Hey jk
Great update and read as usual. Looking forward to this weekend open mic. Congratulations on moving on to grade 4. Great way to start the year.
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Thanks Jason. Are you thinking of performing yet at one of the open mics? Must be coming some time in your future, right?
I should have a go at Greensleeves…
Great updates JK , I need to get back onto the lessons rather than just screwing around!
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Playing every day sounds like a good ‘goal’ to me JK!
This is exactly what I’m finding right now, when I know the song really well it’s so much easier to transcribe. I figure I’ll learn something working on a variety of songs though, so I’ll keep at the ones I don’t know too. The ‘problem’ with that is when I don’t really like a song I don’t know. In that case I’m just going to move on to the next one!!! 
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Oh yeah, that’s a bit excruciating, feels like a homework assignment rather than a (difficult) pleasure!
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A couple of weeks ago my 18 month guitar-versary passed by, which sounds like a good excuse for some narcissistic self reflection, so why not. I’ve been feeling like doing some anyway.
Gear
I left work a bit earlier than usual today and stopped in at a guitar shop to test drive some different guitars. Acoustics. Not that I’m due for another one for a while, but I keep thinking about what my “next” guitar would be and why.
I really like the idea of a small acoustic that’s a bit more electric-like to play - one that still sounds great unplugged. I had my eye on a mini maton. Or perhaps a Cole Clark thinline. The Mini Maton sounded great but I found my leg got in the way strumming while I was sitting down - unless I sat at an angle - I guess that’s a problem with tiny guitars. The cole clark thinline was better, but the sound not as rich. Then I tried the Maton Performer. OMG, wonderful. Sounds great, smaller than my dread, and very thin. I guess I love Matons. So tempting, but not yet. Not this year.
Playing
For the first time, I wasn’t nervous playing in a guitar shop. Actually, I felt pretty good. My playing sounded good. I’m quite happy with how my playing is developing now. Learning strummy songs with open or barre chords is very quick now. Fingerpicking or picking patterns still take a while, solos are miles away, string skipping is still flawed… but progress is happening. I have 3 shapes of the major scale pattern under my fingers now, up to around 260 bpm (130bpm two notes per beat). And in thirds, but not near that speed in thirds.
I like the technique practice because I don’t have to think about what to practice. Just set the metronome to what it was last time, then try to bump it up.
I usually work on at least two songs at a time that are stretching me - with new techniques or more complicated (for me) arrangements - while also learning other songs that are within my capability but just need to be remembered. I think that works.
Singing
I wrote earlier this year that I would get lessons, and I didn’t. I enquired at some local places but none are at times that work for me. So I keep trying to figure it out for myself. I think I’m getting better, but still quite far from where I’d like to be. So I persist with this slow way of improving. I should probably continue that online course I bought… but it’s a bit less fun than guitar, I usually just try singing in the car or when I’m practicing for a song on guitar.
Songwriting
Calling it songwriting sounds a bit grandiose, as to what it really is: experimentation. I experiment on the guitar and come up with material that I think sounds decent. I shared one on here recently - She Dies - an original by JK - which I thought would fly a bit under the radar but it got a lot of comments. I’m thinking I’ll share a bit more in the future, but perhaps put a bit more effort into the audio production than just hitting record. But I really don’t want to learn too much about music production, just the basics - for now, at least.
That’s it, thanks for reading.
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Hi JK, Enjoyed reading through this and other learning logs 
This is also me lol
This is spot on
A very inspiring Learning log, thanks for sharing 
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Cool update of your LL! I enjoyed reading through your thoughts. I can’t believe how far you’ve come in 18 month! Impressing. Compared to you, I go like a snail through the course 
. And I think you have also progressed with your singing, compared to the early steps. I commented to your songwriting in the AVOYP area and I repeat myseelf by saying, that was a great performance. And it’s always a pleasure to read your contributions to this community! So keep on playing and all my best wishes!
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Hi JK, good update. I think periodic assessments like the one you have posted are very productive to celebrate any cumulated progress, make peace with any goal not achieved and reassess goals and means to continue developing the skills you may want to develop. After 18 months of practice one advantage is knowing better your strengths and weaknesses, knowing better what can you get from your practice, and knowing what can be productive now and what can be a rabbit hole. Keep on it.
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You seem happy with where you’re at right now JK.
You know how to learn and you know you can’t learn it all at once.
Keep going - if you don’t change direction, you’ll get to where you’re going!
Hmm….maybe you should buy that mini Maton. Tighten up your strumming. You shouldn’t be hitting your leg. Maybe it’s an Aussie thing - or just the exuberance of youth! 
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Good reason for an update JK and good to see your progress, you definitely are taking big steps forward and are taking more and more challenging songs upon yourself. Can’t wait for you to give it a go with more songs that have some sort of an easy solo to play, I think you are not that far off from that goal!
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Thanks for checking it out Lee, sounds like you read through a bit of the historical posts too.
Thank you Andrea, I feel I’ve got so much more to learn. Everyone is on their own pace, and all that matters is you’re enjoying it.
Yeah, that’s true. The eternal question of what direction to go in gets harder though, near the beginning it was obvious.
lol 
When I go for a morning run, there is a guy who must be pushing 80 who is always walking. He calls out “good morning young fella!”. I’m in my 40s!
The mini maton though, is tiny. It’s somewhere between a Uke and a guitar.
Solo-wise I did californication, in bloom & when I come around (which is super simple). I think I’ll start learning some more solos, but it’s sooo hard to decide what to learn.
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Ha, I feel the same. I always thought, it would get easier with time to decide, which way to go. So much to learn and not enough time left to learn it all.
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Yeah I’ve just been delving in and catching up, there’s loads of interesting and inspiring posts. I’ve seen more of Justin and the community these last couple of weeks than I have of my family
I just think it’s great to see the progress that people can make if you stick with it, practice, and keep it fun and interesting. There’s times where we all think “oh I’m not getting anywhere with this” and forget how far we’ve come and it’s good to remind ourselves.
Seeing people having the same issues and difficulties that I do during their journey and how they overcome them, it’s a great motivational boost.
Love being a part of this community
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Yeah, way better than learning by yourself. And being on the justinguitar community is waaaay better than just scrolling facebook or reddit when bored.
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Really nice to see your journey and how far you got and how long you been sticking to it.
Quite the inspiration for someone who just started his.
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Enjoyed the update, JK. You have made inspirational progress. Love being an observer.
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Thanks @dredmix for checking it out. I’m still learning lots of things, but really happy with how far I’ve come since picking the guitar up. One thing I read really early on was this: How Long Does It Take To Learn Guitar? | Hub Guitar - from google searching “how long does it take to get good at guitar” It goes into it’s not how long since you picked it up that counts, it’s how many hours you’ve been at it total that counts more. 1 hour, 7 days a week would see massively more progress than 30 mins 3 days a week, for example.
Thanks David. Reading other people’s learning logs (your roadcase copied over was my first!), and watching historical AVOYPs really helped put it into perspective for me how long you need to stick at this to progress. And that it does happen, even if day to day it doesn’t feel like it sometimes.
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Hello Jk, great update…It’s good to read you’re happy with your journey…and I can’t believe it’s only 18 months you’re learning guitar and you’re already so good at it …and you’re already writing songs! I also want to buy a new guitar and I keep on saying “not yet”… Who’s going to buy first…me or you? Ha ha
It seems to work insofar for your singing…and while one is going slow he/she can make real sense of the things he/she learns or finds out.
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You, you’re going to buy a new guitar first @SILVIA
Anyone can write songs, you just need two chords and some words. With your voice, you could come up with something good. I think let go of expectations that a first song is going to be awesome - it’s going to be flawed, but it will be a song 
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