I haven’t updated the blog in a while because I haven’t got to a comfortable level with Practise Routine 3. I’ve made a few improvements, but I’m not quite ready to move on yet.  Here is some video of my latest practising to give you an idea of where I am.

I changed my routine today. To better measure my progress I’ve added a proficiency column. The range I use is from the easy end, quarter notes, one note per beat (D D D D), then to eight notes (Strum one or two) with two measures per chord, then eight notes with one measure per chord and then finally one hit per chord.

Once I reach one hit per chord, I consider this particular change mastered.

Warm Up
F Chord Practise (pretty much mastered holding this now)

Shared Finger Principle Chord Changes

Clustered Finger Principle Chord Changes

Slide Principle Chord Changes

More Advanced Chord Changes

Practise Stand by Me - C (2 Measures) to A (2 Measures) to F (1 Measure) to G (1 Measure) to C (2 Measures)
FInish up with more work on long progressions

I learned a new strum pattern tonight. Lets call it Strum 3.

Practise is going well. I’m almost ready to change my routine.

A couple of years ago, during one of my various guitar learning phases, I picked up a really useful tip on how to hold barre chords. For months I struggled trying to learn barre chords, I thought it was a matter of developing strength in my hands and forearms, but I was very wrong about this. I can’t remember where I actually picked this up, so apologies to the source. What I do know is that it was from a guitar teacher who learned this trick from his five year old student! The trick goes like this.

When playing a barre chord, gently hold the guitar against your body.

As soon as I applied this simple principle, I could play any barre chord I wanted. Needless to say I was fairly gobsmacked! How could I struggle for months getting nowhere and then in a minute play any barre chord I liked. The lesson I learned here was that if you know the outcome (cleanly playing a barre chord) and you haven’t been taught a technique (In this case by applying some simple physics) you need to experiment. I wasted way too much time on a pointless task. What I now try to do in my learning is to apply different techniques to the problem in the hope that one of them will stick and work for me. I know that sounds a bit generic, but part of the process is to find a tried and true technique through research.

My favourite guitar mnemonic. From now on I guarantee you will have no trouble remembering the notes of your open strings.

Practise didn’t go so well tonight. My fret hand got tired quite early on and I never really recovered. I did go through the routine and there were still some improvements, so that is something. However I missed out big chunks of the chord changes and I didn’t practise Stand By Me.

I saw this incredible clip on youtube…

 I am getting a ukelele! How awesome is that dude.

Well. hopefully I will have more success tomorrow.

I’ve decided to copy Tony over at The Guitar Quest and learn possibly my favourite QOTSA song. It’s a bit challenging in the strumming and guitar trickometer departments for a mere beginner, but the chords are pretty easy and I have no trouble with the changes (E, G, D, A, C).

I’m using this Youtube clip as inspiration

My practise routine is going pretty well. I have mastered most of the chord changes in the sense that I can do one strum per change. I think the next thing to bring in is the Metronome. Onwards and upwards. Video updates on my progress will be up soon.

Well, I have been very slack at updating my journal, that damn real life thing keeps interrupting me. Not so slack that I haven’t kept up my practise though. I’ve altered my practise routine slightly by adding in a song to practise. Stand By Me by Ben E. King, Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. So my practise routine looks like this now:

Warm Up
F Chord Practise (only basic chord I haven’t mastered holding)

Shared Finger Principle Chord Changes

• G to Cadd9 (I can do this strumming one measure per chord)
• D to G
• G to Cadd9 to D
• G to Em
• Em to C
• C to Am
• Dm to G

Clustered Finger Principle Chord Changes

• E to Am
• Em to Am
• A to D
• C to D
• A to Em
• Dm to E
• Am to Dm

Slide Principle Chord Changes

• E to D
• A ro Dm
• G to Em to C to D

More F Chord practise (I can do it!)
Practise Stand by Me - C (2 Measures) to A (2 Measures) to F (1 Measure) to G (1 Measure) to C (2 Measures)
FInish up with more work on long progressions

Here are my first attempts at Stand By Me

No entry last night because I was too busy entertaining friends… no really I was… but I did find time to make some improvements to the blog. Dans Guitar Learning Journal is now mobile thanks to Word Press Mobile by Andy Moore. I bet that was the feature you were waiting for!

On the practise front I am still following the same routine but getting near to changing it up as I’m getting rather good at my long progression and I need to start changing from the F Chord (I can hold it quite well now). I would also like to start learning a song, something like Hey Jude I think.

Well… I got slightly distracted tonight, watching the ‘Lost Boys’ in all its cheesy eighties vampire lovefest glory. However I did manage to work on my long progression skills and the F Chord. I also started reading the Guitar TAB Edition of the Muse Hullabaloo Sountrack and felt slightly overwhelmed at what I didn’t know!

Tonight I wrote some down some tips that I think are highly useful for beginners such as myself (spot the fallacy). Most of them are just common sense but as I am so often reminded common sense just isn’t that common anymore.

The 15 Commandments of Learning Guitar

As for practise I went through my current practise routine:

Warm Up
F Chord Practise (only basic chord I haven’t mastered holding)

Shared Finger Principle Chord Changes

• G to Cadd9 (I can do this strumming one measure per chord)
• D to G
• G to Cadd9 to D
• G to Em
• Em to C
• C to Am
• Dm to G

Clustered Finger Principle Chord Changes

• E to Am
• Em to Am
• A to D
• C to D
• A to Em
• Dm to E
• Am to Dm

Slide Principle Chord Changes

• E to D
• A ro Dm
• G to Em to C to D

More F Chord practise (I can do it!)
FInish up with more work on long progressions

At some point I will explain the Shared and Clustered Finger principles and the Slide Principal, but not tonight.