Just felt like sharing another clip of me practicing all the segments of songs that I know today. Some by heart and others being read off standard notation.
I always seem to make more mistakes when I am trying to record. I guess it’s the pressure to get it right and play quickly without breaks. So be aware there are several errors and corrections in playing on recording. Also, its a 3 minute clip, so you may not have the patience for it all.
I’ve been playing about a month and a half now, I think. Maybe a bit over.
Thanks to anyone who listens and any feedback would be great.
Sounds pretty much like myself when I started out. It takes time to make the transitions. Speed is one thing that will improve with your practice. And also the ability to get clean transitions.
Good to hear you are practicing solos. When I self-learned I mostly focused on grips. My solo play isn’t very good. I got the speed to make the transitions, but I don’t know any scales really. Haven’t used my guitar in many months. Maybe I will get back to it some day.
Doing a med change starting today, so I will probably change too, hopefully to the better if it works out.
Anyways, I think you are doing good. Just keep up the practice and send updates
Thanks for your comments @Mr_Hope . I hope you are able to get back into your guitar. The desire for continuous progress motivates me. I wish I could pick it up faster though so I had more to post. Like a full song with all strings. lol.
Yeah. It’s a little frustrating to be many steps behind how a song is supposed to be played. But as I recall I had a lot of progress after the first 6 months. And then it just continued really. I was dedicated to practice too. I had a rule to practice at least 30 minutes every day which I pretty much did as I remember.
And then there were surprising things that happened. Like I took a break for 2-3 weeks and started playing again and suddenly I played a lot better than before the break. Kind of like I had absorbed what I had been practicing during the break. Strange really.
Your guitar playing is impressive considering so little time has gone by. It makes me want to post something on Facebook. I actually found myself considering giving up guitar today and focusing on the mandolin. Then I played a piece that touched my heart. If you keep going, learning to read you can buy books of classical music to learn. Don’t be intimidated by the word classical, the pieces start out simple. But then classical music may spoil you for rock and roll. In a few weeks you can ask your teacher how to play a song you like.
I practice 25 minutes most days. I keep a strict limit so I am sure to do it the next day. When I resumed learning three years ago I did 15 minutes a day. I look much more favorably on these past three years than ones before it because I was not wasting away.
I’ve been practicing in spurts recently. Play for 10 mins or so. Then check the forum, do something else or whatever and then come back and play for 10 mins or so. It adds up.
My advice is to slow down too. I was just afraid to say it. Like you have a separate room for only sleep is something I heard to improve your sleep. You do nothing but sleep in that room. The same thing with a musical instrument and time. That saying, I live in an efficiency apartment.
Slowing down can help you stay in time while transitioning to the next note. You don’t want to start speeding up and slowing down during different parts of the songs.
It’s a good habit to stay in time, and as you get better at the transitions you can go faster. Do you use a metronome?
Have you been working on chords lately? How’s that going?
I worked on chords one day this week. To be honest, I dont like practicing like a zillion chords endlessly. I dont like having to memorize them all. It’s my weak spot atm.
Thank you for the kind words and encouragement @LilyoftheValley !
Just keep practicing. I think your teacher gave you too many chords to learn at once. Try working on just 2 at a time
When I taught piano I taught one key, which includes the chord, at a time. I wrote my own lessons and music for my students so it was possible to do it that way.
For instance, you could play the c chord each time the music calls for it, but not the other chords until you learn them and you can learn them one or two at a time.
This would require your teacher’s help I think.
It’s not going to help you to simply not practice chords due to it being overwhelming.
Yes, I know C chord(which I’m horrible at because of the 3 finger stretch) , D chord, A chord, E chord, G chord, D7 and Am by memory. Well…proficient might be a stretch. I have them memorized, it takes me some time to actually play them.
Thanks for advice @LilyoftheValley . Maybe I will take a break from song playing tomorrow and practice some chords.
If I were you, I’d practice the ones you know well, and then spend a couple minutes practicing the C chord. But don’t add anything new. That’s a lot to have learned already.
I know guitar isn’t different from piano, but I know for sure when a student starts avoiding certain things it means it was too much too fast.
Tell your teacher you’d like to stick with just those chords for a while and then add one new chord at a time.
Good luck!
P.s. because you’re enjoying playing the melody, reward yourself at the end of practice by playing the Melodie’s you’re getting decent at. It’ll help you feel better at the end
