Kudos Hilary for having the guts to join the guitar club event! I don’t know, if I had it. But you will benefit for sure. Have fun with your preparation for the next one! Keep us informed, I like your log 
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Not sure how I missed so many months of updates to your learning log.
Good on you for keeping at it and not becoming one of the first year statistics! And sticking with it after a big move & life change that goes with that.
Learning acoustic in an apartment must be a frustrating experience. Do you have an electric? A headphone amp can make it a lot easier to be quiet and play late at night.
That guitar club sounds cool. It can be much easier to learn some things from other guitarists in person. I don’t really do guitar stuff much with other people IRL, but hoping to change that next year.
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Tip my hat to you, Hilary, stepping out of that comfort zone into the learning zone with other people, it is a big step. I’m sure if you stick with it you’ll get to know the other people, they’ll get to know you, and hopefully the group is mutually supportive and encouraging, in which case you’ll accelerate your learning.
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I don’t have an electric, I just make sure to finish playing well before quiet hours. And the only complaint I had from a neighbor was about foot tapping, not the guitar itself - which I think I’ve remedied by putting a rug under my practice nook. I’m excited next month to be able to say that I’ve played for a full year!
@DavidP They seemed very nice, though I do wish there were others of my demographic(s) - there was one other person who I think plays at a similar level to me, but I was the only woman, and the youngest by a good bit. I’m a little curious to see how song choices/genre go over time - I do like classic rock, but it’s not the reason I’m learning to play.
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Mid-module 12 update:
I seem to have found a new rhythm for practicing with the new job, which is less frequent and also shorter duration than what I was doing during my time off, but should hopefully be both sustainable for me and considerate of my neighbors. Over the past month, it averaged to about 3-4 days a week, with about 30-40 minutes per session (some longer ones on weekends).
I’ve watched the first few lessons of module 12. The power chords still sound sort of funny to me on acoustic, and I can’t change fast enough yet to keep up with most of the songs that call for them, but they have gotten a little better over the last week or two since starting on them.
Palm muting I understand conceptually, but am having trouble finding an anatomically comfortable way to achieve it - I’m 5’4" and play a dreadnought, and I’m finding that it’s quite a reach to get my arm in a place where my hand is by the bridge. It almost feels like my fretting hand is in another zip code, or it’s a huge up-and-over reach for me. I know it’s possible since I know there are women guitar players that are tinier than me that can do it, I just haven’t quite figured it out yet.
Song-wise, I’m working on the two for guitar club (although the next meeting date is after work the day after I get back from being out of town, so we’ll see if I even make it), though I’m starting to get a little tired of Wagon Wheel. Leaving On A Jet Plane, I’m practicing strumming it for the club, but also playing with the 4:4 fingerstyle Justin describes for it in his songbook. Going slowly, I do okay through the G and C changes, but consistently fumble when changing to D. For now, I’m doing it as a separate ‘Fingerstyle exercises’ practice item apart from song practice.
Otherwise, my rotation of in-progress songs hasn’t really had any new additions lately. I’m doing okay on Let It Be with the mini-F, and it’s almost maybe starting to be achievable with the full barre. I’ve circled back to The Story and attempting to sing it. I’ve got the cadence mostly figured out except for one phrase that’s still giving me some trouble. The bigger issue with this song is that it’s hard to sing! There’s some octave jumping in it, which is a) vocally challenging for me, and b) making it hard for me to find a key where the beginning isn’t too low AND the jumps aren’t too high for my voice. The song is in the app with just a practice track, and I was originally hoping to use that as a backing track for more flavor, but I think I need it a half step higher, so I can only use it to practice playing, not singing.
I’m a bit overdue for the quarterly AVOYP/LL recordings I was hoping to do (everything got a little messed up with the move) - hopefully I can get back on that bus later this month.
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Sounds like you are making good progress, Hilary.
Don’t worry about how fast you can change the chords, just slow the original down to your pace. As you practice you’ll slowly speed up and increase the song tempo. Until the day when you play it at orginal tempo, or maybe just a tempo that sounds good to you.
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Hi Hilary, I enjoyed your learning log - well done on joining the guitar club, do keep going, it sounds great!
Your comment on power chords and palm muting resonated with me, as I am also learning on an acoustic guitar and they just sounded terrible to my ear when I first started, even worse when I added palm muting.
I do have a slight advantage as I am a whole inch taller than you and playing a grand auditorium acoustic rather than a dreadnought.
I am a bit further along the course than you and have to admit to having pretty much abandoned power chords for a while using the excuse to myself that they are more relevant to rock on an electric guitar. More recently, with more experience under my belt I did a full review of bits of the course I hadn’t really nailed and came back to power chords. They turned out to sound better this time and easier to play now I have more experience of playing and have also internalised where the notes are on the top two strings. It feels like everything reinforces everything else at this stage, I also neglected the back beat hit and have been doing loads of practice on that and that seems to help my palm muting.
So keep going, you will get there, but I would not let them get in your way to the extent that it’s demotivating. Do a bit, come back to them later.
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Hi Kim! It’s good to hear that things will get easier, even passively, with time and experience (even in spite of being anatomically small). I only just started module 12 a couple weeks ago, so it’s not demotivating yet - I’m hoping with some more time and practice it will start sorting itself out, but I won’t let it stop me moving on if I get bored. I actually previewed the backbeat hit while learning ‘Stand By Me’…if it’s helping my palm muting, then I shudder to think how I’d be doing without that preview 
JG 1-Year Update (buckle up, it’s a long one 
)
Well, I’ve officially reached my one-year JG-aversary, and am really happy with my progress over the past year! When I started, I knew the fingerings for all of the grade 1 chords, save for Dm, but really wasn’t able to do anything with them — I couldn’t effectively change between them, didn’t know how to properly strum, and in spite of knowing how to read sheet music, was still unclear of how to interpret rhythm in the context of a strumming pattern.
Today, I’m still very much a beginner, but now, instead of just owning a guitar, I can actually play it. I’ve learned many new chords (difficult to quantify now that power chords are in the mix). Rhythm and strumming can still be challenging, but I at least generally understand what I should be doing. I’ve learned ~15 or so songs (though not all are top of mind at present), and can sing along to a few of them while playing. Progress is slower these days than when I started (I was between jobs then, and had a lot more free time), but I’m most of the way through the module 12 videos, and am finally starting to get better at power chords after about a month…which still puts me on pace to get through this module faster than module 11, which I stayed with for about 5-6 months amid the life transition.
I’ve decided on ‘Closing Time’ as a power chord song to learn after seeing a great (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYtaPSROYLk) acoustic version of it by the original artist. I haven’t decided what other song(s) to learn for this module yet, but probably ought to pick one featuring sliding power chords (and would be very open to suggestions for folksy and/or acousticky options for this). For now, I’m just practicing the G-D-A-C power chord box; I’ll have to go back and watch the lesson video again for the bridge and the single-note+octave bit.
I was trying to do AVOYPs roughly quarterly to document progress this year, but am way overdue from the whole moving-across-the-country thing. So, I recorded two today for my one-year milestone.
This one uses the mini-F, which I learned/started practicing sometime in April. I’m finally at a point where I could probably start practicing this song with the full barre F at a reduced tempo, but to even be able to get through it with the mini was a process in itself. I’ll have to double check where my fingers in another practice session - the camera angle makes it look like my first finger is crossing the fret on C and F, which I think (hope) is an artifact, since the chords generally sound okay to my ear. I know my rhythm wobbles a bit, especially in the beginning (sometimes it feels like the track suddenly starts going faster a few bars in, though I’m sure it’s actually me), and the F-to-C transitions still feel a little jumpy since I have to ‘hop’ my hand off the strings in the transition to get my first finger in a place to not mute the first string on C. It’s smoother than when I first started, but not entirely clean.
I initially trialed this song as one of my module 8 songs for stuck 3/4 chords back in March/April. I ended up picking other songs since I didn’t like how this one sounded with stuck 3/4s, but I really like this song so I couldn’t ditch it altogether. This song is SO HARD TO SING! I definitely do not have the rockstar scream/sing thing that works so well for Brandi Carlile, but watching my recording, I actually don’t hate it as much as I was afraid I would. The “no, they don’t know who I really am” phrase continues to be a problem for me (the “no” is supposed to come on 4, in the middle of an UDU), but most of my singing struggles are from the range/big jumps in pitch.
The all-down eighths and the bars after that reverting to the normal pattern are…dodgy to say the least (and I think that section, as a whole, makes more sense when you have the other instrumentals). It’s harder for me to keep tempo through that section without the backing track/practice version in the app, but it’s just a bit too low for me to sing without the half step boost from the capo. I also feel like I end up losing or gaining a beat(s) in the bars afterward as I’m floundering to get back where I started. Still a work in progress, obviously, but a world of progress since the spring - I wasn’t good enough then with my changes to and from C yet to play it with open chords, let alone sing along.
I’m pretty proud of how far I’ve come in the past year. The number isn’t exact since I lost some practice data (didn’t realize that deleting practice routines would kill the data), but by the end of this month, I should be somewhere in the ballpark of 200 practice hours overall…which gives me an even greater appreciation for the often-cited statistic of 10,000 hours to mastery - especially since it would be a streeeeetch to say that all 200ish of my hours were dedicated/deliberate/focused practice.
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Congrats, Hillary, a year and ~200 hours is noteworthy dedication and discipline. And the reward of all your efforts showcased wonderfully in your rendition of The Story. Your Let It Be was solid, consistent, sounded good.
But I really enjoyed The Story and suggest you post it up in AVOYP where more folk are likely to enjoy it. If you hadn’t mentioned all the floundering etc I don’t think I’d have been aware at all. I thought the sectioon with the pumping 8s targetting the bass notes was well done and your blend of chest and head voice pretty strong (often the head voice ends up sounding ‘weak’ by comparison).
As is so often the case, I suspect your self-assessment is more demanding than my own.
Keep doing what you are doing and enjoy your second year.
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Hi Hillary,
Congratulations on this 1-year milestone, fantastic job and really doing great… 
What I thought was special was to see (a little bit) that your rhythm guitar seemed a little smoother with the song you were singing, probably because you were not particularly concentrated with the strumming (or maybe is see that wrong ?) at the time and you concentrated on singing,… that’s sooo the other way around for me 
…
And for what it’s true, and I certainly hope so for you too, for me the mini-F was much more difficult to learn than the “regular” F 
Liked the story too
Keep on going and I wish you a lot of playing the next year 
Greetings
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Thank you both for your kind words!
@DavidP It’s good to hear that I’m my own worst critic, and that the floundering isn’t too noticeable to the casual observer. I’ll have to fight with myself a bit more before considering posting it in the general AVOYP - it was hard enough to make myself bury it here in the depths of my LL
@roger_holland I think you’re probably right about rhythm being smoother when I’m not thinking about it too much…unfortunately as a type-A leaning person, that can be really hard!
I did initially have a harder time with the mini F than the full barre in terms of getting the strings to ring out, but once I got that sorted, the speed came more readily. The thing holding me back now on the ‘regular’ F is that I’m still slow getting into it – nothing (a lot) more practice won’t address, but definitely a long-term project. It is gratifying, though, to be able to start to play along with some of the songs with F in the app that were entirely out of reach earlier in the year!
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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.
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Sounds like you are making slow and steady progress, Hilary. You’re following a sensible approach and the strong foundation laid will serve you well as you continue. The trip to Southpaw Guitars sounds exciting.
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Tiny victory today - I was listening to a song in the car, and I could hear the strumming pattern.
I’m also in the midst of/near the end of my longest streak of consecutive days practiced since I moving and starting my new job in September - 12 days! I may be able to string a 13th on tomorrow, but that’s where it’ll stop since I’m leaving town.
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Hilary, I just came across this as I’m exploring the website for the first time, and I wanted to tell you how inspired I am by your posts on the learning log. I loved your videos and especially ‘The Story’. Very well done!
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Thank you for your kind comments, Karen! Seeing what other people are up to and what they’ve been able to accomplish with Justin’s lessons is one thing I love about this forum!
I’m still plugging along here, but I am finding that, although I enjoy listening to modern bluesy/soul music, I am entirely uninspired to learn to play it. I’m about 8 weeks into this module (probably didn’t finish watching all of the lessons until maybe 3-4 weeks ago, however), and though I’m a long way from being as proficient as I’d like with my practice items, practice for this module feels more like a chore than I’d like it to, so I’m probably going to move on…once I muster up the energy/motivation .
I have some songs that I’m either currently working on or am considering learning, that use seventh chords, and I may keep a couple minutes a day of practicing the beginner blues solo, but otherwise I think I’m going to get out of Dodge. My motivation to pick up my guitar over the past week+ has been low, and it’s not because I haven’t had time. So, on to module 14, learning some new songs and starting grade 2 consolidation.
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I learned how to play blues chords, 12 bar blues and the solo but I really didn’t incorporate them to my practice routine. It’s not my cup of tea and I prefer to invest my time in other techniques.
If you feel you’re not motivated to play these lessons just move on and you will always have time to go back and relearn them.
At this point the most important thing is to stay motivated and practice the skills you feel will be useful to play the kind of music you enjoy.
That is not a tiny victory, that is great achievement. I think listening skills are as important as mechanical skills for playing guitar. Being able to hear things is incredibly helpful. Don’t be discouraged if it comes difficult, but keep trying at those things. You will soon see benefits of it. 
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