Hi everyone,
I’m about to finish up my first month of Justin’s beginners course, having never played an instrument in my life. I’ve been practicing around 30 minutes a day, finished Module 1 and moved to Module 2 this past week. Here’s a quick snapshot so far:
Struggles: D chord - a work in progress
Successes: A chord - I struggled with this at first but actually feel confident and am progressing to where I can do this w/o looking.
Goals: Continue looking forward to practicing everyday. Be able to play a couple of my favorite Dead songs - Ripple, Uncle John’s Band and put a smile on my face!
Well done on your first month. The first months with guitar are hard. It takes a while to get to the point of feeling like you’re making something that sounds like music! Stick to what you’re doing, get those chords sounding good and you’ll get there
Hey Paul!
Congratulations! Echoing what Matt says, the first few weeks/months are hard… everything is very unfamiliar, the finger pain is very real, the learning curve is very steep! But way to go for persevering through the first month! Before you know it, that pesky D chord will be really easy & you’ll be focusing on something else that is a challenge! Just keep practicing, keep smiling & have lots of fun!
You’re on your way, Paul!!!
I needed super remedial lessons to start with. I had to practice chord changes with Em to Asus2 before I could graduate to the standard E, A, D entry level open chords. It did make a huge difference for me, though. My left hand dexterity/control is my biggest struggle and what determines how quickly I pick up new stuff.
The instrument I played as a kid was the trumpet, which I have to imagine played a role with the challenges I now I have with guitar. Since with trumpet, your left hand doesn’t really do anything except hold the instrument.
One month in, calluses are building up and seeing some progress. Most importantly, still having a lot of fun and ready to move on the Module 3. Pasting this chart here so I can see progress on my OMC practice:
End of week 7 - Currently in module 4 of Beginner Grade 1, roughly 2 weeks per module for Beginner Grade 1. I’ve been practicing pretty steadily each and every day for roughly 45 minutes per day, closer to 60 min per day the last week or so.
Current struggle - D minor chord. While I am seeing progress over the past few days, my pinky has not been very coorperative (or strong). I find I can do about 35-40 Am:Dm chord changes in a minute but that darn pinky is lying down on the job most of the time.
I’m having fun with Justin’s song app - currently working on Chris Stapleton’s “Nobody to Blame” switching between 70 & 80% of the normal tempo. I’ve been trying different strumming patterns with this song as well, some sound okay and others are a work in progress.
Hard to believe, but this week marks 3 months since I picked up a guitar with some actual intent to play it for the first time. A couple of trips away from the guitar and regular practice since I last checked in have slowed me down but I’ve found that I can pick up the “pace” pretty quickly to get back to where I was before stepping away for a short time.
One interesting thing I’ve learned over the past month while in a different location - practicing on a different (bigger) guitar was a challenge, especially going from the smaller one to the larger one. The setup was obviously different and I had to press harder on the strings to make my chords ring true. A benefit was when I moved back to my “normal” guitar was that it was so much easier and I found myself hitting my chords with what seemed like minimal pressure on the strings.
I should be able to finish Beginner Grade in the next couple of weeks, I’m pretty excited about that!
