Beginners Corner

Back with Lesson 22! I feel pretty confident about the concept of Hammer-ons. It's the Pull-Offs I'm more concerned about. I did my best to figure it out myself. Let me know if I got it right and maybe even some more feedback?

Decided to try to practice Am pentatonic scale from Lesson 20 using the exercises Papa Gates talked about.

Just wanted to share a little progress video. It's not much but I'm really proud of this 😂 the first clip is me in november doing permutations at 80 bpms, in quarter notes and all down picking. Second clip is me now, in February, doing the same exercise at 95 bpms which is not that much more but in eighth notes and alternate picking. I know I have a lot to work on but this is a little victory for me 😁

I'm returning to lesson 18 today to track my progress! Because a lot of you know I really had a struggle with that palm muting. So using Lesson 18 I'm just using a little exercise with open and palm muting. Definitely think it's improved a lot! Besides when I get nervous and overthink it. LOL!

Sat down tonight with the Em and G lesson and really drilled it. But this time I focused on how my fingers were (besides sore, lol!) on the fret board. I know I have a long way to go but I feel like I made a small amount of progress tonight on not muting strings. CC always welcome and appreciated!

Still learning how to get my fingers to bend in such a way as not to mute strings. I think on this video I get closer? All CC always appreciated and welcome!

It's time I put a little update on my work in progress with this song... The second solo is brutal, will take a lot more time until I can play it with the backing track. Also, I learned 90% of it by ear, so there are some parts where it is not completely exact yet, haha. Turns out, my auditorial memory is worse than my visual memory, so memorizing the tabs in combination with the sound is much easier than just memorizing the sound. The high bends are still a little... yucki overall, and I feel my sustain dies in that area of the neck pretty quickly, so my pretty gainy and noisy amp channel counteracts a bit against that (but honestly, I should just try to improve the guitar setup). Alright, enough excuses, here is the brutal and honest state of progress.^^

I really was not sure if I should post this because the bends are out of tune and I completly missed one (also, the guitar is a little out of tune itself, because at that point I had been playing for a long time and couldn't be bothered to tune again, ops😂😂😂), and still have to find the right tone on the new amp, but I figured that this are struggles that all beginners go through so there's no point in "hiding" those things. Positive note: got the whole solo memorized and tried to play at 100% speed. Now I'll slow down the bpms and will work on the bendings and vibrato 🤗

So after our discussion last night, I took the suggestions of curling my fingers more, being more on my finger tips, and playing one note at a time. And as suspected, I'm muting some strings. My fingers aren't as limber as normal people, due to any number of factors...and I'm doing stretching exercises when I practice. Is there anything I can do? Also, any advice on smoothly switching between chords would be amazing...I have to stop and think and then play the chord.

@[5:@Jak Angelescu]

Learning the Am and E Major but can’t hear any difference from Em to E Major. What am I doing wrong?

Hey guys! Haven't posted in a couple of weeks but here I am! Here's my full cover of Boulevard Of Broken Dreams. The road to the level I want to play is long but I'm pretty happy with this and had a lot of fun. I ended up strumming basically on the neck (don't know how or why😂) but chose this take anyway because I liked it better than the other one I have 😬 as always, tips are more than welcome! 🖤 Happy Weekend 🥂

I haven't uploaded something for a couple of weeks. I have been feeling a bit more creative with my improvisation lately, but it's still lacking smoothness and fluidity and confidence. But it is somewhat progressing in the right direction. Anyway, this is a nice backing track from one of my favorite channels (track: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNpX3Fv4edI) in G minor. I started with mostly the G minor pentatonic, and then tried to expand into G Dorian, but I struggled a bit to make that 6th note of Dorian really work, ie. in this case the E. I probably should have focussed on playing that over the C chords in the progression, I still think too much about just the scales and too little in terms of chord tones. Anyway, enjoy my sloppy improv, haha.

Kind of blew myself away with how well this went today. Thanks again @[5:@Jak Angelescu] for kicking my ass a little, I definitely needed it to point out the wrongs in my process and to set my head straight :)

Just a progress video, been working on these solos the past few days. Still have some polishing out to do (mainly on the acoustic bridge) but thought I'd post a progress video before I do a cover.

Hi, everyone! For those of you who don't know me yet, my name is Anna Luiza, I'm from Brazil and I have 0 experience in the guitar world. This is my first video. I've decided to record and post my first practice of the C major scale. Even though it's very rough, I'm very happy I was able to overcome my fear of exposing myself. As you can see, I'm still getting familiar with the fretboard, the strings, the right way to hold the pick... It's all very new to me. I hope soon I can watch this video again and see how much progress I've made!

So over the past month alternate picking has been, and still is, kind of my white whale. My 'natural state' is still to just downpick everything and it's probably going to take me a while to get that out of my system, so this exercise has kind of been my go-to lately.

Practicing the Em and G chords...first time playing along with PG successfully-ish. Realize now I've got the fingering wrong for the Em, but am still going to put this out there. I am always open to CC and hope I'm getting some good tone. All advice welcome as I embark on playing chords =)!

I'm 'finally' starting to get to a point where alternate picking doesn't feel completely unnatural to me anymore, though the three notes per string exercises definitely still throw me off a little. Also I'm on my third week of practising every day and I'm really surprised at the progress I'm making. I honestly didn't expect to see it this much already!

Practicing the C Major Scale, saying the notes as suggested. Also practicing alternate picking.

I'm trying to learn this solo, but before I go any further (and trying to get it up to speed)....Any tips on bendings? Happy Saturday fam 🖤🖤

Nirvana has always been one of my favorite bands (even wearing a Nirvana shirt today 🤓) so when looking for stuff to play I tend to kind of gravitate towards them. The current project being All Apologies from their In Utero album. I'm mostly putting this video up here to encourage other beginners to do the same. Don't be afraid to post stuff even if you make mistakes (and I make plenty in this video...) Feedback / tips / tricks are welcome as always 😊

I'm learning the major scale...and I can play it slow. But any attempt to speed up, even a little, is a disaster. What am I doing wrong? Any tips for this beginner on how to improve here? CC always welcome!!

I started working on this song just before my grandpa passed. It’s a song that has taken on quite a profound meaning to me. I’ve always loved Hizaki since I was younger and never thought I’d even be able to attempt one of his songs, yet here I am trying to learn it today. Dedicating this to @[5:@Jak Angelescu] always watch for a ray of light darling. She’s always been my number one.