Thank you so much for your feedback. Even though I don’t respond right away, I do think about it often and use it to help me improve the next song I work on, even if its just improving something small. It’s absolutely appreciated.
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Update: Okay, so it’s been 18 days since my last song, 18 days where I’ve made improvements. The latest song I’ve done is Give Peace a Chance by John Lennon. It’s with the A & D chords, of course, but with the strumming I did single base note picking. So I would pick the base note of the chord on 1 and then strum the chord on 2, and I did this for a 1 2 3 4 all down pattern. This song wasn’t super clear on how many bars to do before switching unlike others, but it did dictate I switch on certain words in the song, which was new.
I must say this base note and then the chord strumming was very tricky, especially with singing at the same time and changing chords. Often, I started off each practice session with 20-45 minutes of metronome work. Strumming-wise, it was definitely more advanced than the last two songs I worked.
Now, my recording isn’t perfect. I am open to feedback on it. There are numerous areas that could be improved and I undoubtedly will.
With that in mind, I do feel good about having improved in several areas. 1) I was able to perform with mediocre to decent accuracy a quite difficult strumming technique I wouldn’t have had a prayer of doing even 1 month ago. 2) I felt I sang with more confidence even with mushing up the lyrics (seriously, this song was like rapping!). 3) I did a better job of singing into the camera and feel I was more emotive performance-wise than the last recording.
Nonetheless, the chords weren’t as clear as they could be at certain points. The rhythm took a dip here and there, and I could on and on. However, I’m looking at improvement and getting better. This was fun for me and that’s ultimately what this is about.
This was song 3 of 35. I am excited that I’m only 2 songs away from completing module 1! It’s sort of amazing to me how much better learning just a single song fully can make someone.
Anyway, here is song 3: Give Peace a Chance by John Lennon Cover.
(Pardon the false start 
)
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You will get lots of love from the always supporting Community Mod @Richard_close2u who is famous for encouraging us to “Learn Songs! Learn songs! Learn songs!” for sharing that insight.
It may be initially the songs may not be the songs you aspire to play but as you say, what you learn from learing these songs will lay the foundation.
I think you did really well on your bass note strum playing here. And really impressed to be able to get our the verse lyrics while maintaining your strumming rhythm.
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Thank you, David, always appreciate your feedback.
Update: So this has been a somewhat frustrating past couple of months. I haven’t been able to nail Born in the USA by Bruce Springsteen. I’ve been doing D-U-D-U-D-U with A and D chords, but this strumming pattern makes it very hard to keep a handle on the pick. I can sort of adjust the pick while playing and have, but there are no misses in this strumming pattern, which means less time to adjust, especially when it gets faster. I have slowed down the song and played it to a metronome, but it just seems whenever it’s sped up even a little past a certain point, I struggle to keep adjusting the pick. Later I discovered that I was holding the pick way too tight.
Changing this helped (and improved my ease of strumming in other songs), but it is totally a different experience now trying to adjust my pick while playing with a loose hand. I’m not used to it and it’s been 2 months on this song and I can’t get past it without losing control of the pick where it rotates. And I have watched Justin’s video on this, where he basically says it takes practice and time. I can sing and play Born in the USA at the same time 2/3rds of the way into the song just fine, but so far it’s a hump I haven’t been able to get over.
So, I am moving on from it, and I broke my rules a little bit as well. I learned a new song that doesn’t used A & D that is actually sort of fun to play. This is the 4th song I’ve played and sung and recorded. It’s called Blank Space by Taylor Swift. My rendition isn’t perfect, but I thought it was pretty good for me so far. I did mess up the lyrics a bit.
The chords are:
Verse: C, Am, Fmaj7/C, G | Strum: D-m-D-m-D-m-D-m (m=miss)
Chorus: C, Am, Dm, Fmaj7/C |Strum: All Down 8th notes with accents on beat 2 & 4
Capo on the 5th fret
It was nice to play something that wasn’t A & D chord. I will come back to Born in the USA later after I learn a bunch more songs. I’m starting to think maybe I need more miles (songs) under my belt before I can take on that song fully.
I didn’t do a lot of ear training or voice matching to the chords in this song, not to mention my voice is super deep for it. This was something I did on the side, since I was having so much trouble with Born in the USA
This is the song: Taylor Swift (cover)
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