I’ve been learning guitar starting with Justin Guitar beginner courses, during the lock down in around May/June 2020. There was a global concert organized by Lady Gaga, and I picked up a guitar at home to take a photo as a record. The guitar belongs to my son, who was stuck in NYC and all of us were not able to attend his university graduation ceremony at that time. Then I told myself, why not try to play it?
After mastering a few open chords, I tried lots of strumming songs in Beginner Songs app, and also at that time joined this community. Didn’t manage to record anything until that year Christmas time when I decided to record a video to surprise my colleagues in the “online” company Christmas party. So here it is:
My favorite singers are (from young age): Bon Jovi, Bryan Adams, Santana, John Mayer.
My goal: playing guitar with my favorite songs, by acoustic rhythm strumming, electric lead arpeggio , and ultimately solo and improvising. Not much on singing, rock power chord rhythm, and NO finger style (because I hate to keep long nails).
This is my second recording.
2021 Feb. New Light, John Mayer. Original song played from a big TV and recorded by mic altogether. My friend commented that the recording quality was terrible, so I started since then playing around with GarageBand.
So from now, I will be using GarageBand, sometimes BandLab, Focusrite TrackOne connected to iPad. Since I don’t sing often, I will use the vocal version of the original song to dub my guitar on it.
2021 April. Perfect - Ed Sheeran
I had a small surgery in March and laid in bed for one week plus. After I could play guitar again, my wife rewarded me with a Little Martin Ed Sheeran addition. Sure enough, the first song must be from Ed. I am so happy with the 3/4 size, and it has since become my default practice guitar. I only use the big guitar when doing recording by mic.
From 2021 May/June, I started JG Major scale course. The songs I record may have intro or simple solo. Some are modified (simplified). I really enjoy this new skill, and play and record lots of songs in that period. Not all are listed below.
2021 September. Whistle as intro and outro. All my friends love this song. XO - John Mayer
I also started to train my ear to identify key with a guitar or mobile piano in hand. It took a few days to get 80% of normal/simple songs right. With this, I could try to jam with simple songs by ear, just trying some common chord progressions (like I iv V VI) to see whether it fits. This is lots of fun.
From 2021 August, I started Blues Lead course. Spent the rest of the year noodling the basic licks, memorize all the 5 minor pentatonic patterns, playing songs with some simple solo. So much fun doing bending and vibrato.
Below songs may all have short and simple solos, some are created or modified by myself. I may not be able to replay the solo part again
Now I am practicing a lot blues licks and improvising, at the same time learning Blue Rhythm course, which may take a long time as the blues chords are haaaard. Not much recording at present. Hope one day soon I will record again. My plan is to use my Christmas gift a Boss GT1 Multi FX foot pedal to do a looper, and then over dub something on it.
Hi David. Thanks. Good to be King was done when I just started Blues lead course, but not bending and vibrato yet. I posted this in the old forum and someone pointed out something related to vibrato and at that time I didn’t know the term yet😄. The solo was tried out by myself. Those sounds like bending could be actually sliding. I am thinking of redo the solo part again to see how much I have improved in these 4 months.
In the middle of 2021 when I was learning major scale first 2 positions and at the same time trying to identify the key of songs by ear (with guitar on hand), I discover one interesting thing. I cant read standard music notation, and also can’t memorize the pitch of C D E F… But I know Do Re Mi Fa So La Ti (solfège notation?) very well. I use this to identify the Do of the song, and then easily find it on guitar and that is the key. When doing the scale, improvising, solo, no matter major or minor key, I am always humming the solfège notes in my brain. I guess this is also another way of processing the intervals. The advantage of this system is that, the key of the notes are floating. Disadvantages? Maybe it makes me difficult to identify the C D E F system. Let’s see how it goes along with my learning journey.
Take another example of identifying Major or minor key by ear. If i hear lots of phrases ending with La(6), it is most likely minor key. Major key phrases normally end with Do(1). I use the same technique trying to identify modes, and the hit rate is also more than 50%.
The downside is, if you ask me what are the notes in C# Major key, like C# D# E…? It will take maybe 10 minutes for me to work out.
After two and half years, finally i can log in to my account again! I might did something wrong when i was trying to change my email address, and suddenly i was logged off and never could log in again. I sent multiple emails to support but to no avail (maybe it went to the bin and i didn’t notice). Yesterday I tried again with the old password, wow i was in again!
For the past 2.5 years, my guitar still stays with me. I adjusted the action lower on a Little Martin acoustic and use light string, so that I can play both strumming rhythm and lead without plug in. This guitar always sits together with me in the couch, more than my wife does
Progress in the last 2.5 years:
get all pentatonic 5 shapes in all positions and in any keys under the belt; very familiar with all major and minor triads on the top 3 strings and their relations with the scales.
with the foundation of above, i am now able to play some improvisation with blues style music, create a chord based riff, or a short intro and solo.
Main issue and current focus:
not much practice on licks, so my improvising is still very random and scale like. I am now trying to practice more basic licks, but one or two licks in one week, try to burn something into muscle memory.
not enough skills on rhythm. Learning more blues rhythm with various chord voicing now.
Not a lot recordings, as I am mainly noodling around in my couch without playing any song. But will try to record one in the follow weeks as part of this learning log.
Good to see, that you are back again! I had a similar problem on another plattform for selling/buying used stuff. They kick you out after a certain time of inactivity, took me years to get my account back.
After reading through your log entries, I assume you made great progress and are well on your way. Keep up the good work and have fun!
Thanks for the encouragement. My case was caused by myself, the system went into a deadlock when I tried to change my email address and I did something wrong.
I can’t say I had a big progress, but I am happy I didn’t give up and there are at least some small improvements. Anyway my goal is just to be able to comfortably jam along and amuse myself, I think i am maybe 30% to my goal.
