My story looks exactly like a lot of people here. I took a some lessons about 35 years ago and then got a way from it. Now at 63, I figured I’d take another stab at it and found Justin Guitar through Reddit.
The big difference for me now, I think, is that I’m less hard on myself and just shake off the mistakes.
I learned a few important things in the grade 1 modules. Strumming was always just a mystery to me - almost seemed more art than science. When Justin introduced “just keep your arm moving” it was like the skies opened up. Amazing. Now I at least know where I’m messing up. I don’t know what I was doing before, but I don’t think you could even loosely call it music.
My current challenge is Common People. I’m playing along to the original recording and eventually find myself way behind - despite pumping away like a lunatic. I’m thinking, ok, my timing isn’t great, but this is crazy. This song seems to speed up somewhat and I pretty much burst into flames trying to keep up. I do some quick research and find that the song start at about 90 bpm and ends up around 165 or so! Good times.
Welcome to the forum, great to meet you. Yeah, playing along to existing recordings / youtube is a challenge. At first I couldn’t do it. It’s funny when the original artist didn’t keep to a steady time. Look forward to hearing more from you.
Welcome to JG, keep pumping it will get easier😂, by the way if you have timing rhythm issues, the practice with a metronome and try GPI ting out loud, I have those issues and it helps.
Some years ago I played regularly in an african drum ring (djembes and such) and the drum ring leader would often signal an increase in tempo. By the time we finished we were going MUCH faster than we started. Lot of fun and really got the heartbeat going strong.
You know you can determine the bpm yourself – it’s easy and it’s good practice. Find an online bpm calculator (e.g. https://www.beatsperminuteonline.com/) and put the song on and tap along to it. I was curious about Common People, so I did this and I found that the bpm starts at around 138 bpm (that 90 bpm figure that you found is wrong) and increases to around 160-165 bpm towards the end of the song. That’s pretty quick! Especially if you play 8th notes all downstrums as Justin does in his song tutorial.
Hello Steve & Welcome!!!
Have you tried slowing the song down? YouTube has that option, it’s a good way to learn a song from start to finish… then gradually increase your tempo as you improve!
Works like a charm for faster songs!!!
Good luck & keep things fun!!!
