@BHopson Thanks Ben. I hadn’t thought of reshaping it. Sometimes I despair at myself 
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2 October 2023 some steps forward and some backwards
It has been a strange and slightly frustrating couple of weeks. Early on, I cut the end of my 2nd finger on my fretting hand quite badly so that meant I could not play for a few days. As it started to heal, I went to learn fingerstyle as this didn’t put a lot of pressure on the fretting hand. Wow, did this show up some problems with my playing! Playing rhythm does not really show up chord accuracy but fingerstyle surely does!!! I was getting dud notes on every chord. So this was a few steps back as I started to play with more accurate chords. It’s slowly getting there. My finger dexterity on my strumming hand is getting better, but I still have to harden the ends of these fingers as the pads of the fingers are still soft. Judging on the time taken to harden the fretting hand, this may take a while.
My strumming is now getting better, with me able to play on the beat rather than before or after, more times than not. This was a step forward. I have also started to practice strumming in swing time as this suits the music I like a lot more.
One other step forward is my playing by ear. Occasionally, I will put a song on the computer and using Audacity I will try to play the melody by ear. The other night I put on ‘Don’t cry for me Argentina’ and found that I could follow it with my fingers going to the right area of the fretboard from the start. Only a small gain, but very satisfying.
Well, for the next couple of weeks, I am moving on to power chords. Still need to get sus chords more automatic, but getting bored with that now so time to move on, while still keeping them in my practice routine. My song practice is still trying to get the chord changes for Apache to be quick enough, and to get the fingerstyle on Everybody Hurts accurate and to the right speed. I have learnt from experience that if I try to learn too many songs at once, none of them get finished completely.
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You are doing well Tony 
Everything has been thought through and keep it going …except for damaging your fingers…DON’T DO THAT again… 
Greetings
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I think I can agree with that one! Thanks for your kind comments.
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I’m glad you were able to make corrections to assure more accurate fretting of chords and finding other things you can work on while the finger heals. Sorry you cut your finger and hope it is healing quickly.
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28 October 2023 – A little bit lost.
I have been a little bit lost recently as to where I want to go with my guitar journey. When I started I had my ‘debut appearance’ to focus on but now It is ‘where do I go now?’. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy playing the guitar but I seem to often find reasons for not playing and practicing as it seems that learning to play songs properly has suddenly got quite hard.
I think I might have a way forward, it will be interesting to see if it works. I have decided that I will play and revise songs on one day and technical practice and learning the next day. I am hoping this will keep my interest going and I won’t keep feeling that I am going backwards most of the time.
I have also lengthened my guitar strap so that it now sits at a height that allows my fretting arm to be at right angels to my body rather than pointing upwards slightly as this was starting to make my arm ache. Unfortunately it now means that my strumming hand does not realise that the strings are lower and trying strum the right strings has gone out of the window!! Still a few days practicing should solve that problem.
Not the usual upbeat training update but I needed to put down my thoughts in writing.
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Talking on the class of 2023 facebook group, and with a bit of looking deeper into why I am not as happy with the guitar as I was, I have come up with an insight. The reason is, within 4 months of starting I could play songs with A D E chords at full speed and by ear. At the moment I still cannot do that with songs using C D and/or F and I feel that I should be able to by now.
So all other learning will stop, except strumming, until I can play st least two songs with with these chords in them at full speed with proper strumming. Then I will be more convinced that I am getting there.
Hi Tony
I think you’ve answered your own query there.
It’s taken four months to get comfortable with what were brand new chords - A D E, so is it not unreasonable to think it will take time to get comfortable with more new chords?
It probably won’t take four months this time because some of what you’re doing is the same. Eg strumming, playing in time.
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16 November 2023 – The mojo is back
Well, it’s been a couple of weeks, but my guitar mojo is back. As I said in my last post, I gave up trying to learn everything and just concentrated on learning what I need to play the songs I love. I have even, for the moment, given up have a formal practice routine as I found that was depressing me too much
I now will just pick up the guitar a couple of times a day to practice changes between C, G and D trying to get them sounding right and at a reasonable speed for a couple of minutes. When I have more time and inclination, I will then play 3 songs through a couple of times each. I am using the songs to practice my techniques. The practice songs are Old Time Rock and Roll and Brown Eyed Girl for C, D & G chords and strumming practice. I play Your Really Got Me by the Kinks for power chord practice. This has worked well for me. I will also add one of my older songs at the end just to keep the A D & E chords up to date.
On the older songs, I have now started to re-listen to them and match the strumming pattern on the original song. This is an ongoing project.
I have finally finished grade two of the beginner’s course and started grade three. This new grade seems to be far more of, “right I have shown you what a guitar can do, now I will show you how to play it better!”. I am looking forward to working through this grade.
Well that’s it. A lot more upbeat. Forward and upwards!
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Dont ya love it when ya mojo comes back!
( sometimes I wonder where it actually goes 
).
Good to hear Tony. And even though you said you’ve toned down the formal practice thing, it sounds like you have a solid, integrated plan moving forward, and that’s the key.
Congratulations on moving to grade 3. It’s where the rubber hits the road. You’re in for a load of fun.
All the best.
Cheers, Shane
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Great learning log update Tony.
Learning songs and picking up the guitar a few times a day - that’s the way.
Only one thing though, I noticed this:
I would suggest instead of proceeding with grade 3, you instead learn a bunch of Grade 1 and 2 songs. Grade 3 assumes you have the F, C, etc chords completely nailed, it will be a struggle without that. That just comes in time with playing more.
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Good to see the mojo is back Tony. In respect of jumping into Grade 3 I’d strongly suggest you spend some time fully consolidating everything from the first two grades and ensuring you can apply it to songs, lots of songs. Don’t forget, its not a race.
@sclay thank you.
@jkahn and @TheMadman_tobyjenner I agree that I should consolidate grade 2 a bit. At the moment I am dipping into the first module of grade 3 just listening to the lessons and concentrating on the parts that improve technique, such as the listening, transcribing etc.
Anything that adds to the chords is on the back burner for a couple of weeks.
Re learning more songs, I also have a further 7 in by songbook that I can play fairly well all through with ‘Beginners chord changes’, but these are all A D E chords and one with these chords with a capo.
At the moment I can do the F chords reasonably well on it’s own and without a fast change, but I haven’t come across a song that I want to learn with it in yet. If I try to learn more than 2 songs at once, I never get the songs correct. Once I find I need the F chord, I will find a nice 50’s 60’s song that uses it and learn that song before continuing.
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I didn’t realise how long it has been since the last update. Learning my practice songs is going well, they are now up to 80% speed all the way through. One of the main updates is that my friend who started me on this journey has asked if I will join him at 3 events in the 1st half of next year, all with our caravanning group. It took me all of 1 second to say yes. We will start to work out the song lists in January. This has certainly concentrated my mind on what I practice now!
I have been going along to the new ‘club’ zoom meetings and this has proved to be quite enlightening. I have found that music theory is just too confusing at the moment. I have also found that I really want to play Blues and song melodies. That will be the 2024 goal to get started on that.
So my short term goals are to play Old Time Rock and Roll and Brown Eyed Girl at full speed without looking at the fret board all the time.
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This is so great to read Tony! Something tells me that you’ll learn tons of things from this experience! And it’ll most certainly be a perfect balanced mix of fun and challenge!
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2023 round up
3 January 2024
Well what a year it’s been. I didn’t start playing a donated guitar until the mid January. In the year, I have learnt:-
5 open chords
Strumming
8 songs that I can play mainly from memory (rhythm guitar)
Appeared on stage 3 times as backing to my friend playing lead guitar
Completed grade 2 of Justin;s course…. Sort of, see below.
Looking back at what I am not so happy with at the end of the year is at least a shorter list
My technique/accuracy is nowhere good enough.
Looking back over the grade 2 lessons, there is a lot that didn’t go in as well as it should have, i.e. sus chords, power chords and rifts.
In 2024, I will be backing my friend again (4 times that I know of at the moment). I will also go back over grade 2 to get the missing techniques up to speed. I will also be doing parts of grade 3 at the same time. I want to get the ‘musician’ elements under my belt, such as practicing techniques and amp settings etc. I will leave the guitar playing lessons until later.
I still love Rock and Roll and will be concentrating on that, but by the end of 2024 I want to be able to do simple lead guitar and blues guitar. This is quite a lofty ambition, but it is just possible, I hope. I would also love to feel confident enough to do a turn on the community open mics, but as I don’t sing it would have to be an instrumental. This is rather a wish than an possibility at the moment.
Wishing all my Guitar Community a happy 2024 and I hope it brings you everything that you desire.
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Great update to your learning log Tony. Sounds like you have got a good plan for 2024 with a good variety of goals to keep your learning interesting and fun. Good luck with the progress. Best wishes for 2024, Alan
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Ok, I have now been given my next challenge. A 1 hour set playing rhythm guitar to my friend’s lead at our caravanning group’s weekend rally in the middle of February. My own fault, he asked how long did I want to play for “and I said as long as it takes”. 
I will have to learn 12 new songs to go with the 9 I already know, all within the 5 week lead up to the rally! This is not as bad as it sounds as most of the songs are use chords I already know and 3 of them are 12 bar blues, which I can play without thinking too much. I will need to learn 3 new chords F#m, B and Bm.
To keep things simple, I am aiming to only do standard 4 beats to a bar or 8 beats to the bar strumming, no fancy patterns.
Looking forward to this. my only real concern is stamina and standing for an hour without my leg going to sleep, which it has a habit of doing! Still I can build up to that within that period leading up to the rally.
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Tony, I really enjoyed reading your learning log. I love how conscious you are about your successes, goals, and weaknesses. And at the same time with such a positive attitude.
I’m sure the next hour-long gig will be lots of fun, is an excellent challenge.
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