Songs For Module 4

So many songs to choose from. :)


View the full lesson at Songs For Module 4 | JustinGuitar

I found really hard to do the upstrum with the 3rd song in the website practice video. Itā€™s really too fast for me :frowning_face:ā€¦ any advice?

Slow it down. You can slow song down on youtube or use software to slow them down
without changing the pitch of the song.

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Ofter the easiest things are the better ones. So simple that I didnā€™t thought. Thanks so much :pray:

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Once you feel comfortable steadily increase the speed, donā€™t go from 0.5 to 1x speed, youtube allows you to increase/decrease by 0.1 :slight_smile:

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I was wondering if there was the exactly same video from the L4 practice songs on YT and I found the ā€œspeedā€ settings in the gearā€™s icon. So, probably Iā€™ll be fine directly from the Justinā€™s website :slightly_smiling_face:

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This moduleā€™s practice routine is my current one and some of those songs are indeed tricky for me at speed. I use the app, just for the songs, and slow some of them down (e.g. ā€œA Girl Like Youā€). Trying to introduce some strumming to them slowly nowā€¦I had to take some extra time to get Old Faithful burned into my brain.

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I am a complete beginner here and I have had the same struggle too. What worked for me was to

  1. Strum only on the first bit.
  2. Once feeling comfortable, strum on all downs.
  3. While doing 1 & 2, keep on practicing the Old Faithful pattern.
  4. Finally start doing the pattern.

Sharing this incase someone finds it useful.

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Sound advice Swashata. Iā€™m a year in and strumming is still difficult for me. I started to tell myself that i couldnā€™t strum and change chords. At some point it dawned on me that I could strum and change chords, just really slowly. Even if you need the tempo painfully slow, start there and work it up slowly. As i was finding it difficult I also found tension creeping in to my shoulders and arms which is really bad for strumming or any aspect of guitar for that matter. If i feel myself tensing up now I have a 2 minute break, shake my arms out and have a walk around to try and relax my muscles again. Hope that helps :slightly_smiling_face:

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Really great songs in this module. My favourite ones are ā€šChocolate Jesusā€˜ (which I havenā€˜t even known before) and ā€šA girl like youā€˜, which is really very tricky due to the quick chord changes (as also Justin experienced along his NITSUJ-journey :wink:). But when I like a song and do want to be able to play it, I simply canā€˜t stop practising :smiley:. So, Iā€˜ll keep on trying - slowly, but steadily :slightly_smiling_face:.

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4 out of the 6 songs listed in this video are not actually on the app.

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Hi Colby,

There has been some licensing issues which Musopia are currently trying to resolve. Iā€™ve previously flagged the issue that the website lists songs which are no longer in the app and should be updated to remain current. See this post Version 3.2.0 released Jul 1, 2022 - improvements / songs gone - #17 by Socio

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Iā€™ve been practicing with Jefferson Airplane ā€˜Somebody to Loveā€™: late 60s counter-culture vibe, easier chords em, A, D and G (look ahead for G chord video), chord changes are mostly half a bar with one or two bars mostly on em, as well as introducing strumming patterns. Pulling the D forward is a little tricky but do-able.

The trick is strumming, chord changes all in time. I can just about play the first verse and chorus at 40bpm using a metronome. Chord changes - particularly the D and G - are not fully clean, so practice still needed; and am not introducing strumming (just downstrokes).

Once I can play with clean chord changes at 40bpm, Iā€™ll introduce the strumming pattern and rinse and repeat until I can play cleanly at 40bpm. Then Iā€™ll go through the rest of the song at 40bpm. Then rinse and repeat at higher bpms until I can play relatively cleanly at relatively actual speed.

Hence, Justinā€™s emphasis on choosing a song that you like because youā€™ll be playing the song a lot; an awful lot.

Back to the demanding mistress that is the metronome.

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Hi Justin!
I noticed on the song ā€œA Girl Like Youā€, you are using your 3rd (ring) finger on the Dmin chord instead of your pinky finger as you demonstrated in the Dmin beginner lesson. Should I transition to the ring finger at some point or keep using my pinky for now? Thanks! I love the courses so far. I used to play many years ago and stopped while working on my career. Starting from scratch to lose all the bad habits from long agoā€‹:upside_down_face::upside_down_face:. You are the best!

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Kevin @cornell5877
First of all welcome to the community. :+1:
I am a little way ahead of you and I could not get away with using my little finger, so used my third finger. However Justin recommends the little finger as you progress you will need to use it, starting with F chord, which is where I am, so it eventually catches up with you. I would continue with your little finger.
With regards Justin song videos, they are not all intended for beginners like us so you will see different fingerings for some of the beginner chords, G chord in particular but this will be shown in one of the up and coming lessons.
Hope this helps

Michaelā€‹:grinning::guitar::notes:

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Spot on comment Michael. @cornell5877 I began Dm using pinky as Justin taught but actually found in time as my fingers learned to stretch more that I naturally used my third finger without even thinking about it. Im certainly not special, I donā€™t believe!, so youā€™ll likely find the same.

As above G chord and stuck 3&4 when you get there rely heavily on pinky so definitely get used to using it, itā€™s worth it!!

All the best :slight_smile:

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A girl like you is not in the app???

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Not at this time. I donā€™t know if it was before a lot of the songs had to be deleted because of licensing issues. But Iā€™m finding plenty to interest me.

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Iā€™ve been trying to slow the tempo for 505 and A Girl Like You! Even though I slow it down in the metronome and it shows me ā€˜the last tempo you saved for this practice item isā€¦50 BPMā€™ Itā€™s not being applied when the song starts. Itā€™s still at 138 BPM for example. What am I doing wrong?

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Hi Martina @Martee, welcome to the forum! I assume youā€™re using the video exercise in the practice routine. The metronome is not linked to the video as you discovered. But you can change the speed of the video by clicking on the little wheel/cog at te bottom right corner of the video.

Wish you lots of fun on Justinā€™s course!

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