Hi Steve ,
Happy anniversary
Greetings from Holland 
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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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7Sept2024 - Well, the week of changing guitar strings was followed by a week of taking care of a sick dog with special diet to mix up and guitar practice had to take the back seat. This week when it was time for my week of classical guitar (1 week of classical guitar every 4 weeks), I found that my technique had gotten so rusty that I couldn’t continue. I usually find that I have to take one day to review to get back up to speed after taking a few weeks off from playing the classical guitar, but this was too much time. So I spent an extra day reviewing and went back to the beginning of the Werner Classical Guitar volume 1 method book and played all the exercises from the beginning. Then I practiced the Minuet piece that I recorded last time and continued from there. The method is introducing songs with 2 voices (treble and bass at the same time, like the birthday song in Justin), so it is getting more challenging and I will have to spend more time on this. By the end of the week I was finished with learning all of the first position notes and arrived at the place of learning the Leyenda flamenco style piece. I remembered that this one of the early classical guitar pieces that I leaned back in 1977 when I was single and spending a lot of time learning guitar. I decided to order the updated version of the Solo Guitar Playing book 1 by F.M. Noad (I had used the 2nd edition of 1975 and the new version is 4th edition from 2007) which arrived the next day:
So I finished up the week by practicing that version from the new Noad book. In that book it is just called Spanish Study and is the first song in the book with an online audio clip even though it is at the end of chapter seven and 49 pages into the book. Everything before that you are on your own and have to play by sight reading standard musical notation. Of course you can go to YouTube and find videos of people playing the exercises…
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That is challenging Steve, it has been for me! I think it’s a good idea to have the melody line memorised and really solid into your musical imagination. If you can do that and your i/m alternated picking is well automated it’ll be just a matter of practice to add the bass notes.
To me Leyenda and Malaguenas are the two most challenging pieces in the book! But hey! Great fun to learn…the slowier you go the better…
as usual actually! 
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Silvia, thanks for taking the time to look at my learning log. I got the Noad book for supplemental practice since it doesn’t have any video lessons. There is an interesting addition to the Leyenda piece. The Noad book has the exact notes and fingering, including the 1 2 LH or fretting fingering between the 4th and 5th strings and p m RH fingering. Then the Noad book adds an additional complexity. The A (string 3, fret 2) is fretted with the ring or second finger and held in place while the entire Leyenda is repeated with each bass note played and followed by the fretted A note and the open E first string note in an arpeggiated (p i a RH fingering) triplet for each bass note. In other words, instead of just alternating between bass notes and open E, there is an arpeggiated triplet from the bass note to the fretted A to the open E. Since you can’t use the second finger, the notes must be fretted with the first and third fingers. So 2 and 3 LH fingering is replaced by 1 and 3 fingering and 2 and 1 fingering is replaced by 1 and 3 also. It definitely increases the difficulty of the piece, but that is the version I will try 
to master.
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Go for it Steve, no harm in deviate from the outlined path to pick some flowers 
You analysed it, and this is already a great job, you know what you’re doing, maybe you’ll find out some challenge you hadn’t expected and that will be a good opportunity for growth as well.
The Leyenda in the Method book was already so challenging for me, first my thumb technique was not good, then my mind would easily get lost into all those repeated phrases…and above all speed! But we practice we improve and we learn!
Now…time for you to put a lot of work into it it’ll be challenging but fun 
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12Sept2024 - I am starting the project of learning how to record the 10 songs for grade 2 consolidation. Since grade 2 introduces home recording and I have purchased a Focusrite Scarlett and R0DE NT1 microphone, I want to record the songs with these and not just on a phone.
I finally made the first audio recording of a song with my DAW setup. I decided to start with the song Killing Me Softly which I have recorded before, so I can focus more on the recording process. I typed out the lyrics and again changed the gender references to make it more relevant to me. Also, for this recording I used finger strumming, because this song just BEGS to be strummed with my fingers. I did 3 takes because I did not get the recording setting right in the first 2 takes. I really don’t have a clue as to the best recording settings, so I have to start somewhere. Here is the recording (2 min. 22 sec.):
Killing Me Softly - first audio recording with DAW and NT1 mic
I haven’t done any singing in the last 2 months and I did a couple of vocal things in the song that made me cringe, but I can clean that up with a little more practice. Overall the vocals sound OK and I am focused more on the guitar playing. I haven’t actually played and sang with the original song yet, so that should help too.
I looked at a YouTube tutorial and learning how to edit the recording to remove the 28 seconds at the beginning of the recording where I was starting the DAW, then starting my phone recording, then setting down and getting started.
Since I have a recording I also tried to experiment with reverb, since I have heard it can enhance the recording. I tried 3 reverb settings in GarageBand and found the results interesting, but I’m not sure if any of these are totally acceptable. They are bright smaller tile room, medium room and large garage reverb:
Killing Me Softly - bright small tile bathroom reverb
Killing Me Softly - medium room reverb
Killing Me Softly - darker large garage reverb
Each reverb effect adds something unique to the sound, but more for the guitar than the vocal. I think it makes the vocal sound a little processed. The tiled room seems a little too bright and the large hall or garage seems to have too much revierb, so by the Goldilocks principle I should probably use the medium reverb. When my wife heard the large garage reverb, she laughed and asked whether there was an option to add crowd noises for the live concert effect.
Also, I have a Shure SM-48 dynamic mic and might try to record with both mics in seperate tracks and then I could get a better sound mix, but I am not sure if it is worth the trouble, Just this is hard enough.
I have the iPhone recording, so when I learn how to combine the video and audio I will post the video. I think I can use iMovie on this Mac laptop.
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Hi @SteveL_G99
I’m also starting out in Garageband and found these tutorials on YT. I found them helpful as they take it in steps from plugging in the interface, and the settings in GB through to showing you about recording an actual song. Also introduces amp simulator, the drummer track, and effects. It goes through in a structured format rather than jumping around all over the place, which you may find helpful as I did.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsXJmmXYr9BEWEOE96Hzuzu7sRhiHRHYZ
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@ziggysden Stuart, thanks, I’ll take a look at these tutorials. I had seen a single video introduction to GarageBand in YT to get started, but this looks to be much more detailed.
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Steve
Good performance. Your recording sounds fine: I liked the garage reverb the best of your exprimental environments; I liked the first audio recording best of all. You could probably sing this song slightly higher: maybe try a capo on 1st or 2nd Fret.
Look forward to your next production.
Brian
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Brian, thanks for listening. This is just a test performance. I’ll record again when I learn more about the DAW software. I did raise the capo one fret higher than suggested in the JG beginner 1 book. You can’t tell because I haven’t added the video yet. I should have some more recordings soon.
16Sept2024 - I finished my scheduled Grade 3 practices last week and starting this week I will devote full-time to practicing and recording my 10 song set for Grade 2 consolidation completion. I keep changing some of the 10 songs that I will sing and record, so I need to update my song book. I realize that there is no requirement to sing on the songs, but since I have been a singer all my life, that is just a plus. I am trying to find the best 10 songs that I find are interesting to play and not too hard to sing.
- I need to do a little vocal warm-up and practice each day to get my voice back in shape. I haven’t sung in a choral group since before beginning of COVID.
- I will also do some 1 minute Perfect Chord Changes for the chords that I will use for the songs. This will give me an opportunity to check on the clarity of my chords.
- Since I am recording, this gives me a chance to learn more about GarageBand that I am using with the Focusrite Scarlett for the DAW. A word of thanks to @ziggysden for a link to a rather complete structured course online for learning GarageBand.
I will spend a few days each month practicing with the classical guitar, so I won’t regress during this time. I will also schedule a few days for electric guitar practice, since when I finish the 10 song set for grade 2, I want to play and record 5 performance pieces from the RSL Awards Rockschool Grade 1 (grade 2 of the series) electric guitar grade book. After that I may not do much more with Rockschool. I was just using that for some supplemental electric guitar practice since that is my weak area of guitar playing. I mostly played acoustic all my life. ‘When I finish all of this I can start my grade 4 practice. Then in my week of grade 3 consolidation I can start learning grade 3 rook song from the JG Rock song book.
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Yeah ! Can’t wait to see your version of the JG rock songbook songs
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Hi Steve. What a wonderful journey have you had and keep having with the guitar and the music in general. I was not able to listen every sample of your playing as I would have liked, but I liked what I heard. It reflects both your dedication and your previous musical experience. For the sound engineering samples of your Killing Me Softly recording I liked the medium room reverb. About spreading too thin I would like to say that if you’re seeing progress, then it’s working for you. In my case I’m not having 45 minutes per day available, but that amount of time sometimes per week, so I’ve been lately trying to harvest what’s ripe in the tree y putting some other goals on hold to increase my feeling of achievement. If I manage to put some more guitar time I may spread thin again that is something I enjoy. I think some guitar things work well with putting more time and frequency while others can benefit of just visiting them just enough to gradually improve them.
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@dobleA Hi Andrés, thanks for listening to some of my recordings and following my learning log. I can tell that you have spent several days following the journey that I have taken in my learning log. I find that I am only averaging 30 minutes each day in the early morning in the summer and early fall of the year, while the sunrise is earlier, but I can find 45 minutes in the morning in the winter time when the sunrise is later. I think that the amount of time that is available is not so important as the consistency of finding time each day. With patience and consistency (and fun along the way) we can slowly reach our goals.
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4Oct2024 - I have had my 3 days of classical guitar practice for this month and had the chance to revisit the Flamenco inspired piece in the Werner method called Leyenda. When I learned it from the F. M. Noad Solo Guitar Playing book back in Nov. 1977, it was just called Spanish Study. I have recorded a baseline version of my playing:
Leyenda classical guitar playing - first usable take
I had a second usable recording which started at a faster pace and sounded a little better at the beginning but since I didn’t show my fretting hand I am including both takes. If you don’t need to see my fretting hand you can listen to this version: It is still played a little too tense and heavy handed. I am probably pressing too hard on the 6th string resulting in some buzzing as my stubby fingers sometimes press the strings off the frets or not reach the right position on the fretboard. I am not playing from memory after 2 half weeks of practice over thelast 2 months, but I had fun playing the tune even if you couldn’t tell from my face.
Leyenda classical guitar - second usable take
For a demo of a cool idea I have uploaded a short sound clip of Leyenda played on a Strat through GarageBand with Stadium Distortion. It is a little crude, since I recorded the same day as the classical and my fretting hand keep getting out of position, but it gives me a little vibe of AC/DC meets Blue Oyster Cult. What do you think? This is an idea that has been in my head since I started Leyenda last month. Is this idea worth developing? I need to learn to use GarageBand and add a drum track.
Heavy electric version of Leyenda - a short demo sound clip
I think that it needs a steady heavy pounding of bass drums and bass guitar
FYI - I looked up Leyenda in Wikipedia and found that it is also called Asturias and was used in the Iron Maiden song Mother Russia which I can hear about 30 seconds into the song on YouTube. It was also attributed to by Children of Bodom for the song Angels don’t Kill, but I couldn’t pick it out in the song online. That may be just because I only know the intro to Layenda. I haven’t been a fan of screaming angst metal, since it doesn’t match my personality, but I can appreciate the skill and musicality found in the best of the genre. So I wasn’t familiar with the songs, although I’m familiar with the groups from guitar mags. It would appear that my idea is not original, but I will still use it as a GarageBand exercise.
EDIT: I went back to look at Leyenda in @Silvia80 Silvia’s learning log and realized that I would have known the song was also called Asturias if my 69 year old memory would have been better. I also saw @CATMAN62 mention the use the Leyenda or Astarius theme in the Doors Spanish Caravan. Also I saw that my idea to try the heavy electric version could have been influenced by @nzmetal suggestion to try a metal version of Asturias. I just wanted to make sure that I gave proper credit.
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Nailed Steve, definite improvement over the recordings. I favour the last why ?
Big Irons Fan !!
That Leyenda title caught me out a little as I have always know it as Asturias. Back in the mid 90s when I began the start stop start journey I’d mess with Mother Russia tab, awfully and did not have a clue of its origins back then.
When I first explored finger style a few good years back with Justin I also stepped in the more classical realms for a short while and discovered Marco Crillo and found the video below. I did his 7 day classic fingerstyle course (might have taken closer to 8 weeks to complete) but some beautiful etudes. Must revisit his lessons.
But as soon as I heard Asturias, it was bingo that’s Maiden !! Never quite mastered it !
After all that waffle, better add you are making great progress sir. Keep it coming,
