This isn’t the entire song, and it certainly isn’t perfect by any account, but I wanted to record it and share. I started playing 6 weeks ago and I am currently on Beginner Grade 1, Module 4 of the course. 10 days ago I enrolled in a local music school too, and my live teacher asked about my likes and goals. Fingerstyle was on my list. So he asked if I could play a few chords (which I was able to do), and he gave this to me and off I went.
I can honestly say, it has been a little frustrating over the past week or so, because it “feels” like it should be coming more easily, but it is taking some practice time.
Anyway, here is a 1 min+ snippet of me, very early in my journey. Most of the videos I am watching from here are very good, but I wanted to share this WIP so we can all see how people progress. Hopefully, I will post another one in another couple of weeks and we can see how things are moving.
Any constructive feedback would also be very welcome! TIA.
You are doing well, making good progress, and the song was unmistakable.
As for it taking time, playing guitar is a complex, challenging thing to learn. I suppose if it were easy all the many who wish they could play, picked up and gave up or never even tried, would be playing. Read the biography of your favourite guitar players and the one common thing in all my favourite players stories is the hours and hours and hours dedicated to learning that began at some point in childhood. We enjoy their music and have no clue of the effort that went into the learning.
So I’d say accept that it is going to take more effort than you imagined and develop a mindset to enjoy the learning and appreciate slow and steady progress.
My only suggestion, something I constantly have to tell myself, is to slow the tempo. There were moments when you needed to hesitate, break your picking rhythm to make a chord change. You want to avoid that. In the long run it will take less time to get up to the speed and fluency you want if you start slow to the point where it also may press your frustration and impatient buttons.
Keep at it and look forward to the next rendition in due course
That was pretty good for 6 weeks in. However I’m surprised your teacher wants you to play fingerstyle and a song like this so early on. I’d have thought Justin’s course with its emphasis on clean chords, rhythm, strum patterns etc in the early grades is a better approach.
Ok, you’ll end up being able to play Hallelujah fingerstyle but that’s all.
But hey what do I know! Good luck and I look forward to seeing/hearing how you progress.
Thanks everyone. I am going to try and focus slowing myself down so I am in a consistent tempo (hard at this point without the metronome). I am also going to try and clean up the individual notes.
The in-person teacher knows I am going through the Justin course simultaneously, just augmenting at the same time. I didn’t think of it as a mistake… but maybe it is. I enrolled as I was hoping to get in-person feedback and course corrections on things I was doing incorrectly, but it has moved into this early fingerstyle song plus the A minor pentatonic scale. I hope this isn’t a mistake.
Good luck and I look forward to seeing/hearing how you progress.