Ah, thanks for the hint, Steve, I’ll check that out! Sounds interesting! Thank you!
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27July2024 - This is my one week each month to practice classical guitar, so I have recorded another duet from the Werner Method, book 1, page 49. I just learned this song the day before, but it is pretty easy for me to sight-read since it is just the high three strings in the first position. This duet is a classical version of “jam buddy” for a song, so I am happy that I was able to get a better recording of the teacher complementary solo on the 3 lower strings:
Classical Guitar - Minuet - Hook - Duet - SteveL - 26July2024
(Note: you can hear our 2 dogs barking in the background, waiting to be fed in the morning)
Just to show I haven’t forgotten about the Blues, I recorded my progress with learning Robert Johnson’s Kindhearted Woman, that I started to learn recently. This is just a short 75 sec. video to compare the intro to JG grade 2 Acoustic Blues guitar solo. I also demonstrated a cool D7/F# based lick that is found in the song.
Kindhearted Woman intro and lick demo SteveL
Here is a picture of the tutorial DVD that I am using along with the TAB manual. I am showing that I had to enlarge the page by 150% so that my weak eyes could read read it:
I was surprised to see that this old DVD was still available on Amazon and other online sources. The DVD has TAB for the songs, but the TABs are just fragments and not exact. I’ll have to watch slowly to get most of it. You can also see the musician-author Scott Ainslie perform this song live on YouTube:
Kindhearted Woman - Robert Johnson - Scott Ainslie on YouTube
This is my fun week with whatever I feel like doing and this week it was mostly classical guitar with a little acoustic blues. Next week I will continue with practicing my 10 songs to play to complete grade 2 consolidation. I am typing in my 10 songs to create a performance songbook.
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Keep having fun, enjoyed the videos, Steve
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Hi Steve ,
Nice log up date 
The video from Scott Ainslie would do well in a lesson with the Blim students too
Have fun and don`t forget to feed the dogs 
Greetings
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@DavidP David, thanks for watching. I am glad you enjoyed the videos.
@roger_holland Rogier, thanks for the encouragement. The dogs are definitely getting fed. My wife and I have a standing arrangement - I feed the dogs in the evening when she is busy and she feeds the dogs in the morning, so that I can extend my guitar practice.
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13Aug2024 - Two year anniversary notes 2024.
I reached the two year anniversary with Justin Guitar on July 4, 2024, but took time to review my progress before posting this progress report. I also waited until I had finished my annual project of replacing the strings on my 5 guitars, which took me a week.
Progress notes;
I am one month away from finishing Grade 3 lessons and practice. I have finally finished grade 2 consolidation, with the exception of recording my set of 10 grade 2 songs. I have been working on the songs in practice and determined to finish the recordings before I start grade 4. I’ll post my updated grade 4 plans when I start grade 4.
Annual Progress Summary:
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I took time off to do annual review of basics at the beginning of this second year with Justin Guitar. I had just purchased a years subscription to the JG lesson and song app, so I listened to all the Grade 1 lesson videos in the JG app and did practice routines for a week in the JG app and redid the Strumming Foundations course in the app.
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I finally memorized the chords and lyrics from five Grade 1 songs and performed on acoustic guitar while singing from memory, not using chord/lyric song sheet. Here are the songs I posted to the AVOYP section:
Five Grade 1 campfire songs with memorized lyrics and chords
- I finally set up my FocusRite / GarageBand DAW and learned how to record my electric playing along with a backing track, using some simple rock guitar studies in different styles from the Rockschool Premiere exam book and posted to my learning log. That’s 11 months after I bought the Scarlett Focusrite 2i2 last December. Here is the post I made of the recording:
Six Rockschool Premier song recordings - SteveL
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I made a big push to complete grade 2 review and consolidation by doing grade 2 consolidation and grade 3 on alternating weeks.
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As i completed the review of Grade 2 by listening to all the grade 2 lessons again in the JG app. I made recordings of grade 2 exercises and posted in my learning log for a record of completion between February and April of this year.
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I made recordings of 5 Rockschool Debut (essentially grade 1) songs and posted in learning log in my continuing quest to strengthen my weak electric guitar skills.
Five Rockschool Debut songs - SteveL
I especially enjoyed playing the lead along to the backing track on the song Hoochie Coochie Man. Of course, these are all simplified versions of the original songs.
- I added finger style acoustic fun to my week of fun with non-JG study materials using “Finger-style from Scratch” book and recorded and posted some of the more interesting beginning exercises. Here is a short fingerstyle arrangement I wrote using sus chords that was inspired by my “Fingerstyle from Scratch” exercises:
Sus chord finger-style composition - SteveL
I played on both the Martin acoustic and my classical guitar using my fingertips for fingerstyle playing. You can compare my classical picking technique to my classical fingernail picking in my classical studies entry in no. 9.
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I also added practice from the book “Blues from Scratch” to the week of fun with non-JG study materials. I had intended to also use other blues study materials, after following Socio’s Learning Log, but with only 30 to 40 minutes of practice each day, I had to recognize my limitations. I’ll add other blues studies when I get to grade 4.
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I decided to go back to my roots and start playing my classical guitar again. I was inspired by @Silvia80 Silvia’s Learning Log to add the Werner Classical Guitar method book 1 and video lessons to my practice schedule for my one fun week with non-JG study materials in each month. On days of that week, I am only practicing classical guitar. Even though I already can sight read everything in the book, my classical technique is extremely rusty and weak, so I can use the lesson videos to focus on picking techniques with fingernails. Here is my last post on my practice:
Classical Guitar - Minuet - Hook - Duet - SteveL - 26July2024
- I listened again to all of the grade 3 lessons in the JG app and made a list of all the skills that needed to be worked on during the consolidation that I will do while leaning grade 4 skills.
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Happy 2nd JG’versary, Steve. Lot’s of progress made over the last year. Though, I do wonder whether you’re at risk of spreading your time too much with the variety of projects/styles you’re covering. That’s something I’ve been thinking about lately as I was covering a lot of bases prior to BLIM and now seeing the other side of the fence as I focus predominantly on blues guitar.
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Thanks James. You are probably right about my spreading myself too thin. In the next month or so, I’m focusing on finishing my 10 grade 2 songs. I have a R0DE microphone and DAW and never used for recording myself singing and playing guitar so that is a major goal. I’ll probably start a Grade 2 songs AVOYP post and record separately and then make a recording playing all 10 songs in a set which would be a first for me.
When I finish this project then I will start go through the grade 4 blues lessons.
A quick question - do you record your playing on a phone and record on your DAW and combine the audio and video for your final post?
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Normally I record audio on my laptop in DAW and video on my laptop on OBS and then use DaVinci Resolve to swap the audio. I could just have the output of the DAW going direct to OBS if I spent some time figuring it out. For BLIM I’ve started to now use the katana go plugged into a phone and record directly to the phone.
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James, thanks
I guess I will go down that rabbit hole this month 
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21Aug2024 - I decided last year to use my Justin Guitar anniversary dates as a reminder to change the strings on my guitars whether they need changing or not. When I changed the strings last year I didn’t keep any notes, although I did keep pictures of my string packages in my phone. This year I noticed I had to start over listening to the videos on changing strings and still made some mistakes, so I decided to add an excessive amount of notes in my learning log.
Here are the pictures of the strings I purchased at the local guitar shop:
The pictures are for the classical strings, the strings for the two electric (Fender Strat and Epiphone LP), the strings for the Martin acoustic and the Taylor GS-mini.
SUMMARY:
See the classical guitar notes since that is unique.
For both the electric and the acoustic guitars, all the strings are cut at the 12th fret, after loosening the strings. The string pieces are rolled up for disposal. Then the fretboard is cleaned with lemon oil and left for a few hours to let the lemon oil penetrate the wood and wiped off before continuing.
The electric guitars all have the strings threaded through the bridge from different directions depending n the design.
The acoustic guitars attach the strings to the bridge end of the guitar using bridge pins. Justin’s video tutorial had useful tips for this.
The string attachment method for the head stock tuning pins is the same for the electric and the acoustic guitars based on Justin’s video tutorials.
Here are pictures to remind me:
NOTES:
Classical guitar
The classical guitar has unique ways of attaching the strings to the bridge and the tuning pins in the head of the guitar.
Video tutorial:
How to change strings on a classical guitar with D’Addario
-the D’Addario video recommends changing one string at a time because of no truss rod in a classical guitar
- I looped the string twice at the bridge attachment with the second crossover behind the bridge.
- I tied the string on the tuning poles before winding, by inserting through the tuning peg, pulling back and lopping over the string and inserting between the crossed string before pulling back to the head stock.
Here are some pictures:
Fender Strat
- I had to remove the cover on the back to remove the strings from the bridge.
- Since I already had the small screwdriver in hand, I used this as an opportunity to unscrew the cable plug jack and tighten the attachment nut, which works loose over time.
- I discovered that using the thick 6 string is useful to poke out the stuck balls for the thin strings (Justin also suggested this)
- I rubbed lemon oil on the fretboard and waited a couple of hours before adding the strings.
- I found that it is better (for me) to wait before cutting the strings of the tuning pegs after rewinding, so that you won’t stab yourself with the cut strings while winding on the posts ( I stuck myself in the finger with a 1/2 cm of D string).That also happened because I wasn’t careful and bent the string at a right angle sideways pointing to the next tuning pin.
Epiphone Les Paul Ultra
- I found that you need to add the strings starting with the tuning peg closest to the nut. So strings 6 to 4 and then strings 1 to 3, since the tuning pegs are on opposite sides. Otherwise the strings get in the way
Taylor GS mini
- I discovered out that you can’t put too much pressure on the pin puller if the bridge pin is stuck. I broke off the 6th string bridge pin. I had to use a small hammer to tap from below to loosen and remove the broken end of the bridge pin.
- I had to order a new set of bridge pins from Amazon - I decided to get ebony bridge pins that might be a little stronger to replace the black plastic pins on the GS mini. You can see the Crosby pure ebony bridge pins that I ordered above. They had abalone dots, which I didn’t want, but the dots are not too noticable.
Martin 000-MMV (Guitar Center custom model - like a budget 000-28)
- since I had to order new bridge pins for the Taylor GS-,mini, I also ordered new seat of bone bridge pins for the Martin and used for the restringing. I suspect that it might improve some of the higher frequency harmonics that are resonant with the small amount of string between the bone bridge and the bone bridge pins, but that is just my theory. I saved all of the old bridge pins just in case I break another bridge pin.
Justin has video tutorials on changing guitar strings on electrics and acoustics in the Courses Essential Knowledge : Guitar Maintenance section.
3 Likes
These are good for removing pins. Worth checking out, Steve.
BigRock Innovations Snapz 2.0 Acoustic Guitar Bridge Pin Puller for 6 and 12 String Guitars BigRock Innovations Snapz 2.0 Acoustic Guitar Bridge Pin Puller for 6 and 12 String Guitars : Amazon.co.uk: Musical Instruments & DJ
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Thanks James. I will check it out. I had a special oval rocker type pin puller that I got from the guitar shop, but I think the pin puller in the string winder is less hazardous to the pins, because I don’t have as much leverage.
Hi Steve, I had bookmarked your Log update and finally I’m reading it! 
First of all congratulations on your 2 years JG Anniversary 
isn’t it an adventurous journey? 
I do admire your ability in having memorised the songs and from what I could see in the videos you already have quite a few strumming techniques under your belt…all of the songs in the first link I particularly found Stand by me to be really really good!
I didn’t know you were practicing the electric guitar too…that makes me feel a bit better with myself as sometimes when I feel tired and without energy for playing I happen to think both Classical and Acoustic Guitar is too much for me…then I remember I can daily keep my expectations low and just enjoy the journey.
Well…we need to be more patient than we can imagine we can with that Steve! It’s a neverending process of self-awareness, practicing, learning, playing and improving. What I find for myself is that self-acceptance and really enjoying the daily time with my guitars makes all the difference to me.
But about you: you did a great job on the Minuet…
no it didn’t sound superb, no need to lie, it’s not supposed to! It sounded like going nicely along in time with the teacher’s part: there’s soo much value in this kind of practice! Anything else will come, along the way, by keeping on going!
You’re doing great on Justin’s Course, you’re so well structured…now you made me feel I should be less-indulgent with my strumming progress…but I see no other way…it just takes time and I need to be patient with myself … …yes a smile always fits
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Silvia, thanks for taking the time to look at my learning log and listen to some of my recordings. I have many years of experience playing to support my singing with strumming and open chords, so that is my strength skill-wise, but I had never memorized anything, just played from a lyric/chord sheet. As I said earlier, I did spend a year trying to learn classical guitar back in 1977, when I was single, so I am enjoying the return to a part of my youth. Since I am only practicing classical guitar one week each month, I have no expectations of mastering classical guitar. I am just having fun. The interest in electric guitar started in 1999, when I first heard Stevie Ray Vaughn play Hendrix’s Little Wing. I was completely dumbstruck and mesmerized with shivers down my spine and I immediately went on a quest to find out more, leading to my buying all of SRV music, which led to interest in blues and buying a Fender Strat and practice amp. Thus the G99 in my alias. ( I see that Justin has Little Wing song tutorials in Grade 7). So even though my skill with electric is not too great, it is a big part of my future goals of learning blues guitar.
Of course, Little Wing can stand alone or apart as a great song on any guitar. Look at this YouTube video of Little Wing played on the classical guitar by virtuoso Eric Henderson and even a classical guitarist can appreciate Hendrix:
Jimi Hendrix Little Wing played on Classical guitar - cool
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Rogier, thanks for the nice picture. It is really appropriate if applied to my long, convoluted and sparse guitar journey over the last almost 50 years.
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@roger_holland Rogier, your closing message of “greetings from Holland” reminded me of a treasured item from Holland that I have in a glass cabinet at home. When I was in a college or university choir traveling and performing in Europe in 1977, we spent two days in Amsterdam. I purchased a small blue Delft vase as a gift for my mother since I was told that was a well known hand crafted item and she collected antique and fine porcelain. When my mother passed away a few years ago, that was the keepsake that I took back from her house:
It is only 7.5 inches (14 cm) tall, since that was all I could afford at the time, but I will keep it always because of its sentimental value and it also reminds me of that 3 week choral tour of western Europe. That is why I put this picture here. It makes me happy.
In 1977 we were tourists so we rode the canal tour and rented bikes and rode to the Van Gogh Museum. Unfortunately our time was short and we did not see the surrounding area. Your recent pictures of parks and forests are a window into another side of Holland that I missed, by not traveling outside of Amsterdam, so thank you.
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Hi Steve ,
How wonderful to read and with such memories, such a vase is priceless 
Very occasionally, very very occasionally it is also priceless those old Delft Blue items, but this memories makes it absolutely special and really nice to share 
Thanks
Greetings
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