Gary, you look like you have made great progress for the amount of time since you started. Your strumming and singing are in rhythm and clear. I think all your riffs sound good.
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Well we are still in the same century and Ive almost got the old faithful strumming pattern down. Apologies again for the singing but ill take the copyright mark against the video as a compliment lol
3 Little Birds
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A quick update to my progress, I am consolidating what I have learned so far and chord changes are getting better and more accurate. I can play 3 little birds pretty much every time now without error and to the old faithful pattern.
I am currently working on Every Rose has it’s thorn, The scientist, Working Class Hero (which is a cracking tune) and Good Friday (Black Crowes).
I can mostly play them all through now but am still struggling with singing at the same time, I do notice improvement so that’s good and my practice is around 45 minutes to over an hour of enjoyable time 4 or 5 times a week, more if time permits.
I know it is just practice makes permanent and I probably should move on to the next lessons as its only the singing and playing that is the problem but as with 3 little birds, I know it will all fall in to place soon.
Open minor pentatonic scale and Major G scale at over 100 bpm.
Got my press pass for the Tramlines festival in my home city this weekend so should be enjoying taking a few pics from the photo pit although looking at the weather forecast Im gonna be a bit wet and muddy.
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Well here is the latest version of 3 little birds
https://youtu.be/iEilbgDVHvY
And a minute or so of the infamous F Chord practice
https://youtu.be/y7NsgjaRHK8
And my first attempt at Verse one of Working Class Hero.
https://youtu.be/ynX9Hbm1CE8
Apologies once again for the singing.
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No need to ever apologise for the singing here, Gary. And you rhythm and chord work continues to progress.
Keep rocking on!
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Not a thing wrong with your singing Gary. Well done, good steady strumming and mostly clean chords. Good stuff, keep it up. 
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Having thought I would never be able to strum a pattern and change chords whilst singing I am quite pleased with my progress so far.
Almost don’t have to think about it on songs I’ve practiced a few times.
Consolidating all I’ve learned so far for a few weeks now and getting songs down and chord changes better.
I have found using the thinnest pick to makes the b and e string sound a bit twangy for want of a better word, tried using a slightly thicker pick seems to have improved the sound a bit as well.
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Hi all, just spent a couple of weeks consolidating everything I have learned so far and have to say I am pleasantly surprised.
I have improved so much since starting the lessons.
The things that I have found to have really helped the most are the strumming lessons and the practical theory.
Those two things have really really helped, explaining how to learn strumming patterns has taken me from been able to play a couple of songs badly to having 5 songs I would happily play in front of people.
Thank you team and community. 
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OK, so. This is my first attempt at playing the full song and recording it without stopping strumming or playing when I cock up. A lot harder than it sounds. Major cock up on a d chord, lyric cock up and strumming cock up but I managed to just keep playing. It’s a lot harder than I thought it would be.
(as always apologies for my dulcet tone and singing credentials. lol https://youtu.be/0skqtapzD_I?si=z32zi3h8VnAJ3IUM
In other news, Today I am 1 month cigarette free and this in itself is a miracle considering what is going on around me. The neighbours are having a large extension built and this is what I have to listen to 8 hours a day for the last 2 months with another 8-10 months more to go, https://youtube.com/shorts/82Lo7Qwd96o?feature=share
With this in mind I have decided to bugger off to a tiny island in the middle of the Indian Ocean for a couple of weeks and try to work out the chords in keys part of the theory course which is frying my brain. Roll on the 25th
Peace out everybody and remember to be kind to each other.
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I have reached Grade 2 and just completed the lessons involving chord freedom and sus chords.
Total game changer, I am still working through the theory lessons and am going to have to go back through some of them as to make it stick in my head as I am struggling a bit to get how and why they work etc but am loving the capabilities and musicality it has opened up.
I have even written a little ditty, verse and chorus as per the live theory class homework and have used the chord freedom and sus lessons to do this and it sounds so much better than just using open chords. Happy days 
SO here we are, my first (a lot of these lately) go at putting a bit of a tune together. Not perfect or brilliant by any means but I am quite amazed that after such a short time Ive been able to do this.
Just playing around with the stuff I learned from the chord freedom and sus chord lessons.
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Good to be making music, exploring, Gary.
I think (may be wrong), that you may be catching the lower strings on the D chord when ideally you should be strumming the 4 high strings. You can get away with the open A as A is a note in the D chord, but not the open low E. Even the A tends to add a lower bass note than is often going to sound good in the context of the progression you are playing. Same goes for catching the low E when playing an A chord. Again not so bad on an Am since E is a note in the chord, but will change the overall sound of the progression.
Keep on keeping on!
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Thank you David, You are of course correct, I am still learning how to target the correct strings and get the precision in my strumming which I have struggled a lot with. Think I might slow things down a lot to try and get that precision. The C chord is still an issue to the point I have started to put my thumb over the low E when I play it.
Every day is a school day at the moment and Im spending a lot of time in detention. lol
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OK, I appear to have hit a brick wall.
Im going back to redo some of the theory lessons and continue to learn the fretboard.
Currently learning the grips for major triads and am slowly moving between them on C,G and D.
Having fun exploring sus chords and chord freedom but I do not feel as if I am progressing very far.
My current practice routine:- On an Accoustic guitar.
warm up playing 3 little birds and or Working class hero, For what it’s worth.
F chord changes, F to G/C/Am x10
Play around with sus chords
C major scale followed by improvisation over backing track.
G major scale
Finger style practice changing chords experimenting with which strings to play on the different chords.
Learning happy birthday finger style.
other songs I am learning, Good Friday, The Scientist, Every Rose has it’s Thorn,
I have got a level where you can tell what they are but also that they are not very polished at all.
I am sure there will be a moment in the coming weeks when more things click in to place but at the moment I really cannot see much progress.
I guess im using this post as a kind of journal entry to get it all out. lol 
Hey Gary,
I think we all experience these times, where a ‘mini review’ is in order. It can be unpleasant and frustrating. See it as positive thing.
Looking at your routine; one thing I’ve always found very beneficial is doing all my practice items in the same key, per week. I believe it exposes you to the many connections across different aspects of your playing in a very practical, hands on way.
Cheers, Shane
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Thanks for that, I know it’s a glitch and we all go through these times. Interesting to hear about practicing in the same key.
Decided to chill with some slow blues in E minor.
I could sit and do this for days just chilling and feeling the music.
Well it’s not great but hey I like it. lol
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Decided to delve a bit more in to GarageBand, WOW, so much to learn.
I wanted to create my own backing track to improvise over.
This is my first attempt of a blues track in Em. Am I correct in thinking that I can play the Em pentatonic scale over this track and would it be the G major pentatonic or the G major?
Not sure how to upload the file here and YouTube says it is in wrong file format??? MP3
https://youtu.be/BiENlGJxcFY?si=F7WgP8YWuOngSjZM
Given that Em is the relative minor of G major, you can but I think you have to be careful over which chord you play the G major pentatonic licks. I’m not a theory expert so could be wrong. If you study the notes the scales and the chords, you may find some notes in the major pentatonic that may clash with certain of the chords in a sour way.
You may find a little more on this here: https://www.justinguitar.com/guitar-lessons/the-major-6-blues-colour-bl-701 and https://www.justinguitar.com/guitar-lessons/lee-s-private-lesson-8-cp-008
Hello Gary,
It depends somewhat on the chords in your progression.
A standard Blues track in Em would generally mean
Em7- Am7- Bm7. ie a minor blues.
I am guessing this is not what you mean.
Do you mean an E7-A7- B7 progression, and you want to experiment playing E minor and G Major pentatonic over it?
Re the file format. You’ll need to upload in video format - generally .mp4
Cheers, Shane
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