Nate's Learning Log

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21

I’ve played with them before and I just play my guitar as usual. just making sure I am easy on the volume. I play the same chords they do and usually the same or a similar rhythm. they usually have differently tuned instruments in the group, anyway. there’s usually a u-bass, sometimes a banjolele, oftentimes baritone uke, and so on. not even counting other guitars, mandolin, or others that show up sometimes. all tuned differently.

only difference is that my chord fingerings are different. sounds pretty good, tbh, as the guitar brings some extra depth at the low end.

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22

I expressed my concerns to the local guitar group and they’re including just about all of them. I conveniently reached out about this just as they were looking at making changes, so it was easy for them to roll my ideas into it. I’ve been included in a team of facilitators handling the management of the beginner jam group. That way, there’s less reliance on a single person running it, so people feel less stress over organizing things and if someone is out of town or needs to step back, it’s no problem.

So now I’ve offered to revise the songbook a bit to include chord charts on all of the song sheets and maybe also a few things related to making it easier for beginners to find suitable songs from an organizational standpoint. Also hopefully we can work out some improved distribution of it so more folks actually use it, so there’s less reliance on printouts.

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23

Chugging along, slowly but steadily.

Yesterday was my first guitar jam group meeting in awhile. My truck was in the shop for over 5 weeks getting a whole new transmission, so it put limits on my ability to go out and socialize. I did go to a ukulele jam a few weeks ago with my wife and a couple friends and had a good time there.

The jam circle last night went pretty well. It was a small group and that definitely seems to affect how well things go for me. It’s not explicitly a beginner’s jam circle anymore. It’s an all levels sort of thing (similar to the uke jam) and everybody is given the chance to choose a song. I kept up with some better than others, but the song selection was solid and even the harder ones weren’t that bad. Just one troublesome chord that didn’t take up that much space in the song, so skipping it wasn’t a problem.

I brought my tablet with the various songbooks in it and that turned out great. Being a small group, we were able to share whatever resources we all brought easily enough. There was another person with a tablet (same app I use, but with a different song selection) and another person with a printed binder. And another guy that was good enough that he could play along with whatever just by listening. I liked that there wasn’t a need to pass around cheezy handouts. We did refer to the group’s pdf songbook for a few, and those were the worst (pretty much just for the lack of chord fingering charts). It was just a taste of how things can go if people actually use the songbooks that are widely available. And I continue to plug along converting the pdf songbook into chordpro files. Yesterday was a hint that it can work. It looks like at least the Songbook Pro app can directly load a .zip file full of chordpro song files, so sharing those on the group’s website will be easy enough.

The next beginner’s jam is on the 22nd and now that I’ve got my truck back, I should be able to make it (unless I get the job I interview for this afternoon and have to work). Working on the songs in the list. One of them is one I learned to play awhile back, so I don’t need to spend so much time learning it fresh.

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24

Keepin’ on keepin’ on.

I’ve gone to a few more jams since my last post. A couple uke jams and a couple guitar jams. I’m starting to get more comfortable. I’m still using pretty basic strums for most songs since the uke group in particular pulls from a HUGE library of songs and I just can’t know them all. Heck, even they choose songs they have trouble with pretty regularly.

I’m continuing to convert the guitar group’s songbook from irregularly-formatted pdfs into chordpro format, for one to get the pdfs into a consistent format (with chord charts on each song for those of us who need reminders), and also to start pushing folks to modernize their songbooks away from paper. I’m DEFINITELY going to share these chordpro files. At the last guitar jam, several folks showed up with tablets. Some were grabbing songs from the pdf songbook and others had songbook apps like I do. Still, it’s encouraging to see that as soon as those files are made available, there will be people using them.

I’m noticing that this project is also helping me to learn the fretboard. So some of the pdf files have riffs written up just with the note names in a manner that makes it REALLY HARD to tell on first glance that they are not chord names. I’ve decided that I’m going to convert those over to tab. I sit down with my guitar to pick them out and I’m actually getting pretty good with finding the notes on my guitar in 1st position, at least. Since I’m quite a few songs deep on this project, I think I’m going to have to go back to the beginning and do some more conversions into tab because I only just realized what was going on.

I haven’t been pushing myself to learn a ton of new material for quite some time and I think that’s helping me get more comfortable singing while playing. I can still only do it for a few songs, but I have found myself during a couple of jams doing it on songs I’m pretty familiar with in general but have never played on guitar (yet are using familiar chords). I’m really pleased with that.

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25

Ended up taking a bit of a break from playing because of a vacation, but I’m back at it.

Didn’t really lose anything over those 2 weeks, so I’m happy about that. I did pick up a baritone ukulele or two during my vacation, so I didn’t entirely miss out on playing.

Prior to my vacation, I saw that Justin released a new Blackbird lesson. My instructor taught me a version of this song quite some time ago and I enjoyed it a lot so I bookmarked Justin’s new lesson promptly. The way I’ve always done it felt like it was missing a little something and I always figured I’d want to revisit it to fill that in.

So I pulled up Justin’s lesson yesterday to set my mind to what I was going to do. I decided I’d use the chords my instructor taught me, but with the slight variation on the picking pattern. That pattern really fills it in compared to what my instructor had me doing, but the differences are SO tiny! It’s sruprising how similar they are. Also, I think the chords he taught me are identical to what Justin teaches. So I’m thankful for that, too.

I find it amusing that Justin labels this a Grade 6 song, though. This was the first fingerpicking song my instructor taught me and I was less than a year into playing. Granted, the picking pattern he taught is a shade easier, I think, but still.

It’s going to take me a hot minute with that new pattern, and mostly because my mind is still on doing it the old way with my thumb, index, and middle fingers. Still, I think the new pattern will help me speed it up once I get it “automatic”.

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26

Got free tickets to a local event yesterday (LEAF May Retreat). A friend was volunteering at the event for the weekend and gave her free guest tix to my wife and I. One thing that caught our attention was the number of open jams. There were a couple live performances of interest, too. Lyric and Datrian Johnson are both REALLY good so we took the opportunity to see them.

The jams were interesting. We have our regular jam groups that we attend, but this is the first time we’ve tried out one of these community jams. I see them occasionally - the local Blues Fest (same town as this event, actually) had open blues jams last summer.

We brought our Enya carbon fiber instruments (not that there was much risk of rain, but it was nice to be able to just put them in the car when we weren’t going to be playing for a few hours). If I had a soft case for my cheap Yamaha dreadnought guitar, I could have gotten away with carrying that one around, though. Not with the heavy hard case.

We attended the Americana jam and the blues jam (well, I participated in the blues jam - my wife felt unequipped to do so). And then in the evening we checked out the “Genre Fluid” jam. The guy hosting the Americana jam was GREAT. He was super accommodating for beginners and we had a lot of fun. There were a few guitars, two ukes (my wife and our friend who got us the tix), and a guy with a suitcase full of harmonicas. The blues jam was a good time, too. I know just enough that I was able to play either single string rhythm or a basic power chord rhythm in a couple of blues keys for several random songs (most of which I didn’t know) and even without any sheet music/tabs/song sheets whatsoever. There was a guy on mandolin who showed up late during the Americana jam, stuck around for part of the blues jam, and then departed to go meet up with a friend bringing an upright bass for the bluegrass jam later on.

The Genre-Fluid jam couldn’t have been more different. It was several hours later and the crowd had changed a lot. There had been bluegrass and Celtic jams in-between and some REALLY skilled musicians popped in. There were a few fiddles going with a banjo, accordion, flute, and some percussion when we showed up. The guy on flute swapped out pretty seamlessly to guitar at one point. The fiddle players were really good. I overheard one say she was studying bluegrass at a nearby university. Ouch. Their jam was a totally different world. Someone would just start up a song and everybody else would just join in. Another fiddle showed up. A guy with recorder showed up. A person with spoons showed up. All of them were so good and just slid right into the jam effortlessly. Wife and I just sat nearby with our instruments listening to those amazing musicians. They wanted us to scoot into the circle, but we felt distinctly out of place, honestly. And given the instruments they all had, it ended up being very bluegrass and old-time heavy. They did one old blues song. We ended up leaving a bit early because it was getting late and our dog needed his dinner. Something to look towards, eh?

That was something else, for sure.

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27

Oof, finally got the songbook for my guitar group finished today. That thing has eaten up a lot of time I’d rather have been playing, but at least it’s done and hopefully some folks will find some use out of it.

In other news, I finally found a job after being laid off in January. Once I get settled into my new work schedule, I hope to start private lessons again.

I’m slowly getting more comfortable in group play environments. I just keep going to the group jams. Sometimes I’ll play along with my wife when she’s putting her online uke jam up on the TV on Wed evenings. There have been a few songs that have come out REALLY well when I’ve chosen to strum it differently than the ukes.

I restarted my sub to Justin’s app for the playalong function. That’s the sort of thing I’m trying to improve at, and it’s the closest kind of coaching I’ve found. Found a quirk that I’m not too happy about. It seems there’s a latency problem if I use my NUX amp as a portable speaker (either Bluetooth or using an aux cable - it happens the same). It’s almost a whole beat off on most slower songs. More than a beat off on faster ones. I have another BT speaker I can try, but I doubt it’ll be any different. It’s really impossible to try watching the screen while listening. If I play the audio using my tablet’s internal speakers, there’s no latency. I’m not surprised there’s latency with BT. But with an aux cable? I’m surprised about that.

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28

Went to the local beginners jam today after a long absence. It only occurs once a month and the past few months conflicted with other plans.

It went really well! The rhythm work I’ve been practicing the past few weeks has started paying off! I was hardly perfect, but I did a LOT better this time around, even on songs I hadn’t played before. I also managed to actually use the B7 chord in a song for the first time (actually in two songs) and I feel really good about that.

We had someone join the group who has only been playing guitar for a month. I hope we made her feel welcome because she only knew 3 chords and we couldn’t find any songs that used ONLY those 3 chords (A, E, Em). On the plus side, I just shared the my finalized version of the songbook last week, so one of the guys was able to email it to her right away (she only found our group LAST NIGHT so hadn’t downloaded it yet). She’s the exact kind of player I made that songbook for, to make sure it was readable and that all the chord charts are available on every song. I sure hope it helps.

I think with my first paycheck from the new job, I’m going to pick up the Boss Rhythm Partner. I saw someone link to it in the forums in another discussion some months ago and I’ve had it on my wishlist since. I’ve been using metronome apps or online ones for awhile and I really don’t like metronomes. I’d rather play with a simple drumbeat instead. The app that accompanies my little NUX Mighty Lite amp can do a few drum rhythms but there aren’t many options and it’s annoying to get it all started up. And as I decide to do more complex things with the rhythm, this gadget can scale up along with me.

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29

Since it counts as learning progress, I’ll put my recordings here, too.

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30

I learned Blackbird from TAB back in 1979 when I was unemployed. I think it is grade 6 since Justin really doesn’t teach much about fingerpicking until grade 5. I think that it is easier for me than some songs in grade 4. Have fun with the new lesson on Blackbird. I am also learning Blackbird again with the thumb and finger strumming technique.

31

It’s a really attainable song. Honestly it was my first fingerpicking song, in the simplified version my instructor taught me (really not much different than Justin’s version).

I actually haven’t worked on that one for awhile. I’ve been working hard on rhythm stuff (which has been paying off). My local guitar club meet last night had a local fingerpicker whose style is in the vein of Tommy Emmanuel. He did a version of Blackbird that was just beautiful.

I did a really nice job keeping to the rhythm during the playalong portion. Of course on unfamiliar songs when things varied a bit I got tripped up. But we had a few songs that we felt really great about as a group. We felt good enough about them that we played them through a few times.

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32

You are right. That is a really nice intricate rendition of Blackbird with more melody lines blended into the chord changes. Maybe some day I will be good enough to attempt it (but I doubt it, with 30 minutes of practice per day :slight_smile: ).

33

yeah I don’t see myself blending harmony and rhythm like that anytime soon.

I’ll be thrilled getting to a point where I can fairly confidently pick up either component of a given song.

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34

Interestingly, I have been listening through all the Grades 1, 2 and 3 song lessons on the JG website, that I haven’t already done and making notes of any technique lessons in the song videos. I was listening to the grade 2 Ring of Fire song lesson and in the intro I heard Justin playing the same style of percussive fingerstyle with melody that was in the Blackbird clip you posted just with simpler chords. Later at the end of the video, Justin shows how to add the percussive fingerstyle with melody and notes that it is definitely an intermediate technique for anyone who already knows some fingerstyle. Then he references the Percussive Fingerstyle with Melody lesson the in the Techniques:Fingerstyle lessons on the website. At some point I will definitely give this a closer look, since Justin got that technique from Neil Young and he has a lot of Neil Young song lessons.

(EDIT: I looked at Tommy Emmanuel who uses a thumb pick and I listened to the posted version of Blackbird about 3 more times and I’m not sure how it was played. It sounds like the bass notes are played with a thumb with no thumbpick and the melody treble notes are played with a pick or finger picks, but I don’t think that it is played percussive thumb and finger style).

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35

so I didn’t see much percussive stuff from watching Waylon play. he absolutely used a thumb pick though. Maybe this compilation vid from his performance will help you see what he’s doing. It looked to me like he plays with fingers and a thumb pick.

36

Thanks. I can see what he is doing now. I see that sometimes he strums with the thumb pick and plays the higher pitch strings with the thumb pick on faster licks.

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37

Small community realization time.

So my wife has started doing open mics. She’s been occasionally going to a pub in the next county over. They host one monthly, and back in December, I think, they did a ukulele-specific one. She liked the vibe in the place so much that she’s been back a few more times. But it’s in a small town and it’s an hour drive each direction, which stinks. She’s wanted to do an open mic in our city, but she’s been intimidated because there’s a ton of amazing talent around us.

About a week ago, we went to a local brewery to watch a guy play because we wanted to see some music but didn’t want to go far. As we listened, I realized that I was pretty familiar with this guy’s music already, and I couldn’t place why. So I started talking to him and we tracked it down to him submitting some songs to some of the storm relief charity albums (I bought all three of them). I linked two of them earlier in the discussion. At any rate, turned out he had a song on the same album my wife did. AND he performed at the album release party. So that started some conversation.

My wife was talking to him about playing and mentioned the open mic thing. And he told her that he runs one every week in town and invited her out. So we went this week. AND, I had already crossed paths with a couple of people who were also performing. Waylon was there. And there was another guy up there performing who played in front of my guitar group a few months back. I ended up talking to him a fair bit because he stuck around for all the performers. It was pretty cool. I actually kinda felt like I was part of the music community (and I wasn’t even the one playing that night). And then Stephen (the organizer) approached me near the end of the evening and said, “I hear you play guitar” and invited me to play at his open mic. I’m not ready for that…yet. But my first go at an open mic will probably be playing with my wife so I don’t have to worry about vocals.

For whatever reason or another, I’ve decided that one of my next songs is going to be Wicked Game by Chris Isaak. The chords I had for it involved using a capo and it’s easy enough to strum the rhythm part. But I felt like something was off and I started digging. The versions that sound “right” don’t use a capo. So instead of playing an Am with the capo on 2, you play the Bm barre chord. But the progression from Bm to A and then to E looked quite attainable. I’ve been working bit by bit on barre chords and getting better with them, so I decided that because this progression looked attainable that this would be where I would commit to using a full barre chord in a song.

I’ve been just working on that Bm > A > E progression for a few days now and I don’t have to fumble with the Bm chord anymore. I’m not doing the changes fast yet, and I do have to focus to get the Bm. And it’s a big move getting from E back to Bm. At least I have an anchor finger I can use to help with that move. But I’m getting smoother.

I’m using my electric guitar to practice this early because it’s just a ton easier. But I’m going to do the rhythm part on my acoustic when I’m actually ready to play it. My wife decided to play it on her uke and we’re eventually going to play it together. And maybe after that, I’ll start working on the lead guitar part on my electric. I don’t have a whammy bar to do some of the trem stuff, but I think I can find an alternative option with my Les Paul to keep the right vibe. Of course this begs for maybe a looper pedal or at least recording multiple parts and combining them.

Also interestingly, during this “figuring out” process, I was switching the key around in the Songbook Pro app. One of the instructional videos I watched said the song is in the key of E Major Mixolydian. Now I haven’t gotten into the theory behind modes at all. But something clicked when I was switching the key in the Songbook Pro app. The version I had said it was in the key of G (this app handles the capo funny - it doesn’t like the chordpro syntax for capo positioning) which showed the Am, G, and D chord shapes (with the capo on the 2nd fret). I wanted it to show me the chords without a capo. And to get that to display correctly, I have to tell it to show me the song in the key of A. Apparently the app doesn’t like messing with the modes. Which explains why in the past I’ve noticed that the key it says in the app doesn’t look like the key that the song is actually in. I guess I just have to fudge it and tell the app to use whatever gets it to show the chords I want.