MadModMcd - December 2022 - 1st uploads - Van Morrison & Tom Petty

Hi Ian, you’ve got to grips with posting AVOYP just fine - kudos for jumping in and sharing your vids.
You seem comfortable overall with playing and singing and if you learn songs, learn songs, learn songs you’ll soon have an impressive repertoire to call on and use at family or social gatherings, perhaps open mics etc. You could play at a Community Open Mic :wink:

It was good to see you sitting more upright in a stoll on the 2nd video - soft cushions can wrap you in comfort but can be a hindrance to free arm movement and guitar posture.

My critique feedback comments would be …

Now you have the basics of both songs down, keep them on rotation in your practice time and look at ways of fine tuning them. How you can bring dynamics and movement to your performance? Changes in the strumming for verse / chorus? Softer / louder strumming at different sections? Etc.

I noticed in the 1st video your thumb is mostly up and visible over the top of the neck. All good. Justin encourages keeping it down below in the very early beginner stages and then presents lessons which need you to bring it up and over a little - often for muting the 6th string. But then, on the C chord, your thumb drops mysteriously out of sight. And I have a sneaking suspicion that it doesn’t drop down yet remain vertical. Your movement of hand and wrist and forearm makes me think that you have rotated it away from the vertical and have it pointing away from your body, towards the headstock. These suspicions seemed to be borne out in the 2nd video as this was slightly more in view of the camera. Try to sort that out.

Finally, as has already been advised, and you have pledged to do, spend time learning the very distinctive strum pattern for Free Fallin’. It will teach you lots about sixteenth strumming and make a world of difference to the sound you get when playing that song.
I hope that helps.
Cheers
Richard
:slight_smile:

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Richard, thanks so much for your very encouraging critique. I think all your observations are spot on. I’m sure I’m not alone in not having a practice routine, I usually just get the guitar out and play tunes I’m comfortable with. I am determined this year to actually have a bit of structure to my guitar playing.
Hands up, I haven’t followed Justin’s course religiously but tend to pop in and out of some of the lessons and skip others. As I say, more structure will hopefully improve my overall progress.
I’ve just recently started trying some fingerpicking and am generally happy with progress here and am looking for easy beginner tunes.
Thanks again for your words of encouragement and advice, I really didn’t expect this level of support and encouragement but it is much appreciated!:pray:

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Dman74: “However, first thing i noticed,this song should be played with your capo on the third fret. I have been practicing this song in particular. Maybe you did that to go along with your voice and are happy with that, then all good. Otherwise this song is played capoing third fret.”

Personally, I think “should” is probably a bit too strong a word to use here. The way I’d put it is this: if you want to play the song in the same key as Tom Petty does it, then use a capo on the third fret. And from what you say after that, this does sound like what you meant anyway.

That being said, my wife overhearing me practice this advised me that the high note of “Free” in “Free Fallin’” should be high enough to be in your mixed voice to sound… well… free (if you don’t know what mixed voice is, here’s the best video I’ve found on it [not sure if Justin has one]). So, it might make sense to pick a key specifically to achieve that.

Regarding the strumming, I actually didn’t notice it was off upon first listen (and so I expect most listeners won’t either). But yes, from Justin’s lesson, it goes in the verse:

D - - - - - Gsus2 - - - - - - - 
D     U     D           D   D U
1 e + a 2 e + a 3 e + a 4 e + a

- - D - - - Asus4 - - - - - - -  
D   D       D     U D   D   D U
1 e + a 2 e + a 3 e + a 4 e + a

In the chorus, it’s more continuous strumming with accents on the above strums.

Again, that’s just if you want to match how Tom Petty plays it. It’s a very distinctive pattern that’s a great one to at least try to see if you like it (so I’m not meaning to contradict Richard in any way). But in my mind – even moreso than the key you pick – whatever strumming pattern feels and sounds best to you is the right strumming pattern to use.

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