Lesson 33 Tuesday 27th August 2013

I had been away on holiday for a week so could not have my weekly lesson the week before and had not been able to practice really. I did toy with the idea of taking my guitar with me on holiday but there would be no room to store it and in reality I would not have the time to practice.

We started off Practising the Oasis Riff "I'm Outta Time".

It took me awhile to get myself back into the swing of this riff. My main problem was that the second bend you could hear the note bending back. We tried playing along with the song and I could hear that I need to be more swift and crisper. It was not too far off though which was pleasing to hear.

We next went onto look at the Wet Wet Wet song "Love Is All Around".

I started with the capo 3 version. It took me a few attempts to get the rhythm correct again and the first few attempts the transition from one chord to another had no fluency at all. I then practised just going from G to A minor at first to get the correct sound then moved on by adding in the next part until I had all four. It was not perfect but at times there was some notes that sounded like the tune starting to struggle out.

Then I had a go at the capo 1 version. This was much harder as the bar chord B minor sort of stops me in my tracks.

I focused on trying to get this chord sounding good and a few times I managed it with all the strings that need to be heard ringing out. I did this a few times and tried to hold the hands there and will them into remembering how it felt.

For the last part we had a look at Amps. It was my birthday coming up and I was asking for money so I could get an amp to go with my electric guitar.

After a bit of a search we closed it down to two.

The Marshall MG15CFR  which is an 15 watts amp with reverb.

Or The Marshall MG15CFX which again is a 15 watt with reverb but with the chance to have a footcontrol which you can program in different sounds.

They are not massive amps but I am just learning at home and I am sure this will be enough to upset the wildlife near my house anyway. I am not sure which one to go for at the moment. The first one is the cheaper version but the second has much more functionality. I have money for both ut my worry is that the second one maybe to much stuff on it to learn when I am new to it all.

I will have to sleep on it.

Lesson 32 Tuesday 13th August 2013

This lesson we started off by looking at some small riff that we could practice on my electric guitar.

The teacher come up with the riff which comes one minute 30 into the Oasis song "I'm Outta Time"

This riff has some bending in it.

I had a go of this and I found that I was not bending the strings up far enough. Even though this looks like a small easy rift It has taken me some time to get the structure right and the bending. After awhile there was some sort of semblance to the songs version.

I next looked at the song that my Mrs wanted me to play which was the Wet Wet Wet version of "Love Is All Around".

The rhythm is a simple one and there is two versions of the chords.

There is the version on Capo Three which goes G for one Bar then A minor for the next bar then C for another bar and finally D for the last bar. This carries on like this till the chorus.

I had a go of this and at first I could not surprising enough get the rhythm correct. I could get the rhythm eventually but the chords do not flow together yet.




There is a second more tougher version which is played on capo one. This time it is A for a bar then to Bm which is a bar chord which is very difficult to do for a bar.

Next it is D for a bar and then E for the final bar. Then repeat this until you get to the chorus.

The hardest part is the bar chord and at this stage I have no idea how I am going to move from the A chord to this bar chord.

The teacher showed me how it is done and the way he just eases into it is not coming to me.

I did not think it would it will take much time and practice to get this to work I think.

Lesson 31 Tuesday 6th August 2013

My week had been very up and down and as a result  had not done really much practice, which was a shame as even though my playing is not the most mellow thing to here I (unlike anyone hearing it) do find it very relaxing.

We started off with the Sixpence none the Richer song “Kiss Me”.

My first attempt at the rhythm went badly wrong. I had gone back to the old habit of adding in extra up strokes at the end. 

Fortunately I managed to turn this around after a few minutes and managed to coax the right rhythm out of my fingers somehow.

We then turned next to the chorus which I had been attempting. As the chorus sort of cuts the rhythm into chunks I found it a good way to remember it.

The change from G to C I have found difficult but after several goes I sort of got the hang of it.

Once I have done the full chorus section three times it goes into a sort of change which is C to Em7 for one bar then Am to G for the next bar followed by a full bar of Fmajor7 then finishing off with Gsus4 twice and a G.

This final part I kept going wrong on as I would drift into the first part of the chorus but once I slowed down (a lot) I could struggle my way through it.

We then attempted to put all three parts together. My problem at this part was I needed to listen to the song and know when the changes are. I would focus too much on what I was doing and forget to hear the change. What I really need to do is be able to sing the words while playing. This does involve multi-tasking and as my Mrs would say “You not very good at multi-tasking”.

We then had a quick look at how I was getting on with the Radiohead song “No Surprises”.

I found that the intro part I was pausing then speeding through too much on the change from 3 string bit to 2 then one bit. This is something I will have to practice.

The rhythm part at first I was all over the place totally forgetting the rhythm. Once the teacher went through the routine I managed to get the rhythm back.

I did however have a few problems again with the changes. As some parts of the rhythm you may have to play the same chord several times I would sort of get locked in that chord.

We also discussed other songs to look at for more things to practice. I had asked my Mrs what songs she would like to hear as she is the one having to endure my practice. She comes up with two.

Rod Stuarts Maggie May which I know she likes.

Even though there is a guitar in it the major part to me sounds like a mandolin playing. But what do I know I am no expert.

The other song was “Love is all around” by Wet Wet Wet which when we first met was her favourite band.

After listening to both songs the teacher and I agreed that the Wet Wet Wet song was the one to go for.

Lesson 30 Tuesday 30th July 2013

As I had been practicing the rhythm for the Sixpence None The Richer song “Kiss Me” a lot this week, I decided to start by playing this.

Last week I had completely lost the rhythm so I had been practicing a bit to get it right. I think I have had some success as some people I know who for some mad reason wanted to hear how I was doing. When I played this rhythm they recognised it straight away so I thought I was on the correct path.

However on playing it my teacher correctly noticed that I had added in some extra ups at the end of the rhythm so to the non-trained ear it would be OK. 

My teacher told me that this was OK and it could be played that way, however I wanted to do it the right way. My thoughts are if I am given a rhythm I need to be able to get it right if I go with a its nearly there or sounds right I will get into bad habits.

After many starts and stops and building it up from the sections I did manage to get it right. The next step was to try the chorus.

This is the same rhythm but with a change of chords half way through each two bar rhythm. I have been trying to practice this but as ever my first few goes where a nightmare with me choosing the wrong D chord and ups where downs should be and visa versa. Once we broke the parts down and I slowed down the tempo I slowly got the hang of the first part. The second part I still struggle on.

The teacher did then show me the next final part to learn on this song. 

This part has a few different rhythms to it and chords. The teacher demonstrated how it goes. Watching how his fingers moved so quick and easy to the right strings and how to rhythm changed it looks so effortless but I know it will not look sound or feel that way. Just looking at what I have to do I can see I will sweat blood and (probably) swear to myself with this bit.

To finish my lesson we went through the rhythm of the Radiohead song “No Surprises”. As I had been focusing on the last rhythm so much it took me ages to get this right. In fact I kept drifting into the last song a few times.

After a while of perseverance and listening to how the teachers version goes I got sort of there.

One part of my playing I now have to focus on is the muting out of the sixth E string on some songs. At the moment I try and mute the sixth string but appear to move my hand in such a way that the first string sometimes gets muted too.

Plenty to look at and keep me out of mischief till my next lesson.

Lesson 29 Tuesday 23rd July 2013

My lesson this week started with the Radiohead song “No Surprises”. I had been trying to practise the intro through the week which I stated to my teacher when he asked me how the week has been with my guitar. 

However playing the intro for the first half a dozen times wrong probably looked like I had done nothing.

I practised this part for a while the part where I play an open string then on fret 3 on string three with finger two I had to practise a bit because I had a habit of rushing it.

After some time the tune sounded OK.

This was the intro played by the Electric lead guitar. The next part was to do the acoustic rhythm part.

For this the teacher adjusted my electric guitar to sound more acoustic. He had only the forward pick-up on and on single rather than double and with the tone on about half way which I think was a five. He also adjusted the Amp in some way which I am not sure. There appears to be so many knobs and switches to adjust at the moment it will take me awhile to get my head around it all.

The rhythm is four downs then one up. The first chord is D for four bars

which then goes to a Bm alt for four bars.

Then and E minor for two bars. 

Then goes to A for two bars bars then back to D. I then had to do a bar chord which is the same shape as the bar chord in Half the world away.

As usual when learning a new rhythm I had trouble. The main problem was coming in too early with the up stroke and it sounding too bouncy. I had several attempts to put this right but the more I focused on it the worse it got. The teacher advised me to try and strum with a stiffer arm so that the bouncy feeling goes. I tried this and it sort of worked. The bar chord a couple of times I got very close to getting it, so more practise required on that.

After practising on “No Surprises” for a while I had a go at the Sixpence None the Richer song “Kiss Me” rhythm. 

I had practised this a lot and had to build it up over chunks. 

I tried now and it was all wrong again and it too was bouncy. I nearly got the rhythm and I will be practising this a bit through the week to try and sort this out.

Lesson 28 Tuesday 16th July 2013

I was looking forward to my lesson today to see how my new (to me) electric guitar had faired. I was not disappointed my teacher had made it look great. The guitar had been cleaned of all the dust and polish up. The pick-ups had been levelled out and the problem of the fret sticking out too much had been corrected. With new shiny strings on it I was very impressed with it. The guitar has a few cosmetic dents in it but for the very low price I paid for it I am very pleased.

This week as well as practising my songs that I have been given I had a look at some TAB on an Radiohead song called “No Surprises”.

I found there was a few TAB versions and it seemed very confusing to me. The TAB had the guitar place the  capo at the fifteenth fret which did not seem possible and was not on my acoustic guitar.

Once the teacher had a look at the TAB and played a few times he confirmed that the 15^th fret is correct and this was the lead guitar part. By luck with my electric guitar I could get my capo on the 15^th fret.

Once we had the correct TAB it was now a case of working out what fingers go where. Looking on some videos on You Tube there were many different ways to do this including one where someone had bridged some strings which looked very complicated to me. In the end we decided on this approach.

The Circled Numbers are the fingers to use

This is only the intro but this took a long while for me to get the hang of and play, but near the end of my lesson it was starting to sound like the song. Well sort of.

There is another part to the song which is the rhythm that is played by an acoustic guitar. We started to look at this and how the chords are. I could see the chords on the sheet but I could see no clue on what the rhythm is. However my teacher had it bang on within moments. Next week we will look at that part.

A great lesson and the time went so quick. I am already looking forward to next week and getting to grips with the rhythm part.

Lesson 27 Tuesday 9th July 2013

I was looking forward to this lesson as I was taking my new (to me) electric guitar with me to see how it works and how it sounds.

My teacher informed me on what some of the parts do and their names.

1 & 2 It has four pick-ups which work in twos and they are called Humbuckers. I was informed that single pick-ups can have a hum at the end of the note so they put another pick up next to the first and this takes out the hum.

3 There is a switch at the bottom which you can switch from single pickup to the double. This is because the single pickup has a different sound to the Humbucker so you get both sounds in one guitar.

4 The switch at the top has three settings for the pickups. The switch set to the top will play the top pickup’s only (1). The switch set to the bottom will play the bottom pickup’s only (2) and the switch set to the middle will play both.

5 This is the tone and volume control for the top pickup (1).

6 This is the tone and volume control for the bottom pickup (2).

When you have both pickups on you can adjust both pickups independently.

The guitar sounded OK but you could hear some crackle because of dust inside which can be cleaned out.

The neck goes along the whole body with the mahogany sides glued on which I think they call a through neck.

My teacher has agreed to clean up and restring the guitar for me which is great.

Now if it only had the Gibson Min-ETune on it, then it would be perfect for me to learn on. 

I am very pleased with the guitar and have been very lucky to get hold of such an instrument.

For my lesson I used my new electric guitar. I started off playing the Radiohead song “Street Fighting Spirit (Fade Out)”. On the new guitar it sounded more like the real song, well apart from the duff notes or right note played in the wrong order and at a much slower speed. I do think I have improved though and I know it probably only takes me five attempts to sort of get it right rather than ten.

As we were using the electric guitar we looked at lead guitar techniques and what they look like.

The first was the hammer. This can be shown in two different ways on TAB.

This is where I play the third G string on the fifth fret and while the note is still ringing I put my finger on the same string on the seventh fret.

The next was to slide.

This one I have done before and in this example is playing the G string on the fifth fret and keeping the pressure on I slide up (up is going closer to the body of the guitar) to fret seven.

This can also be shown as a slide up to seven then back down to five on the same pluck.

Next we looked at Pull off.

Now this is not a technique for imitating the Jimmy Hendrix simulating masturbating with a guitar.

This is the reverse to a hammer where you play the string on fret seven then as it is still ringing out lift up your finger and the sound comes from the fifth fret.

This can be combined with the hammer and is shown like this.

The last technique was the bend and release.

In this example I am going to bend the string up towards the sixth string so that the sound goes up two frets to the sound of fret nine. This is called full. There is also half which is one fret. One and a Half which is three frets and two which is four frets.

The release will be whatever fret to release off to.

In this example it is back to fret seven.

The teacher showed me how you could incorporate all of these techniques which looked very impressive. I did have an attempt but got myself all twisted in knots.

I asked for advice of what amp to get as an electric guitar without an amp is just a very quiet guitar, which my kids probably would like when I am trying to practice when they are watching “Adventure Time” on the TV.

The one that was advised would be a Marshall MG15R but with the reverb. There were some reasonable priced ones second hand and new. As it is my birthday coming up soon I think I will ask for cash so I can club it together and get myself one of these.