What a delightful rabbit hole you’ve burrowed into Toby. I’m loving this direction. More please.
Have fun exploring this path, Toby.
I am enjoying more people posting up videos that are very much learning videos rather than whatever we as individuals determine to be “performance level”.
To say “misery loves company” is not quite the right expression, but I do think it is encouraging to see others finding things a challenge … kind of the Community version of the Nitsuj videos.
I wonder what the Reaper and his hourglass touting companion were thinking while they watched you working on this.
As I was watching it reminded me of (another one of) my guitar fantasies viz learning to play Maleguena, after all if it is the first thing that Keef learned …
Look forward to further updates as you keep exploring.
I suspect it was along the lines of "enough already, give it a break!"
Seriously though I only decided to record the Day 1 to 3 exercises, as I had a fairly fluent run of 4 or 5 loops before hand, after starting to work on the 4th Days exercises. I decided to skip Day 2 for later and quit while I was ahead.
Back in my early BC days I would have shied away from a video recording but it would not have been as easy to set up. With the cameras all in situ for OMs and Chapters takes, its now just a matter of firing up OBS. For this I didn’t even think about a decent audio set up as I had not planned to post. So I just swung the condenser round on the desk boom and made sure it was pointing in the general direction of the sound hole.
But then a huge surge of RBS took over, those, what 2 short minutes, took over an hour to get down. One take Wednesday it weren’t. However, I am still happy to put it out there warts and all and it will be useful to make comparisons down the line.
I also think with so many new folk joining the Community, they may see us folk who’ve been around for a few years as some kind of experts 
and maybe feel intimidated, thinking we are all hugely experienced. But hey we all have the same struggles. Its just that we are learning something different.
Guess that is why I always use the term Advanced Beginner over Intermediate, as I am always learning something new and therefore will always be a beginner in that respect.
What Keef says about Maleguene is true and I don’t know if Marco falls into that bracket but I am hoping that learning to switch between chords (even dyads) and melody will hold me in good stead, to take the same approach to Blues Rock fusing rhythm and licks in a Gallagheresque way (not Noel or Liam either!), And when played properly, those exercises all sound lovely, one day I would love to play Cavatina and see this as a doorway to that goal. It ain’t all rock n roll at MMS.
Anyway if it encourages others to share their journey in a similar fashion, that can only be for the good.
Thanks for listening David 
Cheers
Toby
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Thanks Mari, yes its an odd feeling that I did not expect, when I hit the record button MHEW!.
As for requests, well what do you know DITW was already on the list and I have a good lesson to.
But I am happy to take other suggestions. Picking and singing will be the biggest challenge but its one step at a time at the moment.
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Maggie thank you ! It all sounds jolly good and meditative, it just doesn’t feel like it yet ! There will certainly be more and I am hoping once the proficiency steps up, there be a full blown Chapter dedicated to this style.
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Subsequent to making that comment I found a lesson with a simple breakdown of the notes … seems like maybe I can make fantasy a reality.
on all the rest of your reply. Nothing more for me to say (for a change 
)
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Thanks for that link Toby. That looks like a Guitar Challenge to take on, add a little extra spice to the play and sing of songs plus bluesy bending and licks.
Good to hear you again Toby 
. You are too kind, my recordings are not that beautiful 
but happy to see you are still up for the challenge. I really like your videos, they’re showing the truth about the learning process. Some things can be learned relatively fast but some take months or years. Glad about finding another fingerstyle enthusiast on the forum 
.
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Wow that’s a great start Toby! You’re a natural! For real though I’m not just being nice here, your right hand looks and sounds really good. I would suggest not anchoring since you’re having no trouble without it so far, and if you’re heading further down that path some advanced melodies will need you to use your pinky for picking or plucking chords.
Marco is great, but if you’re thinking about buying in to his tuition I’d suggest not to. I bought his courses on Udemy, and I also purchased fingerpicking courses from other places. I ended up not using any of them at all. Two reasons:
- If you’re expecting the same quality of instruction as Justin you’ll be disappointed but I think we’ve all just been spoiled at this point.
- You can learn all this stuff by just learning songs.
Point #2 is especially true if you have a basic understanding of theory (you’re far ahead on this one) and are just mindful of what you are playing. I think I first saw Tommy Emmanuel suggest to just learn songs if you want to learn his thumbpicking technique - start easy and go on to progressively harder songs. This is what I did and I’d do it this way again if I were to start over, but I’d begin learning theory a lot sooner.
Want to learn thumb independence? Pick a song you like that has moving bass lines. Percussive slap? There’s songs for that too! Legato? Hey look, another song! It’s rewarding, it’s fun, you learn a whole lot, and have something to show for it. Etudes are great in very specific cases if you’re having trouble, but in general you can learn pretty much any technique by just learning a song that employs it. This is how I learned everything I know, from basic fingerpicking to two handed tapping.
Also another word of advice - don’t get too hung up on picking patterns. I see a lot of people working towards building a library of patterns and just using them over and over. “Here’s my cover of Dylan’s Don’t Think Twice, I used pattern #49!”. That’s great, it’s the same chord progression but where’s the melody you get from all the hammer-ons and pull-offs? You can’t (and shouldn’t) expect to point to a song and say okay here’s pattern #12 in the verse and then pattern #101 in the chorus with some #33 and #35 in the bridge. Treat picking patterns as finger dexterity exercises or practice concepts or ideas, nothing more. Experiment with following the chords and playing notes that you know will work, can work, and ones that maybe shouldn’t work but do for some reason. Use your ears and feels! 
Oh and with fingerstyle you have a certain degree of freedom to do things as you like. There are some suggestions about hand placement and stuff like that which can make you sound better but that’s about it, feel free to experiment and don’t listen to anyone who says otherwise. Doc Watson for example played everything with just his thumb and index finger and made it look easy, which is just insane. And I don’t need to mention Django Reinhardt and his disfigured fretting hand. As Justin says if it feels and sounds good, it is good.
Also as far as learning fingerpicking songs, here is a really really good website:
https://sixstringfingerpicking.com/songs/
The courses are so-so but Chris is a great teacher when it comes to songs. He’s got a pretty large library by now and everything is sorted by difficulty levels. I’d always be learning a song from his site or YouTube channel while doing Justin’s BC. Highly recommended!
Sorry that got a little wordy but that’s my 2c. Always feel free to PM me for any sort of advice, I haven’t been playing that long but I’m really passionate about fingerstyle and love helping out where I can.
Don’t mind my edit, just doing some tidying up
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Thank you for that Radek. The problem though is that we are own worst critic and will know all of the mistakes we made, where the listener just sits back and enjoys the show or in your case the Romance !
I think like most things with the guitar, slowly slowly catchy monkey applies. There are no quick wins or short cuts. Often the quickest way to learn, is to learn real slow. Get it right and then worry about the speed. Certainly I’ve heard Justin say this many times. So the key to progress is patience.
There are a few pickers out there in the Community, so maybe this will tease them out or encourage others.
Speaking of pickers, I hear Ivan SS7 calling !
Cheers
Toby
Ivan
Whoa ! Thank you for such a comprehensive reply and the encouragement.
No planned purchases yet but I liked Marco’s teaching style breaking down pieces into the composite parts and the adding the layers. At the moment I am just taking in his 7 day mini course as a kind of primer to explorer more in that style of song. But I found some of his Blues lessons very interesting as well. So it gives me an insight into a different style and its always something I’ve liked musically.
But like you say we are just a little spoilt having Justin as teacher for most things.
But the main objective was to learn some fingerstyle songs that I could sing with but I am realistic enough to know that will take time. For example the intro and verse to Broken, which I did for OM5 is has lovely fingerstyle piece, intro verse and trying to learn that (WIP) rekindled my desire. Plus generally messing about in the past with chord progression, as you say no real need for set patterns, you can make things sound good. But some of those patterns do help.
I’ll take a look at the site you mention and thanks for the offer of support.
Cheers
Toby
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An interesting read I finally got around to. What an impressive journey you have been on all these years. I can see your love for the music. Incredible gear you have. Lovely wife. How is she, by the way, if I may ask?
One question: what is the yellow box and the fretjam website you learned about from @stitch? I may be interested in that myself. I’m still at the tail end of the Intermediate Course and also going through the Goals in the Theory Course, in which this sounds it could be very helpful for me also.
Anyway, this was a good read Toby. Ready to hear of more of your musical journey.
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@pkboo3 Pam I’m a big fan of learning the fret board using
intervals. Most internet teachers including Justin teach scales
using dots with finger numbers. The Yellow boxes are scale charts
from fretjam with intervals numbered that I used to help Toby
eat his vegetables 
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Hi Pam
Thank you for that. The yellow boxes date way back when I first started learning about scales.
Stitch posted this as an aid
you should recognise it as the E shape or Pattern 1 Major scale shape we all learn first but shown in intervals and not finger positions, which is more common. What leapt out for me, with the general nudges from @stitch was relative positions, especially relating to the Root, no matter what string. That made all the other scale patterns make sense and easier to understand. Ok you will always need to readjust for the B string but in essence :
So with the Root (anywhere)
2 over 5
3 one down one back from Root
4 always below Root
5 always above Root
6 over 2 , 3 over 6 (3 into 6 = 2)
7 one back from Root
So using that logic, you could quite easily start building the D shape/Pattern 2 Major scale off of the 4th string root (as you have most of it already) that will take you to the Root on the 2nd string and you can build the C shape pattern etc etc. Its the key to the fretboard.
But what clinched it for me, was the 2 I have marked bold. The gateway to chord tones. If you take a 12BB you know it will be the I IV V of the key. So look at the shape of 1 3 and 5, use that same shape to find the chord tones of the 4 and 5. Simples. But that shape allows you to see Major triads ever where - you just adjust for minor chords or any others if you know their formula.
Hope that makes some sense.
Thanks for asking about my good lady. Up and down and unfortunately another bad patch after a reaction to her Covid Booster. Just all shows how low her system is but we carry on. With the added protection, she should be safe to see her specialist in the near future.
Any questions shout up and I’ll try and help. Oooh almost forgot. If what I said above about extending the scales each time you hit a root, you end up with this AND it works for all Keys
The subtle difference between what we cover with CAGED and 5 shapes Fretjam presents 7 positions but within that are the 5 CAGED patterns. Some good theory here.
Cheers
Toby
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Got half way through replying and had to run off !! Thank you @stitch. I have filled in the blanks, including the nut to bridge neck diagram !
Thanks, Toby and stitch. I hope I didn’t take up too much on your feed. This stuff looks deep to me, but I’m going to try and dig in and try and comprehend as much as I can. The fretjam website looks helpful. Thanks for your quick replies. So much appreciate you both.
Sorry your wife has had a bit of a reaction, but hope it helps her in the long run. I’m getting over it myself, but seem to be much better now.
Time for an update as I have revamped my Practice Schedule for the next few months.
Never been a lover of the new PMA and opened a XLS spreadsheet a few weeks after starting with Justin back in 2013. So not sure how it will copy across.
Anyway, as I play catch up with all the news lessons JS has added since the big re-write and just in the early stages of Grade 3, I looked at the Timeboxing lesson and 6 Guitar Areas for Practice and decided I would get organised and use that methodology going forward.
I am in a lucky position, with my circumstances at the moment and can get at least 3 hours practice time, so it made sense to use it wisely. There no SIPs (songs in progress) listed yet, as some will be for future Open Mics, all being well and I prefer to keep them under wraps and some non-Justin material is referenced as well. But posting it here will keep me mindful of staying focused this year now things are a little more settled. So here we go.
So lots to work on but plenty to have fun with, when the knowledge is applied. Simples.
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More power to you, Toby. I get anxious just reading all that 
I accept my lack of structure and devotion to practice has a direct input on my rate of progress. Luckily I am a contented tortoise.
Look forward to hearing how you go and enjoying the fruits of your dedication along the way!
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Oh my goodness Toby. I look at this and all the other posts from people with their practice plans and my heart sinks. I’m so unstructured.
I sit down with my guitar and then I decide what to do today. I do keep in mind Justin’s mantra of “practice what you can’t do, not what you can do”, but that’s about it.
Earlier today it was improv over backing tracks and scales on electric. This afternoon it’s practising the little riff in Imagine. Next I’m going to try some of the ‘open chords up the neck’ lesson that @stitch pointed me to yesterday.
I make it all up as I go along.
However I’m having fun and to me that’s what matters.
Like @DavidP I look forward to hearing and enjoying your future playing (and your banter😉).
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