26Dec2025 - Here is the last of my end-of-year work in progress video progress reports. As you may noticed I have focused on acoustic, even though I had planned to include more electric guitar. When time has been tight, it was easier to pick up the acoustic and practice one of these songs. Hopefully, next year I can master the art of creating videos for electric guitar with decent tone.
The last song I have been practicing is Fast Car. The main acoustic riff carries through most of the song, so I have been trying to get it a little more automatic, but that will take a lot more practice. I have recorded 2 versions - one follows Justin’s video lesson - with the open B to first fret C picked:
The second recording of the Fast Car repeat acoustic riff for the intro and verse, hammers on to play the C of the first C chord. I think that sounds more authentic based on listening to Tracy Chapman’s song:
I’m sure that Justin picked out the individual notes to make it more of a beginner song, just like he did with the Wish You Were Here lesson. Also Justin mentioned in the song lesson that he used a fret fingering that uses the pinkie that is different from the way Tracy Chapman played live. I found that I prefered the Tracy Chapman finger placement of the 2 and 3 fingers for the G chord which allows the 3rd finger to slide to the 7th fret, which you can hear in the original recording of Fast Car. I use the 3rd and 1st fingers for the 2 note chords up the neck. I had only practiced this 1 time this month, the day I recorded, which is why the 2nd video sounds just a little bit cleaner than the first with less buzz in the chord notes. I need to slow this down next year and record several times to review my playing so I can work on a cleaner rhythm riff with better muting.