About a month ago I decided that I needed to learn to play, āStill You Turn Me Onā, by Emerson, Lake & Palmer. Not the studio version, but as played in a decades old live solo performance by Greg Lake. While he was a phenomenal vocalist, the guitar can stand up beautifully on its own.
Itās quite tricky. I watched it on YouTube over and over and over again. It took me hours over the course of a week or so just to write out 3 Ā½ pages of tabs while continually going back to the video to verify what I was writing down. I count 23 different chords plus hammer ons and pull offs. And, itās in Drop D tuning which made many of the chord shapes unfamiliar to me.
After three weeks of trying, can I play it yet? Absolutely, erratically at about 10% speed. And I have it memorized, so at least I donāt have to stare at the tabs.
I like the song too much and Iāve put too much work into it to give up, but Iām going to have to take a break from it for a while. Hopefully when I come back to it something magical will happen.
Iām going to hop on Fred my unicorn and head off to dinner.
I can sympathise! Iām always getting in over my head with guitar. The songs that I like the most, and the guitarists I most admire, it is not the kind of stuff a beginner can expect to play.
Sometimes you have to follow what youāre passionate about and attempt those songs anyway ā¦ and then sometimes you have to acknowledge reality and take a break
Might be worth slotting in some time to drill One Minute Changes / Perfect Fast Changes on some of the chord changes from your Dreamer song while you take that break. That way, when you do come back to it, youāll have more muscle memory to back up your attempt. Although the fact that itās in an alternate tuning does make that less convenient.
And thatās a good place to start Greg, especially if you have it memorised. Iron out the kinks and then slowly work on bringing the tempo up and youāll get there. And no harm in taking a break from it and returning.
Youāve got it. Some people canāt walk and chew gum at the same time. He could play guitar and sing while chewing gum! Sadly, he didnāt play it the same or as well later in life. Of course, Iām about the age he was in 2012.
We are also drawn to complex songs because we want to already be good at guitar. Settling for the simple and more boring versions doesnāt suit our ambition, even if it is probably a good idea.
I think that is why Justin recommends a dreamer song, to keep us pushing, but he recommends others to build skills.
My trap, I keep falling into, is that I spend too much time on the dreamer song, at the expense of other practice. Not sure how to reconcile this.
Also, with a dreamer song like this, maybe work on a few bars at a time. You may be able to memorize the whole thing, and even play it through at 10% speed, but only do that once in a practice session and work on getting 1 to 4 bars down at a time. Not perfect and to speed, necessarily, just small chunks. Then move to the next chunk. I think it is also good to include the first notes or two of the next chunk in a given chunk so you know it moves on.
