Superskuj Learning Log (and random things)

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Hello!

Intro :wave:

Hello!
I posted an intro thread a few weeks ago, with the intention of starting up one of these threads, and here it is!

I’ve been following through Justin’s course from the start again, in order to try to identify gaps in my knowledge/skills and make sure I’m solid on the fundamentals. I’ve been taking notes as I go, but I haven’t gotten too far yet. I’d like to record some “skill tests” along the way to be sure I’m ready to move on (I’m not sure exactly what those will be but I will figure that out).

One of the things I want to complete before moving on to more intermediate stages is a repertoire list! I’d like to have a list of 10 songs I feel confident and enjoy playing all the way through. Possibly with vocals but I won’t make that a requirement!

Links :link:

Youtube Channel - Only a few public videos so far but there will be more!

Covers

These aren’t flawless playthroughs, but they’re not really meant to be perfect, just indicators of where I realistically am skillwise. I like playing through mistakes (or trying to!) with consistent timekeeping through “recovery” to be the goal (still working on that lol).

I know You Rider (Grateful Dead) - Youtube
Monkey and the Engineer (Grateful Dead) - Youtube

Original Song WIP aka FirstSong

I wanted to make this its own section to talk about this “project” a little. As I noodle I sometimes make up chord progressions, and I like to practice layering with the looper a lot. Eventually I had enough “pieces” to put together to make a song! No idea where this will go but it’s an on and off project for quite a while now =]

FirstSong01 - Youtube - A little more effect driven than the others (I just got a new effects toy to play with hehe). This one has no video of me playing but it’s just rhythm, bass and lead. This one has words on screen to show how I have the song roughly laid out.
FirstSong02 - Youtube - This was just meant to be a recording test to see if I could make a video like this! Turns out it sounded pretty good (to me anyway).
FirstSong03 - Youtube - What a difference a tempo makes! That was the experiment here, to slow it down noticeably. I was happy with how I executed the rhythm guitar, but I had a hard time getting the lead into the groove. There’s a few good parts though, and I think the bass part is pretty good (at least for someone who doesn’t know anything about bass!)

Not sure what else :stuck_out_tongue:

That’s all for now! I anticipate I will still be too busy to be very active, but I will pop in when I can, and continue my learning journey!

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@superskuj Welcome to the Learning Logs. Documenting your progress will be useful to you, if only to see how far you’ve come a month or a year from now. It’s a pretty friendly place here so hopefully we will see you around from time to time :grinning: Good luck with your playing.

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Well I had some time to play today, so this is what I’ve been working on for the last few hours:

I’m learning to play and sing at the same time, but I’m also learning how to sing as its own skill, so I felt it was important to practice it independently. One of my favorite things to experiment with is layering (which is why I love the looper so much) so I decided to try some very simple tracks with other instruments and see how they sound together, while also focusing on the vocal practice. I think it sounds pretty good! Not perfect of course, but each track was basically done in one take and they are all fairly improvised.

The other thing I’m working on is designing practice routines. I want to focus on guitar, but also do dedicated practice with other instruments, so I’m working on short practice sessions that I can do at random times or even group together. For example, a 15-20 minute rhythm guitar session, could be combined with 15-20 minutes of lead practice, or a drum/keyboard/banjo session. Or they could be done individually and not require a huge time block at any given time of day. I will try it and see how it goes :stuck_out_tongue:

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Welcome to the world of Learning Logs, Timothy. I agree with @ziggysden that they can be really useful.

What a great video :grinning: May I ask which instrument you recorded first? Are you listening to yourself (other tracks you recorded earlier) or to a chosen original version?

Reg. Practice routines. I’m facing a somewhat similar problem, even when it’s just guitar and singing in my case. Four weeks of summer vacation ahead (which is a luxury problem of course), but I also have been thinking how I could organize my individual building blocks best? Maybe have something that is always fixed for one week and add on two or three optional blocks that can be juggled around?

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Guitar first, then keys, drums, vocals. I’m listening to myself, only a monitor of the current track and the previous tracks (if there are any). I don’t really need the headphones for the first track (in some previous videos I wasn’t wearing any) but I was trying a different microphone so I wanted to hear the output from the recording system more. You can actually see the mic leaning up against the amp in the guitar video (not sure if that’s smart lol but it worked).

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Thanks. Yes, I thought that it would have been either guitar or percussion first :slightly_smiling_face:

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I would like to try drums first, but I need to have a more well planned/practiced composition, and I would probably need to use a metronome. That would create a good rhythm track to practice playing guitar over, which is something I would like to practice. That’s an experiment I have planned, but I need to practice and learn more about drums first I think. The guitar is really the only instrument I have the confidence/competence to play all the way through a song on its own, the others I only know some very basic things so I was just trying to “embellish” the guitar.

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Sounds like a super interesting experiment :slightly_smiling_face: Very beautiful guitar btw. What is it?

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It’s an ESP LTD EC-256, I like it a lot!

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Another Grateful Dead cover… I don’t intend to only learn Grateful Dead songs lol, but they are the ones I know best and love the most! This is one of my favorites, Brokedown Palace. I tried singing it a few different ways, and I really enjoyed singing in the low range here. I had little voice left when I recorded this, and it’s hard to project in that range anyway, so it’s quiet, but I think I really like the sound of it. I think the guitar playing is solid as well. I may try to record some other tracks with this one, maybe another guitar part or even another vocal track. Who knows! :stuck_out_tongue:

My repertoire expands a little… One thing I note here is that I don’t play this one with the rhythm shuffle. This is because I don’t really know how! That’s something I ought to know, so it goes on the practice list. I’d like that to be a skill included in songs that I can play, as well as “irregular” time signatures. There are some good Grateful Dead songs featuring both of those to learn with (including this song hehe) so hopefully I will have that to show in the future =]

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Practiced Brokedown Palace more the last couple weeks, tried recording it again yesterday.

This time I tried three parts (and a fourth one that didn’t make the cut), and also you can see the solo recording at the end (starting at about 4:20)

First thing I noticed was that the tempo is pretty inconsistent, though the rhythm isn’t bad. I noticed that right away because I was trying to slow it down, but it speeds up a little for some reason hehe. Vocals are getting better, still having a hard time staying in key with this one but I’d say this one is more good than bad. Overall I like it and I feel like I’m definitely improving in certain areas!

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Made some progress going through the beginner course again, I found some areas which I need to learn/practice in all grades.

In grade 1 the main thing was a reminder to practice with a metronome (I always benefit from it but don’t do it enough), practicing strumming in 6:8 time, and I’d like to review the ear training and music theory grade 1 lessons.

For grade 2 it’s a bit longer of a list:

  • Memorizing notes on the fretboard
  • Reinforcing alternate picking with scales practice
  • Power chords (don’t use them at all :o)
  • Open 7th chords (and open chords in general)
  • Shuffle rhythm
  • 12 bar blues and 12 bar shuffle riff
  • Slash chords

Looking at grade 3 I’d say I need to learn most of it! I will probably start at the beginning of that grade and go through it all.

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Well it’s been a while since I’ve posted but I’d like to give an update. I have actually been practicing again! I haven’t been able to make it into a daily routine, but I’ve been able to do a proper practice session at least 3-4 days a week for a couple months now. I’m dividing my practice between a few instruments so I may be hindering my progress on any individual one, but I still feel like I’m gaining something from it.

I don’t have anything very new to share but I’ve done a couple random jams in the meantime, this random jam in B major is built from some chord progressions of a song I’m working on. I really wanted to get the guiro in a jam lol, and I really like the sound of it:

I just now realized that I didn’t sync the guiro video correctly. The audio starts two beats early, it clearly looks a little off but I didn’t notice until now lol!

I’ve also gone back to work on the one titled “FirstSong” which now has the tentative title of “In for the Ride”. For the most part I only spend much time on the chord progressions and strumming patterns, and make everything else up on the spot, but I’m trying to “write” more so I’ve started an endeavor to that end with this project! Essentially I’m taking my favorite parts from the improvised bass lines and solos and transcribing them to sheet music, and I will try to arrange a more complete piece of music that way. I think this will help me develop skill in writing and reading music, while also working on this song. So far I’ve only gotten 4 bars transcribed, and it took over an hour! I originally drew each note one size too small (4ths were 8ths and 8ths were 16ths) but luckily I used pencil so I could fix it lol. I also wrote all the notes one position too high, I guess since I was thinking of the other song in B Major. Clearly I still have a lot of learning to do :stuck_out_tongue:

Hand written:

20241109_141657
20241109_141657737×474 86.8 KB

In the computer software:
MuseScore4_KKwtYZLPMu

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Timothy

Very pleasant piece and an excellent combination of instruments and tracks. Your guitar work throughout was clean. Well played.

Brian