Mission of the month!

Kasperow,

Video 1.
For as long as you have been playing, you play it pretty well. I watched it through 4 times with no sound, 2 times only watching your left hand, then 2 just watching your right, then twice with sound.

Your left hand seems to know where the cords are, it just lacks confidence it will land in the right places. So it still takes a long time to change to the next chord. What I do when learning songs with new chords and my left hand is doing what yours is doing is, without strumming, move through the chord pattern of the song. Start as slow as needed, make the first chord on 1 and the second cord on 2 then the third cord on 3 and so on.

You might have to start real slow to get a beat that you can change the chords evenly at. Once you can, go through the chords 10 times in a row. Do something else for a bit, then cycle through 10 times again. Continue till the chords can be switched at song speed. Of course it will take a while, but that is the beauty of being able to play well.

Your right hand is better at playing this song than your left. It should be ready by the time your right hand catches up.

Listening to it you can hear the gap of time, waiting for the next chord.
There is a lot going on at the same time in this song, just keep at it.

Video 2.

It appears to me your left hand is playing the same chord pattern just moved up and down the neck. Yet it still stumbles when landing in a new place. That is a problem more in the way your brain is thinking than ability. This one you lack confidence it will land in the correct place, not your hand.

As fast as you are learning, it will not be long before you are past all this.

Double post.... Sorry I did try to delete it.

Originally Posted by: haghj500Kasperow,

Video 1.
For as long as you have been playing, you play it pretty well. I watched it through 4 times with no sound, 2 times only watching your left hand, then 2 just watching your right, then twice with sound.

Your left hand seems to know where the cords are, it just lacks confidence it will land in the right places. So it still takes a long time to change to the next chord. What I do when learning songs with new chords and my left hand is doing what yours is doing is, without strumming, move through the chord pattern of the song. Start as slow as needed, make the first chord on 1 and the second cord on 2 then the third cord on 3 and so on.

You might have to start real slow to get a beat that you can change the chords evenly at. Once you can, go through the chords 10 times in a row. Do something else for a bit, then cycle through 10 times a gain. Continue till the chords can be switched at song speed. Of course it will take a while, but that is the beauty of being able to play well.

Your right hand is better at playing this song than your left. It should be ready by the time your right hand catches up.

Listening to it you can hear the gap of time, waiting for the next chord.
There is a lot going on at the same time in this song, just keep at it.

Video 2.

It appears to me your left hand is playing the same chord pattern just moved up and down the neck. Yet it still stumbles when landing in a new place. That is a problem more in the way your brain is thinking than ability. This one you lack confidence it will land in the correct place, not your hand.

As fast as you are learning, it will not be long before you are past all this.

Thanks for the feedback, haghj500. Much appreciated :)

I'll give your suggestion about just practicing the chord-changes in time slowly a shot. Who knows? It might just make it sound better. And if not better, then more fluently, anyway :) I do have to admit, though, some of the changes in the intro (and the verses since they use the first 2 bars of the intro played 4 times over) do challenge me a bit, and cause me to actively think "How do I get to the next shape in time?", which might also cause my playing to suffer a bit, since it seems I take more time switching between chords when I think about it than I do when I don't need to think about it at all.

For the second video, you're correct in that it is the same chord shape, the B Minor Barre Chord, played in different positions. I'm not quite sure what you mean by "That's more a problem in the way your brain is thinking than ability". If you could please elaborate a bit on that, that'd be great :)

Either way, your post gave me a lot of motivation to go improve right away! Thanks a lot for that.

"Do challenge me a bit, and cause me to actively think "How do I get to the next shape in time?"

That above is what I mean, this should be a no thought thing, just slide up or down the neck. You have the ability to move it, but you appear to be thinking about and watching your hand too much. Confidence will come.

haghj500, I just tried playing the chord progression in Video 2 again, and for some reason, now my left hand had no trouble landing in the right spots on time. I don't know exactly what could've made such a difference in such a short time (especially considering that I haven't played that chord progression since recording the video), but I have a feeling it could be because this time, I was aware that there was a problem... I wouldn't be surprised if this is the case.

Kasperow,

Being aware is a big part of fixing anything. It’s cool everything worked that fast. This is one of those moments to remember when things come hard, one day they will just work….

I had a good month, I acquired a Les Paul double cut standard with 24 frets from my son-in-law. Fantastic tone and easy to play. I now have 7 Gibsons and 6 Fenders including a '61 fender Jazzmaster, they all get played depending on my mood each have their own tone and enhance the music I play -mainly Blues. It's great to be able to pick up a different guitar to expand your playing style, can't recommend it enough.

Originally Posted by: greenman bluesIt's great to be able to pick up a different guitar to expand your playing style, can't recommend it enough.

My wife would not agree with this :-).

It is true though! Whenever I pick up my Les Paul and put it on the Rythm pickup, I'm blown away at the awesome jazzy and bluesy tones I can make.

I have always been surprised how different guitars pull different things out of me. Often things I had never played before.

lol yea my wife has put down the law, no more gear til i get better. Unfortunately, I think I hurt my left elbow from weight training so a doctor visit is in the near future. I haven't practiced much so it looks like no video for July. I might do a gear review of my setup just for fun> Is there a forum thread for that?

Originally Posted by: irishsnoutlol yea my wife has put down the law, no more gear til i get better. Unfortunately, I think I hurt my left elbow from weight training so a doctor visit is in the near future. I haven't practiced much so it looks like no video for July. I might do a gear review of my setup just for fun> Is there a forum thread for that?

I'd assume that goes under the "Gear Discussion" forum. At least, that's what would make most sense to me.

I haven't quite fulfilled my goals for July yet either, which is a bit of a disappointment, but I've improved my overall playing a bit, so that's good. And I already know my goals for next month: Find a personal teacher, improve my speed, and play with others.

Well, it took me two months instead of one, but better late than never. I took that advice and it worked better, and it was more interesting. Thank You!

Now I need a goal for August.

So this doesn't happen too often :-).

On Friday, I got some speaker stands from Musician's Friend from their stupid deal of the day. I set them up in my practice area and decided to give them a spin. So I played some songs to jam along with. One of them was Comfortably Numb. Over 10 years ago, my teacher taught me the solos and I never really mastered them, though I run through them to this day.

So I'm playing along last night and I nail it! A second time...and I nail it! Today, I play along again and nail them!

The piece I was missing...slow down! Yes, SLOW DOWN! I always thought I wasn't playing fast enough, but it turned out I had to slow it down.

What I think has happened is that by learning other songs in the meantime on Guitar Tricks (Life in the Fast Lane and Carry on my Wayward Son in particular) my sense of what is fast has changed. The comfortably numb solos seem slow to me now.

Pretty strange, but I have to say it is a pretty large accomplishment for me. Finally I can say I can play those solos in total!!

Congratulations.

congrats maggior! pink floyd is one of my favorite bands.

Thanks! It goes to show you that any time spent with your guitar is better than none at all. With 3 kids off for the summer, my time is quite limited. Though I haven't structured my practice, I still grab my guitar for at least 5 minutes a day. 95% of the time I'm not even plugging my guitar in.

It does make me wonder how much I'd progress if I had more time...

@irishsnout - Pink Floyd has some awesome guitar. I would be awesome if they could license some of their music and do some lessons here. David Gilmour is on of my favorite guitarists - awesome tone and feel.

My goal is to be able to memorize the notes on the fretboard, and perhaps master major scales!
I want to be able to have some fast recognition....
and also would like to add a mini goal of not looking at my guitar while I play...
Do you think if I keep looking at my fingers it will be tough for me not to later on? I'll try to stop looking haha!

And man, I still listen to Pink Floyd everydaaay...but I know what you mean! I tried learning some faster songs for awhile and then when I went back to Pink Floyd I was pleasantly surprised to see how much easier it was for me to play when at first I was struggling to keep up with the speed. It's great when you notice your little achievements as you practice...
For a long time I got discouraged too easily by things being too hard, but they really do get easier, and then it's becoming more and more fun each day :O I hope I can get my goals down in a month's time!

Sounds like you have a plan. I should work on memorizing the notes on the fretboard myself. Like many (most ?) guitarists, I know mostly shapes and positions. Thanks to barre chords, I know the e, a, and d strings. I guess 50% isn't bad :-).

To help your memorization, you might want to look at some patterns on the neck and understand the intervals. Of course the B string causes exceptions. For instance think of power chords: the same note an octave up is 2 strings over and 2 frets up. The 5th of a note is the next string over and 2 frets up.

A way to encourage yourself to stop looking at the guitar when you are playing is to play standing up. When you are standing up, you can't see as much of the guitar and you can't turn it towards you to see it better. So even if you do look at it, it's not going to help much :-).

I can't say I ever made a concious decision to not look at the guitar while I play, so I don't think it will hurt you if you continue to do so. I'll still look down when doing incticate parts or learning something new. I'll glance down when switching positions to get my new reference point.

Good luck!!

Hey everyone just want to share my goal for the month of September is to have level 2 of guitar fundamentals done and beginning the blues portion of core learning.

I know I'm still learning everyday and I also think it would be benificial to any guitar player to know all the notes on the fret board so to help me I drew up a complete diagram of the guitar and labeled each note for every string.

Made a big difference for me when I look for different ways to play certain scales and good to just study every now and then.

Originally Posted by: irishsnoutSo I have been playing guitar/bass off and on for a long time but I still am pretty horrible at it. I was Looking at some of the videos and they talk about making goals to improve playing. I was thinking that mabe we could start a thread on achieving those goals. Stop me if its been done here but I dont think it has. Here is my idea.
Basically it would work like this. At the start of the month, each player that is interested in participating will list a personal goal for the month. It could be something as simple as increasing the tempo on a two chord progression to learning a solo or song or even writing a song. Then at the end of the month, respond on how well you did trying to reach that goal.
I think the goal should be tough enough that you really have to work to obtain it but not so far out of reach that you lose motivation. And lastly, no egos. The point is to motivate each other to progress as players no matter what the ability.
I'll start for the month of May. I want to memorize and be able to play the 7 mode shapes of the major scale starting on the low E string. Let me know I f anyone thinks this thread "Mission of the Month," is a good idea and hopefully there is participation.

Well done on this initiative!

I have been doing this for a few years and I can tell you with 100% certainty that you WILL achieve so much more this way. In fact, those who do not have a schedule to follow and goals to reach will take many years to catch up with those who organise their practicing and set ambitious goals.

thumbs up ;)

/Dave

Well, I've completed one and a half of my goals for August. I'm not quite sure if that's impressive or not, but at least it's progress. I've had the pleasure of getting to jam with a band a couple of times, although we agreed last time that we weren't a perfect match. Still, they said that if I want to, I can drop by and jam with them for fun. Furthermore, I've applied for a personal teacher, but I haven't heard anything from him yet (hence, one and a half of my goals).

For September, I think I'll start my own band and post ads on the internet and at the local music-school (where I also applied for the teacher). Hopefully, I'll find the folks needed to play the kind of music I want. Furthermore, I'll try to get all the way through the new Rock Level 1 Course, and try writing some songs, preferably both lyrics and melody.