Hi folks! 
Itās time for a small update again. Due to still working full time, I unfortunately canāt manage to play guitar daily. Being in the middle of moving doesnāt help either. 
Currently play days are averaging between 3 and 5 per week, which hopefully will settle at the 5 soon. Only one more week of working. Yeah!
My newly set routine works nicely, even if I only manage to go through it once or twice per week. The other play days are just practicing songs or noodling with the looper.
Using the looper is great fun and I haven even tried everything whatās possible with this tool! For now, I mainly play a progression, select a drum beat and then trying to improvise with my scale patterns over this progression. I think I still suck at it, but Iām enjoying it to great extent. A nice thing about the RC-500 is, that the drums are autosynchronized to the recorded sequence. So far, I havenāt tried it vice-versa (i.e. putting up drum beat first and then recording along). Also, Iām not yet ready to use it in a more creative way with regards to layering and overdubbing. Hitting the foot switch at the right moment is still a little struggle, but itās getting better with practice. Once this is solid, I can start thinking about building a piece with several layers. 
The Grade 4 items are coming along nicely during structured practice sessions. Even if I donāt practice as much as Iād like to, I notice some improvements for some areas, i.e. for the minimum movement and the fretboard knowledge. But I also notice where I truly suck. One of these points is string bending. I can hear the pitches quite ok, but I canāt get that motion right. 
This will be a long way until it will workā¦
But during the last weeks, I noticed some other issue that is getting bigger (quite literally 
). Being rather short, I always felt my acoustic actually is a little to big being a Dreadnought. As I got used to it during the years, it didnāt bother me that much. But now with the growing belly itās becoming a problem, especially when practicing seated. The guitar body is farther away from mine and is getting slightly tilted. Therefore, the right arm has a tough time reaching around and strumming smoothly. It really can be heard as strumming sounds more tense, less relaxed. Just a little awkward. 
For song practice, one way to overcome this issue was playing standing up. This worked for a while, but now the belly is also causing the guitar to tilt while standing, resulting in a little weird angling I need to get used to. Also, standing for a longer duration doesnāt get easier these daysā¦
I guess, thereās no solution to this except waiting for two more months (and a little after)ā¦ There is another smaller sized guitar placed over at a friendās. Heāll bring it down next time he visits, but it has been neglected for the last years. Will need some care before it is playable again. But hopefully it will help solving the problem of reaching around with my T-Rex-arms 
. Unfortunately, itās an acoustic without pick-up, so wonāt help for a possible OM performance with my current setup, so there it will be the big Cort again.
. Grade 4 is like ā¦wow! But you seem very well organised and Iām sure youāll enjoy it without feeling it overwhelming! Although if you ask me, from what I heard in your recordings I would have called you an intermediate player already.
), so Iām not worrying too much.
