I had been practicing a bit this week and going with all the
good advice I have been getting I had taken great care to practice the rhythm.
The first song we practiced was “Songbird” by Oasis.
I
have noticed that my finger tips are now hardening up with all the playing and
I suppose my hand has got to condition it’s self for these bar cords now.
The
problem I have had with is song has been the change from G to G/F# to Em and
Em to G/F# to G. I would get so anxious about this change that I would be
too late or too early. Sometimes I would seem to get my fingers all caught in
the strings.
The first few attempt of this song did not go well I think
it’s a case of trying to warm up and relax. My teacher started to help by at
first singing the words so I could hear the words I would need to hear for the
change. Even though I was trying to keep my strumming at a constant it was
apparent that when the change happens I was speeding up so after the song I
would be strumming too fast. My teacher decided to try and combat this by
playing the base guitar with the rhythm that I would need to follow. This
seemed to work for me. I was able to keep time better and the changes where
happening at the correct time too to my surprise. I managed to get through the
whole song a few times at sort of the correct rhythm. However the cords are not
all correct and some sounded really bad. My teacher was happy with the progress
through and informed me that we will not practice this one at lessons any more
as I have the basis of it now and I can practice this on my own. My teacher
assured me that the song would get better as the cords I am playing I will be
playing in other songs so this one in time will get naturally better. It is
hard myself to tell if I have improved on this song but my Mrs thinks that it
has improved a lot which is encouraging to hear and I certainly will be using
this song in my practicing.
We then went onto have a look on my progress on the Green
Day song “Boulevard of Broken Dreams”.
This song again I have been playing a
bit and was hoping for some progress on too. At first things were going well,
but then I would almost mentally full asleep or something as I would lose my
way and forget that I have to change to G. Once that mishap would happen I
would go to pot with all sorts of funny cords appearing and I am sure none are
real. Again once relaxing a bit the rhythm flowed a lot better and the song
sounded nearer where it should be.
As things where not going too bad it was time to play the
Oasis song “Half the World Away”.
It took me a very long time to get the
correct rhythm as I kept on reverting to the Songbird rhythm. I struggled
through this at first feeling a bit disappointed with myself. I suppose this is
going to happen as you cannot always get it right and once (again) I relaxed a
bit I gained some respect on my playing.
The last thing we did was to practice some bar cords.
We
first started with Bm which after a bit of moving of fingers I did to my
surprise nearly get the cord.
I then had a go at the other bar cord of F.
This one proved to be very difficult and a dull thud was all I got for my
efforts. After a few minutes I had to stop this part as my hand was hurting.
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