That’s great news, Tony!
Dusty Roads has become a part of a proper Country band and landed their first festival gig. 
That’s really amazing, congrats on that!
Your friend really enabled a very steep guitar learning curve for you. 
All the experiences and gigs you have had and will have together are just invaluable. 
Looking forward to the recording of the jam as I’m currently travelling and can’t check it out right now.
Fabulous Tony. Just jump aboard and enjoy the trip
Time for another update. Things are settling down now and I now have time to improve my skills.
Guitar: As I am concentrating on country music we (Clint and myself) feel we need to up our selection of country songs we can play. We have got together a list of 30 songs to learn. I have several months to do this, so I am learning 3 at a time. When one is OK, it goes into my ‘practice list’ and a new one gets added to the ‘learning list’.
One thing I am finding, a lot of the songs either have to use a capo to use open chords, or not use a capo and use barre chords. As I have time, I am concentrating on learning barre chords, even though in theory they are above the level I am currently at. I have also started to learn Country licks and hybrid finger picking.
Singing. I am very slowly starting to try and sing some choruses of a song. however, I cannot sing and play properly yet, though this is to be expected. So, I have come up with a two pronged attack to this problem.
When practicing the songs in my guitar practice, I ‘sing’ along with the chorus, but concentrating on the playing not the singing. So words get missed out, the wrong note gets sung etc. I am trying to make the idea of singing the chorus automatic.
The second prong of the attack is to just practice singing without the guitar, to just practice singing in tune. I have only really just started to do this, so I have chosen a simple song with all the notes within my range and fun lyrics (Oh it’s hard to be humble by Willie Nelson).
Yesterday I did my first recording of it sending it through Reaper to see how it sounds with some delay, reverb etc. There is a lot of room for improvement, but I was trying to concentrate on keeping in tune. Timing and presentation needs a lot of work, but at least I have a starting point recording.
Sounds as if you have a plan, Tony! It’s good to see the road ahead. 
The way you want to approach the singing anf playing part sounds reasonable. It’s good to practice the parts seperately until one or the other becomes automated more or less. It still is a little tricky to bring all together in the end, but going like this will help.
Your recording sounded quite good already. You have a pleasant voice already you can build upon. Also, you delivered the feeling of the tune quite well.
For me, there was a little too much of delay, but that’s also a matter of taste. You have a solid benchmark here, well done and have fun on the singing journey, too.
That’s a lot of work. Wow. Do you even have the chance to commit any chord progressions etc. to memory?
I think “theory” is the keyword here. Your reality is different. And what better motivation could there be than preparing for your gigs? Nothing to lose I think… If it doesn’t work out in the timespan you have, you can always fall back on the capo l 
The recording sounded very charming, Toby. I think your voice suited the song - and probably the country genre - very well. Next time “raw Tony” with a bit less post-production?
Thank you @Lisa_S and @JokuMuu for your kind comments. As you both say, I need to dial back the reaper processing. This is something I need to get a good handle on. Yet another thing to learn 
At the gig, my mate is in charge of the mixing of the voices and guitars thank goodness.
@JokuMuu I don’t tend to even try to memorise the chord progressions as such. What I do is, on my Ipad with the lyrics on, I note the progression for the verse and the chorus at the top of the lyrics sheet. As with most songs, there are only usually 2 progressions per song, so once I know what chords to expect, the order comes to mind as I play the song.
Well, as usual, life has thrown my guitar practicing a curve ball
10 days ago, my local pub phoned up and asked us if we could do a country gig there. We said yes and the gig was yesterday. It turned into a 3 hour gig. What I have noticed is that country music fans really are not worried about coming up and requesting tunes. Thankfully our repertoire has grown by the week, so we didn’t get caught out
We have also got gigs for the next two weekends, but they are laid back ones with our caravanning friends.
My learning techniques obviously have taken a knock, but I am getting there slowly. I am finding learning rifts far harder than I thought. Whenever rifts came up in the Justin Guitar lessons came up I ignored them as they weren’t the songs I liked. With hindsight this was probably a mistake. So, my main practicing at the moment is hybrid picking and country rifts.
I will still add a new song every week to my practice session so that I continue to add to my Country repertoire.
So, onwards and upwards.
Wow Tony …3 hours 
Sounds nice 
These are quite a workout for the hands, it’s nice that it’s going so well, and let’s start with the first riff and make sure it’s good in your fingers… a number will easily follow if you play so much… do what you do well and your star will continue to rise
Greetings
Tony, do you remember how I doubted that your next gig would be next year only? Seems I was right 
Three hours?! Wow 
Yes I couldn’t see it happening, but I forgot how much my mate loves being on stage
Yes, but I am learning that country music fans don’t like to go home
As you say, start with one riff and work from there.
I have uploaded a video of a short montage of the fun we had Sunday.
That’s very cool, Tony! Three hours of gigging sounds impressive!
But taking a look at the footage you shared, the two of you were thoroughly enjoying it, so did the audience.
Even though it might interfere with you actual learning plan, it still is invaluable and will enable your growth as a performing musician.
Hi @Lisa_S , thanks for the comments. Yes we really were enjoying ourselves. The 3 hours went so fast. The only thing at the end was my feet ached so much, I had to have a sit down, and a natter and a beer for an hour or so afterwards
I agree the experience is still part of my growth as a musician. It started off a bit nerve racking, until the end of the first song, as it was the first paying gig. All the others were in front of friends.
Another great outdoor party/gig. I finally announced that I WILL sing at the next New Year performance. That gives me a couple of months to get a couple of songs right! No pressure
Fantastic Tony, singing is a new chapter! Do post here once you have a recording. Cheers mate.
@Boris1565 Thank you. I will post a recording of me singing. I will make sure someone videos it.
Hi Tony…that was so good to see you out there making and sharing music with people! Your goals are always very practical and clear…so I guess the winds will be very favourable to your guitar journey! I loved the video, you must feel so proud of yourself! And also grateful you have a great jam buddy who shares all this with you! Regarding the It’s hard to be humble recording I found it quite good already and I thought you’re well on your way to singing. One thing that really helped me was to sing and strum just on muted strings and avoid the chord change, or even change chord and strum only on one while singing and avoid to concentrate on Rhythm…I still find it hard when learning new songs, singing on time and in tune and take care of the playing at the same time: the more we learn to automate the better, I guess…it takes time.
Hi @Silvia80 , thank you for your lovely comments. Yes I am very lucky to have a friend like Clint.
I like the idea of starting using just single strums, I will have to try that. I have started singing along with the choruses during practice and this is improving my confidence. I hope to have 2 songs ready to sing lead on for the New Year.
Once I am more comfortable I will be recoding myself again.
Well, it’s been a while since I updated this learning log. I seem to be in a period where I am not actually learning much just adding to my existing techniques.
With the guitar, I am adding at least one song to my Country repertoire a week. As I listen to country music I will suddenly hear a tune that I like and it is to the ‘to learn’ list. I still have a dozen or so songs to learn on that list so I am trying to learn one a week. By learning, I mean that I can play a nice and easy rhythm version that sounds OK on stage. I have a learning and a couple of practice set lists with usually 3 songs on each list. As a song on the learning list gets acceptable it gets moved to one of the practice list. I play the learning list every practice session and one of the practice lists every session.
On the technique side of things, I am slowly improving on the hybrid picking and the triads as well as gradually incorporating 7th chords and F barre chord into the songs I know. This is slow work, but it is getting there.
With the singing, I still hate it, but it is slowly improving. I have had to by a small mixer unit, so that I can hear the guitar and my singing in the in ear monitors. Without the mixer, I could not hear my singing.
I still have trouble staying in one pitch. I find myself either singing too high and have to drop down or the other way around. I am hoping that it will sort itself out soon.
Well that’s about it for the moment. Onwards and upwards.
Hi Tony,
one song per week is quite a rate at learning new stuff, great!
It probably will sort itself. The good thing is: You are already hearing you are out of pitch, that’s step 1. The next step is (as with every other skill, instrument…): Practice, practice, practice. The more you do it, the more confidence you gain and it will get “easier”. Also your vocal cords need some time to adjust and learn, so you can control the pitch better over time until it works more automated.
