Great reflection, great attitude, Mark. Keep on keeping on, ever onward!
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Hi Mark, good progress. Practice is paying off. Good OM performance.
What a fantastic write up describing the journey to your first OM performance Mark. I’ve walked in everyone of those footsteps, so know exactly what you mean. You did great and reading this I understand why ! It really does pay to put in the time and play these songs to death.
Maybe 2000 times for the next OM, now you’ve signed up ?
Thanks a lot Andres, appreciate the comments 
Oh at least 2,000 I think next time Toby!!
Thank you for your support 
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Back again for the quick second July update as mentioned in my OM experience post above.
I’ve posted up my couple of AVOYP’s that I wanted to to close out module 13 for anyone that wants to check them out - Before You Accuse Me & Justin's Beginner Blues Solo
It’s taken longer to do so as a consequence of putting that time into the OM debut but that’s no bad thing at all. It’s been nice to have the two areas of focus really.
HIghlights of the module really is the simplicity but effectiveness of blues strumming, how much fun you can have with the 12 bar progressions and the window into effective solo-ing with the pentatonic scale. I feel like combined at this stage everything is really coming together with the added bonus that the OM has given me a real confidence hit in both playing and singing.
I’ll be watching and going through module 14 over the weekend and with some of my song exploration to date I’m already ahead of the game a little with slash chords (Half the World Away and Songbird have a couple in them so I understand the principle). The module seems more skills based rather than new chords or scales which will be good stuff to focus on.
If I can go through that in a few weeks and by mid-August say I’ve completed Grade 2 and ready for consolidation time I’ll be chuffed, more or less 18 months to have got to this point. I’ve got my brother and a few friends down for a weekend at the end of the month and looking forward to getting some beer fuelled playing and singalongs going, apologies in advance to my neighbours! (Well not really, they’re a noisy bunch and it’ll be nice to give it back 
)
All in all I’m more than pleased with where I am, managed to tick off a few things from my 2022 goals and just loving the feeling of having my guitar in my hands. Thanks to Justin and team for the methods and dedication to what they do.
Next LL update sometime in August!
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Bravo, Mark. Keep doing what you are doing.
So do you have a looper pedal? If not it is fun to be able to lay down your own rhythm and noodle away in the minor pentatonic. But beware, can be addictive 
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Thank you David, no stopping me at the moment, for better or worse!!
I have got a Ditto+ looper yes, but it was bought a little prematurely in retrospect considering where I was. I’ve had some dabbling with it from Justin’s “Why D’you Only Call Me When You’re High” song lesson and a few stabs at dice song writing but with the 12 bar progressions it becomes much more in play. Noted for the caution on addiction but I think I’m a lost soul already with the guitar overall!
Congratulations Mark…
because this…
is one of the most important things in life…
Greetings
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Wise words Rogier, thank you man!
Great updates!
So you should be you are making fantastic progress mate.
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Hi Mark
Good to hear you’re ticking your goals. That can only mean you’re making progress.
Keep going, keep ticking
🎸 David
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Learning to use the looper, to be able to start and stop so the loop is smooth takes some practice. So if you’ve not watched this yet, I’d encourage doing so before you start off: How to use a Looper Pedal | JustinGuitar.com
I have had a few attempts and have kept it really simple. I’m yet to try and lay down a full 12BB backing. I think my last attempt that worked OK was 8 bars … soon I’ll get to the full 12BB
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Thanks David, I did watch that lesson a while ago but I’ll revisit it now that before giving things a go properly over the weekend. The few attempts I have had to date have been a little hit and miss on timings to start and stop, it’s quite funny when when you’re “oh so close” but milliseconds really do matter!!
If you’re at 8BB so far with your experience then I’ll consider 4 an achievement for my first few attempts then
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Absolutly beautiful guitar by the way
I love PRS guitars, hopefully someday I can get my hands on it myself…
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Thanks Kevin! You can keep your hands off my PRS
(I know that’s not what you meant but couldn’t resist, forgive me! 
)
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Well, if it disappears some day, you know where to look
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Very true!!
Hi Mark,
I‘ve just been enjoying reading your learning log and listening to your songs. You‘re doing really great . Right now, I‘m in consolidation phase of grade 1 and definitely miles away from your level. Seeing what you have mastered in grade 2 is a real motivational kick for me (don‘t get me wrong - I am motivated - but now even more 
).
Your entry about your preparations for your first OM was a great read, as well. Very honest, funny, interesting, and inspiring 
.
I‘m looking forward to learn more about your progress 
.
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Crikey, my last update was July, oops!!! Whilst not keeping up with the documentation of progress I’ve continued to push on through what’s been a really busy summer. One comment that doesn’t fit into any of the below however is that the Community continues to be a place of joy and inspiration, terrific to see the swathe of introduction posts and the ever expanding, amazing, AVOYPs people are posting up. Kudos to you all 
OM-X Preparation and Performance
Hmmmm………interesting one this. Following the undoubted adrenaline and confidence boost I took from OM-IX I jumped straight back in with OM-X. In contrast to the first show I already had my song “selected” as it’d been in my practice rotation for a little while but not as a focussed song, Green Day’s Boulevard of Broken Dreams. I had a tonne of stuff going on through summer, aided by the weather we had in the UK, so the bulk of the OM level practice took place in the couple of weeks leading up to the show. I wanted to do this one standing and had been practicing it stood up, feeling pretty decent with it all………until I had the bright idea a few days out to add in a foot switch (my Airstep connecting to my Yamaha THR) to move between the tremolo intro section, the clean verses and crunchy chorus tones. Adding that into the mix, in retrospect, I didn’t practice this anyway near enough and whilst I had a few pretty clean run throughs, when the OM RBS kicked in it felt all over the place with timing the changes. It just added an additional layer of nerves of something to go wrong / think about and it messed wit my singing half looking at the floor whilst trying to remember to sing into the mic!! Amazing feedback in the chat and post event from the community but I was disappointed in myself to be honest. I bit off more than I could chew without giving myself enough practice time to bed it in. A bit of overconfidence I think, and a reality check, although good to test yourself, perhaps that’s not the best environment or approach! On the upside it’s a clear lesson for me for rehearsing for a performance and for the next OM I sign up to. Don’t make last minute changes folks!!
NGD – Unplugging!
There’s been plenty of recent topics around my Faith acoustic purchase which I absolutely adore! Shout out to Andertons for their support, time and terrific customer service through my testing and buying. My “original” Yamaha acoustic went to a local charity shop and sold within a day and my Eastcoast electric sold to a good home. Safe to say the current pair of instruments I have will never leave me, but I will expect the family to grow over the years obviously!!
Learning Progress - Closing out Grade 2
It took me forever to sit down and go through module 14 what with the aforementioned busy summer and also a bit of general procrastination. There still weren’t many days where I didn’t pick up the guitar but was more messing around rather than structure practice. Some of that was also down to knowing what was in 14 (standing up, playing without looking, recording etc.) that I was part way down many of those little avenues. The 2 new things really were / are thumb muting and percussive hits. I’ve spent less time dedicated to mod 14 practice and more planning on incorporating those final couple of skills from the grade into consolidation.
So, here we go then, grade 2 has been a big step up from grade 1 looking back with so much covered it’s quite incredible. The fact it’s all stuck in my head and hands is a true testament to Justin’s teaching. And now we’re getting into darker / colder nights here I’m ready to play songs songs songs…!!
Grade 2 Consolidation Plan & Goals
I’ve spend a good bit of time considering how I want to approach grade 2 consolidation. I’ve landed on an approach of listing songs I’d like to learn (we’ve all got a list 200 long right?!) and isolating ones that focus on skills taught throughout grade 2 (like “simply” an Oasis song or two for stuck 3 / 4 ). Clearly a lot of songs tick more than one box so I’m listing songs below with what specifically I’m looking to consolidate from learning that song. Across all of these there’ll be general things too, like the thumb muting, mixing in some slash chords where suitable (and identifying where suitable is!), embellishing with sus chords, playing more stood up and improving recording production and so on. I’m giving myself through until Christmas to work through consolidation and go New Year, New Grade. So the big reveal……:
- REM - Everybody Hurts
- (fingerstyle, stuck 3 / 4 even if it’s just one chord!)
- REM – Man on the Moon
- (no specific grade 2 skill but I’ve been wanting to learn it since @rod58 played it in OM-IX!)
- Green Day – Good Riddance
- (I want to kick on to the fingerstyle version, a different pattern to what I’m used to)
- Green Day – Macy’s Day Parade
- (Percussive Hit & Barre Chords)
- Blur – Coffee & TV
- (Percussive & Barre Chords)
- Oasis – Whatever
- (Stuck 3 / 4)
- Oasis – Don’t Look Back in Anger
- (Stuck 3 / 4)
- Red Hot Chilli Peppers – Californication
- (hammer ons mainly with the riff but I’d like to continue to develop my playing of the song)
- Bradley Cooper / Lady Ga Ga – Shallow
- (fingerstyle and it’s such a lovely song)
- Notter – An Original Song
- (I’ve got some lyrics written for a couple but not really done anything with them, to include a solo too)
- Nirvana – Lithium
- (Power Chords)
- Eric Clapton – Cocaine
- (Power Chords)
- Metallica – Enter Sandman
- (move beyond the opening riff to the whole song, multiple areas in this one for consolidation)
- Metallica - Nothing Else Matters
- (Bit of everything really!)
- Slackstring – Sunday Jen
- (been a fave of mine forever. The song is mainly piano so this is more looking at an arrangement that works solo.)
- Blues – now this one’s tricky as my knowledge of the genre is poor, so this will be researched for songs. However alongside a song or two I’d like to come up with a solo to Justin’s backing track, as well as another over a loop of my own to cover the Pentatonic scale (Am and Em)
So that’s ~15 or so songs, quite a few I know already and it’s about taking them to a new level, so hopefully that’s not unrealistic with some focus over the coming few months.
And a bonus thing I’d like to spend a bit of time on:
Make a start on learning the intro to Little Wing, definitely in the Dreamer category!!
So there we go, we keep on rocking and rolling
I’ll update the log with links to AVOYPs of the above as we get into Autumn and Winter up here.
Appreciate your reading time!
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