Hi Silvia, very interesting to read your LL and about your approach to the classical guitar. I should start a LL by myself, plan to do that possibly during my consolidation of Grade 2. But I keep a diary about my practice items which hepls me a lot to stay focused.
Well said, so true, but I think, you actually have a very good way to handle your struggles 
Hi Silvia, good you started your learning log. Just going back a few post back you’ll be able to check where you were and the progress made since then. Skyguitar is also my source of accessible tabs for classical pieces in YT.
Lovely start to your learning log, Silvia. Your super organised and that will serve you well. You’ve been making great progress as showcased by the recordings that you have posted. I look forward to following your progress this year.
@SteveL_G99 I’m glad to read this, I hope you’re enjoying your nylon strings 
Thank you for your encouragment with strumming 
@Helen0609 The only thing I can do is going very slow…yesterday after a frustrating 15 minutes with my strumming practice I just happened to think that maybe it’s not worth keep going, but I know I can be so irrational that I learnt not to take my own self too seriously 
@dobleA Hello 
if you share something classical please @me I think SkyGuitar is a good resource for beginners, as it has both standard notation and tabs and also gives a slow metronome-like demo…also the right hand technique is very accurate.
@Socio Thanks James, I also look foward to following your progress this year!
I like your journal and organization! I’ve considered starting a physical journal like that, but can’t decide exactly how I want to set one up. I do keep notes in a Google Docs document, and a separate one which is my songbook of songs I’ve been working on.
My first update😊
First of all I need to thank and reply to @SocratesDiedTrolling : the physical journal proved to be a very effective tool, it’s now full of green 
and for the items of practice for which I hadn’t set a time it’s written down if practiced and for how long for each day. What I find really useful is to have always the big picture in front of me: for example if it’s friday and I see that I’ve practiced my classical guitar 4 times out of 5 days and only 3 times my strumming then I’ll start with strumming. I made this monthly schedule for February as well, just varying a little bit the items of practice.
CLASSICAL GUITAR
I kept on consolidating the sight-reading, counting rhythms and alternated picking, and I’ve been working on dynamics which I find as much challenging as fullfilling. For most melodies in the book there’s a video on YouTube and I can play along like in a real Duet: I’m enjoying it a lot as I feel I can express my musicality, even if I’m playing simple melodies.
STRUMMING
I worked on the exercises from the course and consolidated, I think, a good consistent movement of the forearm. The metronome didn’t disappear though, and as regards the pick angle…well the pick didn’t fall in the guitar hole not even once: isn’t it already a good result? There’s still so much work to do to get it “consistently right” and get a nice sound out of those steel strings. On the bright side I recorded My way, really liked that soft thumb strumming and the goal now is clearer in my mind: whether I’m using a pick or thumb or index what I need to aim to is the consistency of a good pleasant sound/tone, it’s not about gear now, it’s about how my fingers hit the strings; I need to work on this so I put a new item of practice in my schedule which I called “Sound Exploring”.
CHORD MELODY STUDY
Wind of Change by The Scorpions is one of my fave of all times! This past month I worked out and practiced this arrangement of the whistled intro and now I’m starting working on the verse. It will require time an practice to get clean notes out of that F chord and to be able to play it smoothly.
I worked out both the melody and the rhythm and this is my beginner attempt at standard notation writing. It’s very useful both for arranging and practicing to write down the exact lenght of notes. How do I know if I did it right?! 
I already have all the melody line written down, which I did a while ago as an ear training exercise.
Hi Silvia,
That was nice to see 
, and luckily I had wind of change on cd and not LP otherwise I would have destroyed it after so many times 
… i`m looking foreward to more
Greetings…
Fabulous update Silvia, you’ve been working hard and it’s shining through 
Hello Rogier and thank you for checking it out
Tell me about that! I have the STILL LOVING YOU album…love each one single song of it 
Thank you Notter for the encouragement 
Great update Silvia. Sounds like your classical guitar practice is really progressing and your love for chord melody is still going.
Looks like you’re getting into reading and writing music too! I’ve heard that can be really hard for guitar because there are so many places to play the same note. Do you have some background in traditional music, piano maybe?
Couldn’t tell if this is rhetorical or not… Straight rhythms are reasonably straightforward to tap out, when a lot of syncopation and rests get involved it is a lot easier to use software like guitar pro and play the melody back from notation to check the rhythm 
Great update, Silvia. You’re on your way.
Looks like you’re putting a lot of work into it and getting good results. I like that you are playing the music that you enjoy. Keep up the good work!
Coming along nicely Silvia.
The sight reading sounds like a really good skill to develop. Stick with it
Playing the wind of change melody on the guitar sounds like the best plan, I find whistling impossible with any kind of nerves, can’t see how this would ever be possible to perform.
Glad to hear the journal is working for you
@jkahn
Hi JK, when I was at school (11-14 yo) I had Music 2 hours/week and our teacher taught us about standard notation to play a little schoolish plastic flute, we had a book with simple melodies and I was good at it and always got praised. When I restarted the guitar I tried to stay away from it, thinking of the difficulty on the guitar…but I couldn’t help and couldn’t resist the charm of these elegant dots. Justin made a video about it but didn’t dissuade me, only at that point it became clearer to my self that I should start a more structured study of the Classical Guitar. Now I’m playing in the first position and it’s easy, I’m not worrying too much about the future because I’m practicing the classical about 30minutes/4 days a week and at my age keeping my expectations low and going super slow is the best option for me.
I think I will get GuitarPro later in my journey, it sounds like an amazing tool for learning.
@BurnsRhythm
Hi and thank you for checking it out…yes I’m putting a lot of work and I can see some result…a little by little I hope to be able to play that chord melody smoothly and with a nice tone!
@liaty
Hello and thank you for the encouragement…whistling is impossibile for me too! I think that’s really an iconic intro
Great update Silvia. It’s great that you are planning ahead. Variety is the spice of life, so it is great to read that you vary a little bit the items of practice. This will keep you fully engaged in your practice sessions as well as giving items your practicing time to sink in. You are coming along well with your classical guitar and strumming practice, clearly you have been putting in the time and effort. Wind of Change sounded lovely and its great that you worked out both the melody and rhythm, well done.
What a wonderful update, Silvia, enhanced with clips and images.
On your question about right, is the focus of the right on correctly scoring what you are playing or the accuracy of your transcription. I assume the former. If so then as JK said capturing it and playing back is probably the best way. I would do that in my DAW (Digital Audio Workstation), Reaper. I’d use the midi editor to capture the score which can be done in that musical notation. Took me a while to get the hang of doing that but now I find it useful.
Reaper is not a free DAW, though at 60 USD it arguably represents the best bang for buck after an Open Source option. Don’t know if the free options have that capability. And of course you may not want to spend time with a DAW (just as you indicate for GPro). So something for the future if you want to explore home recording more deeply, than simply using your phone. And using your phone is just fnine for recording and sharing in the Community.
Classical guitar is sounding really good! I really like your wind of change melody.
Sounds like you’re enjoying the book that you’re using too. Who’s the author? Curious because I eventually want to get into classical and am looking for a “justin” caliber method to dig deep into it. Of course, it’s hard to find Justin caliber anything but as close to the bar as I can find.
I’m glad I could help! Maybe I should take my own advice! While I bought a little notebook, I haven’t been using it. I keep various notes about guitar in a document online, but not really a journal. I should get on that! I think that might help me to be more consistent.
@Socio
Thank you James, your comment is very encouraging to read. I know I’m practicing a lot of stuff but as you say I’m fully engaged in my practice sessions, whether it’s my Classical or my Acoustic. Time is short and the effort sometimes is big, but sitting down with my guitars makes me happy and that’s what counts. I’m glad you liked my Wind of change
@DavidP
Thank you David for your advices, you’re always on the ball when it’s about technology 
Who knows one day I will be more confident and inspired/ready to take more care of these aspects.
@alexisduprey
Thank you Alex, I’m so glad you liked my recordings. The book I’m using is from the site Thisisclassicalguitar.com , you can buy an hard copy or download a free pdf one (Volume 1) from the site. As you can see I’m very optimistic and I’ve already bought the Volume 2 and the rest 
This is an approach that really works for me, as it really starts from the ABC and, as I wrote, there are Duets playing along videos on YouTube…from the very beginning even if you’re playing only a few easy notes it feels like you are playing them really musically and that’s very fulfilling! Here’s an example of what I’m saying, one of the first easier pieces in the book
You have no idea how much I can relate to this, I did the same exact thing for the metal method that I’m following!
I was optimistic to say the least. I’m finishing up the first book tomorrow actually after 6 months of study so it all worked out lol.
The classical ones you are using look to be in a similar vein but with classical guitar. Thanks so much for sharing them, I put them on my amazon book list for when I pick up a classical guitar!
