29. November 2025
I think I’m slowly making my way to a kinda sorta intermediate guitar player? I take a lot less time learning songs that don’t have any special tricky bits, and easy chord progressions and strumming patterns I get almost immediately, including singing. Things that were too difficult half a year ago are now a lot easier, like the riff for Jolene. I have a few more difficult songs in my repertoire now, like Loosing my Religion or Sweet Baby James, and there are a lot more songs I can now actually perform and feel while playing. I have a few (mostly German) songs where I either mashed two different youtube versions together to create a better version, or went ahead and found my own way of playing it altogether. And I have played for and with others enough to not be afraid of it anymore. It certainly feels more like I’m actually making music now, instead of just learning the guitar.
17. Dezember 2025
The last few days was all christmas songs, or more precisely Winter Wonderland, Little Drummer Boy, and Fairytale of New York. I’m fairly happy with the two Justin songs, even if the E to B minor in Winter Wonderland is a bit of a challenge.
Justin hasn’t done a video for Little Drummer Boy yet, and none of the youtube tutorials actually count it out. Which is why I have a wee bit of a problem with the rhythm/chord changes. I know it’s 4/4, and I know there are a few half-bar changes, but where exactly? It feels like there’s a push somewhere, or a quick one-note change, or smth like that, but I don’t really know, since everyone is too cool to actually count it out! Argh! My brain is not happy when it doesn’t understand exactly what we’re doing. Ah well, maybe I’ll find it easier to figure out when I’m not feverish with a cold because my heating doesn’t work right.
In other news, I definitely need a new capo, since mine has big grooves in it, and doesn’t clamp properly anymore. It is a bit of a problem, since the neck of my guitar is so big that normal capos do not fit. Maybe I’ll go and find a music store between the years, when I’m hopefully healthy again. Until then I shall then only practice songs without a capo, which sadly excludes Mrs. Robinson.
15. April 2026
I haven’t written in a while, since life has been busy. I’m still playing, but mostly just the songs I already know. It feels more like a holding pattern, tbh. I have figured out some versions of simple German Christmas songs that are not too terribly boring for me, practiced Fairytale of New York and Winter Wonderland. I now try to remember what other songs I have already played before, and I’m glad I listed some of them on here. I really need to put them in my songbook.
I also need a new challenge, I think. I quite want to go further into finger picking, but since I haven’t found a good course on it out there, it remains piecemeal learning for whatever song I want to learn.
I still haven’t found someone to jam with regularly, but I’ll start looking again, I think.
If that’s the path you want to go down them that is the path to follow. I’ve been down that path and completed the beginner course that another more prominent fimherstyle player on the forum completed bit hasn’t been on on some tome completed. If you check my LL you’ll find the course details.
29. April 2026
I’ve been playing in the park with a friend after work, now that the weather is warmer again, and it’s been fun. I noticed that I was a bit nervous, and very conscious about other people overhearing. I’m really not good at singing, though I like doing it when I’m alone, so I sang very quietly, if at all. He is taking singing lessons, so he was more confident, and I tried just playing guitar for him a few times, which worked nicely.
All in all I find that I could play my classics without much problem, the ones I have played a lot and that were easy, like Country Roads or Father and Son. Everything else felt clumsy and disjointed, and I haven’t even tried the difficult ones with riffs and all that. Have to get better at them, and maybe a bit braver despite being nervous. I picked up an easy version of Blowing in the Wind from paper, just strumming once, and then after a few rounds with an easy strumming pattern, and he gave me three more really awesome tunes to practice, one is Fields of Gold (trying an easy picking pattern), another one is Christina’s Eyes (I am trying out picking patterns for it atm), and the third is Als ich fortging by Karussell. It’s an easy one, very nice, and I decided to just pick whatever feels natural in 3/4, which makes it sound more interesting. Sticking to just one pattern would be too boring, I feel.
We want to do it again, and hopefully we will. It was fun, and sharing music is always very good for me.
I just want to quickly put this video here, because it has just given me a very enjoyable half an hour of playing around with picking patterns, trying new things, improvising, having fun, etc., and I definitely want to come back to this again https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zY1FZ92H-CM
6. Mai 2026
I was on the hunt for some kind of notation paper, and I’ve found all the songs I’ve played on piano and sang in the school choir as a kid. There’s a lot of musicals like Phantom of the Opera, Cats, or Tanz der Vampire because I was a theatre kid, and a lot of classics like Auld Lang Syne, etc., and some lesser known songs. I have a few children songs mixed in there, and there’s also quite a few Italian and French songs, since apparently, my teachers liked playing songs on a cassette, and giving us the lyrics to translate.
To my surprise, I could immediately play 80% of them, just strumming on every beat. The others had chords I need to look up, like Eb57, whatever that is, or c#7, or stuff like that. And, of course, I need to come up with/look up strumming or picking patterns for all of them. Here’s my list of new (old) songs to learn:
Wind of Change
Englishman in New York
Forever Young
Moon Shadow
Moonlight Shadow
Should Auld Acquaintance
Blowing in the Wind
Don’t cry for me, Argentina
Sailing
Der Strom der Zeit
Ritter Klipp von Klapperbach
Herbstvögel
Mein kleiner grüner Kaktus
Also, I’ve been playing in the park with my friend again, and he wanted to relearn a picking melody he had the notes for, but no tabs. He does not have time to puzzle it out for himself, so I’ve been translating notes to tabs today, and it’s really good practice. I’ll try and learn it, so I can teach it to him next time we meet.
Another friend started to learn tin whistle while she was visiting Ireland two weeks ago, and she’s asked if we could jam sometime, too. She said the first thing she learned was to the tune of What Shall We Do With the Drunken Sailor, so I’ll also be looking up that one. Love it when my friends want to play with me^^