LunaRocket's Learning Log

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81

For the heck of it yesterday I watched the first lesson in Module 9, picked up my guitar and tried the F chord for the very first time. heh, heh, heh, heh. Well, that went about as I expected from reading others’ attempts. I managed to get the middle strings to ring out just fine, but the barred part? uh, uh, nope, nope, nope. There was a split second I thought I heard the 2nd string make a noise other than a thud but, I never did repeat it. But I only spent a couple minutes messing with it, next week I should be able to make it an official bad attempt. :grin:

Till then, I’ll keep practicing Module 8 chords and the 2 new songs and my old songs.

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MODULE 9

Okay, so I started Module 9 a week ago.

Repertoire revision, 12 minutes, mainly concentrating on 2 songs from grade 1, CCR’s Bad Moon Rising and UP Around the Bend. Both are on the App so I slowed both down to 90% and keeping it there till it doesn’t sound like I’m rushing through it, doesn’t sound or feel relaxed, yet.

F Chord, at first, I was having major trouble with the low and high E strings and the B string. Then I managed to get the high to ring out with the A, D and G. But when I get the Low E to ring out, the B string was bad, and vice versa. I could get one but not the other. Yesterday, however, the chord was ringing out all 6 strings for the entire 2 minutes of practice, very thrilling. Alas, today, not so much, but at least I know it’s possible.

F chord cheats

Fmajor 7, not a problem. Fmajor 7/C, pretty much not a problem either. Mini F? freaking disaster. I cannot get the 2 thinnest strings to do anything but “thud”. Consequently, the Perfect Fast Changes of F mini to D has been ridiculous to do as I can’t get 1 F mini chord more than half perfect. So, I’ve dropped that from my practice routine and instead putting in a 3 minute Chord Perfect just for the mini F.

PFC C to Fmaj7/C and PFC Fmaj7 to G

Since I’m doing these perfectly, I’ve been lucky to get them around 30 per minute.

C Major Scale - 2 mins

I figured this wouldn’t be so hard as I’d been practicing the Open notes in Module 8, yet suddenly, it became hard so just plugging away at it, forward and backward.

Pinky Workout - 2 mins This just feels awkward. I don’t know if it’s because my fretting hand is simply floating beneath the neck, or what, but I’m just plugging away at this, too. The hardest part is getting the 3rd and 4th fingers to separate.

Finger Practice Am to C to D to F to Am to E - 4 mins

I’ve created this because one of my songs is House of the Rising Sun and this is the chord progression. I’m still using the Bar chord version of F though Justin’s video uses the Fmajor7 which looks easier, but I figure do it the hard way for a while and see if I can do it. If I can’t, then Fmajor7 to the rescue.

Practice Dreams by Fleetwood Mac - 8 mins in the App, playing at 50%, since the F chords are still so new changing from it to anything other than the C chord has been difficult so, again, just plugging away.

Practice House Of The Rising Sun by The Animals - 9 mins Also playing this at 50%, very hard going from D to the F bar shape, so plugging away.

Californication Riff :slight_smile: - 4 mins I have yet to try this, it looks complicated, haven’t even watched the whole video yet, I seem to just not have enough time. One of these days!

Also practicing pieces of Module 8 when I have the time as well as the 2 songs. Wonderwall and Good RIddance. Not today, and not yesterday, as I said, just need to find more time. Maybe tomorrow.

I’m really trying to perfect the Wish You Were Here riff as I’d like to learn the whole song (was practicing the App version a couple modules ago, but, again, dropped it for lack of time.)

So, I spent 6 months on Grade 1, I suspect Grade 2 is going to take longer. Time management is definitely going to be tricky; the songs definitely seem harder now.

oh yeah, the ends of none of my fingers hurt now. :smiley: All equally calloused.

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All sounds good good good, Rebecca.

Always a treat to celebrate something and in this case I am cheering along at the news that your fingers don’t hurt.

Keep doing what you’re doing.

Enjoy

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Only got 39 minutes of practice in today, most of it before I mowed acres of lawn and trails. When I finished, I discovered that holding the guitar caused aching in the middle of my back, I barely managed 5 minutes. Rough trails out here! Note to self, do all practice before mowing!

Still can’t get the hang of the mini F chord, maybe got it to work twice in the last few days, but otherwise pitiful. The only time I sort of managed it my first finger was laying down sideways.

Everything else in Mods 8 and 9 are going okay. Song learning is slow simply because I’m slow changing to and from the f Bar chord. I can play it but not very fast.

Tomorrow I have to leave for 3-4 days and will be without my guitar. Maybe the time off will help? Probably not, we’ll see.

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Mowing! That’s my field! (pun very much intended). :smile:

Don’t worry about mini F Rebecca, you’ll get there. Experiment and play around with finger, hand and arm position. Don’t be afraid to go up the neck with it.

Maybe try just fretting the first two strings. See how many different ways you can do it. Go up and down the neck with that and then add the second finger….etc…etc

Twice is better than not at all.

You’ll find it and make it PEACHY! :smile:

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And sometimes I think it is ok to just move on, Rebecca, without guilt. Later you may come back to the chord and all the development and practice enables you to play the chord you struggled with. I think it may on balance to progress without becoming stuck and perhaps demotivated and frustrated.

This was my experience with G7. Just couldn’t make the stretch and fret the notes in year 1. A few years later I wanted to play a song that used the chord and found I could play it without a problem.

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Hi Rebecca,
What David says here about sometimes just continuing and coming back to it later is really very important … I don’t do anything else … try … fail fail :tired_face:continue… fail agian sometimes :grimacing: … and eventually Tadaaa …succeed and thinking “why was that so hard???” :sweat_smile:
Greetings and wish you strength without a guitar for so long :flushed:

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Started Module 10 this week, watched the first 3 lessons, added the weak G and the bar A to my module 9 practice session. I’m also planning on a OMC for Am to Dm as that happens at the end of House of the Rising Sun. It’s been a long time (okay, 2-3 months? lol, since I practiced Dm.

Dropped playing Dreams and the Californication Riff though I may add the riff back in at a future date.

I’m finding these, PFC C to Fmaj7/C and PFC Fmaj7 to G, pretty easy and consistent now so thinking of dropping them from my practice session. I’m using these chords on some of my songs so I’m not ignoring them.

The mini-F chord I hit a few more times, usually not though. Only way is by using the side of my index finger, so I guess that’s what I’ll have to do.

Song Practice

I’ve increased the APP speed on:

House off the Rising Sun to 60%, (I see 70% coming any day as my F bar chord is improving steadily.)
Practice Good Riddance (Time of Your Life) by Green Day to 70%
Wonderwall to 60%

I’m still having speed problems with the 2 CCR songs so I’m thinking of playing along with the vocal track to see if I can improve my rhythm, could be my own singing is throwing me off Yeah, I also may try not singing for a while, too.)

I’ve re-watched Justin’s video on One by U2 and I’m getting the hang of it at one down strum per bar, while I memorize the chord progression. I need to make my own print out of the words so I can write the chord changes on top, the lines are just too tight in the songbook to be able to know what goes where. Then I’ll make it 4 beats to each bar.

I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned that I dropped Blondie’s Dreaming from my Repertoire Revision because it’s just in the wrong register for my voice. Ah well.

I noticed something interesting in playing one of my songs, can’t remember if it was Good Riddance or Wonderwall, but depending on which chord I am coming from; D or E in going to G, I will either play the 2 finger G or the Big G, it just comes naturally, I found that rather cool.

Okay, time to watch another lesson.

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Bravo, Rebecca, sounds like you are making good progress, being well-structured in your approach to learning and practice.

You mention dropping Dreaming due to it being in the wrong register for your voice. If you really want to play that song, more than just it being a good choice to enable practice, then you have two options to address the register issue.

Firstly, you could transpose the song. Any song can be played in any key theoretically. The issue being that not all chords can be played as open chords in standard tuning. They can be played as barre chords, though again to get the progression sounding right one may be challenged by the barre chord shapes required. I don’t know the chords of Dreaming so no idea if this option is a possibility.

Secondly, you can make use of a capo to be able to play the song in a different key using the same chord shapes. If the song is lower than your register then putting on the capo raises the pitch of the chords and could easily suit your range. When the song is above one’s range it used to baffle me how raising the pitch of the chords would allow me to sing it. The trick there is that the melody notes as played in the chords are higher pitched and you sing those notes an octave lower. Hope that makes sense, tricky to explain theory based ideas without knowing how much theory you know. But you don’t need to know the theory, if you have a capo just experiment by playing the song with it on various frets until maybe you find that place where you can sing the song.

Have fun and keep on keeping on!

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Still plugging along in Modules 9 and some 8 for the 3/4 stuck chord songs. Watched some Mod 10 lessons a couple weeks ago but haven’t really tried anything there. I’ve been so busy with family visits and the heat and humidity without having air conditioning has been dreadful the last few days and sucks the energy out of me. But I’m managed at least 30 minutes a day practice except for one where I could only squeeze in 9 minutes since my last post. But the last of the family is leaving for Texas tomorrow and the weather is going to break, they say (60sF!!) tomorrow so, I’m hoping for more practice time in the near future.

I did get a delivery of 12 orange Dunlop .6mm Tortex picks yesterday. The red .5s just weren’t cutting it anymore. :grinning: :guitar: Also need to order a new strap for my red PRS so I can put the purple one back on my Bullet.

Oh and probably dropping some of the F chord practice as the bar chord is doing well. Still need to work on mini F, it comes and goes.

(edit:typo)

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Well, don’t have much progress to report, still having time management problems but for the most part I’m trying to squeeze in 45 minute practices. Still modules 8 and 9. For module 10, though I’ve watched more than half the lessons, just seems, too distant/hard/complicated/time consuming? Hard to describe, I don’t feel comfortable trying any of it though I have tried doing the alternate picking on the C major scale the last couple of days, that’s not going too well yet, just like Justin suggested, I have to say up, down out loud or it isn’t going to happen correctly!

Song wise, I’ve been able to increase the speed of the App songs Wonderwall and Good Riddance to 80%. I was playing House of the Rising Sun at 70% and then Musopia finally changed it from 4:4 time to 6:8 time and that went out the window. So now, 6 down strums per bar and even 50% is too fast because I can’t switch from the D to the F barre chord fast enough! Fortunately, today I discovered the song is in one of Justin’s songbooks and I can now practice it at a much slower speed. Looks like I’ll need to add a one minute change of D to F in my practice assistant.

Speaking of F, my mini barre is improving. I tried that in HotRS but my fingers automatically try for the full F so I’m sticking with that for now. It is still better than my min F anyway.

So far, these 45 minutes haven’t allowed any repertoire revision, so I have to figure out something, even if it means increasing practice to more than an hour.

I’ve added Fleetwood Mac’s Dreams back in my song practice but it’s so boring with just 2 chords for 95% of the song I’m just really using it to practice the G to Fmaj7 changes. I’ m sure it will get better once I can speed it up past 70% and add the singing to it.

And I’m having trouble with tensing up. My left hand cramped up today during Wonderwall, I really, really, REALLY dislike the stuck 3/4 chords. And for some reason the tip of my index finger on my fretting hand hurts on and off, deeply beneath the callous, like a bruise.

Well, that’s enough bitching and moaning. Maybe next time I’ll have happier news! :crazy_face: :guitar: :guitar:

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Rebecca,
Think of the learning process like climbing a mountain… some areas are steeper than others, sometimes you slide backwards a bit, have to move laterally to find better handholds or just rest to catch your breath! But Justin is our lifeline that keeps us from falling… just keep your focus and remember your goals! Keep going, girl! You can do this!
BTW, how is your husband’s bass playing coming? Are we going to see the two of you play together sometime soon? That would be cool!!! :sunglasses:

Tod

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I don’t know if this helps, but when I am short of time to practice, one day I will do the learning stuff and the next day I will do revisiting songs. I repeat this practice schedule. I find that it also helps having the day off from the learning stuff occasionally as well so that when you go back to it on the alternate days, the previous session seems to have ‘matured’ in the brain and seems slightly easier.

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Unfortunately, while installing ductwork under the floor he cut the tip of one of his fingers badly and until it heals, he finds he can’t play at all. At least he’s still watching video lessons. He also is complaining about the arthritis pain. He does have a couple of badly swollen knuckles. sigh

I shall keep climbing the mountain! One of the other things I am doing is finally cleaning up my sewing/music room so that it’s more pleasant to be in. Maybe I should actually do a bit of sewing, may get my mind off of my guitar frustrations!

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Hi Rebecca ,
I found a nice pattern :laughing: :innocent:

image
image794×596 48.7 KB

I’m keeping my fingers crossed that you will quickly get rid of your frustration and start playing guitar with 100% fun :sunglasses:
Greetings

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Sorry to hear about your husband’s finger… I feel his pain! I hope he gets better soon!
My wife and I both have motorcycles and also chronic sciatica… when the back pain flares up, we can’t enjoy our rides together. But, when we are feeling good, a nice afternoon ride is like a balm for our psyche… sounds like maybe sewing is like that for you. A nice quiet afternoon sewing without any distractions might be a calming factor for you when musical frustration hits! Find the distraction that works for you, set the guitars aside for a day & enjoy the other aspects of your life (maybe a whiskey :tumbler_glass: night)!

Tod

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this is a great model for how to do a LL. nice work Rebecca!!!

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You’re a funny guy, Rogier! Looks like a cross-stitch pattern, I gave that up decades ago! lol. But nice try, :rofl:

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Okay, so I decided to something others have done and recorded, and posted the 11th attempt today of my practice session with the App at 50% speed of The House of the Rising Sun. I am SO VERY BAD at chord changes from D to the Mini-F that I wanted to have a record to prove to myself a month, 2 months from now, however long it takes, that I AM getting better. At least I sure hope I will!

I apologize for the video and sound quality. And of course, while recording suddenly I am flubbing chord changes I am usually pretty good at. Even if you miss it (unlikely), you can tell because my face tells all. Plus, I think you can barely hear the guitar AND it still needs a set-up, the 5th and 6th strings buzz and I haven’t figured out how to do it myself yet, and there isn’t a person in the area who can do it for me, so it is what it is.

Oh, and at 50% speed the thing is nearly 9 minutes long so no need to torture yourselves watching the whole thing. Other than my flubs it’s pretty much the same all the way through till the end when that Dminor chord comes in. I know my Dm has improved over what it was a couple months ago, so that’s a plus. Okay, no more procrastinating, time to hit the reply button.

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You are doing well, Rebecca, just keep at it and months and years from now you’ll look back in wonder and wonder. It is a complex set of skills and just takes time.

What I noticed is that your strumming hand kept moving when you had a hiccup on that F chord. That is great and one of the secrets to success!

You’ll find as you progress that the hiccups become more minor, if the strumming hand keeps moving, and as you just accept them without signaling frustration with a facial expression then nobody notices.

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