I have a lot going on in my learning process right now. I am working on a song with 4 chords that I’d like to learn for the end of this class, and I am working on Jolene which involves a bunch of picking and again 4 chords. Neither are going as good as I hoped so I decided that I needed to simplify my process this week. I decided to find a song with 2 chords to work on. Here is the video that I used to work on A Horse With No Name
What I found by moving to a simple song with simple chords and a simple strumming pattern was that I could focus on a specific area for improvement. The area that I felt benefitted from this was my feel for the strings. I felt more comfortable feeling the difference between the strings and I think by continuing to work on songs like this it will help develop the skills that I need for the more challenging chord changes.
My colleague and former intern asks to listen to this video while I was working on it and the feedback was not positive haha. I don’t think it sounds as bad as he thought but it definitely is not a masterpiece.
The other thing that I changed up this week was the way that I learned the songs. I decided to print off the lyrics of the songs with the chords which I found at ultimate guitar.
The reason I did this is because I found that when the lyrics were on the computer screen I was having trouble keeping up with the music on the video. This way I am able to slow the song down to my own pace and once I get the hang of it then I can speed it up to the actual pace of the song. I found this to be beneficial but I know the song that I was working on. I am not sure if it was work as well with a song I am not as familiar with.
Hello Russ,
Wow
This was very impressive! I loved the fact that you used a different technique in learning the lyrics of the song which I think it was a great move. I can’t wait to hear the song with four cords.
Hey Russ! Thanks for sharing your work in progress. I haven’t looked back through every one of your posts, but I’m curious what you are using as a tuning tool! I always find that it’s difficult to get used to the tuning process.
Also, I can’t imagine how challenging this has been for you – I have teeny tiny hands and I still struggle to keep my fingers on just one string at a time. 😐
Hey, I used a pitch pipe to tune the guitar originally and then just recently I tuned it the old school way with no tools. Either way it comes down to the ear though and both times it sounds good to me but I feel like it sounds off compared to the sound in the videos I am watching. I haven’t looked into this but I wonder if the strings being old would be a factor, not really sure.