Lesson Sixteen Tuesday 23rd April 2013

I had not had much chance to practise this week so I did not think I would have much progress this week.

The first song we started to practise was Songbird by Oasis.

I have been having problems with this song and the change over from G to E. I would either be too early too late or miss it completely.
The teacher explains that if I listen for the words that will give my the signal when I need to change. Unfortunately I have been concentrating so much on my rhythm I never hear the words.

We did loads of practise of the song with me playing along to a recording of the song and trying to get the changes correct. There was some success but it seems in my apprehension to get it correct I start off at the correct rhythm then I will speed up. The teacher tried to get me on track by clapping  the correct rhythm out and when that did not work playing his drums that are just behind me. These tactics did have some success with me getting the change over on time a few times.

We worked on this song for a vast majority of the time and I still need to get used to the changes and not feel so nervous doing them.



For the last part of the lesson we went through the Green Day song Boulevard of Broken Dreams.

Again this song seems to be a problem with a change from G to another cord, this time being D. The problem I have on this one is the fingers three and four need to be able to move easier and when holding down the notes they need to be straighter so I can get a clearer note.
The rhythm on this song sounded about right even with the record playing but sometimes the cord changes are very heavy and don't flow and I am guessing that's because I need to relax a bit.

I am hoping this week I can get much more practise and iron out some of these problems ready for lesson seventeen.