10May2026 - I have spent a couple of weeks practicing the finger style for Landslide and decided to record a first version playing along with the song to get a first look at what I need to focus on for progress. This is the first time that I have tried to play along with the original song and found that I need to slow down the YouTube version to 85% speed to feel comfortable. I found out right away that I need to get more comfortable with the song structure. It didn’t help that the songbook left out a line of the chord progression between the second verse and the chorus, but the tab has the correction. I had practiced by playing the 2 verses and the chorus from the Vintage Songbook and just the simple fingerstyle pattern with no embellishments. I was mostly playing the progression from memory, so when I hit a wrong chord, It took a couple of chords to get back on track. I need to slow down the song and get all the chords and the song structure locked into memory before I record again. Anyway I was pleased with my finger style on the first version, but fatigue started in after the first version [EDIT: I meant to say verse, but the previous 2 unrecorded versions or takes probably contributed more to the fatigue], so I need to put in more practice to increase my endurance
I did a little improvising with playing at the end to close out the song, so I decided to softly finger-roll the chords and finish with the root G.
Oh, I also kept thinking that another verse followed the solo, instead of the chorus, so again, I need to learn the song
Your accompaniment is pretty good, the odd fluff here and there despite which you keep playing. The vocal is not so audible: you could look at changing the mic position. For ‘work in progress’ this is very good.
@Silvia80 Silvia, thank you for listening to my progress recording. I appreciate your kind and encouraging words. I will continue to have fun, practice and learn. Even if I don’t get much better, I will gain a deeper understanding of the music and increase my enjoyment
@beejay56 Brian, thanks for taking the time to listen to my progress report recording. And providing feedback. I didn’t use a microphone, except for the microphone in my phone. The vocals and music from the song were coming from the speaker in my tablet. Notice that I leaned in at first to increase the volume I still don’t have much experience playing along to the original songs and i had trouble hearing the song playing on my tablet, so I can see why people use earphones. I think when I do the final recording, I will try to use microphone and DAW and put everything on seperate tracks, so I can level the volumes.
I posted two covers of California Dreaming to the AVOYP section, with both strumming with a pick and then with finger strumming., both while singing. This is an update to an earlier AVOYP that was just the intro and a transcription of the flute solo, that should have been in my learning log and posted when I was more of a beginner in the community. California Dreamin - Intro and solo - SteveL Apr2023 - UPDATED Dec2025 with covers - #10 by SteveL_G99
In the six months of structured practice, I finished up the rest of the the grade 4 lessons and the Intermediate Method book foundation stage 2 practice elements. I decided to use my one week of classical to learn to sight-read the classical pieces Justin put in the Intermediate book. I posted the results of the sight reading on Feb. 7 and 8. Steve L’s Learning Log - #290 by SteveL_G99Steve L’s Learning Log - #291 by SteveL_G99
I completed going through the Belwin (now Alfred) Guitar Method 2 books and the Belwin (Alfred) Rock Shop 2 bonks.
I have mostly completed the TruFire Blues Method 1 and Rock Method 1 courses.
I am halfway going through the lessons in the university level Beginning Guitar course by the Great Courses company. It is more classical guitar technique and scales and theory, but it has some interesting supplementary material, but it doesn’t have lessons for any any modern songs.
I have listened to the introductory demos for all the intermediate (grades 4, 5 and 6) song lessons on the JG website and create a spreadsheet of preliminary notes for all the song, identifying song that might be easier for me to learn or songs on my must learn list.
I’ve made a lot of slow progress in four years, but then I only average 30 minutes of practice at the beginning of each day and another 30 minutes of listening to music or lessons or other things like participating in the JG community. Other members of the community who practice an hour or more a day could accomplish this in 2 years or less. But I’m happy with where I am, since I m finally advancing beyond any level that I have reached in the last 50 years. I now feel comfortable think of myself as a beginning intermediate guitar player. I am looking forward to participation in the BLIM starting in 2027.
12July2026 - I had practiced Dust in the Wind for 2 weeks back in 2025 following Richard’s finger-style lesson in the Vintage Club and recorded my playing the intro and the first verse in Dec. 2025. I recently spent another 2 weeks practicing and even reviewed some of Richard’s lesson focusing on the proper chords and fingering. This time I tried to listen to the original song in YouTube and realized that I couldn’t do some of the trickier chord changes quickly enough playing at 50% speed, so I have made another progress recording without the backing of the original song. I had a cut on my index finger and had a plastic bandage on the tip of that finger, so it caused unwanted string muting a couple of times. I really flamed out in the bridge with the Am barre fragment at the 7th and 5th fret. I believe I detected a sigh of dread and anticipation just prior to the bridge I’ll need to do some Perfect Fast Chord change excercises between the G chord and the exotic Am chord fragment up the neck. Here is my progress video warts and all:
At least I did a better Am to D/F# transition and played the Am/G with my pinky. I also recorded the entire song with intro, all 3 verses and instrumental bridge section and outro, even if some of it needs a lot of work. That’s why I do these recordings, it really shines a light on my weakness and where and what I need to focus on in practice. One of my weaknesses is my short crooked pinky. I finally realized I needed to place my pinky first and then form the rest of the C chord shape for the Cadd9 chord, because sometimes my pinky caught on my ring finger. It is interesting that the image YouTube randomly selected for the opening image shows my stubby crooked pinky playing the D/F# chord. Also my chording is not as fluent because I have been focusing on grade 4 blues techniques of scales and riffs. That is why I am playing a little slower than in the video that I recorded in Dec. 2025. I’ll get a little better as I focus on songs in the next few months.
A bonus is one of our dogs photobombing the video at the 2 minute point
15July2026 - I am finishing up my review and consolidation of the Grade 3 lessons this week with finishing the transcription lessons. I was so excited to find that I can actually transcribe riffs that I have listened to over the years. I started the week by transcribing Day Tripper riff, but that was Jon challenge since I havd already learned and played in the past.
I transcribed the riff from Beat It today and was surprised how easy it was for me. I wasn’t able to export the mp3 or mp4 audio file from my iTunes list, so I just listened to the beginning of the song on my phone and wrote out the TAB one or two notes at a time with multiple playing of the beginning riff. What really struck me was that the riff was not that hard to play when I finished transcribing. I recorded a video on my phone and extracted the audio so that I won’t temp others to cheat before doing the transcription
I don’t think that it is revealing too much to say that the key was determining the first note of the riff, since that is usually true in general, but in this case it suggested something you need to do to the guitar and locates the position on the neck.
I just recorded the rhythm riff sequence that repeats throughout the song. I made no attempt to find the right tone for the song. I just played my Mex. Strat on bridge pickup through the single playable default (2nd track) on my Positive Grid Spark GO, which is probably more suitable for rockabilly Also, this is the first time that I have played using a new Jim Dunlop Big Stubby 1.0 mm pick.
I thought it sounded pretty recognizable and mostly accurate, considering that I only spent 30 minutes total time on transcribing and recording the riff.
17July2026 - Today I transcribed the main riff for Crazy Train. Again, once I listened to the song on my phone and found the first note, the rest of the riff was easy for me. In fact, I had heard this so much before (there is a brass band arrangement of this song that our local university pep band plays at every game ) that I was able to transcribe to TAB from my memory of the riff. I recorded my playing the riff with the same setup as last time, except I used the 3rd default tone in my Spark GO. I don’t use that tone as much since it has so much reverb. Here is the short audio clip of the riff:
You can hear the reverb when I stop playing, but surprisingly it doesn’t seem to be too obvious while I am playing. I think because I have been a singer all of my life (since 5 years old) I have an easy time memorizing melodic riffs without extra harmonizing notes. Transcribing does make it easier to play, since I had never tried to play this riff until today and recorded the riff after 10 minutes of practice.
Later I will work to get better tone, but this shows the transcription of the riff.
I also transcribed Do I Wanna Know - Arctic Monkeys, to finish transcribing the 5 song riffs for Module 22 to end grade 3 lessons. This turned out to be the longest riff to transcribe and i had to listen to the song in YouTube at 80% speed to pick up on a few of the nuances like the hammer on at the beginning. I didn’t have time to record this one, so maybe later.
The notes are OK and the rhythm is close, but I rushed the riff a little since I didn’t play along with the drum track. I didn’t leave enough space between the different parts of the riff. Maybe at some time I will get better at GarageBand and redo this with a drum track. Also the tone is a little more twangy than it should be, since I am recording from my iPhone and picking up the sound of the guitar strings. On second thought it is also probably due to picking closer to the bridge than usual. I am mostly an acoustical guitarist that is dabbling in the electric guitar, so I am still pretty much a tone noob
13Aug2026 - I had planned on consolidation of the grade 4 studies and practicing and recording some new grade 3 songs and then start the BlIM in January 2027. Now the BLIM class 5 will start in September so I am quickly finishing up my grade 4 blues studies and making a recording to show my current level of progress.
First I recorded the Pattern 2 (A) minor pentatonic. This has a 4th string root that I locate initially from the 6th string root by octaves shape 4.
Here is my playing the A minor pentatonic scale at 80, 100 and 120 bpm:
Next I recorded all the pattern 2 blues licks. I repeated the first 2 licks 3 times, but I got tired of recording and only did one repetition of licks 3, 4 and 5:
I also practice the Major scale closed pattern 2, which is A major scale this time and is the D shape pattern:
I am not quite as proficient in playing the pattern 2 major scale so I recorded separately and spliced together in iMovie. Also I am not using alternate picking for this.
This still needs some work.
I practiced the Steady Thumb Blues Primer for an additional 2 weeks beyond the practice that was done in the 6 weeks of grade 4 practice in the first 6 months of 2026 (one week of grade 4 practice each month)
I cheated when playing the B7 section and fretted the individual notes father than use the barre as suggested by Justin:
Then next week I decided to re-record the Steady Thumb Blues Primer and use the barre since in looking ahead seemed to be useful in the full version of the song:
Finally I have started to learn the Steady Thumb Blues. I am finding this to be relatively easy after learning and memorized the Primer. I recorded the first 4 bar phrase after 3 days of practice and it already sounds halfway decent:
You’re putting the work in Steve, and it’s showing.
You’ll be primed when you tackle the BLIM course in September.
Buckle Up!, and all the best with the course.
Hi Steve ,
Nice you are showing all this progress
The Steady Blues is going beter and beter
For the licks, I just want to say that I don’t see one right movement from your wrist, it’s not rotating around a pivot point up from the index finger/knuckle but you’re pushing the strings up with all the vingers… check the bend lessons .
Hi Rogier, thanks for looking at my videos and commenting on my pattern 2 blues licks video. I will definately need to work on note bending mechanics when I take the BLIM class . I think that my wrist movement would show up more if I angled my ring finger to create more of a pivot instead of being so parallel to the frets. All of the full bends in theses licks were done with my ring finger at the 10th fret. You can tell by looking at the movement of my ring relative to the neck of the guitar. My index finger was just resting on the string and assisting for those bends. I do need to work on the 1/4 bend with the index finger. I looked at the string bending for blues video again since I hadn’t looked at it since last year. Justin did say that you should use one or more fingers to assist the ring finger bend at the beginning.
Thanks to you prompting me to look at the string bending video again I learned something else that makes it harder to duplicate Justin’s bending mechanics using his video… I can’t bend my fingers at the large knuckle so that my fingers are 90 degrees with respect to my palm if my fingers are straight. I have to curl my fingers a little to do that. That is probably why I also have trouble forming barre chords with my wrist straight. Here is a composite of the pictures I used to make this discovery:
If you have gotten this far in reading my post, then you deserve a picture in your honor I am posting a picture I took in my front yard last month as a way to honor your role as a hardworking and busy bee in the community and inspired by the many pictures you have in your leaning log
I’ll need to do some Perfect Fast Chord change excercises between the G chord and the exotic Am chord fragment up the neck. Here is my progress video warts and all:
