[Alisa]

Congratulations on achieving the goal and the performance 🙂

[Alisa]

🔥 I love how you accentuate the beats both in the flatpicking parts and the strumming parts, it makes it sound so true to the white stripes style! And then the slowing down at the end…. you killed it in interpretation! I’m also impressed by how natural and smooth you transition between the flatpicking to the strumming, the sound levels on both are identical, I always have troubles with that. Those bar chords look insane btw. Thank you for sharing!

[Alisa]

Beautiful song, I enjoyed listening to it while prepping for my work day. A very relaxing way to start a Monday morning, thank you 🙂

[Alisa]

That’s great! I can totally relate, I never used a pick until TAC. It’s a difficult adjustment. Now that you’re not tossing picks into the corners of the room, you have to watch out for not dropping them into the guitar 😂

Btw, noodling together songs based on some chord progression you saw in a video.. that’s badass. I think you’re being modest about your ukelele skills lol.

[Alisa]

Great song, your fingerpicking is on point! I don’t know how you can play such a complicated pattern and sing at the same time 😅

[Alisa]

Impressive! Sounds like a really tough song

[Alisa]

Jeff, I’m so sorry to hear about what you and your wife are going through. It is heartbreaking. Perhaps your wife is asking you to learn the guitar to find solace in creating music, so you are doing something for yourself as well? In that sense, whether you spend your time taking care of her or learning the guitar, you are doing something for her. I lost my father to cancer, and watch him fade away was an extremely difficult time for our family, especially my mother. There was no way to get through it without being overwhelmed by sadness and guilt because whatever we did, it was not enough. The only thing that would be enough is to make him better, which wasn’t an option.

It sounds to me like you are putting a lot of pressure on yourself to fulfill a promise in an already impossible situation. I think Albert’s advice is excellent: pick a simple, open chord song that you can sing with a simple, slow, down-stroke pattern. That will take the pressure off. If you like, you can send me a private message, and I will help you find a song.

[Alisa]

You’re doing a great job with it! I got a thumb pick this week. It’s so awkward…

[Alisa]

Hi Mark. Someone (guitargeezer?) shared this link a week ago that helped me a lot:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttSjXUlsuxA

In that video, Tony says you have to print out the lyrics with the chords printed above the words. I do that and play with that piece of paper in front of me. That way I don’t have to worry about remembering the lyrics or the chord progressions, and I can just play. It still misses one piece: the actual melody you’re singing. (or in my case, “singing” lol). For some songs, I have to look up the song on spotify (or your music streaming platform of choice) and listen to it phrase by phrase, then try to reproduce it from memory. It’s a repetitive process. By the time I can play and sing the song fully with the lyrics in front of me, I probably played it dozens of times, so then I can practice by putting not looking at the lyrics.

For instrumental songs (like things that GuitarNick posts) I learn the song by heart like one would learn a poem. Phrase by phrase. I first play through the song a couple of times using the tabs, to get a feel for it. Then, I learn it in small chunks of one to four measures, depending on how complicated it is. That takes a few days. In between, I will listen to the song without playing and see if it aligns with what is stored in my memory. That also helps to keep a big-picture vision of the song. At some point, patterns emerge that help me remember.

This is just my process, I’m not saying it’s the correct one or one that would work for you. When I was a kid and I was being “classically trained” in piano and cello, my brother, who is 12 years older than me and a musical prodigy, told me I have to be able to read a piece of music from the notes sheet and hear it fully in my head before even attempting to play it. So that’s an example of a methodology that did NOT work for me lol.

[Alisa]

Thanks @DavidScoggins 🙂 I’m plowing away at the “F chord” exercise in the “your next six chords” and it sounds similar to what you’re describing, making the bar chord, releasing, moving up the neck. There is slow but steady progress. I actually brought my guitar in for a setup last week and they lowered the action by quite a bit, so suddenly I’m getting much better sound out of the F chord (not so much the Fm yet). I definitely have the “better bar chords” course on my wishlist, I’ve read good things about it in the forums, but it might be too early for me. I probably should graduate from the F and Bm first. I’m starting to incorporate songs into my routine that have an
occasional F or Bm.

What I’m finding extra tough is those chords where you also use the ring finger to bar a couple of strings. I saw you make them in the song and that’s what triggered my comment about it 🙂

[Alisa]

Thanks @Bill_Brown 🙂 Well, I’m glad you stuck it out through the challenging times. Hopefully, better times are ahead.

[Alisa]

Thanks @Fly 🙂 I have my ocassional moments of positivity in between the grumpy moods lol

[Alisa]

Good to know, thanks for the tip!

[Alisa]

you should post a short video then of you fingerpicking, share the wisdom 🙂

[Alisa]

you are more than trying, you’re nailing it!