There are thousands more using these chords out in the wilds and if you follow your tastes I’m sure you could find tutorials on the interweb somewhere.
It’s a very useful if you manage to mute the 6th string. As strumming will become faster, it will become more difficult to not hitting the low E string.
Well, that’s the theory - I have to admit, that I’m not able to mute it when playing the C chord . I’ve been trying it for months, and it’s still impossible to me. Therefore, I try to work on my strumming accuracy, instead.
Later on in this journey, we will learn to mute the 6th string with the thumb of the fretting hand. Hopefully, things will get easier then .
To be able to deliberatly mute strings is a great skill, and it’s definitely worth trying and practicing it. But if you get the impression, that it’s not possible for you right now, move on. You always can come back to it and try it later on in your journey.
If I hadn’t moved on, I would still be stuck at module 5 due to my inability to mute the low E string when playing the C chord . Interestingly, I can mute it when playing the Cadd9 chord .
For the OMC C to Em drill, when playing the Em, should I switch my fingers, to how Justin originally showed the Em, or leave my 2nd finger on the 4th string and my 3rd finger on the 5th string? The latter seems a lot easier for the chord change, but is a bit different from how we were shown the Em.
Unfortunately he doesn’t show this chord change in the video. Thoughts?
Hello @scottyja and welcome to the community.
Definitely continue using the fingering that was taught for Em. Yes it involves a switch around and no anchor but that is how it is sometimes - most of the time even. The benefits of doing so are many further along.
Cheers
Richard
While practicing songs for this lesson i have noted to big issues with my playing.
Im practicing Get Lucky by Daft Punk, which is a song at 113BPM and a chord progression of Am-C-Em-D
So my first big issue that i have notice is that if I try to do a more complex strumming pattern than a simple D-D-D-D i always end up rushing. I try using D-DUDUD and with D-DU-UD and with both i end up rushing ahead of beat after 2 or 3 bars.
I tried keeeping the beat with my foot, i have tried to keep the beat by loudly counting the beats, i have try keeping up by using an isolated metronome but i always end up rushing ahead.
Is honestly Fing annoying, and im starting to think that something is just wrong with my brain.
The other issue i have notice is that i always seem to be late on my Em to D change during the song. And i have identified that the reason is that when changing from Em to D, i put my Index and Middle finger down at the same time, and then i put my Ring finger on place a second later, which results in me missing a beat (or playing a beat with only 2 out of 3 fingers of the D chord in place).
How do i change this? I been trying to learn how to put all 3 fingers down at the same time but i cant, for some reason i always put two first and then the third.
What you describe is all too familiar to all of us beginners that have passed through grade 1.
Don’t be put off just keep practicing it will come. Perhaps don’t try too complicated strumming patterns at first, try just DDDD.
Putting all fingers down at the same time again is one that comes with practice, no magic formula.
Michael🎸
Regarding strumming. How do you go with muted strings? Trying different strumming patterns with a metronome and muted strings might be one way to practise.
If you have the D-D-D-D down pat that’s a good start. Next up could be DUDUDUDU and maybe the next easiest one if D-DU-D-DU
With the D-chord. I wouldn’t worry too much about it. Back in the day I would often play the D Chord with just the two fingers on beat one before putting the third finger down for beats 2,3 and 4 and I think it still sounded mostly right. You obviously don’t want it to became a habit but for now I would say getting the beat down and keeping the hand moving is more important.
is it really necessary to be practicing these stuff for a week (minimum) or more? i personally do these exercises once or twice a day and move into the next module and if i felt like i forgot something or my playing is becoming worse i just get back to the old videos but i feel like i should be giving it more practice.
That is not surprising.
Get Lucky is a 16th strumming pattern and there are really important accented strums that do not necessarily happen on the 1, 2, 3 or 4. Unless your groove and rhythm are rock solid, trying to throw a counter-rhythm pattern over this will prove difficult.
Feeling a bit worried about my progress (and a little deflated cos I’m too hard on myself). I don’t feel like I’ve really nailed down any songs at this point. I can’t play any of them all the way through without messing up (is that expected at this point?).
I started off hyper focused on one song to try and “perfect it” but still always messed it up a bit, which I gave myself grace for because I’m still very new to strumming. I was also doing a bit of practice with other songs as I went through each module, but never to a point where I could play the whole song through. I was told in another discussion that I should be practicing a new song each module using the chord I am learning, so I started doing that and let go of trying to perfect the one song for now. This helps for sure cos it keeps things more interesting and fun, but I’m also feeling like I couldn’t possibly play a song the whole way through each module (I’d be on the module for weeks and weeks…).
Am I being overly hard on myself and having high expectations, or am I genuinely just not getting it as quick as I should be at this point?
Amy, yes you are i have played for a lot of years and I still get the feelings you are getting, reach out to some of Lievean’s lessons on keeping motivated, these things happen it is common so keep your chin up I will try and post his lessons on to you if I can manage cheers Hec
Messing up is ok. And believe me we are all our own worse critics. And we all mess up.
You even hear bad ass super stars mess up on live releases. But is it a mess up if the guy who comes up with it does it that way? Thats a fact
But seriously, we all do it so dont worry, try and spread things out some. And you will find that maybe after 30 mins on a song (I have spent a whole day) if you are not getting a part just walk away and then come back later and suddenly its smoother.
The other thing is, yes. You do need to be playing songs from start to finish, even if its just the 2 chord songs. Sure a riff is nice, but that is just notes, just some music. You need to make that something. Add the rest and then some vocals and that becomes a song and then it becomes a story. That conveys a meaning. Thats what you want to do, at least in my opinion.
One of the best things I did to help me learn songs was get Songbook and then upgrade to songbook pro. It is so great. I never learn anything half way now and I cant even tell you how many songs I have been able to learn. I have a library always avalible also.
There are other apps too, free, paid complex, easy. Do a search, it will keep you motivated too. It runs the song, plays with accompaning music and I sing and play with the words scrolling and the chords right on my screen too. Super helpful to learn songs. I can turn either on or off untill I know them cold.
Hi Amy, you did the right thing to stop trying to play the perfect performance of a song. I’ve played for over 40 years and I don’t think I have ever played a song perfectly. The more you learn, the more things you find to improve in your playing .
It is important at first to just have fun and play as many songs as you can. Also as a beginning playing the song all the way through just means playing each of the chords in the song in the app or the songbook and strumming at least one time for each chord. You can slow down the app or play more slowly from the songbook if you need to. As you get better you can add more strums.
Thank you both. I think my expectation was that I could do a strumming pattern for a whole song by this point and because I am not there yet I was feeling discouraged. It’s good to know that even just one strum per chord is okay for the moment (I can do that!).
In the sixth video for this module 5 practice “RIFF Come As You Are” the tab is different than in the Module 5 Practice routine.
I now realize this one is labeled "Come as you are V2.png on the site.