Guitar Lessons: 3 Month Progress

As you know, I decided to teach myself to play the guitar back in Thanksgiving 2009. Well it’s been 3 months and I’m blogging to report my progress.

Like everything else, the best way to learn is to practice, practice and practice some more. For me, the best thing I did to get me to practice was buying this guitar stand. Instead of keeping my guitar in its case, it is prominantly displayed in my room where I can see it every time I walk into my room. And every time I see it there, I want to pick it up and play it. I probably wouldn’t do that if it was stored in its case every time. So for all you beginning guitar players, buy a guitar stand.

I also bought a capo, but my sister was right. It’s not necessary to buy. But I bought one anyway because the first song I learned to play was “Wonderwall” by Oasis and it uses a capo. The fingering is pretty simple for this song but the strumming pattern took some time to get right. The next song I learned to play was “Save Tonight” by Eagle Eye Cherry. Great song and it is one of my ringtones. It’s a pretty simple song because it uses the basic A, F, C and G chords that are the general first chords to learn. The toughest part is playing it up to speed. The next songs I tried to learn were “Plush” and “Interstate Love Song,” both by Stone Temple Pilots. Now these are fun songs to play. They both mix melody, power chords, basic chords and bar chords. The mix of skills that you need to play the songs make it fun to learn and to play. Now I’m not really a huge fan of STP, but learning to play their songs has given me a much greater appreciation for their music. “Interstate Love Song” has become one of my favorites songs.

Speaking of the mix of skills, I have yet to master power chords and bar chords. Power chords aren’t too hard, but I’m a bit sloppy with my fingering of the chords. Bar chords are by far the toughest. It’s going to take alot to get my fingers trained. But I’m sure it’ll soon become second nature once I practice them more.

After struggling a bit with the STP songs, I went back to learning some easier songs. First up, I heard a song on the Jet Blue flight home from my awesome trip to Vegas and instantly I knew I should learn to play it. It was “Collide” by Howie Day. This song is similar in style to “Wonderwall” so it was easy to learn. The hardest part was the strumming technique where you mix plucking single note melodies with strumming. I’m not sure if there’s a technical term for it, but you have to be pretty good and knowing where the individual strings on the guitar are without looking. In any case, it’s a beautiful song to learn. Next, I went back to basics and learned “Runaway Train” by Soul Asylum (recommended by my sister) and “Jumper” by Third Eye Blind. Both use basic chords so they are definitely for beginners. “Jumper” was one of my favorite songs back in High School, but the inspiration to learn the song actually came from watching the movie Yes, Man with Jim Carrey. He discovers that he enjoys life more by saying Yes to everything, including learning guitar. And he learns “Jumper” and later uses it to prevent a guy from jumping off a building. Looked easy enough and it sure is.

And finally, just this past Wednesday I took a half day from work b/c we had a major blizzard (10-14 inches of snow) and I ended up finally learning the song that made me pick up a guitar in the first place, “Drive” by Incubus. It was actually the first song I tried to learn, but the fingering, chords and strumming were just so impossible to do. It’s a really tough song and I’m actually glad that it is. I don’t want my favorite song to be easy! Well, I had a terrible time with it the first time and got nowhere with it. But now that I’ve had some experience under my belt, this time I picked it up almost right away. Well not great, but enough that you can make out what I’m trying to play! My goal is to get it in great shape by the 3 month anniversary, February 26. I’ll be visiting my sister and my brand new niece (born 2/6/2010) soon after that and I hope to be able to play it for them!

So now you know where I am after 3 months. I have 7 songs under my belt; I’ve mastered the basic C, E, A, F, G and D major chords plus the basic Em, Am, Dm minor chords; and I’m still mastering power, bar chords and single note melodies. Not bad for 3 months 🙂

Here’s my setlist:

1. “Wonderwall” by Oasis

2. “Save Tonight” by Eagle Eye Cherry

3. “Plush” by Stone Temple Pilots

4. “Interstate Love Song” by Stone Temple Pilots

5. “Collide” by Howie Day

6. “Runaway Train” by Soul Asylum

7. “Jumper” by Third Eye Blind

8. “Drive” by Incubus

New Hobby: Learning Guitar

As you know from my previous posts, I just bought a new Macbook Pro. Well it comes pre-installed with the newest GarageBand software as part of iLife. With the new GarageBand, you can download for Free a set of 9 music lessons to learn how to play the guitar (and piano, but I know how to play the piano already). Well starting this Thanksgiving I decided to learn guitar. I’ll be using the GarageBand lessons to learn the basics of guitar. And I’ll be using my Mom’s vintage Yamaha acoustic guitar that I borrowed from my sister who was of course borrowing it from my Mom. I picked it up from my sister when I went with my family to NC to visit her and her husband at their new house for Thanksgiving. Here it is on their couch:

So in support of my new hobby, I’ve surrounded myself with things to inspire me. First of all, I’ve Tivo’d a bunch of MTV Unplugged performances. I’ve also bookmarked a couple of YouTube guitar lessons (Drive by Incubus, Lazy Eye by The Silversun Pickups). And I’ll need to buy a guitar stand so that the guitar will be easily accessible and I can play it for at least 15 mins a day.

So far I’ve gotten through GarageBand lessons 1 and 2 and followed along with some of the two song lessons on YouTube. This weekend I’ve practiced alot and discovered how much patience is needed to learn to play. And my fingers will need to develop some good muscle memory. But I’m up for the challenge. My goal is to be able to play the Incubus and Silversun Pickups songs by Christmas 2010. Just so you know, “Drive” by Incubus is a tough song! Here are the two lessons: