Congratulations Beanie!!!
What a thoughtful & wonderful gift to give… singing songs you’ve worked very hard to learn for someone you love!!!
Bravo!!!
Tod
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Hi James,
thanks for checking in here and your thoughtful, encouraging response! 
Very true words spoken! These moments and memories cannot be taken away from us and they are like little treasures in our heart and mind.
Yeah, feels same for me, feels like I’m actually not quite getting it, yet. In the past, there was not that much connection to blues music for me, but hearing some acoustic blues performances from fellows here and seeing the closeness to country in some parts, my curiosity is awakened. 
But I guess, before playing a lot of listening is on the list to get there.
Good luck on your blues attempts, James. I’m looking forward to what you’re coming up with!
Hi Tod,
thanks for your kind words!
That bold part is what really got me motivated the past months. Giving back something, a joyful moment. Sure, learning guitar and making music comes from self motivation, too. But what you can give back to other folks with music is amazing and an extra portion that keeps me going on.
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*coughs… Think I should wipe off the dust from this thread *coughs 
It was quite a while since my last update here, but times were a little rocky, to say the least. Let’s start with the not so fun part, that also was a reason that pulled me away from this lovely community for a while. 
Jeez, I missed ya gals n guys!!
After 3 weeks of vacation I came to realize what I actually felt knocking deep down inside for quite a while: I was only a tiny bit from a complete burn out, so doc withdrew me from work for a good month to get some good rest, change some daily routines and all that kind of stuff including reduced screentime. Good thing is that these seemingly small adjustments and the establishment of a kind of “I don’t care too much anymore” attitude towards work related topics really helped me recover quicker than expected. Still stabilizing but I feel I’m on a good way already.
The other thing that kept me away and more than busy: We temporarily moved to my partner’s parental home to prepare it for a complete core renovation. Sorting stuff of several generations, throwing parts away, still on the other hand making it a temporary home… it’s a lot. 
One thing that help me a lot healing my sore body and mind was - guess what? - music in general, and playing guitar in particular. There were only very few days when other duties kicked in and I wasn’t able to pick up the guitar at all. These hours of playing gave back so much, it’s hard to describe. So I continued my practice with the same basic routine as before, probably progress slowed down a little these days, but I don’t care about the pace. I even progressed in transcribing, still some 25 pending items left though…
But the best is yet to come: Some 2 months back my significant other detected a little ad in our local newspaper: 6-lesson-workshop on songwriting! 
Even though it was quite an effort to get there with having moved, but it was so incredibly worth it! I finally found my songwriting mojo again and already finished my first original after like 15 years or so. I’m so happy. You’ll see some post in the Community Recording section quite soon… 
So to have kind of a year end review on my guitar journey, I feel I’m on a very good way. Being back at the creative part of playing overcompensates the slowed down progress playing skill wise and I could wrap up 2023 with a band (at least for me).
A small preview to 2024, I want to dive more into creative parts of guitar playing and making music, so I took a course on digital music production for the next 14 months. Let’s see if I’m coming out of that rabbit hole before 2025!
Thanks to all you fabulous people in this wholesome community. 
I feel a little sorry for being absent for a while, probably missed a lot of good stuff. I’ll try to be a little more involved from now on again.
Cheers - Lisa
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Great update to your log.
It’s good you were able to identify the burnout, have a break, and put a plan in place to fix it. So many people that are stressed/depressed change nothing and just take pills… which seems to me like it would only mask problems, not fix them.
Less screen time can’t be a bad thing.
It’s good to hear that you’ve been playing a lot recently and enjoying it. Sounds like you’ve got a good thing going now. I enjoyed your song too.
I missed your last couple of updates and only now noticed that you read about the paper journal on my log - how’s that working for you?
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Thanks for checking in, JK!
Yeah, looking back it feels kind of lucky to getting the break at the right time and before it was too late to fix it with “simple”, seemingly small changes. I’m glad it works for me, but surely it won’t for others. Already seen so many different faces of depression and I do get, why some people need medication to be able to get out of it at all. But this is a difficult topic and there definitely is no “one size fits all”-solution.
100 % sure, read it in your log as well. Probably we’re onto something here. 
Regards the paper journal: I started, but at the times when all this stuff came up, I stopped writing things down and just using the JG-practice-assistant again. This works, but for 2024 I’d like to go back to hand written journaling again. It will be quite useful to reflect the progress. How’s it working for you? Still on it?
Hi Lisa what a great read.
Sorry to hear about your health situation but glad the reset has helped and things are falling into place again. Similar to what JK said, I found a lot of folk either do nothing or try to ignore the stress until its too late. I know I was on the way to burning out before I took the option to jump ship but did have an early retirement option in my contract. Most folk are not that lucky these days.
Good to see the guitar and music are bring you some joy and have your creative juices flowing again. I look forward to your records but take care and look after yourself,
All the best for the new year.
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Thanks a lot for your kind words, Toby.
Made the same observations as you and JK, indeed. Also people very close to me and, to be very honest, I was doing the same for quite some months. Hoping it will go away by itself, but it didn’t. That’s why I said, looking back I was really lucky it wasn’t too late already. It was a narrow escape. I’m glad for you and your early retirement option before you were eaten up by it all. Lucky you! We all deserve being lucky from time to time, I guess.
Take care, too, Toby! All the best wishes for you and your loved ones in 2024! 
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Happy to see you are getting back on track and doing well. You take care and I will be looking forward to what you play for us in 2024!
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@Lisa_S I am catching up on people’s LL’s and luckily I came across yours. As you see fit, I hope you capture your progress and thoughts here for us to enjoy and interact with you.
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Thanks so much for your good wishes, Pam!
Will try to keep a good eye on myself. Hopefully, I’ll be able to dip my toes in production land and up my recordings a little. I was really impressed of your efforts in this field lately. 
Take care, too and have great start in 2024! Looking forward to some more of your recordings as well.
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Thanks a lot for checking in here, Michael.
I’ll try to put some notes on my progress here more or less frequently. Last year it was less, for this year I hope it will be a little more.
Have a great start in 2024!
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Life sure can be challenging, throwing a variety of curve balls, Lisa. Glad to hear you were able to identify and deal with issues, that you are so much better. You are so right to highlight what a gift music can be when facing challenges.
Loved the original, having enjoyed that before catching up with the log.
Wish you everything of the best in '24.
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Thanks a lot for your good wishes, David!
No one ever said life is going to be easy, but we all may find our ways to handle things in the best possible way.
Wish you all the best for 2024, too!
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Hi folks,
it’s probably still early enough in the year to put down my goals for 2024 with relation to music and playing guitar. After the brilliant session with Lieven a little more than a week back, I was able to refine it even more and make them more precise, less vague and probably achievable. But some more background first.
Probably already mentioned it, but in case I forgot: End of last year after/during my songwriting workshop I decided I want to get more serious about making music again. For that, it was about time to get into a topic that was neglected during all my musical years so badly: recording and production. Knowing myself quite well, I would be desperatly lost without any guidance here, running down rabbit holes watching stuff on YouTube, all these things taking time, but leading nowhere.
So I enrolled in a course that’s dedicated to digital music production and is designed to take 14 months, I’ll probably be a little quicker (my unpatient self…) and hope to finish within 2024 (hah, that’s goal number 1). It’s coming along with Cubase Elements as Software and some hardware is required as well, which finally satisfied some recent GAS:
So I got myself a UA Volt 4 as brand new AI along with an AKAI Mini Plus Masterkeyboard (thanks Santa! ), the Shure SM58 I got a while back… just in case of need.
The next weeks, I will try to bring all of these things together and get some hands on experience with Cubase. It’s mandatory for the course to use it, so I will go with it for now. Not sure, if it will remain my forever-DAW, as it is quite costly. On the other hand, it seems quite a powerful tool and is nice to use on first few sights. Let’s see.
So now coming back to the initial purpose of my posting. What do I want to achieve in 2024?
- Finish the course in music production by end of the year
- Keep at songwriting by finishing at least 2 more originals by end of the year
- Keep building repertoire to have 25 songs learned by heart by end of the year (currently there are around 13-15), keep those and improve those as I grow as guitarist
- Step up a stage (virtual and/or real life)
- Get into Grade 4 of JG course and PMT
These are somehow more long/mid-term goals, but still kind of achievable. For short term ones, I will accordingly adjust my practice routines and hopefully finally come back to paper journaling for the same to keep better track of progress.
Cheers - Lisa
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Confession time… I love reading your Learning Log 
The most recent update made me smile a lot, since similarly to you especially Lieven’s but also Richard’s Live Clubs on practicing made me think a lot.
Your goals for this year easily meet the SMART criteria 
And… I’m very pleased that you are doing the recording techniques course, as I can imagine that this will be a huge motivation for working on your own songs. Remember, I would like an album 
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Good read Lisa best of luck with all your endeavours !
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Thanks for checking in here, Nicole. Glad you liked the read. I feel a swap of support and motivation swapping over from Finland to Germany.
I’m a little envious now, as unfortunately, I’m too young/not vintage enough to join the club. 
While typing, I feel like 17 again and not allowed to do certain stuff because being too young. Funny, ain’t it? 
No pressure at all. I hope you’re patient, it might take a while, though.
Thanks a lot for checking in, Toby, even more for the good wishes. Let’s see where this road may lead.
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Hi folks,
after about 3 months from the last entry and (unfortunately) more than a month of being inactive in the community, it’s time for an update. This will be more on the personal than on the musical/guitar related side, but the log is a good place to put it, I hope.
The last weeks have been quite tough. I rarely touched the guitar in the past month, neither could I attend the live club sessions nor contribute actively in this beautiful community () as I just didn’t have had any energy left by the end of the days. Pushing through work days as I needed to, I managed. But after that, nothing was left and basically I became one with my couch after work. I’m really sorry for all the good stuff I must have missed here and in the Clubs, but I simply couldn’t. Exhaustion reached an all new level. BUT (it is a big fat but) the reason for it is possibly the most beautiful and wonderful one that exists: I’m expecting my first child and it will be due in October. Even though this little growing human is robbing everything from me, I couldn’t be happier! 
At least the sickness parts slowly gets better, but I’m continuously tired (won’t change the next years 
). So hopefully, in the upcoming weeks I will find a little more ressources to comfort myself with playing guitar and being more active in the JG community again. I really missed all of it.
But as this still is a guitar learning community, there should at least be some guitar related update in here, too.
Check! Finally I contributed to one of out community OMs as performer and had a blast! What a wonderfuly experience it was. All you folks are so encouraging and supportive, it’s a great safe space to get up that stage, swallow down all the nerves and just have fun playing and enjoying the plaing of the others as well. It was so great (and I’m so sorry I missed the last OM, will catch up on that!) and took so much out of it. Especially overcoming the stage fright and push through the nervous moments during the first performane. Feeling this weigh falling off and easing into the song, getting comfortable with the “stage” setting - all these experiences will help stepping up stages again.
It didn’t take too long to do so, actually. One week after the OM, we had a concert organized by the music school I attended the songwriting workshop. We were asked to perform our songs on stage there accompanied by a band formed by teachers. I said “yes” in a heartbeat, as it was a great opportunity to step out of my comfort zone and onto a stage in a still safe, but not that safe setting. Most part of the audience was there to see their child perform and in this type of concerts, Originals might have a hard time as Covers are in favour.
Coming to my turn, I could watch how history repeats itself. Right during the first chorus, my mic stopped working (looking at you, OM performance )… After some moments of confusion, the band stopped playing and I stated my mic was dead: Laughter in the audience. But actually it was probably only muted by the techs, as it worked again after a few seconds. Good thing was, I already eased up a little and tension lessened. So the break did no harm and we just started over again and the audience appreciated Zitronenfalter with lots of applause afterwards. It felt just great.
Also here there was so much to take home: Playing along with a band with just one practice session beforehand was an all new experience for me. Luckily enough and thanks to my good friend metronome, I didn’t struggle too much getting my rhythm in sync with the other band members. Making music is much more fun when done and shared with others. Also, it’s astonishing to see how the character of a song gets changed when other musicians join. It’s an enriching thing to do and definitely something I want to do again in future (the farther future, I guess ).
Handling unexpected situations like the abruptly muted mic. Few years ago, this probably would have thrown me off. But not this time. A silly joke helped easing up the situation and turn something awkward in something funny.
As soon as I get a good recording of that performance, I will share it with you. I’m quite proud of that achievement.
After that was when my pregnancy hit hard on me and I had to pause my musical ambitions for a while. I’m really looking forward to get back on it and at least check off one or two more of my goals for 2024.
Thanks for reading and checking in here, folks.
Cheers - Lisa
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Hi Lisa, that’s wonderful news! I missed you already here at the community, glad to see you are doing well and come back with a bag of good news 
!
Enjoy every minute of the next months… it’s such a precious and unique time! Best wishes !
Congrats for mastering the all the musical challenges too! It shines through, you had a lot of enjoyment despite some minor technical struggles. It must be a nice experience to play together with others!
Take care, I’ll send you some god vibes 
!
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Congrats on both the pregnancy and the live concert. Take care !
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