Lesson Seven 20th February 2013

I started off my lesson with the Theme of The Simpsons that I had been practising. It did not sound too bad, it was slow at times and I kept on hitting the wrong string sometimes but on the whole it was not too bad. The teacher thought it was OK and gave me some tips on moving my fingers and assured me that as time goes by I will know where the strings are. I think there has been improvement as at times I can sort of hear the tune coming out. The teacher seamed please so far with the progress and talked about maybe in a few weeks looking at another song to practise with lead sections. I was given two options.
House of the Rising sun by the Animals

Or
Radiohead Street Spirit (Fade Out)


Being a big Radiohead fan I picked Street Spirit though at this stage it seams incredible to be able to play this.

I then went through how bad I am at practising my cord changes for the Green Day song. I was all fingers and thumbs and there was massive pauses between each cord change and the up and down strokes where in not particular timing at all.

The teacher decided that I need to slow the tempo down. He had a computer software which he could take the song I was to learn and slow or speed it up and take out instruments so that I could hear the part I need to learn. This did help a bit but I still had big trouble trying to find the strings for A from D mostly. I was thinking that I may see if I could find some sort of metronome app for my phone to help practise with.

We then talked about songs to practise. He asked me if there was any I would like to learn as if there is a song you like it would make it more fun to learn. I thought about it and said I would like to learn an Oasis song like Wonderwall or Half a world away. It was decided that Half a world Away would be the better one as there are cord changes that I have already been given and some that I have not yet which would be good for learning.


I just started off this one with the first two cords and changes. This would be the cord of C followed by playing just strings 1, 2, 3 and 2 then cord F major 7 and the same single strings to play. This is just the intro part. I had a go and the teacher said it sounded all right but I need to get the cords sounding far more crisp.

A good lesson with plenty to work on.