Progress log of weeks 1 through 7
Noticeable things I learned or improved on:
-fretboard familiarity
-string picking
-chords and chord switching
-syncing picking with fretting
-developed calluses
Things I plan on improving:
-hammer-ons and pull-offs
-fast tempo playing
Current rank: Guitar player newbie
Tuesday, 29 November 2011
Sunday, 20 November 2011
Week 6: Difficulties of learning
I haven't made much noticeable progress this week, so I'm not going to make a recording. Instead I'm going to touch upon the woes of learning that I'm sure many people experience when they try to tackle something as difficult as learning an instrument.
The most important issue has to do with motivation. Learning guitar can be extremely frustrating at times; I had to put in a lot of practice for progress that seems rather unimpressive. While there are certainly high points in learning the guitar, there are plenty of other things to do with one's time that are effortless and equally satisfying in the short run. I do think it requires a special kind of motivation and dedication to tackle something like learning an instrument. In relation to myself, my reasons for learning the guitar aren't terribly inspiring so my motivation is kind of questionable.
Don't get me wrong, I do want to learn and I intend to get private lessons sometime in the near future. I've taken a course on human behavior and one of the things I was told is getting feedback and encouragement from an instructor can do wonders for one's motivation. Of course, having an instructor will also do wonders for my playing since there's probably a hundred things wrong with my technique and I'm not even aware of it.
Current rank: Guitar newbie
The most important issue has to do with motivation. Learning guitar can be extremely frustrating at times; I had to put in a lot of practice for progress that seems rather unimpressive. While there are certainly high points in learning the guitar, there are plenty of other things to do with one's time that are effortless and equally satisfying in the short run. I do think it requires a special kind of motivation and dedication to tackle something like learning an instrument. In relation to myself, my reasons for learning the guitar aren't terribly inspiring so my motivation is kind of questionable.
Don't get me wrong, I do want to learn and I intend to get private lessons sometime in the near future. I've taken a course on human behavior and one of the things I was told is getting feedback and encouragement from an instructor can do wonders for one's motivation. Of course, having an instructor will also do wonders for my playing since there's probably a hundred things wrong with my technique and I'm not even aware of it.
Current rank: Guitar newbie
Sunday, 13 November 2011
Week 5: Same as the previous week, except better
For this week, I practiced nothing but You Give Love a Bad Name. This is the progress I've made so far:
I can now play each individual section decently except for the solo which I didn't attempt in the video. However when I try to play the whole song in one go, I tend to choke. Regardless I choke much less now than I did a few days ago, so I'll take that as a sign of improvement.
The way I practiced was by playing along with a recording of the song I found on Songster which also shows when to play what by having you follow a tab sheet. I wanted to record the above video with me playing along with the recording on Songster, but I didn't have a loud speaker to play the recording out loud. I'm sure there's a way to record the audio without a loud speaker, but I'm too lazy to find out how.
I've decided that I'll continue to practice this one song until I can play it the whole way through. The solo is giving me some trouble because it uses fast hammer-ons and pull-offs which are proving to be a real pain at the moment. I'm confident I'll have it down by the end of week six though.
Current rank: Guitar newbie
I can now play each individual section decently except for the solo which I didn't attempt in the video. However when I try to play the whole song in one go, I tend to choke. Regardless I choke much less now than I did a few days ago, so I'll take that as a sign of improvement.
The way I practiced was by playing along with a recording of the song I found on Songster which also shows when to play what by having you follow a tab sheet. I wanted to record the above video with me playing along with the recording on Songster, but I didn't have a loud speaker to play the recording out loud. I'm sure there's a way to record the audio without a loud speaker, but I'm too lazy to find out how.
I've decided that I'll continue to practice this one song until I can play it the whole way through. The solo is giving me some trouble because it uses fast hammer-ons and pull-offs which are proving to be a real pain at the moment. I'm confident I'll have it down by the end of week six though.
Current rank: Guitar newbie
Saturday, 5 November 2011
Week 3 and 4: Not impossible
I thought it would be fun to record my progress on tape as a means of assessing improvement.
Hurt
I Love Rock and Roll
You Give Love a Bad Name
Hurt
It took insanely long for me to get recordings that were remotely passable so in reality I am usually even worse then the clumsy performance shown in these clips. Regardless, the fact I am able to somewhat play these portions at all is a huge boost to my morale; this is when I started to think "hey, this isn't impossible, I can do this!" I practice at least half an hour each and every day; it's quite a time investment so it's nice to see my efforts bearing fruit.
This is an important turning point so I am self-promoting myself from wannabe to newbie.
Current rank: Guitar newbie
Tuesday, 25 October 2011
Week 2: Chords and Calluses
This week I decided to tackle chords since someone told me that chords would give me the most bang-for-my-buck when it comes to song playing. The chord song I chose to practice was Johnny Cash's version of Hurt.
This week of practice was not fun to say the least. It probably wasn't a good idea to move from barely being able to play a scale to a chord song. Not only was my skill vastly not up to par, but I still had not developed calluses on my fingers. That made playing chords hurt like nobody's business. I'm really hoping I grow my calluses soon since I'm finding it hard to practice for long sessions at a time. I look forward to the day when my fingers look like this:
Not gonna lie...I'm feeling mighty jealous right now.
As I mentioned earlier, my skills were vastly not up to par to tackle the material I chose to practice. It's probably better if I practice one more week before making any sort of analysis on my progress because at this point I'd be like a school kid assessing why he couldn't get differential calculus.
Current rank: Guitar player wannabe
This week of practice was not fun to say the least. It probably wasn't a good idea to move from barely being able to play a scale to a chord song. Not only was my skill vastly not up to par, but I still had not developed calluses on my fingers. That made playing chords hurt like nobody's business. I'm really hoping I grow my calluses soon since I'm finding it hard to practice for long sessions at a time. I look forward to the day when my fingers look like this:
As I mentioned earlier, my skills were vastly not up to par to tackle the material I chose to practice. It's probably better if I practice one more week before making any sort of analysis on my progress because at this point I'd be like a school kid assessing why he couldn't get differential calculus.
Current rank: Guitar player wannabe
Sunday, 16 October 2011
Week 1: getting started
I spent a good chunk of my first week of practice doing some research on proper learning techniques and some of the road blocks I should expect to encounter as I progress. Needless to say, what I read was quite overwhelming. I didn't have any vain notions going into this that I'd be able to learn the guitar without a lot of hard work. Still, reading about the daunting road that lay ahead made me feel quite apprehensive.
This must be what it feels like to climb Mount Everest
I spent the rest of the week playing and replaying the chromatic scale just to get basic technique and posture down. I was honestly surprised at how...difficult it was to play a such mundane scale. On paper, the chromatic scale seems like the easiest thing ever, but there were several issues I had to deal with. One of the big things that annoyed me to no ends was that sometimes the note wouldn't sound right, despite me fretting and plucking the correct string. At first, I wasn't sure if this was due to my poor technique or that something was wrong with my guitar. Turns out it was because I wasn't fretting the string hard enough. That seems like such an obvious solution and I read numerous times that one needs to fret the guitar pretty hard. The thing is, I thought I was fretting hard, but it turns out that
fretting the guitar hard enough meant pushing down on the string to the point where its literally cutting into your skin. Also, since I used to fret with the meaty-ish part on my finger instead of the very tip, I had problems where I would unintentionally mute the string below.
Just practicing my fingering, nothing to see here
I have since cleaned up these nuances, but they were kind of small, silly things that could have been fixed within 10 minutes if I had someone point these out to me. I probably should invest in a teacher, but its kind of rough right now since its midterm season. Perhaps in the future.
Things I learned/worked on:
- Tuning
-Posture
-Fretting
-Strumming
-Chromatic scale
Current rank: Guitar player wannabe
I spent the rest of the week playing and replaying the chromatic scale just to get basic technique and posture down. I was honestly surprised at how...difficult it was to play a such mundane scale. On paper, the chromatic scale seems like the easiest thing ever, but there were several issues I had to deal with. One of the big things that annoyed me to no ends was that sometimes the note wouldn't sound right, despite me fretting and plucking the correct string. At first, I wasn't sure if this was due to my poor technique or that something was wrong with my guitar. Turns out it was because I wasn't fretting the string hard enough. That seems like such an obvious solution and I read numerous times that one needs to fret the guitar pretty hard. The thing is, I thought I was fretting hard, but it turns out that
fretting the guitar hard enough meant pushing down on the string to the point where its literally cutting into your skin. Also, since I used to fret with the meaty-ish part on my finger instead of the very tip, I had problems where I would unintentionally mute the string below.
I have since cleaned up these nuances, but they were kind of small, silly things that could have been fixed within 10 minutes if I had someone point these out to me. I probably should invest in a teacher, but its kind of rough right now since its midterm season. Perhaps in the future.
Things I learned/worked on:
- Tuning
-Posture
-Fretting
-Strumming
-Chromatic scale
Current rank: Guitar player wannabe
Monday, 10 October 2011
What is this blog about and why should you care?
Hello, my name for now shall be Guitar Player Wannabe and I give greetings to whoever may be reading this.
What is this blog about?
This blog will serve as a kind of journal to chart my progress as I start from rock-bottom and work my way up to becoming a (hopefully) decent guitarist. I plan on releasing weekly entries detailing my progress depending on my schedule.
Why should you care?
I'd expect most people wouldn't be interested in following the mundane journey of a man as he strives for guitardom. However, if there are any novice players reading this, or if there are readers considering picking up the guitar or any instrument for the first time, then perhaps this blog may serve as an enlightening look into the various hardships associated with learning an instrument and the methods I will use to (hopefully) overcome these hardships.
What is this blog about?
This blog will serve as a kind of journal to chart my progress as I start from rock-bottom and work my way up to becoming a (hopefully) decent guitarist. I plan on releasing weekly entries detailing my progress depending on my schedule.
Why should you care?
I'd expect most people wouldn't be interested in following the mundane journey of a man as he strives for guitardom. However, if there are any novice players reading this, or if there are readers considering picking up the guitar or any instrument for the first time, then perhaps this blog may serve as an enlightening look into the various hardships associated with learning an instrument and the methods I will use to (hopefully) overcome these hardships.
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