Justin’s rhythm book, ordered from a local bookstore arrived today.
Looking forward to learning 
4 Likes
my favourite guitar book! Follow the instruction in the book Nicole…you won’t believe how much it’ll make you develop your Rhythm skills!
1 Like
It might well become my favourite guitar book as well @Silvia80 . I took it with me to my 1:1 guitar lesson today and my guitar teacher liked, what he saw. Thus, I will take the book with me to every lesson from now on and we will use it now then as a reference for playing scales in rhythms, working on strumming rhythms and applying strumming rhythms to songs. For now, homework = exercises 2.1. and 2.2, if I remember correctly (I’m a bad, bad student and forgot to write down my homework 
)
I like the idea a lot of playing scales in rhythms - and so does my teacher luckily. Tried playing a scale in eighths notes today for the first time, and it was a mixed experience. Patient teacher comment: " Next time you have to try to change the note on every eigth note." ( … Yes, yes, I had thought if there is a quarter note for each note in the scale, when playing eighths notes, you just play every note two times, but twice as fast… apparently it doesn’t work like this 
)
Finally combining JG with in person lessons works as I have always wanted. I’m so glad that my guitar teacher was open to the idea of using and integrating exercises from Justin rhythm book.
I came to understand that finding a good in person guitar teacher is about as likely as finding a needle in a haystack. I am so lucky that I found my golden needle (so to say) in my second 1:1 teacher already.
5 Likes
Yes, you are definitely very fortunate, not only to find a teacher you like, but one that is also happy to integrate with the Justin Guitar material. And, as you say, it didn’t require any shopping around, either.
Someone, somewhere (Fate, the gods, the CIA?) wants you to play guitar. 
… or mayhaps it’s just luck 
Hi Nicole
Excellent book, I got a copy a month ago to try and improve my wandering timing and rhythm, I’ve got to section 4 exercises, I can already feel/hear an improvement.
2 Likes
It has now been ten days that I started working with Justin’s Rhythm Learning book - and I love it. I just plain and simply love it.
I am not in a rush, doing the exercises. I am still at exercises 2.1 and 2.2. I can strum all the rhythms listed there without any problems. I manage approximately ten or twelve bars of different strumming patterns each with a new random chord for each bar while staying on time rather well.
After that, things become more difficult, since then I get lost and start improvising. This sounds good in my ears, but is not what the exercises want me to do.
So far, when I really concentrate a lot, I can strum acceptably through exercises 2.1 and 2.2 with a metronome set to 70 BPM and staying on one or two chords only.
I also started playing the E minor scale in open position with the first eight rhythms from exercise 2.1. It’s difficult to express just how much fun it is for me. Scales are so much more sympathetic, once they start to sound a bit more musical. So far I have gotten the first eight patterns to approximately 90 BPM, while staying with the metronome acceptably well. What I haven’t tried yet is playing the Em minor pentatonic scale with rhythms 1-8 changing seamlessly after the the first rhythm has been played up and down the scale etc. For the moment, I think this might still be a bit too challenging for me. Thus, the next steps will be trying to apply these eight rhythm patterns to C major and G major open scale, and to the other minor pentatonic scale pattern introduced in Grade 2.
It seems, I also noticed what @AJSki2fly Adrian, you say in the post above. Working through the exercises does help to keep rhythm. It might be but a placebo-effect in my case, or a strange coincidence. Yet, in my guitar lesson on Thursday, Antti (teacher) for the first time dared to solo over my rhythm playing. We would have sounded really good together, hadn’t it been for several midbar chord changes to pesky B7, which I still play badly about 30 % of the time. At the end of our playthrough Antti even commented that my rhythm playing is getting better.
Coincidence or not. Practicing pays off. Even for someone like me, who used to detest strict practicing. It seems making practice routines more attractive is the answer here.
Aaah… @TheMadman_tobyjenner before I forget it. Wrong info in the “What are you listening to” thread. Not “Get on” but this one (see below) became my homework. Looking at the intro alone, there is more than enough for me to sink my teeth into… and the song is not even half-bad with it’s Quentin Tarantino movie flair.
6 Likes
I got it, I think, the intro I mean 
It’s far, far from perfect, but the rhythm is close enough to be recognisable. I’m changing chords on the correct up and down strums of the two bar strumming pattern and integrating individually picked notes is actually even fun.
As to the rest of the song. It’s barre chord practice indeed. It seems, slowly, very slowly I am beginning to see a realistic chance of using E-shaped barre chords in songs. It does not always sound very pleasant yet. Still, it seems to be getting there, bit by bit.
Lessons learned today:
a) Practice mindfully. Be aware of where the difficulties are. Understanding difficulties will help you play better. Listen. Apply the learned. Concentrate. Listen.
b) Trust yourself. Stop nervously anticipating difficult chords. As soon as you think, the chord or the change to a chord will be difficult, this prediction will become true. Concentrate on the song, the rhythm and play without being afraid of mistakes.
( → see flawless and fast change from open Am to F-barre today)
5 Likes
If the broken leg, I suffered in summer, taught me something it is that small improvements need to be celebrated.
Thus, celebration time it is: I can play all 16 rhythms from exercise 2.1 of Justin’s rhythm book in the C major scale (open position) reliably in BPMs from 50 to 100, employing a metronome and using all downpicks.
What comes to speed : 110 BPM is at the moment my pain point, when playing 2.1 exercises consisting mainly of eighth notes becomes inconsistent and difficult. Yet, it’s not speed I’m after at the moment. Simularly, using up- and downstrums, when playing scales in rhythms, has to wait for now.
6 Likes
That sounds like a great progress already, Nicole! If I recall it correctly, Justin used to say that speed comes with time, so no worries in this regard. 
By the way: You inspired me to purchase the rhythm-book as well - or is it more like you induced a kind of GAS I needed to satisfy? 
3 Likes
I can imagine that you will like the book a lot @Lisa_S It’s really just rhythms written down with one and the same C-note everywhere. Thus it allows for so much creativity when thinking how to apply the rhythms… Meaning you can use it for guitar, bass and ukule. And your rhythm natural Vincent can play along 
3 Likes
I’m still in the introductory part, but it already sounds good. Let’s see where this book will lead us. Room for creativity is always good. And Vincent might tap along with one of his building blocks, who knows. 
3 Likes
Aaaah… You already have the book as well 
. Maybe building block clicks will be a perfect match for the polyrhytym section, if you two want to go for a more industrial sound…
2 Likes
After a week without a guitar lesson, it was lesson time again yesterday. Work had been really busy for me yesterday. I rushed home, barely had half an hour to recap what I had been working on during the last two weeks - and whatever I played just sounded hectic, tense and stressed. The lesson would be a catastrophe. Anyway, nothing to be done. Time to face the music.
Predictably, when going through rhythms playing the C-major scale in open position, nothing really worked. I was simply too tired to concentrate on anything.
Then it was time to face the Hurriganes’ song. Practice makes permanent like Justin says. I felt so comfortable. I knew, I had cracked the intro, which had been so difficult for me in the beginning. I knew, I would be able to switch to F-barre and shift to a well enough sounding G-barre fast enough - one way other.
Antti and I played intro, A part and B part together - and I managed to keep up. No major disruptions when switching from open Am to F-barre. In the spirit of celebrating small successes, this is an achievement I am proud of.
“Now let’s take a look at the solo”, Antti said. I was baffled. I hadn’t expected this at all. Sure, the solo is slow and not difficult, but so far I had paid it cursory attention only, if any. Reading tab and I are not exactly friends yet.
Thus, yesterday, I got introduced to many new things.
“Finger rolling” … I had never thought of kind of barring two strings in the same fret if these two notes are meant to be played consecutively… Aaaah, it’s so much more convenient than clumsily shifting of finger one string down.
Say what? The strange symbol, which looks a bit like a tie, but not quite, means Legato? Never knew that. Legatos will come to haunt me, I fear 
While I managed to make the hammer-on sound audible enough (if silent), having a pull-off make any recognisable sound is still close to impossible at the moment.
Luckily, Justin has a video on finger rolling https://www.justinguitar.com/guitar-lessons/finger-rolling-te-108 and a “Legato primer”-video series https://www.justinguitar.com/modules/legato-primer , which I will be sure to watch.
Depending on how well my recap goes during the week, we’ll have a chance to start working on the song below next week already ( unfortunately Justin has no tutorial on it yet).
5 Likes
It still annoys me that playing the open C-major scale in simple rhythms went badly yesterday.
Surely, the answer is to take a step back and to practice the rhythms as such more mindfully. For the life of me, I can’t clap rhythms. I just feel too silly doing that.Thus I am experimenting with a home-made percussion set up…
So far the salt mill seems to be out of the set-up already. It doesn’t make for a good rhythm shaker… In the end, it seems it will be a close call between coffee can and egg carton 
4 Likes
Well hopefully you’ll end up with a tasty omelette and nice cup of coffee Nicole.
3 Likes
Hi Nicole…good to read your Rhythm practice is going well…I must admit I didn’t use scales or switched chords, just tapping my hand on the table.
More than silly I feel clumsy, I prefer tapping with one hand only on the table, the opposite foot is tapping on the beat too: that’s already enough demanding for my coordination abilities…no need to add a third limb in the game 
This happens too, I actually find guitar to help me with the management of other life activities…breaks and some rest included…sometimes I need to skip the practice session and post-pone it to when I have a fresher mind.
2 Likes
That’s why like the book so much. It offers a lot of freedom of choice. We are free to use it, however it suits us best 
For me using my guitar as well is a nice challenge and a chance to practice with a metronome (which I otherwise wouldn’t be doing at all…). And it’s nice that I can portion the challenge in as small bit sizes as I ever want, while yet being able to measure small improvements.
I agree wholeheartedly 
These last days have been dark and very rainy. Recovering broken bones are sensitive to bad weather. Surprisingly enough that’s more than just a rumour 
Playing and practicing guitar made me forget about the gloom and doom of rain and aching bones luckily. There was a lot I had to work on. The rhythms.The Hurriganes’ song including intro, outro and solo with hammer-on, pull-off and slide from fret 2 to fret 14 (… this one is funny, I constantly end up in fret 15 and I just yesterday realized that this might be because fret 15 is marked with a dot, thus easier to target )
Accordingly, when I went to my guitar lesson yesterday, I knew I had invested time in some practicing at least. Expectedly, the lessson was a lot of productive work, although I can’t claim to be a fan of improving open chord → barre chord speed chord changes in songs with playing along to relentless metronome clicks. For some reason it completely blew me… In the second half of the lesson, we started taking a look at “I love rock’n’roll”. “It’s easy”, said Antti. Easy is always relative of course 
… The changes between powerchords do seem relatively fast…
…and yesterday it took me way too long to remember where the 5th string root B5 chord is located. Clearly I have to internalize the notes on the fretboard much better than I have so far. Hmm, I guess this book, I bought last week, may be useful for this purpose as well 
Looks, as if my homework for the next days is clear. It will remain to be seen if I will end up practicing the Joan Jett song so much that I start singing “Nicole hates rock’n’roll” 
5 Likes
Guess what’s lying next to me right now (besides the rhythm book). But I did not yet look into it too deeply. But is this a sign to finally form a study group? 
But great to read your last lesson went smoother than the one before. And “I love Rock’n’Roll” is a classic. You can’t really hate it, no matter how hard it will be. 
3 Likes