Well, 'Scuse me, while I kiss this guy!
(google if necessary 
)
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This took me down a hilarious rabbit hole 
I thought you played very well, Firas. I’m sure it’s wise to start practicing standing up early in your journey, as you said. You inspire me to work on that. I should have started a long time ago. It’s hard for me. I can’t seem to get the hang of it so haven’t been persistent at it.
Very nice guitar!
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Great stuff Firas!!! Sounds great!
That Fender looks awsome by the way…
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@pkboo3 Thank you Pamela 
I started playing standing very gradually, just worked it into my practice routine. I would play just one or two riffs standing every day, then all of my riffs review standing (7 of them so far), then one song that I’m really comfortable with, and kept adding one at a time until I could play all my review songs standing. Now I just practice my scales and chords sitting, all my riffs & songs standing. I found it worked the best for me to ease into it with the areas of practice that were the easiest for me to minimize the discomfort and inevitable awkwardness.
@tRONd Thank you Trond
2023-10-28 - Cover: Pearl Jam - Black
First song recording on my Fender Mustang GTX100 (via XLR line out into my Volt 2 audio interface) 
I’ve been learning & practicing this song for almost 2 months now, and I thought I should go ahead and record it even though I still need to improve the following:
- Timing of the intro (guitar playing with the vocals timing is off in this take).
- Rhythm timing through the whole song in general (speeding up in a few places).
- Rhythm Push consistency (only hitting it on some bars and not others I think).
- Strumming pattern is fixed throughout the whole song. Will work on changing it up in the future but that still throws my timing off if I try to do it now.
That being said, I loved learning and practicing this song. I’m also working on the riff for this song and would love to sing along with it one day.
As usual, any feedback is welcome either on the points mentioned above or any other ones I missed
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Hey really good and shows that you practiced.if I was at a show and you played I wouldn’t of known any faults so bravo and keep up the work.
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Hey Firas - that was great, really enjoyed listening to that! Good to see you continuing with standing up too.
One thing you might want to think about is keeping your right hand moving a bit more, it’s a little bit inconsistent and that might help with some of the rhythm areas you want to improve with.
Fab job though!
cheers
Paul.
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@Jwaters Thanks Jeff, much appreciated
@mathsjunky Thanks Paul, and good catch with the inconsistent hand movement That’s an ongoing issue that I’m facing, but it’s slowly improving. I’ve gone from not moving it at all when not strumming, to the stop-and-go movement in this recording. Hopefully, continued practice will work the kinks out of that into a smoother more consistent movement.
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2023-10-29 - Pearl Jam - Last Kiss
I forgot how much I loved Pearl Jam so here’s another one
I tried a bit of rhythm & string picking together in the outro at around 2:40 mins.
Note to self:
Didn’t realize how much I contort my wrist with the G chord until I watched this recording. Will have to work on that (maybe keeping my thumb behind the neck will help with that).
As always, any feedback is welcome 
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Great job Firas. I’m glad you were able to get the fender you wanted. Thanks for sharing.
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Firas that is really good for so early on in the journey! Really enjoyed the black cover and although bit late at the start later on it was really well timed. Love the guitar, hope to soon join American Strat family 
all the best!
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@SDKissFan thanks Jeff, it’s great to hear from you. Thank you for taking the time to listen to my recording
@adi_mrok thanks Adrian Funny thing about recording playthroughs, all my other takes before this one I started on time, but had issues later in the song. This take #31 (over 2 days of recording attempts) had the best general play through, but a slow start I had to settle for this take as it was my best overall take and squash my perfectionism, otherwise I might have hurt my lovely new Strat in a fit of rage
I’m also practicing singing this song, as I really love it. I’ll be sure to @mention you if I do manage to work up the courage to record it to get your honest opinion. It’s only fair that I do after unintentionally bashing your singing performance
What Strat are you planning on getting? It will be well deserved, and will sound considerably better in your hands than mine does in my hands 
Can’t wait to see and hear it once you get it!
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Good job firasr , Pearl Jam is 1 of my favorite bands
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Haha Firas no worries happy to give some honest feedback especially around PJ covers as you’re planning to sing Black I promise I will be very honest (and not because of your constructive feedback, I promise 
) as this is one of my fav songs ever. Keeping tabs on you here
As for guitar - no spoilers! Hopefully on Black Friday I’ll be able to save a few pennies and soon after share it with you all!
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Hey Firas, just catching up on this thread, super well done, making great progress! Actually, I feel your progress is even obvious between these three recordings that you’ve posted in the past month. Last Kiss was definitely the tightest performance in my opinion and adding the single note picking towards the end, along with the clean finish, capped it off nicely. Sounding great to me, well done again! 
Keep 'em coming mate, enjoying watching you play! (and not just because of that gorgeous strat! 
)
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I thought you did a great job with both tunes. Yes, you have identified some of the things you need to work on but overall you are doing really well for the amount of time you have been playing. Nice string picking on that last track too.
All coming along nicely Firas.
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@Jwaters Thanks again Jeff Same here. One of my favorite bands back in the day, and even more so now that I’m learning to play some of their songs.
@adi_mrok I appreciate it Adrian The suspense is gonna kill me but I love it
@nzmetal thanks so much Jeff Looking back at the recordings I see what you mean. I also felt better playing the last song probably because I haven’t recorded any in a while, and getting back into the groove of it. It also helped that it’s a much easier song to play.
Darn it, you’ve uncovered my master plan! Buy a gorgeous Strat so people are more likely to overlook my many mistakes while playing
@SgtColon Much appreciated Stefan I’m really enjoying learning and adding more songs to my reportoire. That cycle of frustration followed by the joy of a song coming together is a rewarding one for sure.
I have to thank @Richard_close2u for motivating me (and many others) in his posts to learn and play as many songs as possible. Helped me slow down with the lessons, and really spend some time improving the skills I’m learning and more importantly applying them to new songs I’m learning 
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I think I need to adopt that strategy too, seems reasonably sound! 
At least a good excuse to buy another guitar eh?! 
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For us GASaholics there’s always a good reason to buy a new guitar, no shortage of those, but this one does sit on the top of that list
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