For anyone interested Dr. Gebrian has a YT channel where she demonstrates some of the techniques in the book.
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GRADE 2 CONSOLIDATION WEEK 11
Week Ending Friday 15 November 2024
Target: 7 hours of practice. Actual: 6.25 hours
Summary Progress and Observations
Getting back into a regular routine this week after a few weeks disrupted for work. Starting to incorporate ideas from the books I’ve been reading: I’ve split practice up into 2-3 sessions of 30-45 minutes each day (after breakfast, after lunch, and after dinner) and taking time at the start of each session to set targets for that session. Now have the target of completing 3 consecutive repetitions of an item before moving on and if I mess up on the 3rd rep then it gets set back to zero - it MUST be 3 consecutive error free reps to count!
I’ve seen noticeable improvements in most areas this week, which may be because I’m just being more specific or setting more realistic goals, but it feels like progress is being made 
Chords: spent the week focusing on the ‘weak’ G changes and have just 4 of these left at 80bpm. I was reminded from Justins stream this week to split chord practice into getting accurate fingering as well as the speed of the change. I was only doing the speed part and wasn’t really seeing much progress in chord quality. We’ll see if there’s an improvement next week.
Scales: started the week making errors in the Major scale at 70bpm but progressed up to 85bpm by the end of the week with no errors (3 consecutive sets of 3 reps up/down the scale, alternate picking, no mistakes). Minor Pentatonic is up to 120bpm and some reps are now without looking at either fretting or picking hands.
Rhythm: continued with Old Faithfull at 100bpm but have started using the metronome with bar breaks (3 muted bars + 1 sounding out). A bit inconsistent to start with but it’s getting better. Same deal with Accent 2&4 strumming so still some work to do to tighten these up.
Fingerstyle: continued with playing Pattern 1 but introduced chord change C to Am to save being on the same chord for too long. Improved speed to 80bpm but pushed this higher today but w/o metronome, just to see how fast I could go. Will look to increase speed next week and maybe introduce pattern 2.
Alternate Picking: using the chromatic scale and moving it across the neck and back and up the neck between frets 1 and 9. Mostly without error but haven’t managed 3 consecutive reps yet - keep working on this at 80bpm until I get 3 clean reps.
Repertoire: focus on Working Class Hero this week. Had an issue where Am chord was stopping the high E when wrapping thum around to mute the low E. Mostly sorted by the end of the week after a couple of sessions ironing this one out in line with suggestions from the book. By the end of the week the strumming is pretty automated and I’ve started to include the lyrics. Need to learn the words properly now, so that will be focus for next week. Playing Margaritaville from memory as a warmup and this is starting to get comfortable now. I seem to be using the afternoon session mostly for songs - good tips from Justins stream too so I’ll be having a think about Campfire, Developer, and Dreamers.
Griff Hamlin Blues Guitar: continued to work through this and completed the Fast Walking Blues exercise with the alternate picking at full tempo.
Singing: continued to sing major scale whilst playing on the guitar. No specific goals for this, just to practice trying to hit notes and checking them.
Takeaways and Goals for Next Week
- Continue increasing the tempo on the scales exercises but don’t increase tempo until I get 3 consecutive reps of 3 up/down sets. Click up by 5bpm.
- Continue the metronome bar breaks exercises for both strumming patterns. Focus on hitting the ‘1’
- Continue the fingerstyle pattern 1 practice. Try and find a song to work on, rather than just rather bland exercises.
- Alternate Picking: continue 1 more week with this specific exercise. I’m also doing scales with alternate picking so can probably better use this time elsewhere. Can come back to it later if needed.
- Learn the words to Working Class Hero before moving on to the next song. It’s taking longer to get to 10 songs that I can sing and play from memory but I feel I need to focus on them individually until they are playable, rather than rotating them in and out of my routine. Working Class Hero will be the 2nd song I should be able to play and sing at the same time if I can learn the words next week. Will use some time to play these through as a ‘set’ every couple of days and add other songs to them when I’m comfortable with them.
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