I’m starting to feel the pull to move on to some new material lately, and I had been reminding myself to slow my roll, but I realized today that I’ve actually been working on module 12 since the middle of October (~10 weeks or so)…which explains the restlessness!
Items from this module aren’t as clean as I’d ideally want them, but going through Justin’s list of benchmarks and watching Nitsuj, I think I’m actually doing well enough to start sampling module 13. Power chords no longer sound like total garbage to me on acoustic, palm muting isn’t exactly comfortable but has started to become more doable.
My power chord songs for the module are Semisonic’s Closing Time, and The Head and the Heart’s Let’s Be Still. For Closing Time, I’m doing fairly well on the verses (even singing along a bit), but haven’t quite nailed down the chorus (and haven’t even attempted the bridge properly). For Let’s Be Still, I’ve been mostly playing along with the app and using it for all-down 8ths and palm muting practice. I’ll need to go through and diagram out the chords/song structure if I opt to properly add it to my repertoire, but I’ll probably wait on that until less of my brain is occupied by the palm muting.
I’ve continued working on Let It Be with the full barre F - it’s not pristine, but I can do it at a slow tempo without having entirely lost the ability to sing along. I’m considering Valerie as another F song to officially learn - it also uses Dm, and I don’t currently have that chord represented in my repertoire (the G1 Dm songs were unappealing).
I’ve also circled back to Stand By Me recently, which was one of my grade 1 songs. I added the backbeat hit some time back (before reaching that module) since it makes the song so much more recognizable. My next task is being able to sing it, or at least start the verses so other people can sing, so it can be a campfire song. I’m starting to finally turn the corner on it - today I was able to sing along to much of it while playing with the app backing track…once I tried shutting my eyes and trusting that I knew the song. Looking at/reading where the lyrics fall is apparently too much input for my brain, but when I closed my eyes and followed the backing track, I was thrilled to discover that most of the lyrics were there!
For 2024, I’m looking forward to finishing the rest of grade 2, and hoping that my G2 commencement ‘set’ can be mostly songs I’m able to sing along with - which is not something I EVER expected to say or do. But I’m finding that it makes songs so much more recognizable and more fun to play. I have 5 songs that fit the bill so far (they will need more polishing), with another 2 or so in progress…so just a few to go.
I’m also looking forward to taking a trip to Southpaw Guitars in Houston sometime later this year to upgrade (I’ve got a sinking fund in progress to pay for the guitar and trip). TBD when this will be happening, but I’m hoping my skills will be good enough by then to “let the wand choose the wizard,” so to speak.