Here’s to a new year and the start of my guitar travel log. The journey started over 18 years ago. I had a really great start. But still I reached a plateau after a few years - once you’re no longer a beginner there are so many options to explore. It’s so easy to try too many things too quickly and loose focus and direction. And that happened to me. Treading water, no (perceived) progress. Paired with a busy job and the end result is guitars back in their coffins.
But something really important was missing. It took me a while to figure out what exactly, and to remember what made me want to learn to play guitar in the first place and where/when/why I got lost. In 2021 I was finally ready to pick up the guitars again.
I now have adopted a random walk approach for my guitar journey. I no longer use practise routines or note down how much time I have spent on this or that. Instead I work through a long list of songs that I really, really, really want to be able to play one day. The list is a Hydra, for every song I tick off at least two new ones come on. But I don’t take it too strictly anyway, it’s just a backlog to pull from. And every now and then there is a queue-jumper that has to be learned right away…but that’s fine, because it’s all about playing things that make me want to pick up the guitar in the evening even if I am tired. Technique-wise I work on whatever the song needs. I’ve ditched the structured approach and replaced with targeted exercises. Over time the mosaic fills out just the same.
But I also like to give the random walk some direction. So at the start of every year I write down some objectives or targets where I want to be in a year’s time and then I review at the end where I have come out. I find a year a suitable period for me - it’s long enough to offer some flexibility with how much time is spent on what. Or swap out goals. And it is also long enough that there will be progress to notice. So less stress more fun.
I think of this log as postcards from my journey. When I find something new I am excited about I’ll put it here. Like last year when I figured out that one of the queue-jumping songs was Dorian and why that made me like the song so much. But that’s last year.
For 2025 I have laid it all out as follows. I have a few focus areas I want to spend time exploring and I might not even get round to all of them. Some have even been there last year and were rolled over when the year ran out. The same can happen at the end of this year. But that’s ok.
Norman Blake: study his style and learn some of his songs and solos. He is more musical and less mechanical than most other bluegrass players. And he played guitar on one of my favourite Steve Earle albums, several songs of which are on the really-really-really want to be able to play song list. And it will help me improve my flat picking further.
Gillian Welsh & Dave Rawlings: now this is tricky because their music does not translate well from two guitars to just one. But I have had a couple of their earlier songs on my repertoire list from way back before my hiatus, but played with very simple guitar accompaniments. They can do with an upgrade, if nothing else.
Acoustic Blues: this is an area I have been struggling with for a while. Something I wanted to be able to do since forever but I have not really found a good way to approach it that works for me. I have some ideas for this year that I will try, going by key rather than song, and learn where on the guitar things happen in the key of A and then in the key of E.
JJCale deep dive: about time. His music is so cool. But why?
Explore Open D and Open E: I have not explored any alternate tunings yet, and was generally indifferent about it but I noticed that there are now at least 5 songs on my list that are in either Open D or Open E so maybe it’s time to give this a try.
Rodney Crowell deep dive: he is such a great song writer and producer. One of his more recent albums really struck a chord with me and I want to learn some of the songs or just look closer at what he is doing to learn some tricks.
These are the focus areas. I won’t spend all my guitar time on the focus areas because 1) too many queue-jumpers cry out for immediate attention regularly 2) I always work on at least one finger-picked song, they take longer to learn and 3) I hope to contine with Open Mics this year, and they require crowd-pleasing songs on the set lists, which also need to be practised
Hi Molly might try that myself so many songs so little time I can play a lot of songs badly would like to play a few less but well, just added another five or seven to my song book to learn one more to add and that`s it for this year no more, also still following the Justin course at the moment grade 2 module 11 still trying to master happy birthday and Oh Christmas tree, may move on to mod 12 soon but still practice those two.
Hi Molly, having listened to a couple of your songs here (love that you did Blaze Foley) and having read your journey here I think we have a lot of overlap in our journeys and guitar interests.
Only your history is much longer and wider. I’m 4 year in and began after retirement at 65.
Very very quickly I began as most all beginners do, learning basic chords, choosing songs (often bad choices) and attempting to improve. However I find I am a bit unsatisfied with strumming and singing as my primary motivation. These days I seldom pickup a pick. I’m attempting to combine Travis picking as a foundation of arranging chord-melody with patters such that I produce either a version of a song with vocals (less melodic with the guitar) or a version with little or no vocals (but more melodic with the guitar).
Anyway, you seem to me to have at least a somewhat similar approach. Your work is inspirational to me. So wanted to shoutout a thank you. I have a long way to go but enjoying the journey.
The only fingerpicking songs I have posted this far are pretty much using patterns and accompanying with vocals. Haven’t done one in a long time now. But now working on attempting to be more melodic on the guitar. Maybe someday I’ll post one of these attempts. However unlike strumming chords, the process is much less forgiving. Tough to get through a song (for now anyway).
Thank you so much Mike @MiJoy for your very kind comment and even for fishing out this post from obscurity! I had big plans at the start of last year and then never wrote any update at all. I was just too busy most of the time.
It makes me very happy to read that you find inspiration in my posts! Sharing progress here with like-minded people who follow the same guitar journey is really encouraging, and I have got so much inspiration from other posts, too, so I am glad I can give back in a way.
As for fingerpicking songs, yes they take longer to learn and to develop to the level that you are able to play through in full. There is just so much more happening for the muscle memory to direct the right fingers to the right strings at the right time. But it is also so much more fun, right? I have found it does get easier with time though (which should be no surprise in general as all guitar-related things get easier eventually). Playing songs with just simple patterns, Travis or otherwise, is an important stepping stone. With hindsight I can say now that I have attempted some songs with melodies too early. But because they were songs I really wanted to play I stuck it out with them and practised them slowly for months until they finally came together.
I had a Eureka moment at some point last year when I realised that there is another approach to learning a song: slow down for sure (we all know that) but the other is simplify. That Blaze Foley song I posted last summer (the big cheeseburgers) has a couple of really tricky bars in it. They are impossible to practise from 0 to 100 all notes at once. There is a limit to how much you can slow down with the brain still realising that it’s all just one bar. But if you simplify enough you can play a fingerpicked tricky bar at speed sooner. So in Travis picking the most basic simplification is just playing the thumb. Once you know the chords and which strings the thumb is going to target it’s usually just a 4/4 thumb pick every quarter note - simple! And when I can play that at tempo then I start adding one additional note at a time - one note more to the 4 thumb picks is not much more and you can often do that without slowing down. And when that works add another note, and then another and you will be surprised how much easier this approach is because you are not overstressing your brain - you add just one little bite at a time. If I think back at all the things I have learned last year, this was the most important of all.
Because you can extend it beyond conquering a tricky bar in a fingerpicked song. I now apply variations of this everywhere:
if I learn a new song it’s ok to start with just the chorus or verse if they are different - learn the other parts on one of the next days (smaller bitesize) - and break down futher if there are complicated things in the music
when singing over a finger picked song start out with singing just over the thumb (simplify the picking so the brain can focus on getting the phrasing right over a simple rhythm) and when that works add a few more notes at a time and build up the complexity of the fingerpicking that way
when learning lyrics of a song start with the first verse, learn lyrics of another verse only when I rememer the first (smaller bitesize concept)
I like the concept of beginning w thumb then adding a note at a time. Next song I attempt from the beginning I’m gonna give that a go.
I find that when attempting to add more melody, especially when the song varies from a specific defined pattern (like Dust In The Wind perhaps) it complicates the learning process considerably.
Taking it in smaller notes one bar at a time just may help.
I’m glad I’m retired, I’d never have had the time for this prior to retirement w the schedule I had .
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