Lesson Six 12th February 2013

I went to this lesson not having practiced as much as I would have liked as I had been ill most of the week with some sort of virus. So that’s the excuse I am using this week for how bad my cords are. To be fair I think they are getting slowly better but it just seems that when I think I have cracked a cord all of a sudden I can’t play it at all. I need more practice to get my fingers in the correct shape.

We went through the changing cord rhythm exercise again and I feel so slow and clumsy at this. I then got another exercise to practice, this one again would involve changing from one cord to the next. I would start in D with two downward strokes, then finger three on the second string (second from the bottom string) and finger four (little finger) on the first string and one up stroke, G with two down strokes and repeat. This did not sound good.

My teacher then talked about what song I would like to learn. I must admit I had not thought of a song to learn at the moment I could not even get a cord to play right first time. He explained to me that it would be a simple one that would help me practice the changing of cords and rhythm.  To get an idea he asked what sort of music I liked. I like many different types of music but sort of guitar based could be anything from Oasis and Radiohead to Pink Floyd and the Beatles.

Thankfully he made the decision for me which is great as I don’t think I am ready to play “Wish you were here” at the moment. The song was going to be “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” from Green Day.



This would have four Cord Changes that I had done so far. It would go like this, E minor with two down strokes, finger 3 three on the second string (second from the bottom string) and finger four (little finger) on the first string and one up stroke, the cord G with two down ward strokes, again one upward stroke with fingers three and four down on strings one and two, D with two down strokes, one up stroke with no fingers down and then A with two down strokes.

The teacher showed me how it would work while playing the song. When my turn came it sounded nothing like the easy rhythm song that he had played. It sounded more like someone having a nervous breakdown on a guitar. Clearly it is going to take a while to get this right.

The last part of the lesson I was given another TAB tune to learn. I had a choice of two, both where designed to use all my fingers. The choices were a song by Bruno Marrs or the Simpsons theme. The choice was simple it was going to be The Simpsons. My kids like that program and I am sure they would love to hear me play the theme tune.