2025.11.30 Module 13
At the beginning of the week, three sessions for 7th chord work, blues chord progressions, and the beginner solo, then unfortunately lots of traveling and no time for practice.
At least I practiced the blues shuffle riff three times and realized that I tend to grip too heavily without knowing it, which quickly leads to muscle pain. Next weeks I need to optimize the pressure I apply when playing power chords like blues shuffle grips and train more endurance to avoid pain.
Song Work
Christmas songs: Let It Snow is working quite well, so that will be my contribution to Deborah’s Christmas Recordings Challenge i think, if I manage to take a nice recording. The start with Rocking Around has also been made.
Wish You Were Here Challenge: I’m ready to go for the with Level 1, but there’s still some time left and I want to try to record Level 2.
and it’s also my first lesson - performance, as a beginner, I didn’t want to do that, but for a sweepstake - why not?
*** CW 49/25 *** Module 13
A few practice sessions, mainly with the shuffle riff, but overall hardly any progress this week. I’ve been busy with… Song Work
WYWH Intro practising and recording for the challenge
Let It Snow practising and recording on Saint Niclas Day for Deborahs festive songs 2025 topic
*** CW 50/25 *** Module 13
A few practice sessions, fucused mainly on the shuffle riff, with first few attempts at singing to the shuffle riff. When the Christmas season is over in two weeks, I can put away the Christmas songs for a year and finally concentrate fully on Module 13 and blues. Song Work
playing and singing Let It Snow and Rocking Around while standing is ok, but as soon as I imagine myself in front of an audience, I make mistakes. I still have until Thursday to practise both songs until they are ready for the stage so that I can perform them for my guitar friends at the DRK guitar club.
At the DRK Guitar Club, we recently played May You Never together
Next, we’ll play Middle Time by Allan Taylor fingerstyle, and for that I need the picking pattern, it just need practise to get it subconcious to be able to play fingerstyle and sing, it seems difficult for me at the moment
*** CW51/25 *** Module 13
Another week with mainly Christmas songs and only a little blues shuffle. At least I can already sing along to the shuffle riff reasonably well. Not great, but concentration left over from playing is enough to sing, which is a good start.
(Christmas) Song Work
On Thursday, we had a Christmas get-together at the DRK Guitar Club, with lots of Christmas songs, of course. We sang Silent Night in German and English and played it fingerstyle. That gave me the idea to prepare the song for the Christmas get-together with my family.
*** CW52/25 ***
The last LL entry for this year. A busy week, with lots of Christmas carols and a jam session with my daughter on the alto saxophone, playing Let It Snow and Rocking Around the Christmas Tree. Module 13
This week, I mainly practiced the blues shuffle riff and played songs for the blues module. Here is Mustang Sally, which I find difficult to count with its double 12-bar blues, with shuffle riff in A
And Hound Dog with shuffle in E, which wasn’t shown in Module 13, but I picked it up from Joe’s Guitar Lessons.
2025 review and plans for 2026
2025 I started and established a consistent practice routine as the foundation for continuous learning, built up a stock of campfire songs as the basis for my repertoire, and gave a lot of thought to where my guitar journey should go. I wanted to complete Grade 2 this year, but then I enjoyed some modules for longer. The fingerpicking basics in particular kept me busy for months and now I’m enjoying the Blues Module 13 for longer now.
In 2026, I would like to complete and consolidate Grade 2, this is the first big goal. After Module 14, I would like to review the content of Grades 1 and 2 and learn suitable songs ready for the (family) stage. Only when I have gained some confidence with grade 2 songs will I perhaps move up to Grade 3 in 2027. My second big goal is to learn simple blues on the harmonica and accompany myself on the guitar. I have no idea how difficult it will be, it’s my personal experiment for 2026.
*** CW 01/26 ***
The first calendar week of 2026 is over, time for the first LL entry of the year.
Module 13
The standard, slow, and quick blues chord changes in A, E, and G work well even when standing and walking around with the guitar. The blues shuffle riffs in A and E have also been working (almost) painlessly for quite some time. Now it’s time for blues songs, blues songs, blues songs. So far, I haven’t started blues improvisation yet. Somehow, I’m a little afraid of it, but I have to get started soon.
Song work
I had two jam sessions with my daughter on the saxophone, playing a few Christmas songs, and we decided to try Autumn Leaves together. She is currently practicing this for a recital at music school, and I want to accompany her while she practices, but for that I need a few jazz chords new to me. Here with MuseScore Backtrack, slowed down from 90 to 80 BPM.
Harmonica
I started a basic course on Udemy and am currently working on individual notes and simple melodies. After five short lessons, the challenge is to play clean individual notes throughout.
*** CW02/26 ***
This week I caught the flu, I didn’t feel like practising much and certainly not the harmonica.
Module 13
A few blues shuffle practice sessions and singing songs to shuffle riffs
A first attempt at improvisation, more like fun experimentation with notes on the A pentatonic scale (and between) Song work
A few practice sessions for Autumn Leaves, 90 BPM works, chords are memorised, when my daughter feels like making music with her dad, I’m ready. guitar maintenance
I put Elixir Phosphor Bronze Nanoweb 11-52 on it, they sound great, I really like the sound, but I feel like they’re much stiffer and slippier under my fingers than the D’Addario EJ26 Phosphor Bronze that were on it before, I don’t really like that feeling. I already had coated strings on my guitar when I had problems with allergic rashes. Since switching to Takamina, I haven’t had any rashes, so it was probably more to do with the guitar than the strings, but I still had the coated strings in my drawer and the D’Addario strings sounded very dull after 3 months. Let’s see how long the Elixir Nanowebs last. The Polywebs still sounded good after three months, but the coating started to peel off and it looked pretty ugly.
*** CW03/26 *** Module 13
I mainly try to play blues songs and am still looking for blues songs for my repertoire. The first candidates are: Mustang Sally, That’s All Right and They Call Me The Breeze.
Song work Autumn Leaves: practised several times, it’s now sounding smooth and waiting for the teenager to feel like making music with Dad. The Call Me The Breeze by JJ Cale: Of the blues songs I practised this week, I would like to add this one to my repertoire, although my strumming is still a bit clumsy.
Harmonica
Playing simple melodies is already going very well, but playing the harmonica on a stand together with the guitar isn’t working yet. I still need to pay too much attention to the harmonica to be able to strum along at the same time. It will take some time before it becomes routine.
equipment
I got myself orange Tortex 0.6 picks. Slightly stiffer and more pointed than the Dunlop nylon 0.6, requiring more precision when strumming, but I find that I can feel the strings better in my fingers and have more control.
*** CW04/26 *** Module 13
I’ve got bored with the simple blues chord change exercises, so I prefer to put on a GP Backtrack and play a song for half an hour, alternating between singing and pentatonic improvisation every few verses. I had just a lot of fun playing songs with a blues pattern and trying “improvising” on the pentatonic scales A and E.
Harmonica
Udemy “mundharmonika-spielen-mein-schonstes-hobby” Course Section 1 Lessons 1-14 Playing simple melodies such as Oh Susanna or Clementine, major scale exercises and working on full sound and tremolo
That was very good: you are playing confidently and keeping good time. You could try varying the strumming pattern to add more dynamics to the strummed section. Look forward to hearing more.
Hi Withold, catching up with your LL and what do I find?! A lot of recordings to document your progress and which made it very interesting to alternate the reading with the listening…Bravo!
Anything was really enjoyable to listen to! What can I say…what I see is your growing confidence to hold that guitar and play.
Hi Silvia, thank you very much for your compliments, they mean a lot to me.
That’s also what drives me at the moment – being able to just grab my guitar or harmonica (or both), start playing and feel good when it sounds not too bad.
Cheers Withold
At the moment, I want to learn basics how to play and focus on blues, but of course there is much more I would like to play in future and don’t want to list here now. Let’s see where the journey takes me.
*** CW05/26 *** DRK Guitar club
The new course has begun, met old friends and had great fun playing guitar and singing together
Happy Birthday, for Micha our coach
Alkohol by Herbert Grönemeyer, before the toast to Michael
The Veteran by Allan Taylor
Boulevard of Broken Dreams
Middle Time by Allan Taylor
Module 13
done, I will play blues songs and improvise a little for a week or two to consolidate the learned.
Harmonica
Udemy course lessons 14-24, half in the section 2 playing simple blues
Recording
I tried out Audacity and use it to record backtracks to practice with the harp. Here’s a mix, played separately and mixed together with Audacity:
Playing guitar and harmonica at the same time is still too hard but I work on it
*** CW06/26 *** Module 13 Consolidation
just fun playing blues songs. It was fun to use Audacity to record guitar backing tracks for a simple harmonica blues, loop them to harmonica, and vice versa, loop a harmonica blues and play blues chords on guitar to accompany it.
Harmonica
Completed Section 2 “Simple Blues” on Udemy. Started Chris Kramer’s beginner course on YouTube at the same time. Playing simple melodies together is starting to go a little.
*** CW07/26 *** Module 13 Consolidation
Practised blues chord progressions and songs in A, E and G in strumming and shuffle riffs together with harmonicas in D, A and C. The harmonica is a good distraction
Harmonica Udemy-Course Section 2 Consolidation
I played a few blues songs that I can sing as well. It’s a bit more difficult on the harmonica stand than in my hand, but it’s starting to work a little bit together with the guitar.
*** CW08/26 ***
I was on a business trip for commissioning and didn’t feel much like practicing. I’m thinking about which song to play for Deborah’s summer AVOYP challenge, already have an idea. Module 13 Consolidation and Harmonica Section 2 Consolidation
I had some fun with “Before You Accuse Me” in E singing and playing the harmonica (A) accompanied by guitar in a simple version.
*** CW09/26 ***
A week with less guitar practice and more kitchen renovation Module 13 Consolidation
I’ll finish for now with a simple version of Before You Accuse Me. The transition from the blues shuffle riff to open chords is choppy, and it’s difficult to hit the right note on the harmonica straight away.
Now I’m going to watch the videos for Module 14.
DRK Guitar club
Once again, we played and sang many beautiful songs in good company. My catchy tune of the week was Rhinestone Cowboy.
*** CW10/26 ***
This week I started Module 14 and Reviewing of the Grade 1 and 2 Module 14
One point in Module 14 is stand up playing. Justin’s video has some good tips, and I no longer find it difficult, as I have been experimenting with playing while standing since December. To practice this, I recorded a video today while standing.
Module 6 review
I noticed that I mix different versions of the G chord randomly. In Module 6, the two-finger G is introduced. I thought about the ways I play the G chord and practiced Heart Of Gold, consciously making sure to only play the simple G.
It was also time to refresh my knowledge of time signatures, especially 6:8. I started practicing the beautiful Everybody Hurts in 6:8. To play 6:8 at 94 BPM, I use the JG Metronome, set it to 63 BPM, and play a group of three eighth notes per beep.
I’m taking this opportunity to start learning pick picking, which is new to me and still difficult, but I now have a learning buddy @Linea by my side.
