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Post by vinman on Jul 20, 2024 9:27:45 GMT
Well, here we are 8 months on from my first guitar lesson. When I started I didn't really have any firm objectives or targets in mind. Maybe adding guitar rhythm in a bal folk setting but beyond that I was open to guidance.
So what have I learnt? Some major and minor chords ( CAGED) and strumming. My changes are still clunky and slow but they're improving.
I've got some old time tunes under my fingers. Nothing fancy, straightforward flat picking and given a fair wind and a decent coffee at a reasonable tempo. Old Joe Clark, Shady Grove, Over the Waterfall, that kind of thing.
We've also a go at "simple" 12 bar blues with and without a slide. Very, very enjoyable and completely new. The blues is an area of ignorance for me, I'm enjoying exploring youtube looking for new blues artistes and tunes.
Guitar Guru Ged insists on good intonation, accurate fretting and the usual annoying music teachery things about tempo, rhythm and so on! GGG encourages learning by ear, something I find difficult and frankly a bit annoying. BUT, my earist abilities are improving. I just prefer, learning from a TAB or the dots. As a an aside I'm sure the guitar lessons are improving my accordion and mandolin playing as well.
I'm playing an orchestra size Vintage statesboro', dead cheap and cheerful but not bad and a Vintage solid top parlor size V880AQ. On balance I prefer the parlor size, it's easier to wrestle into position and more comfortable to play, sounds good too!
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Post by Vinny on Jul 20, 2024 9:39:49 GMT
Sounds like you’re making great progress, and, more importantly, enjoying it.
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ocarolan
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Post by ocarolan on Jul 20, 2024 10:29:53 GMT
Good news there vinman - great progress. And, I have to agree with your teacher re ear training - it's such a fundamental thing to music of all kinds and a transferrable skill to any instrument. keith (old git that began learning in the early 1960s - no internet, no tab, no music, just my LPs, mates and live music to emulate)
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Post by delb0y on Jul 20, 2024 17:16:34 GMT
One of the many benefits of learning to play by ear, for me at least, is that I remember stuff much better, than pieces I've learned from music or tab.
There are many other benefits, too. Definitely one way to go,but by all means use other tools as well.
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cesspit
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My main instrument is: Ovation USA
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Post by cesspit on Jul 22, 2024 8:42:07 GMT
Vinman Keep slogging away buddy and it will all come together. I started when there were no videos, cassettes or internet. Didn't even have tuners, I had pitch pipes and a tuning fork (happy days). For me learning was not linear but I seemed to progress in steps. Got nowhere for months then suddenly I could play that troublesome part with ease. Steps, always steps. The one thing I would say that has been mentioned before, develop your ears. Try to work out what chords are being play in a simple song. Try and find the root note and work from there. It taught me the relationship between chords and how they are often grouped together. If nothing else it saved me a fortune in buying music to learn songs.
What style do you play? Is it chords to accompany the voice or finger style? Let me know. Steve
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Post by vinman on Jul 23, 2024 9:00:13 GMT
Thanks for the encouragement everybody. Yup, I'm really enjoying learning the guitar, on balance I don't mind learning by ear, but I don't really enjoy it. I think guitars and maybe mandolins are more suited to ear learning than chromatic accordions. Working a tune out on the mandolin or guitar is much easier, sorry less difficult, than with an accordion. As you say Steve, progress is made in steps and lurches with hours, days, weeks of annoyance and frustration in between. Progress isn't made without repetition. Repetition makes perfect. Anyway, I feel I'm very lucky in having a first rate tutor who has wide ranging interests, who knows and can play all the fancy stuff in most genres if required, his jazz/blues group is playing at the Birmingham Jazz and Blues Festival this week.
Best Beloved and myself play Bal Folk dance tunes in a trio at yesterdays practice, I used the statesboro' for the first time, nothing fancy just chords I,IV,V, well a lot of I's as rhythm accomapaniement for a Breton dance ( Danse Tour) two tunes, Dix Cannetons and Tous Long de Bois. Not really sure what I was playing, mostly some sort of oom cha-cha oom pa sort of rhythm for the A parts and then a half baked off beat effort for the b parts. All went well, no strongly worded letters of complaint from BB and French Anne. In fact, they both said I and the cheap ol' statesboro' sounded quite good ( but not very good I note!)... but, I'll take that on face value. The guitar sounds so boomy and bassy compared to the shriller mandolin. As you asked. My main musical interests are: Flat pick old time, bluesy sort of stuff, Bal Folk( Breton, Auvergnate, Vendee) bluegrass and various bits and bobs of assorted traditional music and anything else that takes my fancy.
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