I’ve definitely increased my playing time quite a bit recently. My finger ends on my left hand look like they did on week one of learning, albeit they’re not painful like they were back then!
There’s been a lot of practice of Oasis 1/16th note strumming in the past few days. I can definitely play Wonderwall up to speed now and am working on a pattern for Cast No Shadow which I’ve nearly got but not well enough yet to keep in sync with the recording. That said when I consider how long it took to be able to play along with Wonderwall then being somewhere close to Cast No Shadow in a couple of days feels great
I got myself a nice new leather guitar strap yesterday so I now have as many straps as guitars. I mostly play sat down but always use a strap because it’s so beneficial, allowing my fretting hand to move freely.
Have continued with the 1/16th note strumming. Have been learning Lucky Man by The Verve. In essence it’s a simple song without fancy chords and one pattern covers most of the song really (as with all songs you can of course embellish). I did notice a couple of things while practicing this one. You can think you’ve the strumming sorted playing alongside the intro and then it all goes to pot when the vocals come in, even though absolutely nothing changes, same chords, same pattern.
The other one is that you think you’ve got a pattern nailed, you play a different pattern for a while and then the first one has gone! I can reliably play Live Forever by Oasis, but an afternoon of strumming Lucky Man over and over and over and it took a few minutes to get Live Forever going again!
Also continuing to make some noise with my electric guitar. Really want to learn pinch harmonics - have watched a dozen videos on them, not complicated, I’m kind of close but they’re not quite happening - yet
Need to find some time to do another quick recording soon.
Here’s a practice run through of Lucky Man by The Verve which I’ve been working on. It’s simple chords and largely the same strumming for most of the song. It’s sixteenth note strumming which I’ve not done a lot of until very recently. As the basic pattern is repetitive I’ve tried to vary the pattern a little in places and alter the volume of my playing in different phases of the song.
Lucky Man practice - acoustic guitar (The Verve)
I’ve generally kept looking to cycle through each of the songs I’ve learned so far, terrified that I’ll have forgotten them if I don’t!
Otherwise I’ve been playing electric guitar a bit as well. Think I’m getting somewhere with pinch harmonics although I couldn’t work them into anything musical yet!
Ooo I know that feeling Matthew, and did not like it thinking of it and I know have forgotten a lot more songs than I can play right away …
(there are lists next to me where I sometimes write the songs I have learned and it is shocking), luckily as I get a little better I can also play them much faster when I look up some of those forgotten songs than when I learned them new, that give me some air/comfort …
It’s funny that when I’ve travelled overseas and crossed several timezones that my body can adjust quite quickly but change the clocks by just one hour and everything goes out of the window. This is a preface to saying that since we’ve moved off British Summertime at the weekend my body refuses to go with it and I’ve been awake stupidly early each day. What’s this got to do with learning guitar you ask… well this morning I was awake so early that I’d already completed today’s cryptic crossword well before 7am so I figured I might as well play my guitar before work so by 8am I’d already done an hours practice before work. I then picked up my guitar after work and in the end I’ve probably played something like 3 hours today which is definitely a record for me. Most of that time has been on “Cast No Shadow” by Oasis, more 1/16th note strumming practice and it’s going really well, might record it in a day or 2.
I feel I’ve had a really productive week, getting up an playing before work most days. My 1/16th note strumming is improving and there’s now a bunch of songs that I can play (not always perfectly but getting there) with it. I’m actually able to go with the rhythm of the song a bit more rather than strictly adhering to a pattern (sometimes this falls apart but it’s better than it was). In recent weeks I’ve learned 5 Oasis songs and Lucky Man by The Verve. I didn’t think I’d ever get to that stage let alone in just a few weeks.
I’m going to tackle one from my backlog next. Needle and the Damage Done by Neil Young. I can largely play with simple strumming to it, so the next step, and the challenging part, will be to pick it a bit more like Neil does. I suppose what I’ve learned over time is that I can tackle this one chord at a time rather than trying to do it all at once which I tried before and was super frustrating!
I’m also learning some basic metal stuff. I’m using my SG for it but it’s probably a matter of time until I get myself something that’s mean looking with EMGs, not strictly necessary, but you folks all know how that goes
I’ve started working through the picking of the chord progression of Needle and the Damage Done… it’s going to take quite some time to get it to speed and to match the rhythm of the song! There’s 8 chords and I’m breaking it into 3 chunks. The first 4 chords are have a similar pattern to them, I see the next 2 as a pair and the final 2 as another pair. So I’m picking my guitar up when I have a few minutes and keeping coming back to them. On an evening when I have more time it’s back to song practice in case I forget all I’ve learned in the past few weeks!
More time playing The Needle and Damage done today. I can now play (single note picking) all of the bars continuously without looking at my fretting hand… but it’s slow, requires maximum concentration, and is only an approximation of the actual rhythm right now so there’s a long way to go - but it’s definite progress
My head is hurting from the concentration so I’m going to play some of the songs I already know for a while now and pick back up again tomorrow
Less time to practice today, had to do an office day so that’s 2 hours of wonderful commuting when I could be playing my guitar (and no I can’t play guitar while riding my motorcycle )
I’m trying to correct a problem at the moment. In The Needle and Damage Done there’s a note played on fret 1 of the B string and then it moves to an E sus chord (think open A chord all shuffled across 1 string but still at fret 2)… well that transition isn’t working at the moment. I’m trying to do it without looking but even though it’s a simple shape my fingers rarely seem to go the correct string, most commonly the finger that’s supposed to be on the A string wants to buddy up with it’s neighbour both on the D string. I know with persistence I’ll get there, it just feels like a beginner issue that I hoped was behind me. I’ll have more time at the weekend to really try to beat it
Have been continuing with the Needle and the Damage done (as well as practicing other songs). I’m getting closer to it although I’ve still got work to do with transition that I mentioned in my last post.
I loaded up the original recording into Moises to see if I was anywhere close and it was a real slap in the face from reality… I’m so much slower! On the face of it, it’s not a fast song but there’s quite a lot of notes to pick. Will keep on with it. I’ve got a few days off work around this weekend so I might share a recording of where I’m up to with it (don’t expect great things - it’s very much work in progress!)
Continuing with the Needle and Damage Done. Have included a short clip of where I am with it. The clip is a bit too slow with a hesitation or two but it’s getting there. I can play a bit faster but then there’s more mistakes (especially with my camera pointing at me ). Each day is a little better than the one before so I’m happy with how it’s going. I’ll start playing to a backing track soon but I think my brain is currently already at full stretch just picking the notes and trying to keep close to the rhythm of the song
I treated my guitar to new strings and a good clean at the weekend. I’m not sure how long the strings were on, maybe 3-4 months, but they’ve not radically changed the sound. String changing is a job that I do infrequently enough to not yet be good at, taking longer than it really should. I always make sure I have 2 sets of strings on hand just in case! I have an Epiphone 335 that has locking tuners and it’s so much easier to change strings with them. I think locking tuners will be a must on any future guitars I buy!
Day by day my playing of Needle and the Damage Done is getting a little more fluid. It’s probably about time that I started trying to play along with Mr Young but that’s looking really difficult on a track that has no drums to lock onto I can loop the intro in Moises, slow it down and see how (badly) that goes! Actually I think Moises can overlay a metronome over a song so that’s worth a bash too
Edit - just been trying with the metronome overlaid over the song… definitely the way to go
Hi @mattswain, I play this so I thought I’d offer some thoughts. It’s coming along nicely, but maybe these ideas will be useful.
You are picking each note individually, you can be more strummy with it, which is how Neil plays it. Maybe it makes sense to start picking out the single notes and as you progress to get more strummy. Something to keep in mind.
Lastly, the overall rhythm should be swung 8th notes, you are playing straight 8th notes. That makes a big difference in the feel of the song. I think if you try to play along with the recording, you will feel the difference.
I did learn the song via a different lesson although it did also mention the strummy playing that you mention. As you say I think that’s something to work towards. In some ways ironically it might be a little easier because of course picking all of the individual notes requires a lot of precision! I’ll watch Justin’s lesson to see what I get from it. When I learn songs I often mix and match from a few YouTube sources to get something that I like (and can play).
The C into F chord section did take a lot of playing about to get to the point that I could play it without looking at my fretting hand. My guess is that moving one finger around is easier to compute, than moving different fingers in sequence with each other. I do agree with you though that the method you describe is more efficient and I should revisit it.
Also a fair point about the rhythm. So far I’ve only really been trying to get comfortable with the sequence of notes and move from one chord to the next without big pauses and just keep close enough to a rhythm that it sounds kind of like the real thing. I’m now just starting to play along with the recording albeit needing to slow it down at the moment. As you say hopefully this will help improve my timing
It is a great song, it’s definitely a stretch for me at the moment but I’m see a little progress every day and the end goal will be worth it so will keep plugging away. Thanks again for your feedback
So as well as the Neil Young stuff, I’ve been learning Do You Know What I mean by Oasis. It’s quite a fun song to strum along to, largely the same chords as Wonderwall but a little easier. It’s a good exercise in keeping the strumming arm moving while switching chords. The recording has some verses and a couple of choruses, plus pre-chorus which changes the chords and strumming. If I’m being really critical then I can still smooth out the changes around the pre-chorus a bit more but I’m still pretty happy with it
Do You Know What I Mean practice
Continuing to make progress with the Needle and Damage done. Have been playing it on Moises with a metronome. I think Moises says the track is 106bpm but I’ve been practicing at around 90. I can manage faster but make more mistakes. Have got alternate picking going throughout it now which I think improves my rhythm. Will maybe do a fresh recording soon
Consistent strumming, keeping good time throughout. You seem to have the strum pattern and chord changes well memorised so you’ll become faster fairly easily now. Well played.
These are definitely the moments when I can look back at the hours of practice and see it all starting to pay off. I’ve no ambitions of taking to the stage or anything like that but being able to play along to an increasing number of songs that I love gives me great joy
(and no I can’t play guitar while riding my motorcycle 
I can loop the intro in Moises, slow it down and see how (badly) that goes! Actually I think Moises can overlay a metronome over a song so that’s worth a bash too
