Everything Bianca

Acoustic guitar progress - shaky for this month. I did not travel with my guitar, so I missed a lot of practice, and then getting back into the groove has been shaky, but as this month closes, I've been practicing about every other day, working back up to daily.

I quit my guitar lessons. 1) Traveling, so I didn't practice. 2) Working harder, so I can't take my lessons during my lunch. If a Saturday slot opens up, I'll certainly return to it. I miss my teacher already.

In the meanwhile, I've been working through this book called Fingerpicking Guitar. I've been practicing different picking patterns and progressions. As for my songs, I've been improving upon Blackbird and Dock of the Bay. I'm still working on a suitable picking / strumming pattern for Dock of the Bay.

Due to changes at work: traveling / more work. I cancelled my lessons, which were during my lunch on Friday. Hopefully a Saturday slot will open and I can continue them, but for now, I'm back to teaching myself.

If I can stay in Pensacola long enough. *laughs*

And with that, I tell you that I will be in San Diego at the end of this week. Fun!

Work related though, so not too much in the way of sun and fun.

But I do hope to sit in a few nice restaurants while there.

I'm summarizing my guitar playing when I haven't really bench-marked anything yet.

Last night I played the current scale I'm working on at 80 bpm easily. It occurred to me that I could turn the metronome up and see where I'd break, but I wanted to move on with the night's play.

Speaking of scales. These are the techy things I have in my head:

Chords: I know the Key of C (triads?) and its barre and 7th chords. (I guess that's how you word it.) I also know a spattering of other majors and minors. I know common chord progressions. 

Scales: I know the pentatonic scale from the open fret to the 15th fret.
I'm learning ... also a C scale, but the parts are called F Lydian, Mixolydian, and Aeolian. I don't really know what those mean, but if you ask me to play it. I can. The nerd in me is slightly embarrassed, but I'm out to learn to play guitar, not pass a pop quiz on theory. I'll eventually read a book that puts all this together, but better I know what it sounds / plays like first. So I like to say to myself.

Songs: 

I can play Blackbird by the Beatles. I did so this morning for my coworkers (by their request!!) and it was at its smoothest and getting better weekly.

I'm working on Dock of the Bay by Otis Redding. I hate the sound of a pick on my steel guitar. It feels / sounds so horrible. I nearly cried this week listening to myself play. As a compromise the following day, I strummed with a combo of my thumb on the down stroke and index on the up stroke and I liked it. The strings didn't buzz like they when I use my pick. I didn't sound like I was punching the chords. My  fingers made a soft, pleasant sound. I'm going to practice with both my fingers and the pick. Even if I hate the pick, I need to learn to use it. One day, I might like it. Only time and practice will tell.

The next fingerstyle song I want to play is Scarborough Fair as played by Stephen King (you can find him playing on youtube. I'll add a link later). I gave my teacher the sheet music I wanted to learn from. It's epic and probably way beyond my current skill level. Oh well. I want to try.

Body: 

My left thumb is numb. The back of it. My thumb tingles slightly when I run my finger along it. It's been this way for two days. I am not amused. I think (hope) I may have pinched a nerve while playing with a 5 lb weight.
I don't even notice my left finger tips. They don't hurt, sting, or tingle anymore. My callouses are not too thick. I buff them when they get torn a little.

I keep all my nails short save for my numb left thumb. I grew to dislike the sound of my nails on the guitar and the upkeep they required. Flesh makes a pretty sound, and the tips of the fingers are my right hand are starting to feel just slightly tough on the ends.

Yes. Easy Mode.

Let's begin from the beginning.

This week practice was rather... clunky. Take that along with my further listening to Judas Priest and picking out what I could and could not play with an acoustic. 

"Why don't you give up and play an electric guitar?" I asked myself.

Well? Why don't I? I promised myself that if I played guitar for 6 months and still enjoyed it, I could [get a guitar teacher, but I broke that rule so...] buy myself another / better guitar. Next month will be 6 months.

Ask your teacher, I chided. 

So I brought it up with him today. Should I just give it up and go with electric?
He stood up and handed me an electric guitar and plugged it in. "Play this for the session today," he told me.

I laughed the first few minutes. "Ladies and Gentlemen, Welcome to Easy Mode!" I thought to myself. My goodness, the thing is like butter under my fingers. Utterly effortless. No wonder I read all those recommendations to 'barely' press the strings. Well, you can't do that with Patience. Barely pressing her strings is what you do in order to make no sound at all.

That was strike one in Patience's imaginary coffin.

Strike two had to do with my ignorance. Yes. Ignorance. To yourself always be true and such.

"Why don't people play finger style on electric guitar?" I asked, seeing no significant difference as I played Blackbird. 

He began to explain and then I summed up his words.

"Prejudice? That's it? There's no real reason? You mean I can play fingerstyle with an electric just fine?!" <-- I'm typing that the way I felt it. I sounded more bewildered. Strike two, all the way. Nothing stopping me from fingerstyle, and if I want, bluegrass. Ignorance really, but since no one ever mentioned it, I thought there was some kind of actual impediment.

Live and Learn.

Strike three. Final blow.

We were discussing the Beatles and how Blackbird was the only song by the Beatles that I liked. I like plenty other Beatles songs, but I liked them as played by other people. The discussion moved to Yesterday, and he began to play the chords on my guitar. 

"Wow. Your guitar is hard to play."

Okay, I wouldn't say hard, but Patience certainly isn't easy mode. Without Patience, I wouldn't have these wicked callouses so quickly. I wouldn't have named her so aptly, and ... other stuff. Who knows. I don't regret having my guitar. Had to start somewhere.

It's just really time to move on. And why buy a nylon acoustic when an electric does the same thing, and plus some? Probably something to do with resonance and body and stuff, but um, yeah, not that important. 

I'll take easy mode now, and by now, I mean some time in June / July. I have to get back from Hawaii first.

Guitar Practice

I don't have a "measured and timed" progress report on my guitar playing, but I was playing the C major pentatonic scale to a jam along CD yesterday and having fun. My fingers could actually keep up with some of the stuff I tried.

There are also parts of Blackbird that I suddenly played much smoother.

Chords are still embarrassing, but I'm better than worse.

Nysidra Work

Nysidra, in case you missed the memo, is not also my "handle," but also a system I created.  This system has its own site, but my ideas for it exceed my desire to bring them into reality. *laughs* Either way, some of the images of the glyphs of the system are old and require much needed attention. I'd been balking against that, but this week started to work on vector images of the glyphs.

Someone gave me an idea of how to develop the site. I've had a few visions of how I could implement that, but without the better glyphs, I'm not going to like anything I do. So, that first. 

Another guitar update.

I asked about the action on my guitar. My teacher handed me a guitar from his wall with lower action and told me to play it. It was like butter in my hands really, silly putty compared to the steel guitar I had. 

I want to stick with the guitar I have at its current action. I have done nothing but constantly improve in playing it. I'm building my strength. It's not "easy", but that's not a requirement. If I lowered the action on my current guitar, I'd probably get a lot more buzzing out of it anyway. Once I've built my strength, I'll make that decision with more experienced hands.

Speaking of constant improvement. My teacher wanted to impress upon me how quickly he thought I was learning. He even mentioned how it was a trend among the growing amount of female students he has. They actually do the work, he told me. They pay attention, play with more finesse, and learn far faster than males. He noted that most males have a hubris about playing the guitar, they attack songs with brute force, don't practice and claim they already know the material. Gender differences aside, I'm happy there are more female guitar students in the world (or at least Pensacola). \m/ (^_^) \m/ I am 100% sure there are female slackers and studious males with grace. My teacher just hasn't met any lately.

The only thing I personally think is not coming along as smoothly as everything else - chords. And, I am very sure that's because of my guitar. Now that I know that, I'm cool with it. With time, comes improvement. With practice, will come the strength.

Oh, the tips of my fingers have reached a 3rd stage - crustiness. *laughs* Slightly dry looking, looking like they want to peel. I'll buff those little bits down though.

As for the other hand, I have no fingernails on them anymore. *grins* Tore the natural ones off. I'm going to roll with playing with my flesh, see how that progresses.  

Oh! There was one other bit about my session I wanted to mention. He showed me how the scales I have been practicing playing into playing blues and other licks. I asked him how that related to jazz. He played it. (Jazz is the geek of guitar playing, from what I understand now.) I asked how that related to bluegrass. He moved to a closed G form to show me, but as I watched him play I was grinning from ear to ear. I'm still smitten by the style. Somewhere between Bluegrass and Contemporary Jazz (for it's embelishment minus the complex chord formations) is where I'm going to land. I love the play style, the frolicking all over the fret board.

A bit of a guitar update.

I'm working on learning Blackbird by The Beatles, per my teacher's instructions.
I'm working on learning Crosses by Jose Gonzalez, per my own asperations.  

I've got three C major scale forms down. I can play them at 100 bpm as of this afternoon actually. It was fairly amazed by that.

I have some barre chord changes I'm sounding horrible with. *smiles*

I have a few picking patterns, learned and created, I like to close out my practice with.

Someone kindly mentioned to me that I should get someone to lower the action on my guitar. I thought about that, I did, but I'd like to build up the strength in my hands as well. Low action nylon strings would be an effortless breeze. I do want to play fingerstyle, and the type of 'rambunctious' music I'd like to play would require the action I have now so that the strings are constantly buzzing. At least, that's what I think.

Thank you for the suggestion, Corgi. I'll definitely ask around for more advice on what I should do about my strings.

Now that I have a teacher, when I practice on my guitar, I follow this procedure:

I perform the lesson given to me. Presently, this amounts to reviewing chords and scales. I play them, go over them, and what not.

Then I do my other stuff. I'll go over a song I've learned. Review chords that I've taught myself. Look up some of the exercises I've found on the internet. 

Here are some others things I've found myself doing lately. 

I *think about* what I'm doing. Sometimes, the guitar doesn't even have to be in hand. I had been given the A and E form barre chords of the C major scale to practice. I took a look at them and realized something my teacher did not point out. All the A form barre chords have their root note on the A string, are strummed from that string only, and the form corresponds to C scale. (D minor barre uses an A minor form, G major barre uses A major form.) The only thing I really need to know is where the notes are on the A string. After that, I can deduce the rest. Same for the E barres on the low E string, all strummed from the 6th string.

There's a reason my teacher would not have said any of this, and a reason why reading it isn't that much better. You have to see the pattern, figure it out. Don't just "Play Exercise #1 for 10 minutes." That's boring. That's not practicing. That's being a machine. Yes, get in the physical workout, but think about what you're doing for a second. Figure out how it relates.

The other thing - I play on my guitar. Play. Have fun. P L A Y. That's why I'm teaching myself to do this, right?

So, with something like a scale. Playing it up and down, up and down, up and down, back and forth. *yawn* Yes, you're supposed to do that, but that's not it. You don't stop there. So you've got it memorized, or nearly. I start making up rhythms using those notes. I try to make up a little song using the chords I've learned or the scales I'm working on. 

It's actually pretty funny, especially when my aspiration outreaches my skill. 

I am fairly sure that's exactly what you want to do. Try to do something you can't do. Why? Because you've created a goal. You may even create the beginnings of a cute song. 

Anyway, I've heard that people hate practicing. 

Try playing with the practice. It might help.

I had my first guitar lesson today.

LOL WUT?!

Yeah, I went and acquired a teacher. I live on whim.

What brought this on?

In these three months I've been scouring the internet for every drop of free lesson nectar, I have collected a lot of information. I have read more than I can currently recall, but One Note and I have that all sorted out. I've expanded and remixed my practice sessions to include all sorts of snippets of knowledge. 

That's what the 'free stuff' really is: snippets, appetizers, openers. You can learn plenty on your own, but not everything I want, and not the way I want it. Not without more personal effort (I've put forth a lot already, but I have my limit.)

I really like the teacher I found, proficient in the style I like (fingerstyle), with the knowledge I want (theory), and the counterbalance I need (structured). I still plan to teach myself the things I've found and want to follow, but in the meanwhile, I'm going to learn what he gives me. A teacher, (mine anyway), can provide a link among all that knowledge I have. Links - how one thing relates to another and how it relates back to something else.

I risk overwhelming myself left to my own devices, especially in a discipline where there is a sheer metric tonne of things I could know.

How did I find my teacher? I kept it simple. I asked the person who sold me my guitar. I liked what he told me about the teacher he thought would fit me. 

Fingertip Pain

My fingertips no longer hurt 'all day.' The ever-present tingling in my fingertips has pretty much gone away and has been replaced by a vague numbness. After playing chords or holding them for a while, especially if I've been playing for up to 45 minutes, the pain, when I feel it, is far more acute - just under the sensation of being pinched.

Chords & The Fret Board

Chord switching: I've gone from needing 3-4 beats (at 60 bpm) to maybe 1 to 2 beats (depending on the chord).  Last night, I remembered fondly how hard it was for me to hold C clearly. I can also play F so much better now.

On holding barre chords - I played them even when I couldn't hold them. I just kept trying and playing it. If I couldn't get it correct, I didn't sweat it. Just play it and let it sound horrifying. My opinion of holding my index finger along a fret while my other fingers were two frets down was, "You have got to be joking." No joke. The fingers will stretch. Give it time.

Hitting individual frets is also much better. My pinky has stopped completely missing the strings. Strength has gone up. I'm not much 'faster', but I'm certainly more accurate.  I've added some drills for doing hammer ons and pull offs. Those need work. My current assessment of that is "if you want me to use my first three fingers on neighbor frets, cool. Otherwise? You have got to be joking."

Strumming & Flatpicking & Fingerstyle

Strumming: My upstroke no longer sounds like I'm kicking a harp. Thankfully, I can get rid of that analogy. I can strum beautifully for about 10 beats until I get 'off' again. Vast improvement. I no longer loathe strumming. Yay.

Flatpicking: There was this moment while I was pushing through individual strings where it felt like there was this vast amount of space between the strings. I didn't trip over the bottom strings. I think I can say my control of the pick is getting slightly better, but complex crosspicking or strumming up on just a few strings is still tricky. 

Fingerstyle: Smoother. My thumb doesn't 'fat finger' the strings as much. Less hitting the strings too early (causing a buzz or muting the sound too early).  Again, I'm more accurate, but not 'too' much faster. A lot of the patterns I've been working on, I can play quite smoothly for a while. Oh, which brings me to another point.

Artificial Nails

I got tips on my fingers. Gel, not acrylic. I don't like them; I think they're ugly, but they're a beauty on the guitar. I didn't have any trouble at all playing with the nails, and my play sounded much clearer and prettier. Gels don't destroy the natural nail underneath (as long as the nail tech doesn't file it to death.) I don't play very 'hard' currently, so I didn't get the silk wrap (which makes the nail even stronger.) So, there.

I took piano lessons for 4 years and learned to play very well. I could play all manner of classical and popular songs. I could play an array of songs, but those four years of lessons never taught me the piano or musicianship.

What happens? If you tell me that something is in the key of A, Bb, or … anything. I have no clue what you're talking about. I never had a clue. I read about transposing a song from one key to another and my eyes glazed over in a second flat.

That's why I'm so… apprehensive about learning 'songs' on the guitar now that I'm teaching myself. That kind of knowledge is frivolous and fun - oh, most definitely fun, but fleeting. It teaches nothing.

I do not regret a single lesson I took in playing piano. I'm very grateful to my teacher for teaching me songs and keeping it fun. I composed all of 2 songs of my own while I played. I even fancied up my favorite song to play on piano - Carol of the Bells. There's merit to it. I enjoyed playing an instrument and piano so much that I would cry years later when hearing a beautiful piano song.
Actual spontaneous shedding of tears. I do not embellish. Why cry? I felt sad because I knew that if I were still playing piano I could play the song I was hearing.

That's why I took up guitar. A piano is big and expensive (well, anything I wanted was). I want to make music again, but this time, I want to learn something that teaches me about the instrument and music itself.

I know I'm good at playing songs. I've done it before. I could do it again.

I'm utter shit at improvising.
For now.

In other news... I have the every creeping suspicion that my guitar is too big for me, the action too high, the strings too hard. Whatever. It's me an Patience for 6 months. If I really do need a smaller / lower action guitar, I'm not going to get it until June. This is my rule to guard against my tendency to spazz - i.e. - I'm still not sure whether or not playing guitar is just a phase.

This time last year. I was making jewelry. In my beadweaving defense, kittens provided a barrier around setting up a workspace that I wasn't too enthused about working around. If I come into a rolltop desk, then maybe I'll make jewelry again.

I had a brief free for all wherein I tried to play every familiar song I could find off 911tabs.com. I broke my own "rule." Get used to this. I give myself rules. Break them. Then wax poetical as to why I shouldn't have made the rule in the first place. The broken rule: Don't get punch drunk on tabs. Learn one song at a time.

I went on a bender, and I'm happy for it. It made me want to learn theory even more. After those few days of eeking through chords, I wanted to be able to "get creative" with them, and I realized I couldn't. I didn't know how.

For instance, a favorite song of mine: Convoy by CW McCall. I wanted to get funky with it... and I had nothing in my arsenal. The agony! I can play the chords though. I even learned a different voicing for B7 this evening that I could actually reach. 

So, seeking out chords only brought me closer to wanting to know theory and practice scales and understand how music is truly formed, so that I can take a song and make it my own, when I finally know how. Maybe I'll even come back to Convoy once I know how to fingerplay a chord. 

On the nails, I'm balking on acrylic. I have beautiful, strong nails already. I'm going to work with what I've got before I turn to acrylics. 

Last, I have a spiritual side to me, and playing the guitar is fitting seemlessly into that. I'll expound on the later. The hour grows late. :P 

I am at a lost for what to do with the fingers of my right hand, if anything. I've broken two of my nails already. The guitarist, Wes, recommended I get acrylics. I do remember getting those once. I think I kept them for a matter of days before I had them taken off. I didn't like the oppressive sensation.

My current thought is to get acrylics on my fingers and to leave my thumb alone. I want to build up a callous on my thumb. Something like that will never break or chip.

How do I get them shaped? How long should they be?

I haven't initiated a search on this just yet. I'm up for a little trial and error though.

I feel like I've broken some kind of guitar practice glass ceiling. I can even tell you what broke it - learning to play a whole song on more than one string (Ode to Joy just doesn't count here.)

I'm not playing Scarborough Fair anymore, that's a 'twee' bit over my skill level. However, I'm learing Ilaya Nila at 30 bpm. That's fun! (No sarcasm. It's challenging and fun and I'll only get better.)

Practicing what I know of Brian Boru combined with adding a measure or two a day of Ilaya Nila, the past few days have seen me practicing a total of 2 to 5 hours, effortlessly, on my guitar. (With breaks for fingertip pain.) By effortlessly, I mean, looking at the clock and realizing how much time has passed.

Playing music, songs, is a total rush. Even if I'm playing them slower than Sequoias mature.

In light of my current spazz, I've set some rules from myself:

1. At least once during the day I have to go through my technique regimen.
   
2. I have to practice a song I've already learned / memorized before I go onto learning the new one.
   
3. Learn to play a whole song, or don't learn it. If the whole song is too hard, come back later.

As for the teacher bit, I think I'm going to seek out consultation. I have the feeling I'm strumming challenged. I either need to be told I'm doing all right for my current experience level or I'm "doing it wrong" and need to fix something. 

But fingerstyle? I'm totally going to rock that one day. I love it. 

Well, here's Patience, my Garrison G10. It's a lot of guitar, but I think I'm doing well with it.

 

Since I was taking pictures, I decided to get a picture of Misty and CJ as well. They were sleeping. Misty, in my chair, and CJ in the cat tree. 

CJ lifted his head when he saw me coming and went right back to sleep after I got his picture.

 

Some days, I spend the entire session wondering...

How do I know I'm sitting correctly? I don't think I'm holding this pick correctly. Why isn't this sounding right? I'm sure I'm doing this wrong. How am I supposed to know if I'm...

One night, this kind of doubt plagued me the whole time.  I pushed through it. I think about the days when I go through my regime and everything seems fun and I feel ilke I'm making progress and I'm not shouting at my shoulder every 10 seconds to stop tensing up.

When I feel frustrated and doubtful, I slow things down, way down. Extremely. I remembered doing this for strumming. (Is it supposed to sound that awful?) I noticed that my 'up' stroke sounded like I was kicking a harp. (Mild exaggeration.) So I stopped practicing that.
I played each individual string with a down stroke while looking at the pick. Then I played each string bottom to top. I noticed that the pick kept digging into the strings after each up stroke. I continued picking the strings individually. Over and over. Bottom to top. The pick kept slipping deeper. I stayed with it. I played them slow. I was mightily irritated, but resolved to notice my problem.

I did realize that for strumming, using my soft pick sounded horrible. I have a tortoise shell pick that sounds much better. 

I truly do not know if I'm doing anything this right, but I know I'm doing a lot better than I was in January, and I'm not going to let a bad attitude stop me. I'll let it cut my practice down to 20 minutes, but I will still practice.

That, I believe, is the hardest part about teaching yourself anything: The Doubt. When you don't have someone standing over you correcting you, praising you, cheering you, admonishing you. When you become your own teacher, you have to take all of that upon yourself. And do you even know what to praise and what to admonish? 

Another great one, one that allows me to practice every day for the past three months:

Can't I just skip today? Practice tomorrow?
The moment I ask myself that, I go and grab my guitar.

On the bright side, not only have I practiced a proper hour in the past 2 days. I've played for 2-3 hours while practicing some songs I learned.

I can play a 'newbie' fingerstyle version of Brian Boru [video].

I'm working on  Scarborough Fair (a fav!) now, also fingerstyle.

Both at 60 bpm, of course. 

Continued from Part 2.

The primary focus of my practice is on techniques. I currently have no interest in playing a particular song. Songs mean nothing if I can't hit the notes, hold the chords, or switch them without a 3 second interlude. If my technique is strong, songs will be the easy part. (That's what i tell myself, anyway.)

Richard Lloyd's Lessons.
This man is my primary teacher, and he doesn't even know it.  Many of the lessons I will refer to below came from this site. I highly recommend a thorough reading of everything there.

Practice Session 

When I play my guitar, I do the following:

Tuning - Even if the guitar should still be in tune. I play the strings, using relative tuning, just to hear it, to get accustomed to it. 

Finger Warm Up - I go through the 6 patterns that are used to build scales. See: Preparatory Exercises for Scalar Studies on Lloyd's site. I have decided (based on my 'net research) to do  everything at 60 bpm for March. That's still a fair challenge for me. My pinky likes to miss the strings. I go both up and down on each string with each exercise.

Chord Switching - I got my advice from Play Guitar Magazine. I had already taught myself most of the chords in this lesson, so now it's just an exercise in switching G C D E A, and the minors and the 7ths of E and A. I don't understand how to hold Dm yet. My fingers just... give me the finger... when I make an attempt. At 60 bpm, I need 3 or 4 beats at most to switch a chord.

Major Scale Forms - Another one from Richard Lloyd. These exercises are designed to teach me the 7 major scale forms and the 5 chord shapes. I'm still on I and III. Barre chords are a challenge.

Major Scale Loops - These are fun and relaxing once you get the pattern down. I know 3 of them so far, and they act as an additional finger exercise and a movement exercise across the strings.

Flatpicking Patterns - I got this one from Brad Davis. I started it this March, last week even, I think. (This is where I got the idea to practice *everything* at 60bpm, not just this lesson, for March.) I've added up to exercise 4 into the lesson at this point. Using this lesson has brought me greater peace with my pick and strumming as a whole. Well, this lesson, and listening to Davis' music.

Fingerpicking Patterns - I have a compilation of patterns from via Youtube. Travis picking is by far my favorite. But if you do a search for 'fingerpicking patterns' on youtube, you'll find several more to add. I spend a little time on each one. For Travis picking, listen to the #5 example on guitarland. That's what I've been practicing. ^_^

And... that's my day.

Now, yesterday, I found more resources (mentioned below) and some song samples that will help me practice my fingerpicking. So, I think I'll add a session for song learning as I build my finger endurance. Then I can make a proper hour of my guitar practice.

The current resource I'm scouring is WholeNote. I spent a good hour with it yesterday and found more additions and things to try ... and I wasn't even halfway through my search results. Good stuff.

Guitar Name - And finally, I named my guitar. Her name is Patience. ^_^

Continued from Part 1.

When I bought my guitar, I thought I could learn to tune my guitar by ear.  I employed relative tuning.
Hold this thought.

Style of Play

You think you know, but you don't know.

It was listening to fingerstyle that pushed me to buy a guitar. I wanted to play that. I enjoyed practicing picking patterns. I abhored strumming. It felt weird. I sounded worse. I couldn't do it right. In that vein, you can guess how I felt about flatpicking. I didn't even bother to read about it.

Towards the end of February, I began looking at classical guitar lessons. I liked those! I loved the complexity of plucking the strings. I wanted a classical guitar teacher! 

That ended fairly quick. I am still growing out the nails on my right hand, but for 'normal' fingerstyle, not classical play. I do like fingerstyle better.

I found the tabs for a song I rather enjoy. That's what softened me up to strumming. I listened to some really nice music on a website and learning that the style was flatpicking. Suddenly, I wanted to learn that too. So, I've added flatpicking techniques to my practice repertoire (which I will share in Part 3).

The lesson here is, at least for me, I do not know what I want to do. I am glad I don't have a teacher. I would not have wasted money claiming to want to focus on one speciality. Learn the basics for everything. Sort it out later.  (I am still 'sure' I don't care for blues or jazz, but when the time comes, I'll learn the basics anyway. I might grow to like it.)

Tuning with a Dull Ear

Late February again, I had been relative tuning my guitar. I took it in once to be tuned by the person I bought it from. He said I was doing well and only had one string slightly off. Somewhere, I fell off the wagon. I ended up in a torrent of tears one night because I thought I was tuning low E and was all happy as I felt I got it just right. Then, when I got to the D string, realized I'd actually been turning the key for that one. Cried like a baby. No lie. And I kept trying to tune it, because I was stubborn, and it was practice time.

I thought I did pretty well. It sounded bareable at least.

I bought a tuner the next day. It picks up the vibrations and gives me a green light for 'just right', yellow for 'too low', and red for 'too high.' Every string on my guitar way into red. Whole notes off at some points. Sadness. 

If you don't have a teacher, and you're not musically trained (and passed the test) to know notes by pitch, buy a tuner, use it to back you up. I still try to tune by ear, but I look to my tuner to keep me in line.  

I decided to bring my practice thus far up to speed, but the rought draft got epic, so I'm breaking this into peices.

I have been teaching myself to play the guitar since January after the highly implusvie desire to buy an acoustic guitar .

Starting Out

I began with a thin book I bought with my guitar. I didn't like it. I printed out a copy of Ode to Joy and picked out a few other melodies. That was fun, low key, and reminded me of my piano lessons years ago.

I created a mnemonic for remembering the guitar strings: Even Apples Don't Get Baked Everyday

I have never played a guitar before. I do not know anyone that plays a guitar. I don't know of any guitar teachers in my area. I didn't know what style of guitar I wanted to focus on. (I thought I did, but even if I love fingerstyle, I'm still sure I don't know.) I did a lot of internet research for assistance. I still run searches just to see if there's any nugget of wisdom I may have missed. Additionally, I can save a lot of money teaching myself to play, just in case I decide I don't want to play anymore.

Initially, my fingers could not reach the chords. At first it seems easy, then it seems impossible a week later, then it seems a little easier. When it comes to chords, it got worse before it got better.

I use musictheory.net for the brainy stuff.  The guitar trainer helps me learn the notes by sight. Decent for when I'm not able to play the guitar. For a while I used the Key and Interval trainer. I lost interest, but I foresee myself going back to it one day.

Fingertip Pain

I had baby soft finger tips when I bought my guitar. The first rule I set for myself was only to play until my fingers hurt. Initially, that meant 5 minutes, then 10 minutes, then 15, then 20 minutes a day (just trying to pick out Ode to Joy, none the less). Even if I really wanted to get back to it, I put my guitar away until the next day.
Okay, once, I did try to play again in the same day, and I felt like I was playing on bruises.

 During the day, in February, the tips of my fingers hurt when I touched them or tapped them against anything other than a guitar string. Playing did not hurt as much in February, but I had a numbing tingling pain almost everyday for a couple weeks. Actually, *touching her fingers to her thumbs*, it's still there just a very little bit. My fingers now have a toughness to them, not callouses, yet, I think. I have never broken the skin. When my skin starts to peel a little, I take an emery board and gently smooth any hangers so that they don't catch on the strings.

I practice every day. At least 20 minutes, at most 45. (I still stop for pain.) I am not into having injuries. If that means it will be summer before I can practice a full hour, I can do that.