Todd's Learning Log

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21

Hey JK!

I’m all ears; I appreciate your feedback!

It will be a lot easier in the long run if your headstock is slightly raised, or at least parallel to the ground. Often it’s dipping.

I do try to control the guitar with my right arm, but, you’re right, it’s definitely not in the best position. Do you think it would be better if I practiced while standing? I’ve heard people say that the Stratocaster isn’t really meant to be a seated instrument anyway. Or maybe if I got more of a tall stool to sit on? I feel fairly close to the ground and awkward playing while on this desk chair.

Second, your riffs (which I hope you’re still practicing) - work on timing. You should be able to play these repetitively in time. So keep playing them, cycle through them, play the same riff at least 10x in a row. If you want to work on timing play over a backing track (even playing over Justin’s lessons is good). And try to hold the notes longer if you can, particularly the Peter Gunn theme.

That all sounds good to me. I do practice these riffs, whenever I practice, which is 4-5 days per week. I don’t do them ten times though, maybe just a few times each. So, I could definitely increase that! I’ve tried playing the “Sunshine of Your Love” riff along with the song once. So, sounds like I’m on the right track, I just need to bump those numbers up!

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Thank you!

  • Todd
    :guitar: :mountain_biking_man: :ambulance: :books: :stethoscope:
22

Playing standing adds a whole new level of instability, no harm to try it but do try to get it stable sitting down first. Chairs/posture/etc are all personal, so figure out what works for you. But anchoring the guitar is important. Makes it easier to play!

To show the difference with some timestamped videos: here’s you at 7:56, notice the headstock dive and that your right arm is over the back of the guitar, not anchoring the corner? Todd's Guitar Learning Log - Entry 1 (11/1/2022) - YouTube

Check Justin’s forearm anchoring guitar in this one at 4:23 (a lesson you’ve done already): Sunshine Of Your Love Easy Guitar Lesson | Eric Clapton - YouTube. That’s what you should be aiming for.

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23

Hi JK!

Thanks for the detailed response!

That all makes sense. It’s definitely something I’ve struggled with, the position of the guitar. I do wonder if sometimes it has to do with being… obese. Like, it would be easier to hold a guitar properly if my belly were not in the way, but, I know there are plenty of chubby guitar players out there. Anyway, sorry for the stream of consciousness, these are just the things I think about sometimes when playing.

I will check those videos references out, and I will work on keeping that right arm in place better anchoring the guitar!

Thank you for the feedback!

Grace and Peace,
Todd
:guitar: :mountain_biking_man: :ambulance: :books: :stethoscope:

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24

Hey Todd, yeah, there are loads of big guitar players out there, don’t let that hold you back! Look up Kyle Gass from Tenacious D or Frank Black from the Pixies.

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25

Practice Report 2022-11-09:

@jkahn - This evening, during my practice session, I watched the clips you linked, and tried to hold my guitar much like Justin did. I remembered the lesson early on about guitar position, and how the right arm holds it in place, but that clip highlighted it well. Thanks for that! It did help me keep the neck up.

I think I could use a foot rest. My guitar wants to slide down my leg. I noticed Justin’s right knee sits a bit higher while he’s holding the guitar. The closest thing I had was a book (an APA Style Guide for writing research papers), and that helped a little under my foot.

One thing that makes it feel sort of awkward… I don’t know if it’s how I’m holding it or what (I am relatively tall and so have rather long limbs), but, when I really use my arm to hold the guitar like that, I’m strumming pretty high, like starting to be strumming over the highest couple of frets, and that seems weird? I’ll have to post a quick video soon, see what you think.

On a positive note, after going through my regular practice on the app, I then spent some time doing each of the riffs I have so far, many times. I was able to practice them along with the original tracks, except for the Nirvana one which I’m not quite fast enough at yet.

On an even more positive note, and what got me to hop on here, I practice “Three Little Birds” at the end of each practice, as it’s the first song I’m trying to really get into my repertoire. I decided to practice it along with the original track, and that was really helpful. After I shut the computer off, I played it a couple more times through solo. The first time I was able to do the chorus and verse once each, singing and playing, without looking at the songbook. And that was a really good feeling! Then I ran through it a couple more times with the songbook. Definitely feels like I’m improving at it!

:baby_chick::baby_chick::baby_chick:

-Todd

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26

All good stuff Todd making steady progress. Playing along with original tracks really does help but sometimes you might have to slow them down until you can get everything in the groove. As to posture I am sure Justin will set you straight on that when you have your 121. Just enjoy your learning for now.

Cheers

Toby

:sunglasses:

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27

Hi Toby!

Yes! I’m super excited about this lesson with Justin. It truly is a great opportunity, and a total surprise. I want to make sure to absorb as much knowledge as I can!

I just watched the lesson/video on Justin’s 10 steps for singing and playing. I’m going to start with those steps with tomorrow’s practice! I can’t wait to get the song down and post an AVOYP of it.

:vulcan_salute: :slightly_smiling_face:
Live Long and Prosper,
Todd

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28

It’s great to read that you are already working on memorizing songs that use the chords that you have learned so far in the course.

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29

Progress! :wink:. Yep, that lesson on guitar position was super important.

The seating/footrest/strumming position thing. I’m about a year in and I remember it being quite hard to find the “right” spot. Now it’s easier. So that does get easier, but experiment. A footrest might be useful. What I did was have my chair really low, and then prop my right foot on its toes, seemed to have a similar effect. I do something different now.

Some chairs were really hard to play in! And still are. So experiment, see what works for you that allows you to hold the guitar in a fixed position without your fretting hand holding it up. :smiley:

I also used to strum over the neck of my strat when I had just started (although I didn’t realise it). Don’t worry about that one too much for now, you can sort that later - probably during grade 2.

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30

Hi James!

Thanks, man! I’m trying! :rofl: I was actually going to ask, somewhere on here, if anyone had tips on memorizing the chords of a song. Like, is it helpful at all to try to memorize them by just reading them or doing flash cards or something? I found, with this song, it basically just started to stick because I’ve played it so many times now, and listened to the song many times, and counted off the bars of the song many times while listening, and strummed muted strings while listening… and all of that good stuff. Just lots of interaction with the song.

Grace and Peace,
Todd

31

Hi JK,

Thanks, man! You’ve given me a lot of thorough comments, and I really appreciate it.

Regarding the right leg/foot position, I’m sort of propping my foot up on something right now. The one problem came, when practicing my song just now… I started wanting to swing back and forth to the music. :rofl: Look at me, just getting all wild. Then the position sort of went out the door, but, I tried to consciously bring it back and stop swinging about.

Grace and Peace,
Todd

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32

I just posted my first, non-Beginner-Safe-Space AVoYP. :grimacing:

I know there’s plenty to improve on. I’m basically a neonate, in the world of guitar playing, but, in a way, this felt like taking my first steps as a performer. I can now sing and play this song simultaneously, without a backing track or songbook to guide me. (For this performance, I did have the songbook open as a fallback, but I didn’t stay wedded to it. I looked away or even closed my eyes at points when I was really feeling the song.) So, I’m going to proudly post this and go to bed. I am sooo happy to have gotten this far, and look forward to going so much further. I can perform a song! :smile:

Grace and Peace,
Todd
:guitar: :mountain_biking_man: :ambulance: :stethoscope:

“The unexamined life is not worth living.” - Socrates

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33

Hi Todd. To memorize the chords I’ve found useful to first break down the song in sections let’s say Yellow Submarine, than I am working on, is Verse 1, Verse2, Chorus, Verse 3 (like Verse 1), Chorus, Instrumental and voices (like Verse 1), Verse 4 (like Verse 2), Chorus and Coda. When tried to memorize the chords of the full song it, looked an impossible task, but when I wrote the chords for each section on a sheet of paper without the lyrics it was not that bad, each verse has only four chords that repeats in the same order and the chorus has two chords only. You should mark when the chords stay for more than one bar. Some songs are more complicated than others. Once you memorize the chords, practice could be easier. Learning to play a song involves some work, but it is very rewarding when the song starts to sound good.

This lesson of Justin explains a typical song structure. You don’t need to jump into this yet as your focus should be building a sound foundation, but it may help to understand what I wrote above.

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34

For me its simple repetition, just keep playing each song over and over until its engrained. There maybe some “scientific” way but I have personally found churning them out night after night gets them dug deep down in the sub-conscious. :sunglasses:

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35

yup and learning it in chunks i.e. intro, verse, chorus, bridge, outro.

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One bar at a time if needs be !
:sunglasses:

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37

@dobleA

Hi Andrés! Thank you for that! That all makes sense. Some songs can get very complex, so, it makes sense to break them down into digestible chunks.

@TheMadman_tobyjenner

Thanks, Toby! That was pretty much how I got my first one down, just repeatedly listening and playing it. That was a big takeaway for me from JG’s lesson on singing and playing, “listening to music is how we learn it.” Listening to the song repeatedly, then playing it with the recording, really helped me get it down.

@Socio

Thanks, James! :slight_smile:

So, it sounds like everyone is pretty well in agreement. Repetition (both repeated listening and playing), and breaking things in to chunks, especially in longer or complex songs, is the way to go. In other words, practice, practice, practice.

-Todd

“Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.” - Søren Kierkegaard

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38

A couple of interesting happenings of late, regarding my guitar practice, so, I figure I’d place them here in my learning log.

One, I have a friend who is a bassist who would like to jam sometime, after he saw my second “Three Little Birds” performance. I pointed out that I’m completely new at this, and that’s the only song I could play from memory at this point. He replied that he hasn’t picked up a bass in six years, so he probably couldn’t play anything either. :laughing: So, I don’t know what might come of this… will we just sit around his basement looking at our respective guitars and drink a beer? I mean, that’s okay.

I have a friend who wants to do a duet recording, me playing and him singing. I gave him a list of beginner-level songs from Justin’s program that I was confident I could play already. He chose “That’s All Right Mama” by Elvis, which is in the Beginner Songbook, the app, and has a video, so, I’ve got plenty of material to work with here. I can already play it fine with the simple, quarter-note down-strum, but, I’m going to start practicing the boom-chuck pattern that Justin shows later in the video, to give it a more country feel.

So, that’s sorta cool.

-Todd

“Art distills sensation and embodies it with enhanced meaning.” - Miguel de Unamuno

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@SocratesDiedTrolling. Todd, I listened to both of your posts of the song Three Little Birds and think that you are making great progress for the amount of time that you have been practicing. You have inspired me to trying to post some more of my playing.

I saw that you have a Presonus DAW. I haven’t got one yet and that is next on my list to get. Have you used it with your recordings?

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Hi @SteveL_G99!

Thank you so much! And, I’m glad if I can help inspire others to put themselves out there. Especially here. It’s a very friendly, warm community, so, the risk is very low.

Yes! I do use the Presonus AudioBox USB 96, which comes with their software, Studio One 6. I have enjoyed it so far without any real problems. It works well, and all three of my videos were recorded with it. It was a bit hard to figure out at first, but, there are a lot of videos out there explaining things, and that got me through.

Let me know if you get one and have any specific questions!

Best Wishes,
Todd

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