Archives for August 2012

I am pretty excited right now. For weeks, I have been looking ahead in the material and had this sinking feeling that something terrible was on the horizon. I think it was those sharps and flats I told you about yesterday.

Well, as it turns out, they aren’t so bad after all. They are actually kind of fun. Sure, it’s going to take some time getting used to using my pinky for some notes, but really, it’s all quite logical and what I learned today filled in some gaps I was wondering about.

I think I’ll do fine with the exercises that follow. I’ll also learn the chords I’ll need to play “The Entertainer” and “Fur Elise” and then I’m sure I’ll be practicing those songs, along with the others in this session for quite a long time.

I have great news – I am officially moving on to the Sharps, Flats and Naturals section of Session 4 in Gibson’s Learn & Master Guitar. This is pretty exciting because it means that I am comfortable with everything up until this point, which was a lot.

Now, I’ve heard that it’s quite common to wander around in Session 4 for months. I’ve been working on it for a bit over a month now, so I’m a little nervous. I know I’ve mentioned that I haven’t worked on any chords – and that may pose a problem because there are two songs in the bonus material that require use of the Am and the E chords found later on in this section. I’ll have to go over them to play “The Entertainer.” Also, I wonder about using Sharps and Flats. I have a funny feeling that these two little words are going to throw things into disarray. I’ve been working to hard so get things one way and now the guitar gods want to tell me to do it another. We’ll see how that works out. I suppose I’ll just have to put things on hyper slow and deal with it.

This also means that I have to pop the lesson CD back into my computer and work with Steve Krenz again. I haven’t worked with him in a long time, so that should be fun. The way I operate is like this – I hear what he has to say and then I go off on my own for as long as it takes to learn what he had to teach. Then, when I hit the next section, I head on back to him for some more teaching. I’ve gotten this far like that, so I plan on doing it for the duration.

I’ll let you know how these sharps and flats are working out when I get into the nitty gritty.

Ahhh, the dreaded octave jump exercises in the Session 4 Bonus Exercises. I’ve been reading the Gibson’s Learn & Master Guitar Forums regarding these and they are by far, the most difficult skill to master so far.

I did well with the first octave jump exercise in the “Sixth String Exercises” (bonus materials). It took me almost two full weeks to get it, but I did and now those quarter notes aren’t even an issue. I could easily warm up to the exercise. I also did well with exercise 2 and 3 in the “More Sixth String Exercises” (bonus materials). Now, by “well” I mean it only took me a few days to master the exercise and now I use them as warm ups. Each time I play them, I think less and less about what I’m doing.

The challenge, and I’ll say “challenge” here because it is indeed a challenge, but much less of a challenge than the first octave jump exercise, is exercise 4. You can see it in the photos above. The same exercise from the previous page has morphed into a new beast. The quarter notes turned into eighth notes and instead of only going up the scale, now we have to go down as well. I’ll tell you that this threw me for loop the very first time I looked at this, but it’s much better now. I am plan on working on this exercise for a few more days.

I’ll tell you something – I really don’t mind spending my time on these exercises. They require me to use all notes learned thus far on all six strings. It’s not like I’m missing out on something. I mean, I’m playing guitar, which is what I wanted to do. And it feels great. Just to let you know, my record runs strong – I haven’t missed a day yet.

I read a post on the forum last night where someone was venting about how they feel as though they are regressing in Session 4. There was a lot of support in the responses that followed, which was really good to see. Quitting guitar is really easy to do. Support is crucial and when I start feeling the frustration, I head over to the forum simply to remind myself that I’m not alone. I haven’t responded to any posts such as these, but I would like to offer some advice here. And this comes from what I’ve experienced so far and it’s regarding motivation and progress.

First off, (I know I’ve mentioned this before) make sure you eat something before playing. When you need to dig down mentally, you need energy. If you do this on an empty stomach, you’ll play like an idiot.

Second, use the metronome as a tool. Practice playing through the exercise in chunks and then practice playing them through. Then turn on the metronome to see where you are. Turn it off and practice again. Then turn it back on. Keep doing this until you’ve done all you need to do. Give the exercise a check mark and go have a beer. Enjoy.

Third, learn how to read music. If you don’t know how to do this yet and you’re months into learning how to play the guitar, I don’t know, you really need to do this. All you are going to have is issues going forward. It’s really one of those things in life. Get it done. Stop what you’re doing and just practice that.

Before I started going through this course, I thought that reading music was a given. As I play and read, I am finding out that there is a large population out there that is trying to avoid learning this skill at all costs. I wonder about this. The other thing I wonder about is the population that has decided to only learn chords, but that’s something for another day.

Anyway, I’m creeping up on three months here and things are rolling right along. I have my good days and I have my bad days. But, I’m using all six strings in first position and I’m feeling good. After I finish up these octave jump exercises, I move into sharps and flats and then I get to try my hand at “Fur Elise” and “The Entertainer,” which I have heard stories about. Man oh man.