sorry for my little pun, but without a name I couldn’t think of another way of saying hi.
Congrats on getting through Grade 1! I would say, you are ready for moving on. Nice strumming, chords ring out quite clearly most of the time. Different strumming patterns for the songs - yes this is great stuff for grade 1 consolidation!
Good luck with Grade 2 - looking forward to hearing more from you! Hope it will include “Sympathy for the devil” someday - sorry, I couldn’t resist again. Please forgive me.
All the best and loads of fun on your upcoming journey!
This was really great !! I specifically liked, that you played songs with different chords, rhythms, and strumming patterns. Spending a month on consolidating absolutely paid off .
Sounded good Great idea applying different strumming patterns and you mastered them really well Of all the songs I like “Louie Louie” most. It had a nice bite Sounds as if you are going into the rocksongs direction in the future?
Very good point, Rachel @Libitina. While watching the video, I couldn’t sometimes visually identify the chords played in the songs. Now, I know why. It is the hand positioning.
Yes, @SatanicSaint, I think you’d better work on this during grade 2 to avoid future problems with your wrist and/or shoulder .
I think you did pretty good job so far. I would like to know how long did it take to you to pass whole grade one and how often did you practice?
I am also grade one, but with acoustic and I am not that far, but your progress is really good motivation for me. Would like to see your progress in grade 2, because I think you are ready to move on.
Sounded pretty good to me and fluent enough to move on to your next grade. Watch your hand positioning for your strumming hand as well you are slowly creeping up the neck of the guitar.
On Yellow Submarine you’re playing too many bars per chord in the chorus…it should be one bar of each chord and you are playing two.
@JokuMuu Thanks a lot for the feedback. Yup I listen to a lot of rock and metal and those are the songs I’d like to learn most
@Libitina OMG thanks a lot for noticing this mistake. I just picked up my guitar to see why or how I have this behaviour. Looks like I slip into it when I’m trying extra hard to not have my thumb peek over the edge but stay at the middle of the neck. I also posted about my thumb issue in this forum post here.
In that thread I was advised to try to make it so my thumb doesn’t peek over the edge. I think because I was recording I became too self conscious and was making sure that doesn’t happen which resulted in the weird wrist and elbow position.
I just tried playing with both hand positions and looks like I can play in both positions thankfully. When I read your post, I was so afraid I’ll have to unlearn everything and practice all the chord changes in a new position but looks like the correct position is my natural position, I just sometimes slip into this weird position.
Once again, thanks for the great feedback.
Thanks a lot for the feedback and the thread, Nicole. Fortunately, it doesn’t look like I have a lot of unlearning to do, just make sure that I don’t slip into that position.
Thanks for the feedback Sarge. See you at the top
Hi @Carreta , I took 7-8 months to complete Grade 1. But please don’t compare yourself to me, I had first picked up a guitar around 8 years back. I used to noodle around but never really learnt anything and then gave up shortly afterward. Basically because it wasn’t my first stint at guitar, I flew through the first 3 modules (maybe 4?) and then took 7-8 months to go through the rest.
I aimed to practice atleast 4 times a week but life does get in the way. There were weeks I was travelling where I didn’t play at all. I just had to make sure to not let it bother me if I couldn’t do it 4x a week and keep continuing on even if it meant that I’m only playing once a week. Perfection does get in the way of progress.
Thanks for the feedback @Rossco01. Yeah since I don’t know how to sing along to these songs I didn’t care too much about learning how many bars are there in the chorus, verse etc. I’m not playing the correct number of bars in any of the songs. I just cared about getting the chord changes, the rhythm, and the changes between the sections down. I’ll care about length of each section if I’m trying to sing along or trying to play along with the record. Let me know if you think this philosophy will get me in trouble later on.
If you’re going to learn a song you might as well learn it properly so it’s engrained in your memory for when you want to sing along.
Apart from anything else it’ll help with the rhythm and flow of your playing. It also makes a song easier to learn as you know in your mind where a verse ends and the chorus starts etc.
Agreed if you’re playing a song play the right number of bars otherwise you’re not playing the song… and in some instances you clearly have got the right number of bars so to be honest for the listener it’s a bit confusing.
lol, not a mistake if you’re playng the chords and making the changes nicely. More to the point it’s to do with long term health and reducing the possibility of wrist and tendon strains furthur down the line.
You are doing well, making good progress in all aspects, SS. Some good feedback already given to aid further improvement. I’m just going to highlight the use of a mute of the strings with the right hand in a couple of songs, which sounded good.
I suggest as you go and continue to make recordings, post as you go to get feedback sooner, rather than waiting until the end of the grade 2 share a consolidated final practice.
Hell yeah! Grade 1 achieved in my opinion. I’m still in it because I can only play one song. I like your check list, very inspirational. Thx for sharing the whole shabang! Keep on!
My favourite was the strumming pattern on Arctic Monkeys. That was funkay! (with an a)
I would say, you are ready for moving on. Nice strumming, chords ring out quite clearly most of the time. Different strumming patterns for the songs - yes this is great stuff for grade 1 consolidation! 
!
Sounds as if you are going into the rocksongs direction in the future? 
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