This module’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. “A Girl Like You”). Trying to introduce some strumming to them slowly now…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
- Strum only on the first bit.
- Once feeling comfortable, strum on all downs.
- While doing 1 & 2, keep on practicing the Old Faithful pattern.
- Finally start doing the pattern.
Sharing this incase someone finds it useful.
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Sound advice Swashata. I’m a year in and strumming is still difficult for me. I started to tell myself that i couldn’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 
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Really great songs in this module. My favourite ones are ‚Chocolate Jesus‘ (which I haven‘t even known before) and ‚A girl like you‘, which is really very tricky due to the quick chord changes (as also Justin experienced along his NITSUJ-journey 
). But when I like a song and do want to be able to play it, I simply can‘t stop practising 
. So, I‘ll keep on trying - slowly, but steadily 
.
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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. I’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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I’ve been practicing with Jefferson Airplane ‘Somebody to Love’: 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, I’ll introduce the strumming pattern and rinse and repeat until I can play cleanly at 40bpm. Then I’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, Justin’s emphasis on choosing a song that you like because you’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 “A Girl Like You”, 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 ago:upside_down_face:
. You are the best!
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Kevin @cornell5877
First of all welcome to the community. 
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
Michael:grinning:
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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 don’t believe!, so you’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, it’s worth it!!
All the best 
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A girl like you is not in the app???
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Not at this time. I don’t know if it was before a lot of the songs had to be deleted because of licensing issues. But I’m finding plenty to interest me.
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I’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 ‘the last tempo you saved for this practice item is…50 BPM’ It’s not being applied when the song starts. It’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 you’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 Justin’s course!
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I was trying to work out why I couldn’t find songs in the app. Thanks for sharing this!
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That is a tricky one Christian because there are some ‘pushed’ chord changes.
In the verse, after a bar of Em, you change from A to D on the & after 2:
1 & 2 & 3 & 4 &
1 _ _ & _ _ _ _
A _ _ D _ _ _ _
The change from Em to A in the chorus happens on the & after 2 also.
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I’ve been practicing the same two songs just using E and D / E, A and D since the first two modules. I’ve been doing this because I want to yano… actually be able to play them and sing along. I’m finally at the point where I can strum and change the chords correctly (albeit a little messy). What is the suggestion in terms of practicing new songs? Every module gives new songs, should I be learning a new song with every module? I practice 5 times a week, and at the moment I do all of the recommended exercises and then 5-10 mins each of the two songs. Maybe I should be picking a different song for each day I practice? What do other people do? Thanks
P.S. I’m listening to Arctic Monkeys SO much right now, so I actually squealed a little when the first song Justin mentioned was 505. It’s actually probably my favourite song by them.
Hi @Yammyturn! Actually, you should do the song practice provided with each module. Each time, the songs are chosen specifically to practice the things you learned in that module, and being able to get through that song practice in an acceptable way (it doesn’t have to be perfect) is part of the requirement to move on to the next module.
But it is totally understandable that you’re eager to be able to ‘really’ play a song. When you get to the end, you will see that one of the criteria to pass grade 1 is to be able to play 5 songs (singing is optional, just playing is enough). So you can already start choosing some of your 5 songs, and nothing is stopping you from starting to learn them. You could add a couple of minutes to your practice routine, or you could vary your practice during the week, some days focussing on practicing technique, other days more on learning songs.
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Hey, thanks for the reply. Good to know. I’ve done this for all of them except module 3 then. I will do this going forward and check out the recommended songs from module 3
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