Hi James @Socio ,
Thanks, and all guitars that sound good and are beautiful … then I have to rob 2 banks first … but I’m afraid I stand out just a little too much
I followed the entire curriculum neatly from A to Z with the theory course after grade 2 or something…but of course I didn’t consolidate anything then,…I wanted to have seen and done everything…so good and so bad (weird pronunciation in english I think)…and now I’m cherry picking…But with that you do have a point about that chaotic path (which I did say that way too in your ll )…
Definitely more than that indeed,…and ,so glad i wrote it now,
otherwise you would have your story even sooner … I wish you a lot of fun, not to forget to say,… have fun with your gift,…I’ll show you mine soon
Hi Brian, @brianlarsen ,
You again
Thanks for you kind words…succes with reading with that other thing…
Yes, the mods made a mistake and so I was the first in this house…but it’s fixed well with Adrian now…
Yes not more than two in the first long time,…and i so understand now why,…but well
Hi Mark, @Notter ,
Thank you for your kind words too,…
That guitar is going to take a while, I really have to go for that, this weekend Thomann will order a tuning pedal, picks and wireless cable system…
About bad Justin, that was not so bad indeed,…Richard made it worse by reminding me of that T5…maybe the guitar shops in a radius of 15 kilometers won’t sell it at all ,
Hi Stefan @SgtColon ,
Thanks,…I had to laugh out loud…And I just hope the expectations don’t get too high for the (short) piece (just justin`s intro piece with Steve, but without Steve )
Greetings,…
Thanks for adding the tip on blues licks 1 at a time. I came back to comment on the acoustasonic though, as I only realized now that this was the one the owner of our local music shop was suggesting I look at when I was there a couple of weeks ago. (His job description is to specifically fan gas though lol.) That was at the end of my visit when I’d already tried several others, so I didn’t try it. If you’re getting one I will be very interested to hear you play. At $1,340 Cdn it’s a lot better price than the Taylor 322CE I did try ($3,100 Cdn).
I explained my situation a little bit and Justin came up with this option…which my wife had already secretly found for me, so a nice confirmation… she told later when she saw that there was a lot of choice from 950 euros tot…a lot more,so look it up yourself …but Justin said he would never buy this himself…better an acoustic and an electric one because you’re sacrificing quality on both sides now,… …I see the Taylor appear from 2095 euros, and they are even lighter (some) than my Ibanez,…
But if then…of course I’ll let you know
Wow, where did the morning go… I sat down to read Rogier’s post on his 1 on 1 lesson. Then I decided to read the entire thread, 62 pages later and a lot of time, I am back here to comment.
The thread is really inciteful, especially as no matter how prepared or aware students are for their lesson, Justin makes them relaxed and then seems to pinpoint key aspects of their playing journey to encourage them and help them improve.
Maybe it does highlight that although the lessons are great having a direct interaction with someone is very helpful. I have found that the comments on my videos even give great pointers of things to look at. I think it also again highlights the benefit that this community plays supporting each other around the lessons and structure, without it, I certainly would be less successful. Thanks to all the people responsible for upkeep of this place and the community for helping.
Rogier, are you saying that you don’t have the ability to picture things in your mind? That is something I have, it is called aphantasia. It is hard for people to understand, but actually more common than I realized. Not being able to visualize create challenges for things like meditation, and I am still trying to figure out if it make learning guitar different than other people experience it.
Great that you enjoyed your lesson and looking forward to seeing and hearing the new guitar.
I knew that 1 or 2 minutes after I realized it…the funny thing is that I can quite clearly remember what color clothes my wife was wearing yesterday or the lumberjack shirt a friend of mine over 30 years ago at a campfire…in bed before going to sleep i easily playing on the fretboard of the guitar and practice certain things in my mind…but i don’t see it…i look to the computer now ,close my eyes …black…???
But no further problem, … there are more wires loose I think in my head…
Again thanks for your reply and think along
Greetings,Rogier
Yes it is very strange, I can remember things quite well, but I can’t picture them in my mind.
People say imagine yourself on a beach, I know what a beach is like, but I don’t have the image in my head of a sandy beach with a palm tree, and a little boat.
Books where people go into detailed descriptions, I find are useless to me because I don’t have that mental picture. They could get a whole novel into 10 pages if they dispensed with the descriptions. , that would save me from having to skimread.
Translating to guitar I have to learn where my fingers go for chord shapes, I memorize the positions on the fretboard. I don’t know whether “normal” people visualize their fingers moving on the fretboard.
We just need to learn in whatever way we can.
Cheers Phil
Hi Phil,
Just one other thing and then i stop talkinh here about this because it is not interesting for others …i think,…At least not the place.
For me, the more people talk about details the better I “see” it (know/understand that)…I live for details, may my much too long story not have made that clear by now,? ,… and i don`t speak at least 10000 words every day,…especially in one-on-one conversations… …
But as said before there are more wires connected differently here…
Greetings …
Edit: 1:30hour later…
I now understand what you mean by describing details in books (and that goes for stories and building things ,I start things and see along the way how and what it will be with craft projects and that sometimes takes strange forms ,…and that aren’t there yet in general)…if it’s not there/exist we don’t see it . …but what I meant if only enough is told about something then I will automatically form an image of what I have seen before and so still know what it should look like…probably that’s why I didn’t find fantasy books nice,…and western books only nice after I’d seen youth films etc etc etc…I hadn’t delved into this at all until this morning,…and a lot of pennies fall into place now … …thanks,…and now I’ll stop for real…
Greetings…
Hi Rogier,
I had fun to read about your experiences with the face to face lesson with Justin, thank you for sharing this with us and for being so unbelievably honest. A lot of people would say: “Oh wow, that was the best time you can imagine, I was prepared to 150%, made no mistakes, got the very best out of it and Justin said, I’m one of the best students ever.”
That touches me really much, what a great saying… and so true. Could have been me…
I guess that, when I was in your position, after all this unrest before and not being a native speaker, I would have been dumb as fish for sure, concerning my abilities to play guitar in front of him.
But I’m sure, even if you haven’t played so much or discussed guitar related stuff it was a great experience to meet the guru, Mr. Nice Guy, and surely did a lot for your motivation. I think, Justin is so much more than a guitar teacher, he seems to be really empathic and idealistic and has an enormous ability to impart knowledge and motivate people. We all can learn from people like him. The world would be a better place, if we had more of them.
So again, thanks for sharing that and I’m already curious what your impression of the Acoustasonic is. A lot of ads for it are popping up.
Have a nice day with lots of playing!
Hi Andrea, @Helen0609
Thanks,…and you made me blush ,…
Often my honesty gets in the way,…but if you talk a lot it is less tiring…and in the end it means that I sleep much better,…and it brings me a lot more ,
And it’s nice that Justin didn’t become a snooty guy because he can play so well and everyone likes him so much (except for some axhxls on you tube,…but for those people not one person in the world is quite good enough in there eyes)…
And there a more like him around us,…only sometimes you have to look very good,…if we take care of the circle directly around us,…well, we often can’t do more ,…
Thanks again,and yes,…let`s play … ,.
Hi Toby, @TheMadman_tobyjenner
Thanks, Fortunately, I was able to get some value from the lesson,…otherwise I would have asked for a do over…
Greetings,…
Hi Guys, have found some time to write a few words about my 1-2-1 session with Justin that I was kindly awarded with by wonderful people from this Community (thank you again)! I am not a great story teller so instead of a lengthy intro I will just jump straight into business
My lesson didn’t go very well originally as Justin… completely forgot about me! Turns out he got himself completely sucked into content creation and sort of got side tracked which had our lesson rescheduled by next couple of weeks. When we have finally synchronised our calendars (and it took a while due to some other commitments me and him had) we finally made it and got to do the lesson after all
My main focus on the lesson was to get some help with my late cover of Slow Dancing in a Burning Room and how to get it better. I first played the whole bit and Justin made some useful comments that helped me (hopefully) improve a bit. Obviously I made LOTS of mistakes while playing live so main focus was on me loosing my rhythm and that if you loose that it becomes a lot less attractive to the listener regardless of how many fancy licks you are going to showcase.
So for about 2 weeks I really took it to heart and I recorded myself quite a lot and played around with a metronome running in the background just to get the rhythm better. As you are aware it is still patchy here and there and will require some further work.
Interestingly Justin wasn’t that impressed with original recording I based my cover on as it had plenty of stuff that were off the main beat and running away from the main rhythm. I haven’t noticed that before, although I listened (and played) it a lot so probably got used to it. I was planning to play this song on one of our Open Mics once but don’t think I will do that now. For once too many inaccuracies in the first places and second the rhythm comment makes sense and this one is definitely all over the place. I found some comfort at least that this is not entirley my fault but recording’s itself
From that we touched on a tone and how to get it as close to the original as possible. Justin clearly knows his stuff and he recommended me all the gear I probably can’t afford in this lifetime ha! But Katana I think gives me some possibilities and gets me to a level that is satisfying to an bedroom amateur such as myself. He did say that this track was played on his recent Workshops in Italy and he had some patches specifically for Katana which he kindly shared with me. I used his clean tone and slightly fiddled with it to make it more like the one from cover I covered, and dirty tone I used the same one as I had before as I thought it will sound overall a bit better (as it wasn’t straight off John Mayer’s performance).
Overall very happy with the lesson and getting to know the process how to build a tone resembling song we want to do. He did share with me a quite valuable advice to listen closely to recording while playing with the knobs on my amp and changing it live until you get the tone as close as you can. Also he recommended me an amp simulator that even Mark Knopfler apparently uses for his recording. I have the name saved somewhere on my desktop which at the moment I am away from so for those interested I can always fill the gap in the future
Last but not least I wanted to ask about the harmonics and how they ring out when playing around 7th fret (wink wink to @TheMadman_tobyjenner ) as I have this issue whenever I practice Can’t Stop song. Justin’s word of advice was to make sure you are trying to mute it either across the whole fret or in two spaces (e.g. fretting hand and strumming hand whenever you can). I did tell Justin off that his Can’t Stop lesson is really bad which he appreciated and said that he really needs to take this one down off the website as this was a song request made by someone he knew so wanted to get it out quickly. He did say that he plans to redo it at some point in the future.
Overall lesson went very quickly and I had much fun while having it. Learnt a lot and hopefully became more aware player now - thanks Justin!
Hi Adrian,
Good to read that it helped you and that you had fun, … and yes, appointments with Justin sometimes go differently than initially (or 2nd) agreed,…although he had very good reasons with me
Greetings,…
Thanks for sharing about this, Phil. I have exactly the same experience, and condition I guess.
I am able to memorise chord shapes, progressions, scale patterns and licks. I can imagine them but not see them in my minds eye. I learn through study and repetition.
Thanks for the write up Adrian. Some interesting tidbits in there for us. Rhythm outweighs fancy licks… he mentions this a lot in early lessons but it’s easy to forget.
The original recording that went off time, was that a John Mayer recording?
Justin said that he doesn’t like this sort of moments where you diverge into little licks that disregard rhythm you held completely. Mostly he meant a moment around 1:38 among some other bits that were happening during the track.
I was planning to put it up at one of our OMs but after this lesson I am inclined to leave it off as I agree it is impossible to play this particular cover rhytmically correct. I still do appreciate lots of technicalities in this track which really helped me improve my technique a bit.
Today, I had my one-to-one session with Justin. We met via Google Meet. I didn’t worry about routing my DAW into it or anything; I just used my mic and camera, as did he. It worked great.
As you might have surmised from watching his videos, Justin is chill, friendly, and loves to talk guitar/music, so, it was a delight. Prior to the meeting, Justin had me send some questions so we had some topics of discussion, and he came prepared to talk about those topics.
I took notes, as did Justin, and he sent me his notes after the meeting. These are the main topics we discussed:
Justin recommends recording yourself at least once per month, even if it’s just setting your phone against something and recording a video, so you can check your form and see how your skills are coming along.
The importance of consistent practice was a through-line. At this point (Coming up on Module 7, consolidation of Grade 1), he says that the biggest failure point is when people stop practicing regularly.
Justin recommended the use of backing tracks, from his app or found online, or “musical stems” found online to practice with, or full recordings when those things are not available.
I have used original recordings, and have played along with the app quite a bit, but I could always do that more. I will focus on trying to find stems for some of the songs I’m working on.
I had mentioned in my pre-meeting e-mail that my favorite genres include Ska-Punk, Pop Punk, Reggae, and other varieties of candy-coated fury. So, Justin went over some things related to that.
Justin pointed out that, while there are exceptions, songs in these genres don’t lend themselves well to a solo vocalist/guitarist; they are usually made up of multiple guitar parts, bass, drums, organ, etc.
Three types of guitar parts in Ska/Reggae include “Chips” (chord strumming, rhythm), “Link”, (usually mirrors the bass guitar, but on guitar), and “Noodles” (I suppose that involves solos, licks, etc.).
Justin went over the “Mini-F” chord with me, which he said comes up in Module 9. He pointed out that we don’t move the Mini-F chord form up and down the fret-board in his course, but, that is a common technique in Ska and Reggae, so, I might want to work on that on my own, if that’s the type of music I want to play.
I had asked about palm-muting in my e-mail. Justin pointed out that in a lot of Ska/Reggae “chips” (the strumming part), it is the fretting hand that is muting things, not the strumming palm. So, we went over how to do that with the Mini-F chord form.
In the “links” guitar part of a Reggae song, Justin states that palm-muting is often used, so he went over that briefly. Apparently, he was in a reggae band for a couple years in his late teens.
Justin pointed out that in a lot of Ska/Reggae, the timing is delayed on many of the parts, almost as if everyone had smoked a lot of reefer. Though, he did make sure to point out that drug use is not a prerequisite, and that plenty of Reggae greats did not, in fact, inhale. It’s a very relaxed style. So, that’s where the playing along with stems or whole recordings helps, to help get the right “time feel.”
We went a bit into use of the DAW to record things like that. He mentioned making sure it is in a low-latency mode. I think I already have mine set-up to be as low-latency as I can, but, I’ll make sure to research that some more.
With that, he pointed out you can go in, play along with a whole track or a stem, but then remove the track/stem and be left with a nice recording of yourself.
He did take a minute to make sure I actually played for him a bit. I strummed a quarter-note strum, then the “old faithful” and progressed through a few of the different chords I know at this point. He thought things looked pretty good. He did recommend working on my posture, which I already knew was a problem of mine in life in general, not just guitar. He also said that there was a near-imperceptible pause in my strum when I am changing chords, something that others probably wouldn’t notice, but that he does, given his long history of guitar teaching. So, he said to just keep practicing my strumming so that it becomes more and more automatic.
We had a few minutes left in our session, so, I told him I had to mention that, as someone who has a advanced/graduate degree in Philosophy, I loved seeing his bust of Marcus Aurelius which shows up in the background of some of his videos. I knew, from some of his content, that he was interested in Stoicism (hence the Aurelius). Turns out that he is actually slowly working on a bachelor’s degree in Philosophy, but, Stoicism and moral philosophy that has direct, practical application is his biggest interest in the field. He isn’t so interested in the really esoteric stuff like Ontology/Metaphysics. We talked a little while about Philosophy, actually, which was pretty delightful. It was like the roles reversed for a bit, since I teach Philosophy part time at a university. Fun times.
So, that pretty much covers it! It was a great time. Justin told me who donated their lesson time to me, but, I don’t know if that forum member wishes to remain anonymous, so, I will just say… thank you! You know who you are! I was, genuinely, shocked to be given this opportunity, and it meant a lot to me.
Grace and Peace,
Todd
“The unexamined life is not worth living.” - Socrates
… then I have to rob 2 banks first … but I’m afraid I stand out just a little too much 
)…
)
…but Justin said he would never buy this himself…better an acoustic and an electric one because you’re sacrificing quality on both sides now,… …I see the Taylor appear from 2095 euros, and they are even lighter (some) than my Ibanez,…
, that would save me from having to skimread. 
. …but what I meant if only enough is told about something then I will automatically form an image of what I have seen before and so still know what it should look like…probably that’s why I didn’t find fantasy books nice,…and western books only nice after I’d seen youth films etc etc etc…I hadn’t delved into this at all until this morning,…and a lot of pennies fall into place now 
,…
,.
I was, genuinely, shocked to be given this opportunity, and it meant a lot to me.