Great share Roger, glad you enjoyed it and got some value out of the session. 
@brianlarsen I think you could well be correct about this being the first 121 write, since we switched platforms.
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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,…
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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!
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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,…
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It seems you asked a kut and learned about so much more than just a guitar song / technique session @adi_mrok
Cool.
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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.
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Nice write up Adi, appreciate you sharing the experience, great to hear that you took a lot away from it 
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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?
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No he was saying that about the cover I covered, see link here: Slow Dancing In A Burning Room (Live in LA) - John Mayer - by Jamie Harrison (Lesson In Description) - YouTube
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.
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Hello, All!
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
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A great write up Todd, and it sounds like you got loads out of it.
A note on latency: latency matters when you are doing any sort of “round-trip” from the input to the output. For instance, if you are recording guitar, into the DAW, applying effects in the DAW, and then monitoring the effected guitar on speakers or headphones.
In that case, any latency between you playing the strings and hearing the sound needs to be minimised or it can become off-putting.
But, if you are only using the DAW for recording, and not for adding effects or monitoring, the latency does not matter one bit.
This can result in latency between recorded tracks if you are recording track at a time, but most DAWs these days have latency compensation which, basically, automatically slides the tracks back into alignment with each other.
In fact it’s normally recommended, in this case, to increase the buffer size on the input as this will reduce the load on the computer and reduce the potential for drop-outs. This will increase the latency but, as I said, it doesn’t matter.
When I record I regularly have latency of 20ms or more. For monitoring, that would be pretty horrible, but for recording it’s completely fine.
Cheers,
Keith
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Hey Keith!
Thanks for that. I tried to make the write-up as detailed as I could, really, because some people might want to know something, so, I don’t want to leave it out.
That’s a very good point, that getting latency as low as possible might involve some trade-offs. I’m pretty novice at the whole AI/DAW situation, so, that’s helpful. I did fiddle around with the settings when I first set it all up, basically tried to get the latency as low as I could, but, now I just open that template over again each time and practice playing. I don’t have it open right now, but, I’ll definitely mess with it some more in the future!
Best Wishes,
Todd
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Hi Todd,
Good to read that you have benefited so much from it,… have fun processing and applying it further
Greetings,…
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Thanks for the write up Todd. Sounds like a great lesson.
That there is why I end up playing so much acoustic folk stuff whereas I listen to a lot of rock.
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Oh yeah, that makes sense for sure. I mean, while I have my own tastes in music for listening, I am usually willing to listen to anything. Also, I’ve been trying basically every song that goes along with each module, no matter the genre. I don’t mind playing any of them. Plus… have you ever seen Reel Big Fish’s “Masters of All Musical Styles” bit? That seems to me to be the ultimate goal, to be able to play a bit of everything.
In case anybody is wondering, here’s the bit. I mean, it’s a funny bit, but it is genuinely one of the things that contributed towards me wanting to learn guitar: Reel Big Fish - “SR” (Masters of all Musical Styles version) Live! (Pro Filmed) - YouTube
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Just went and watched the Reel Big Fish video. Pretty cool. I’m in the same boat with wanting to be able to play a bit of everything.
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Yeah, they’re one of my favorite bands; when I say that I’m into Ska-Punk, they are one of my prime examples. They are also one of the sillier bands in that scene. I actually had tickets to see them back in Spring 2020… when everything closed due to the pandemic. Hopefully they go on tour again.
They’ve been around for almost 30 years, I think. It’s mainly the lead singer/guitarist who has kept it together. I think every other part has slowly been replaced. It’s like the Ship of Theseus.
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Thanks form the write up but wondering how you got the 1-2-1. Did you win something? If so well done but must have missed that.
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Good question, as Justin says in one of his videos that he doesn’t do many one-on-one lessons anymore. So it was not something I ever expected!
In my case, it was another forum member who had won it! They had a couple of sessions left, and they decided to donate one to me. (I asked Justin how this happened, and that’s what he told me.)
Here is the forum post where Justin informed me of this: Beginner's safe space - #382 by JustinGuitar
Todd really cool summary thanks for sharing! Heaps to learn from and hopefully will make your guitar journey even more enjoyable
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