Hey All,
It’s been a bit since I’ve posted, but I have been practicing! I’d like to share a song I’ve been working on recently.
I’m still training the whole singing + guitar thang 
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I would appreciate your feedback for any areas of improvement.
Best regards,
Mukund
The only thing I can comment on that needs improvement is to memorize the words and quit staring at your phone. I guess it stops you from looking at your fingers. The few times you closed your eyes you automatically relaxed until you opened them again to stare at the words.
Your strumming and rhythm are both good and in time, chord changes are good, over all really good performance
Nothing wrong with your singing. It’s like everything else the more you sing the better you will get so keep it up.
@stitch Wait what!? I’m not staring at the words on a screen or anything lol! But interesting to hear that it seems like I am… 
I think I was just focusing on some stuff sitting on my couch in front of me so I’d have something to look at. Maybe I need to figure out how to appear more relaxed?
I apologize for that but you had the classic glare of someone staring at their phone. There is a couple of spots where you seemed to relax and closed your eyes and even a little bob of your head for a few seconds.
Fair enough, I see what you mean. I can definitely work on feeling more relaxed when I play. Thanks for the feedback!
Nice job, nice energy!
Good stuff Mukund, I thoroughly enjoyed the whole song. I love this song. It does fit your voice really well. You were in time and you managed to stay in time throughout the song 
In terms of feedback, with my little experience, I will say try and stay as relaxed as possible. You’re perfectly in time like a metronome going tick tock, but music really can really be a push and pull, there’s beauty in slowing down, speeding up, while not losing rhythm. It’s something I’m working on too.
But overall really quality post, and the audio quality was top notch. What’s the setup you’re using? Do you have a separate mic for the guitar? I need to change my setup lol. Guitar sounded really sweet too!
Mukund, great job singing and playing. You have a gifted voice. Hard to hit those higher notes. I wasn’t sure what you might think needs improvement if anything. You did the old faithful strum through most all of the song. I’d listen closely a few times and see if you’re trying to sing via the strum instead of leading the strum with your voice by feeling the vibe and strumming that. When you single strummed you sounded smoother in your singing. Other than that, A+!
Bravo Mukund. Your practice is really paying dividends, this is a strong performance, captured nicely.
Bravo.
Are we going to see you perform at a JustinGuitar Open Mic soon? Perhaps the next one … JGC Open Mic 42 at 7pm UTC UTC | Call For Interest | Saturday 10 October 2026
That was great. I also think you like you are reading the words, but I guess it’s just the intense concentration to sing and play at the same time. Nice song.
Thanks for posting.
Guitar and singing sounded good, Mukund, well done. Keep doing what you’re doing
@MiJoy Thank you, Mike!
@abhiralla Hey Abhishek, thanks so much for your kind words and feedback.
I used to struggle with staying in time - and tended to speed up as I got further into songs. I spent a lot of time trying to fix that habit and possibly am becoming too robotic or stiff.
That jives with the feedback I seem to be getting about needing to be more relaxed.
I actually worked with a Sweetwater rep to figure out what I needed for the recording setup.
Here’s what I use:
I’ve also been experimenting with double-micing the guitar to pick up more ‘color’.
What does your setup look like? There are tons of options and it’s easy to get stuck in analysis paralysis.
Thanks so much for the detailed response. I use a very basic setup, a single AKG microphone picking up both my voice and guitar, and I do some light EQ post recording in audacity. I have some covers up if you want to take a look and give me some feedback!
Maybe it’s time for me to ask my wife for a birthday gift 
@jvlynch thanks so much for the compliment on the vocals 
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It’s nice to hear that the effort is paying off! I literally just starting singing towards the beginning of this year (don’t look up my AVOYP videos lol…)
Could you clarify what you meant here? I’m not 100% following, but it sounds like you’re saying that I should vary the strumming pattern.
@Richard_close2u Thank you, Richard! That is a great compliment coming from you!
Open mic invitation!? That sounds very interesting. Let me see if I can make that happen
I’d need to figure out how to get my recording setup working with Zoom. Sounds like a good learning opportunity!
@Prof_Thunder Thanks, Ian! It’s a somewhat new song for me, and it does take some concentration to negotiate between head voice and chest voice while maintaining pitch accuracy. I’ll do my best to improve in that. 
At times it sounded as though you may be waiting for the next strum to sing along with it. Don’t get me wrong at all, this was a great performance. When you asked for suggestions for improvement, that is what I heard, but again, only a small amount. An example that comes to mind: If I were to play, ‘Back Home Again,’ by John Denver, I’d probably play 1/8th notes in a shuffle pattern for the most part, so instead of usual 1 + 2 + etc., it would be more like triplets with the middle note silent. Not sure if you knew what I’d mean by a shuffle pattern. Sorry to oversimplify if I did. So playing that pattern for that song, I’d have to be careful not to sing only on the shuffle strums, or the singing would have gaps and would sound a bit choppy to someone. Maybe try watching your video, don’t play, but sing along with it to see if you then match your singing on the video, or if it varies a bit. You can vary a strum pattern. I go more by feel, along with the song, then to stick with the same pattern throughout. But if you like the way it sounds, that’s fine too. Again, this was an outstanding performance. I wish I could sing like that especially, and singing while playing is another skill set some people have trouble mastering. Hope to see many more videos of you playing and singing.