Guitar Lesson Four

Guitar is getting rough.  We're moving at a break neck pace, now firmly in barre chord territory.  I am not a fan.  On the other hand, I think I've accomplished a lot in a month.  Certainly more than I did on my other guitar learning attempts.  Having a teacher is really forcing me to get things done, so that was a great investment.

So I went into this with the ability to play the F Maj shape clearly and to move it down the neck to a limited degree.  However, I do not have the finger strength to hold it, and it falls apart whenever I have to move up the neck.  This is going to take continued practice.  Lots of it.  And I kinda didn't do a great job of that this week.

My calluses are getting callused.  This is great news.

As I might have mentioned, I've started working on my first lead licks - namely the piano line from "Closing Time" and the intro lick to "Surfin' U.S.A."  I am astoundingly bad at lead playing.  I also don't feel very good about those finger exercises.  I need to keep practicing them, and with a metronome.

Anyways, on to the actual lesson:  We spent a few minutes on "Creep," and Tony was satisfied with my progress, even though I wasn't.  I guess it's hard to judge if I'm progressing at a reasonable speed or not, having never seen anyone else progress through this stage, but I feel like I could be progressing faster.  The issue lies in my inefficient practice.

The vast majority of the lesson was spent on learning a Pixies song with a title I can't remember.  The song is tough.  It has three barre chords and an open chord, which means I need to be able to move between the two efficiently.  To add to the difficulty, it has my first real lead line we've worked on in a lesson.  And it's kicking my ass.  This song is going to take A LOT of practice, but I need these skills, so I'm thinking it's going to be the vast majority of my practice time.

Finally, I've been assigned my first real scale.  We skipped that whole pentatonic shit - thankfully - and dove right into the G Major scale.  It's going to take some practice, but it's gratifying that I was able to use a combination of my ear and theory knowledge to work out the notes of the scale.

Things to practice for the week:

• Practicing.  I will post an entirely new blog post with my thoughts on making my practice sessions more efficient.
• That Pixies song.  This is going to be the majority of my practice.  I will work on it every day till I can play it all the way through to a metronome.  Without messing up.  Reliably.
• Creep.  I'm going to use this as a workout for my fingers so I can hold a barre chord.  I'm going to focus on just the C Maj to C min to G Maj sequence.
• Closing Time, Wild Thing, Louie Louie, Call Me Maybe: These songs are down and feel good.  They are to be used to practice singing and playing, clean strumming, and for fun.  They should be practiced only when frustrated or with extra time, as the other pieces are far more important right now.
• Practice Autumn Leaves changes.  This should be a warm up exercise, but serious practice should be put into changing between the last four chords of the song and then back to the beginning, because that needs work. 
• Continue ear training and singing practice.  I think this will merit a separate blog post, as it's something I'm doing independent of the lessons structure.
• Get that G Major scale DOWN.
• Keep working on Surfing U.S.A. lick.  Just keep doing it and doing it till it works.  A little bit at a time every day.  Do it slowly to the metronome whenever frustrated with other things.

Well, the more I learn, the more there is to learn.  Crap that's a lot.  Hence the forthcoming blog on managing my practice time.