I’ve been meaning to write this post for a while and I’ve just kept getting pulled away. I’ve completed my lessons at the Music Room and I thought things went well. I spend a lot of time with guitar during this time and actually learned things!
As you might recall from previous posts, I decided to stop attending lessons at the music room because of the amount of time I felt I had to put in to each week to ensure I learned what I was suppose to learn. Ultimately, it left me absolutely no time for all the other things that I had going on. I guess this is the hard part of being an adult learning something like an instrument.
Desire just isn’t enough because that desire needs to be stronger than what you need to sacrifice and for me I was sacrificing too much. Of course, I’m am planning on continuing with the guitar. I will, but I’ve vastly slowed the pace. I doubt I’ll ever be able to play like I wanted to but ultimately, I knew I’d never get there because I tend to be a perfectionist.
I imagine that being a perfectionist has also hindered my ability to play because if I cant nail something perfectly, consistently I keep on it. I wear myself out in this way because I either get tired or frustrated with what I’m practicing.
Anyway, my teacher gave me a few tips for continue to practice. One thing that I wanted to make sure that I post here is that I discussed rhythm guitar with my teacher. Rhythm guitar is a very versatile thing which is why I wanted to cover it. Any time you hear someone solo in a bar or what not, 90 percent of the time they are playing the rhythm part of the song (occasionally filling in with the popular riffs and etc.)
My rhythm guitar sucks. I know it has gotten better since I first started this effort, but it still sucks. I can’t keep time and I have trouble maintaining a pattern. All very frustrating.
My teacher suggested a book called “Winning Rhythm“. I hope to evetually pick this book up and work though it.
I saw this post on WonderHowTo.com and I thought that it was clever. Now, obviously, it is not practical but it is still a need idea with cool, interesting results.
Do you know how to drive a stick shift car or anything with a manual (normal) transmission? If you at least understand the concept of driving a manual transmission car then you’ll probably understand the following analogy.
My guitar education feels like I’ve been stuck in first gear with my engine over revving to making up for the lack of gears. I’ve occasionally made it to second gear but either way I’ve been pushing hard and I feel like I’m not getting very far. I feel like no matter how hard I push each practice session I can only get so far — never where I want to be…
I’ve got two more prepaid lesson left at The Music Room. While they’ve been great, I’ve decided not to renew with them. It is important for me to mention that my teacher is/has been excellent but I feel like I should have progressed further than I have. I attribute this not to the teaching but my inability to focus as much time on guitar as I’d like. Quite simply, guitar is over-occupying my time (even though I want to put in more time). I figure if I’m not in weekly lessons I can focus a little more on other things (like Design Patterns or how Firefox works)… In addition to guitar…
My guitar studies will continue and I will continue to run Understanding Guitar. My plan, in regards to The Music Room, is to take the “ad-hoc” options. With this option, I’ll have to call in to schedule an appointment every week or two. I’m considering this plan a half self-study, have lessons plan.
My wife and I got back from vacation last weekend. We had gone to Mexico for 8 days and for the entire 8 days I didn’t touch a guitar. I had a surprising desire to play and fiddle on a guitar. Ultimately, I did make it the entire eight days without going though guitar withdrawal.
Now that the vacation is over, I’ve been trying to get back in to the groove of daily guitarpractice. Even though while I was on vacation I wanted to play guitar, it has been a challenge to go back to my guitar routine (not to mention my work and general-life routine).
I started by re-practicing most of my “harder” material. I only had to go back a few pages in my book. I started with a slower tempo and was able to play though the Ode To Joy without a problem. The Ode To Joy was a milestone marker for me. I quickly worked the tempo back to what I was playing it at — 95 BPM.
After Ode To Joy, I picked up where I left off. I progressed further and I’m now in to playing the High E, B, G and D strings while sight reading whole, half, quarter and eighth notes. That is amazing progress for myself. A few weeks ago I had huge trouble with just the High E and B strings (while sight reading)… I was always fumbling either my fretting or picking hand and screwing something up.
I am also suppose to memorize the following pattern as it is suppose to help with finding chords and other musically important information.
A C E G B D F
In upcoming posts, I’m hoping to be able to explain why memorizing this pattern is useful. From what I understand right now, it has to do with chord theory. Keep an eye out for more in this.
Earl Klugh is a very good Jazz Guitaist. The videos are worth a listen. From my perspective it is important (and interesting) to watch videos like this to understand what can be done with a guitar. I listen to a lot of Staind, Tool and similar type music but guitar music like this is also important.
Most of my practice time has been spent on learning how to read sheet music while playing — not something that is coming easy for me. Thus far, I’ve worked my way up to the D string (from high E). It has taken me about four weeks to get to there. In retrospect, I think that is terrible… I wish I had gotten further faster…
Anyway, tonight after I finished going over about 45 minutes worth of note reading practice and some finger work [this exercise] I spent time looking at barred chords. Right now, as I write this my left hand is hurting me… I really worked the barred chord. I spent about 10 minutes playing a Bm, A, G, Em progression.
After which I started playing a A, G and then a D, C progression. I was playing these using the following chords.
A Chord as a “E Shape” Barred Chord
G Chord as a “E Shape” Barred Chord
D Chord as a 5th string “A Shape” Barred Chord
C Chord as a 5th string “A Shape” Barred Chord
I believe that this is good barred chordpractice. Using the A, G progress as an example I was playing:
It is important, in my opinion for beginning guitar players to properly understand time and rhythm as that is arguably the foundation of music.
A little bit ago, I stumbled upon this blog post and video by Mark Wein, the author of “Foundations for Guitar“. I wanted to share it. If you’ve not spend much (or any!) time studying and learning how time works within the world of music, I’d like to make a friendly suggestion that view the video and check out the post.
A while ago, I started writing a post on Let Her Cry by Hootie and the Blowfish. I never finished it but I decided to re-write and publish it.
I love the Hootie song “Let Her Cry” and it’s actually fairly easy to play. I’ve been able to play every part but I’ve never fully put it together. I just don’t have the confidence to play it. But I wanted to share it with others out there as you might want to give it a try.
Following are web sites that have published the chords and rhythm for the song. Give the song a try:
