LunaRocket's Learning Log

Community Hub Learning Logs
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Well, everyone else seems to be doing this, so here goes.

I waited 50 years to buy my first guitar, so at 63.5 I bought my Squier Bullet at Amazon on November 29, 2022. This was a few days after my husband bought his first bass. He convinced me to get an electric and not an acoustic like I always figured I’d get.

So here I am sitting with just a guitar, no amp, no strap, no picks till DH gave me the picks that came with his bass. Discovered I could hear the strings without an amp. Who knew? Apparently, not me. What now? So, I went searching on the web. Found one site, “learned” the E and Em chord, but that site was just one YouTube video of really dry stuff, after another, felt like I was spinning my wheels.

Somewhere in the middle of December found Justin’s song app, tried the free first course on my phone. Learned the A and D chords, played the 3 included karaoke songs though I’ve never heard them before, and I didn’t really like them that much over the next few days and started building up callouses. Holidays arrive, my younger sister and entourage arrive for 3 weeks, and right after Christmas hubby and I come down with covid. Too sick to do anything for weeks, lost all my callouses, finally in mid-January I try the free first course app again… and really, I’m not much of an app person, phone is such a tiny screen, and I became rather discouraged besides having a nagging cough for-like-ever.

At some point it occurred to me to try the web again and I found JustinGuitar.com. Officially joined the community in the last week of January, started up again with Module 0, 1 and 2. I like his method of teaching! It took me a while but I also figured out how to use the Practice Assistant with some help from the Community.

Sometime at the beginning of February we wandered into the nearest “city” to the local “guitar” store, managed to get a used Peavey amp and cord, a Mel Bay book of chords and those thin picks Justin recommends. I was unimpressed by the rather abrasive owner (nothing I said was “right”, and Justin who?, and you should learn on an acoustic, not an electric, etc.) and the next nearest guitar shop is 76 miles away. I’m going to drag the hubby there when the weather improves just to look around. But oh, did having an amp make learning so much more fun! [edit: turns out she must have been having a bad day, went back a couple months later to buy some picks and we had a great time chatting for an hour while I tried out some guitars, we get along fine now.]

Did modules 3 and 4. Love the E and Em, I can Do those! My A is finally looking and sounding pretty good, too. Bought myself a copy of the Beginner’s First Songbook and a guitar strap. Finally figured out how to use it and have been working on Three Little Birds, I’d never heard it before and I really like it, have it memorized, find myself singing it to my dogs while walking them in the woods, my chord changes to D are kind of bad though and I realized my D really needed more perfecting. As does the Dm and changing from it to anything. Am needs work, too. So, I’m holding off on Module 5 till I am happier with D, Dm and Am.

Okay, paragraphs can be hard so in a nutshell.

Chords,

A - good,
Am - good, when I can get my fingers on the right strings.
E and Em - good
D - getting there
Dm - heh, heh, heh, um, not yet though better than a couple days ago when I posted a photo of my fingers and got some useful advice.

OMC - Got some up into the low 50s occasionally, averaging around 46, D to Am stuck around 27, but Dm to Am? - 12 :neutral_face:

My changes from E to D have suffered when I realized my D was looking bad, working on that now

Strumming getting there, can’t get distracted and do well on Old Faithful. The other 2, okay, trying to change chords during them screws me up though.

Riffs Forgot about them till today, managed the Peter Gunn and 7 Nation Army without having to recheck Justin’s videos, couldn’t for the life of me remember how Sunshine of Your Love goes so I quit for the day at that point.

Songs,
*Three Little Birds, * chord changing to D gets messy, working on that, hoping to record myself in the next couple of weeks. (Bwa ha ha ha)

Love Me Do getting the hang of that, too.

Feelin’ Alright Tried it for 5 minutes, ouch, I can sing the song by heart but dang if I can get the rhythm and chords correct! I’ll hold off on that for now till I’m happy with the other 2. (Probably didn’t help that I forgot about using the Capo, either.)

I find it interesting when it comes to songs, that I HAVE to sing the words while I’m playing, or I cannot get the chord changes in the right places. I don’t know if it’s because I grew up with a lot of this music or because I had a few years in school in choruses, or both. I had to learn to sing Three Little Birds before it made sense to me.

I’ve listened to all of the stage 1 and 2 songs on Spotify and the ones I don’t like I feel like I am not going to be able to learn at all. I don’t “feel” them so I can’t sing them, so it seems impossible for me to even attempt playing them. Same reason the 3 songs in the free portion of the app aren’t working for me. I listened to the actual songs and, nope, don’t like them. Short of following the notes on the app, the songs are otherwise meaningless to me.

I’ve also dabbled with Ain’t No Sunshine and the hubby was really pushing me to learn that one as he is learning the bass part on Yousician. I finally had to tell me to stop stressing me out!

So though I started, sort of, in December, I’m really only counting my actual progress since I joined the website on January 25th. Since I couldn’t do a darned thing with a guitar a couple months ago, I guess this isn’t too bad.

And for the heck of it, here’s my guitar and amp.

strat setup
strat setup620×1066 121 KB

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2

You are well on your way! Keep up the good work!

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Loved the launch of your LL, Rebecca. Sounds like you are right on track. I like the way you look back at where you were and appreciate the progress made while looking ahead at what you are working on.

Guitar is not something that anybody learns over night. I love reading about my favourite artists, true legends, and they all without exception put in hours and hours of practice learning to play.

Keep on keeping on!

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Great start Rebecca and so many familiar comments and experiences that you have been and are going through. That’s a shame about your nearest store that the owner treated you like that, pomposity is never a great way to keep hold of customers!!

RE songs, I agree with you that you need to feel them and want to play them, otherwise it’s just doing things by wrote which is not a good ground to build from. Luckily there’s more and more song options with each new chord you learn so I’m sure you’ll soon have a list longer than you could ever have believed!

Looking forward to hearing more of your journey, can’t wait for your recording of Three Little Birds :slight_smile:

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Hi Rebecca, nice read through your log, always intersting how others experience their journey. Don’t stress yourself, because you don’t like the songs at the beginning, every chord you’ll learn opens a wider range of songs and you will discover a lot of songs which are really fun to play. Funnily enough I disovered, that I enjoy a lot of songs to play which weren’t on my playlist at all. As A-D-E is a very common chord progression, I would take the songs just as a practice item to change chords. No need to invest a lot of effort in songs which do not speek to you. I wish you a lot of fun and having your husband as a bass player is invaluable!

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Hi Rebecca, good progress. The usefulness of the learning log is to be able to see your progress looking back to earlier posts and to receive advice and encouragement over the specifics of your learning process. I think you may be well ahead of many of us here on the ability to listen a song and hear how the chord changes and the singing are aligned. In my case (and maybe others) I learn at the beginning somewhat mechanically and later I start to hear how everything fits together. Specially at the beginning some of the songs that are specifically suggested to practice certain skills should be taken as just an exercise like any other one, but when the options are broader, yes, you should go for the ones that motivates you. Anyway, an unknown song can become a new favourite as happened to you with Three Little Birds.

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HA! Hadn’t done any OMC in the last couple of days due to a head cold. Started them up again today and I finally hit over 60 on one. Am to Em went to 66! Of course, that’s my easiest chord change (I don’t even do E to Em, I mean, lift a finger and [put it back down?)

And my Dm to Am jumped from 12 to 22. Not great but definitely better. After dinner, I’ll do my song practice, see if I can get the strums and changes right on Feelin’ Alright.

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Really enjoyed reading about your progress and how you appreciate the stages you’re at. Kind of gives me a better sense of reality in that I really do need to stop and smell my own ‘progression’ and to stop thinking I should be at this stage or playing at that level. First time ever owning a guitar was in January, one month shy of my 57 so thank you. You’ve definitely helped me put things into perspective. Cheers Rebecca. Look forward to reading more of your stages as you go along

Cate

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I struggle with the Dm changeover. And don’t get me started on C or F. :face_with_diagonal_mouth:
Your progress is very much where I’m at and like you said, I too love the E chord. It’s just a lovely warm sounding chord. I’m sure they’re others that sound just as lovely but from where I’m at so far……it’s the most comforting.

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Rebecca, when I am playing a song that has an Am-Dm change my natural fingering for the Am is helpful. I naturally swap the middle and fingers around so the middle is on the G string rather than D string as taught). That turns my middle into an anchor finger. It amplifies the point that there is not always just one chord fingering that is the absolutely always right way. And sometimes an alternative fingering may simplify a particular change. So it is good to learn how to use different fingerings as you progress for just those moments. In my case I sometime change my Am fingering to simplify a different change, such as Am-C

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That’s interesting. I’ll check it out in my next practice session though I think it might confuse me more than help at this point but won’t know till I know. :smile:

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I didn’t get around to song practice last night as the hubby and I declared it a whiskey evening, so we imbibed a little while watching YouTubes of Gary Clark Jr and a few other guitarists on the big screen.

So, I did song practice this morning before my morning dog walk, they aren’t too annoyed yet as the hubby is frying breakfast sausages at the moment. Ran through all 3 songs once, 5 minutes each on Love me Do and Feelin’ Alright, for which I remembered the Capo, and ended up with it on the 2nd fret instead of the 3rd, just sounded too weird to me on the 3rd fret. I spent the usual 45 minutes on Three Little Birds, and then, shudder, turned on the metronome.

Well, that was interesting.

I started at 70bpm because, I swear, I saw that was recommended somewhere, did not work for me. I’ve been doing a pretty regular foot tapping with my song practice and my foot and metronome were not getting in sync, realized my foot tapping and playing was faster, I tried 74, 75, 76 and finally settled back on 74, seemed to do the trick. It sure is more obvious with the metronome when you realize that one chord change in particular really throws off your rhythm.

I’ll try again later to see if it still works for me and then see what happens on the Beatles song.

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Well done I reckon playing an electric without an amp works quite well sometimes. Thing is the most important thing is your having fun nothing beats that with any instrument, I envy you as I have progressed a little further but suddenly find I am struggling so I am going back to where you are to see what I missed, I reckon at my age it’s probably quite a bit. So long as we keep going and keep loving it who cares!

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Whiskey and Gary Clark Jr … can’t go wrong!

Keep doing what you are doing, sounds like you are making steady progress!

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Well, as they say, age is relative? I go back and forth a lot, it only makes sense, I mean, I watched the lessons on reading TABs and I’m re-watching Justin’s lesson on Ain’t No Sunshine this morning, and he starts talking in TAB numbers and I’m lost, I will have to go rewatch the TAB video now, too.

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Hi Rebecca, wow what a brilliant learning log, thank you for sharing. I have the same problem with Dm and C is a problem too for me. I’m 8 weeks in now and sometimes it feels like I’m not progressing, but then all of a sudden, I get a bit of a dawning moment and things seem to have moved on a little bit. I also have very rogue little finger and ring finger which don’t appear to be connected to my brain at all on some days :roll_eyes:. May be one day a connection will be made, I live in hope. So keep going and don’t give up. It’s a marathon not a sprint. So pleased you’ve not let life get in the way. You’ve got this.

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I’ve just read your comments and it’s a great tip on changing one finger to become an anchor finger. I’m going to try this too. My Dm is bad too. Thanks for this.

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Grade 1 Module 5
Well, as all my OMC’s have mostly passed 30, I decided to give ye olde C chord a try tonight.

Heh, heh, heh. Yeah. That didn’t go so well. Got the index finger down okay, that sounded good, the other 2 stretched out just fine, too unless you count the fact that nothing above that B string sounded good! Tried 6 minutes of chord perfect practice. I’ll try again tomorrow. Let DH have the room to practice bass. I put in over an hour today anyway.

Songs
Went cruising through the beginner’s playlist on Spotify again and decided to add A Girl Like You to my song practice for those pesky minor chords. I’ve never heard it before but it’s a catchy tune I rather like. Already have Ain’t no Sunshine and needed something a little faster/involved for the challenge of changing chords.

Been practicing Three Little Birds with the metronome some more and also on Love Me Do. Haven’t gotten that one up to speed yet but at least I’m over 100bpm now. I think it’s around 138.

Strumming

I need to work on the patterns a lot more and try with the metronome. I can’t do any of the 3 for very long without screwing them up.

I’m going to watch more of the mod 5 videos tonight and then concentrate on the C chord and strumming practice and Mod 4 songs for a couple weeks and see how things go. I certainly am not the fastest learner in the place, but as I mentioned before, I couldn’t do anything like this a couple months ago!

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Keep at it, Rebecca, sounds like you continue to make good progress!

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Hi Rebecca,
You are well structured and doing well :sunglasses:, the speed of learning does not matter at all in this long learning process (as far as I am concerned :blush: because I am very slow myself, but I have a lot of time that I put in every day), but just fun in an almost never-ending guitar journey .So I wish you a lot of fun …and time :smile::sunglasses:
Greetings,Rogier

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