings in a while, thanks again @roger_holland).
And one more final note 
Remember that all of these things, the lessons, the tools, the community are for you to make your guitar learning journey more pleasant. Use them in the way that makes the best sense to you as we all learn differently and have different personal life circumstances. So don’t compare your progress against others, but use their experiences to inspire your own learning, in the way that fits your life and learning style.
I look forward to seeing your progress and maybe some of the songs you learn if you decide to post those (please @mention me if you do).
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I totally agree, I only picked up a guitar 2 months ago and naturally was in a rush to learn. I’ve really slowed down now I know my basic chords and can play a few songs (kind of) at least friends and family can recognize the tune I’m playing.
You inspired me to learn Hey Joe tonight, I struggled with it a few weeks ago and it was much better tonight so I know I’m moving in the right direction. I hope to be able to play some blues someday but one step at a time and I’ll get there. It may take a couple of years, who knows but I’m enjoying the journey and long may it last.
Keep up your good work, I’ll try to keep up to date when I see your posts.
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That’s what it’s all about my friend
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