10 July review
Another week passed with some successes. The first one is gear related. Due to me not wanting to upset my wife or the neighbours, I practice using headphones. These are plugged into my Focusrite audio interface. Unfortunately, I have nearly pulled the interface off the desk top a couple of times when I move around with the headset on. Something had to be done about this, so I bought a cheap Musicians Wireless ‘air bridge’ designed to allow the musician to move around and still use headphones in a similar way they do on stage.
This was only a budget set but they work very well. There is a bit of hiss when not playing but that disappears when playing and there is no noticeable latency. The only problem I have found with them is that if I also use my budget wireless guitar transmitter it there can be short drop outs when the two seem to get confused, so I just use the normal guitar lead and all is OK.
Still practicing module 10 and the Hammer on fingering is coming along well as well as the F chord. The La Bamba rift is still a long way from being good! On the whole I am please with the way it is going. I am finding that structured practicing is still hard to get back to after a few weeks away from it, but it is getting there.
Loved watching your videos and seeing your progress. Looks like you are doing great. I am also hanging in module 10 at present and am considering moving ahead to 11. I just have to make the decision and do it.
Not a lot to talk about at the moment as the guitar has taken a back seat over the last week due to me doing my other passion, visiting air shows and photography. Back now and having to really put some practice in this week as I will be doing two songs with my guitar mate on Saturday at a get together in front of a group of people who I only know half of. To make it more interesting, I am not just joining in with him, but also his mate who is the rhythm half of his band. This could go SO WRONG!
Wow I am about to start week 28 of my guitar journey. Never in a million years did I expect to get this far. I have just done my 2nd appearance with Clint at his birthday party in front of 120 guests, many of whom I didn’t know. The half hour leading up to the ‘performance’ was full of nervous tension, but the minute I got up to walk to the stage, it all went, and I had the time of my life. I did say at the beginning that I would do the 2 appearances that Clint asked for, as he got me into playing the guitar, and then I would just play for my own enjoyment. However, I must confess if he asks again I will definitely not say no.
Watching the video back in the cold light of day, I can see that I was getting too much into the zone and bouncing around like a demented puppet. I will have to learn to tone that down a bit.
Well it’s back to practicing and learning now to improve my playing. I have decided to move onto module 11 as the F chord, although rings out OK is still holding me back on speed of change to it from other chords. I will just keep practicing this as part of my practice regime.
Module 11 involves sus chords and fingerstyle. I have watched the sus chords lesson and decided to come back to them, as when I watched the finger style lesson it was a revelation. Who would have thought you could do that on an electric guitar! I have got half of Happy Birthday down and I am hooked. I then heard some finger playing on electric guitar on the AVOYP section of Justin Guitar and boy do I want to play like that. I found that my new strat has too low an action to play finger style well, but the original guitar the Clint gave me has a lot higher action so that works really well for that type of playing. Just wait, soon I will be putting up a video of me doing finger style. Well when I say soon I mean in a couple of moths or so
Really enjoying this journey. Onwards and upwards.
I love the typo Tony at least I assume you meant ‘definitely’ not ‘defiantly’
I suggest retain that. Feeling the music and bouncing around is a good thing in my book. Stiff as a statue concentrating intensely, I’d say tone that down.
Re the bouncing around, I will try to tone it down a little, but it will be impossible to loose. When I love the music, I find it very hard to sit still. The only time it will be cool, calm and collected will be when I am concentrating on a solo, which is still a little way off yet.
Well it has been a few weeks since a review as, to be honest I don’t feel that a lot has happened. There have been no new songs mastered, I find sus chords difficult, so it is just practice, practice. The sus chords are do-able on their own, but trying to tie them into the upstroke when strumming is impossible! I am enjoying learning Happy Birthday finger style and that is starting to come together. La Bamba is slowly getting there and I am now incorporating (or trying to) the 2 string plucking in that rift. House of the Rising sun (Am, C, D Dm, E and F chords) is now at 60% speed with few errors and Old Time Rock and Roll C,D & G chords) is up to 80% speed.
I have started playing at transcription to get my ear to recognise notes and where they are on the fretboard as well as getting used to using Guitar Pro. I do this once a week in theory for 30 minutes, but it usually goes on a lot longer than that before I realise it I enjoy this and again look forward to the lessons on how to do it properly.
So there you have it, a temporary halt on improvement, but slowly getting there. I suppose the frustration is that I want to finish the current module and the next one, so that I can get on to learning to play the Blues as that sems to be one of the foundations of Rock and Roll.
It has been a busy 2 weeks since the last update. No real practice as such as I had to prepare for another appearance at my friends 90th birthday party. Things did not go well in the run up to the party. Clint gave me the chords to learn to do the backing of Apache. They were Am C D Dm F and G. Now I can play all these chords, but do you think I could get them to change accurately and up to speed? NO WAY!
In the end, 3 days before the party, I emailed him and told him that Apache was not on. He said that was not a problem, he gave be 4 songs which can just be done using ADE. 3 of them I had never played before and one ,Sweet Caroline, even used a capo. However, as these all used ADE chord shapes there wasn’t a problem.
Hi Tony
Your mate seems to be a good jam buddy, suggesting new songs for you, yet quite prepared to back off when you say you aren’t ready.
Apache would be a great song to do for a change. The A D E songs will be great practice but you won’t want to stay there forever. You know all the Apache chords so it’s practice practice practice those changes and nailing the rhythm.
Good luck with it!
I been thoroughly enjoying reading your LL this morning Tony. Terrific stuff up there gigging! You’re clearly having a lot of fun and are very lucky to have a friend who’s taken you under his wing and is encouraging you so brilliantly.
Another year or two and you’ll be playing the lead guitar parts too. Then you’ll be looking for a bass player and a drummer and………
Well done.
@sairfingers Thanks Gordon. Yes I am really enjoying it. I have a while off gigging now (as far as I know) so I can improve the chords that I have not got to be automatic yet. One day I will play some lead…
Tony, I just spent a few minutes reading through your learning Log. A very interesting read, great that you have solid goals that are achievable spaced far enough apart that you get to practice. When I started I was worried that you would get bored, focused only on your ADE chords, but it worked as focus with learning other things in the background. Great that you have Clint to push you a little farther each time. Playing with an audience is great.
@philsmith Thank you Phil. Yes the buzz of playing for an audience is great. Playing rhythm does help as well as I can ‘hide’ a bit behind the lead guitar I am luck that I love rock and roll and most of these are ADE chords. However, I will get the other chords up to speed very soon to add other songs. This is currently my main practice objective.
Update 18 September – Strumming and more Strumming
My practice schedule seems to have settled down to 3 or 4 days a week now. This wasn’t deliberate but just getting the inclination and time, which sounds very odd as I should have plenty of time being retired!
I came to the conclusion that my strumming really does suck. So, I have started back at the beginning of the strumming course and the lessons now make more sense. I posted a couple of videos on the 20223 learners group and got a lot of helpful tips that I am trying to use. My strumming is now getting so that it is on the neat more often than not, but if I try the intentional distraction technique it still goes to pot!
I have also added 12 bar blues or shuffle strumming as this is the type of music I love and that is coming along, although I only started that a couple of days ago.
Re songs, Apache is still on simmer. I am getting the chord changes better with less mistakes but still at a very slow pace This is definitely going to take longer than anticipated. I have also brought back the ‘Old Time Rock and Roll’ into the practice session as this uses less chords than Apache but still chords that I am not fluent in.
On the techniques front, I am trying to get Sus chords up to speed. I still don’t see why adding or taking away a finger should be so hard, but it is! My finger technique on Happy Birthday is slowly coming along.
Over the next week or so I am going to concentrate on getting the strumming better (I am now just sitting listening to blues and strumming along some evenings) and getting the Sus chords workable. Very soon I am going to have to move on to the next lesson as I am starting to get bored and frustrated at the lack of progress.
As an aside today, I noticed the pick I always use is getting very rounded at the point through wear, I wonder how much wear is acceptable before I need to change the pick? My guitar is going in to our local Luthier this week for checking it’s set up as it hasn’t been looked at since new a few months ago, so it will be back to my old guitar. The only problem with the old guitar is it’s a higher action and a thicker neck so I cannot get my fingers around it so easily.
Sounds like you are making good progress. I know what you mean about getting frustrated at the lack of progress. Sometimes the “progress” slows down and motivation takes a dive. I just went through that for a week or two.
I use an Emory / sandpaper board to reshape the tip of picks when they get too rounded. It works great and is quick to do.
