Just in case

If someone wants to check out the book I am using, here's a link to the publisher's web site.

Hal Leonard - Easy Rhythm Guitar Vol. 4

Band on the Run - Session 1

So, like I was saying earlier, I am going to review all the learning and song material I have and buy in the future. This way as I work through the various lessons, etc, I will need to really understand the material so I can give an actual opinion.

Some changes since the first post: 1) I bought a new acoustic guitar. It's a Taylor 414ce. I know it's a lot of guitar for a beginner, but I figured on only buying one more for myself between now and death so I spent a little extra. 2) I bought some of the "Easy Rhythm Guitar" books from Hal Leonard and will be using those as well.

For this practice session, I chose the first song from Volume 4 of that series, "Band on the Run" by Paul and Linda McCartney. Not all practice sessions will focus on learning songs. I plan to practice once in the morning for 15-30 minutes on theory (scales, chords, etc) and once in the afternoon on music (songs from various books I have).

This song starts off with a series of whole note chords. The book comes with a play-along cd so I could listen to the music as it is intended to be played, but I want more control than that. So, I fired up Guitar Pro 6 (GP6) and started entering the intro into a new score. The only problem I had doing this was not finding the G6 chord diagram in GP6 that was in the book. It wasn't until I picked the one in the book apart that I saw it was missing the 5 note (no D). I dropped it from the chord notes in GP6 and diagram appeared in the list. GP6 calls it a "G6(no5)" chord. Other than that, the creation of the file is going smoothly.

Once I got it in, I started practicing the first section. Being lazy, I started to look for ways of minimizing the amount of movement I would need to do between chord changes. After some trial and error, I got it down to not having to change position with my 1st and 2nd fingers (just fret numbers) and only having to lift my 3rd and 4th finger. I do have to place those fingers for the 3rd measure, but that's the hardest part.

The final thing I've noticed is that the book shows four 1/4 notes per measure for the verse (4 strums) but there is a much different pattern on the CD. I'll have to listen closely to determine the real strum pattern and update the score later. I'm just going to focus on how it is written for now.

GGP version 2.0

So, it is almost 2 years later and I had the same idea of blogging my progress. Imagine my surprise when I found this blog in my account! Heh!

Anyway. I have a new plan. I am going to blog my daily progress and review books, music, applications and equipment I use as I go along. I'm paying for everything out of my pocket so you know I'm not some corporate sell out (although I can be had cheap!).

I'll post again after today's practice session.

Starting Point

So, after owning a guitar for most of my life, I thought I'd finally learn how to play it. You, happy readers, get to be witnesses to my progress. Before we get into it though, I'd probably better bring you up to speed as to where I currently am.

Guitars - a Hamer arch-top with two humbucker pickups (the main one I play) and a Bently acoustic.
Amps - Vox AC30 headphone amp (sounds awesome) and a POD 2.0 (also very cool).
Materials - Musician's Institute's Rythm Guitar(RG) and Guitar Fretboard Workbook(GFW) as well as a music theory book.

Current status - just completed the first chapter of RG and the pain in my finger-tips is starting to go away (yay). I've also memorized the 5 root patterns and major scale pattern as defined in GFW. To help me learn the notes on the fretboard, I've written a little computer program that places a dot on a fretboard diagram and checks my guess. Kinda geeky, but fun never-the-less.