Tag: chord transitions

Day 23. When I Come Around

I watched module 8 and there was that routine – to play When I Come Around power chord progression. I couldn’t resist and decided to make the complete lead guitar cover of this song.

So here is how it worked out.

And that’s the same version but without effects or amplifier itself.

Fun part completed, let’s get back to practice 🙂

1234 on the 1-12 frets

Today was a messy day 1234 wise. I messed up a lot, but routine is routine, so here it is at 320 bpm again.

1234 of the 5th fret

1243

I repeated this combination at 300 bpm again. Again after 1:30 my fingers stopped behaving as they should but to that point everything went pretty well.

1324

Today the metronome was set to 260 bpm and it went very smooth. Already look forward to get it to 300 bpm in 2 days.

Chord transitions

I decided to practice at 120 bpm max. There is no really any need to go above this speed for such a long time, so I better focus on my precision here.

C/D transition

Did it at 120 bpm.

A/E transition

120 bpm here as well.

G/D transition

Again, 120 bpm.

B7/E transition

Increased to 90 bpm today. Definitely need to practice at that speed more.

B7/C transition

The same thing with the speed in this transition – 90 bpm for now, mistakes were made.

Am G/B C G/B transition

I don’t know why, but my brain refused to remember either Am or C was just played, so I ended up repeating C G/B C or Am G/B Am for a few times during the video. I started with 60 bpm.

Em D/F# G D/F# transition

I tried two variations of D/F# fingering. When I was using my thumb to play the F# on the E string, I nailed the 60 bpm transitions completely, as I’d been using my thumb to mute that string for a long time and there’s not anything unusual. Then I tried to play F# with my index finger and everything went really south. After some attempts and practice I managed to kind of play this variation at 40 bpm. Not sure if it’s necessary to train it instead of just using the variation I’m comfortable with.

Strumming

Module 6 pattern

I started at the same 140 bpm I played yesterday.

Then I increased the speed to 160 bpm and it was not hard too. I think that’s the fastest speed I will ever need to play it with so I’ll stop practicing it for now.

Module 7 pattern

Somehow my brain completely forgot how to play it and I basically had to start over and train myself to do it again. After 5-10 minutes off-camera I still wasn’t able to play it even at the same 70 bpm I played it yesterday. But then during the recordings I kind of pulled this off.

After that there was not much hustle to do the same at 80 bpm, so here it is.

Summary

First cover (a messy one, but still) in years done! I’m looking forward to learn the bass part as well and play the song completely. Preferably I will need the drum part. Still don’t know how to download them and is there any way to import the drums into Garage Band.

I decided to practice all the 1234 combinations that got to 300 bpm for 2 minutes instead of 5 just to be able to focus on the new ones more. I’ll do it starting from tomorrow.

My daily routine becomes really time consuming so I need to finish the simple chord transitions routines to free some time. Also I didn’t have time for fretboard knowledge practice today. Absolutely need to include this one in my schedule tomorrow.

Day 22. Polishing everything

It’s the first day of the week 4 so I had a lot of enthusiasm to make some progress. I want to conclude beginner modules of the course this week, so I had much to do today.

1234 on the 1-12 frets

I started with the same 320 bpm as usual to improve my consistency at that speed.

1234 on the 5th fret

Then I practiced yesterday’s 1243 combination and added one more to get it to 300 bpm eventually.

1243

I repeated the exercise at 300 bpm. Still need to work on that muscle thing. More practice needed.

1324

Last time I practiced this the speed was 220 bpm. So today I set the metronome to 240 bpm to improve.

Chord transitions

I decided that there is no really need in practicing these at speeds faster than 150 bpm. So my goal with these is to get all of them to 150 bpm.

C/D transition

Did it at 120 bpm.

A/E transition

Practiced at 150 bpm. Done. The hardest part is to maintain this speed for 1.5 minutes straight.

A/Dm transition

Did it at 150 bpm as well. Not so natural but not so hard as well.

G/D transition

My brain started to mess with me at this one. The metronome was set to 150 bpm and the transitions themselves were not the issue. The problem was in me trying to mute the strings after each chord. It somehow messed up with my fingers and I started to press the wrong strings or press them at the wrong time. Maybe I’ll practice this one more just to figure this out.

B7/E transition

Played it at 80 bpm. These transitions are definitely became better but there’s a lot to do.

B7/C transition

80 bpm here as well.

Strumming

Module 6 pattern

I started with increasing the speed for module 6 strumming pdf. First I repeated it at 120 bpm.

Then I increased the speed to 140 bpm.

Module 7 pattern

There was finally time to check out the next strumming patterns file. I played it at 100 bpm line by line to get used to these patterns. Some of them were really unusual and tricky to play so I took my time.

Then there was time to play the whole PDF at once. I was’t really sure about it so I started with 60 bpm. And it was definitely the speed to start with 🙂

After a few attempts I increased the speed to 70 bpm. It was not perfectly clean, but still pretty decent. Tomorrow I’ll start with that speed.

Summary

New week – new horizons. That’s a great start and I hope that I’ll be able to keep the pace throughout the week. We’ll see!

I really want to play something more musical, not only routines. So I started to record The Kids Aren’t Alright by The Offspring off-camera. I recorded everything but the solo. It is not at the full speed of the song, and I still need to learn the solo, but it’s great that I finally started something like this.

Week 3. Summary

I’m only happy with the first half of this week. Then there was too much planned and the practice was not the priority of that reason. So the only time to play was at night and I really couldn’t do what I needed and wanted to at that time.

I watched modules 6 and 7, played some more chord transitions and strumming patterns, but mostly I focused on 1234s again but this time with some new finger combinations. The details are in the video.

1234

1234 – On the 5th fret at 320 bpm → On the 1-12 frets at 320 bpm
1243 on the 5th fret – 200 bpm → 300 bpm
1324 on the 5th fret – 200 bpm → 220 bpm
1342 on the 5th fret – 200 bpm → 220 bpm

Fretboard knowledge

All strings at once – 1:44 → 1:35

Chord transitions

C/D – 90 bpm → 110 bpm
Am/C – 140 bpm → 180 bpm
E/D – 120 bpm → 160 bpm
A/E – 110 bpm → 150 bpm
A/Dm – 90 bpm → 140 bpm
G/D – 120 bpm → 140 bpm
B7/E – 60 bpm → 70 bpm
B7/C – 60 bpm → 70 bpm

Strumming

Module 6 pattern – 80 bpm → 120 bpm

Day 21. Midnight again

Today was the final day of my third week into the course. Unfortunately, the only time I was able to have some practice was at the night. So all the loud routines mostly remained untouched. I kinda did the chord transitions, but it was not it at all.

1234 on the 1-12 frets

I repeated the routine at 320 bpm. A few more of those and I will increase the speed to 340 bpm. I got my cats sterilized today and had to keep one in the room, so there was some meows to get my attention during the recording.

1243 on the 5th fret

I wanted to finish the week at 300 bpm. So I started with 280 bpm I did it at yesterday.

And then increased it to 300 bpm. Done!

I didn’t manage to maintain that speed for the whole 5 minutes. There is my ring-pinky-fingers-muscle-problem I talked about, so after maybe 30-40 seconds that muscle starts burning and getting really tired. Need to practice more. But overall – goal achieved!

Chord transitions

I wasn’t able to play the chords out loud and it didn’t sound right that way so I’ll repeat all these transitions tomorrow with the same paces. Anyway, there are some videos.

A/E transition

Increased the speed to 150 bpm.

A/Dm transition

Set the metronome to 140 bpm.

G/D transition

Did it at 140 bpm.

B7/E transition

Sped up to 70 bpm.

B7/C transition

The same 70 bpm here.

Summary

I didn’t happy with how this day’s routine went, but it is how it is, so I just hope to continue everything tomorrow and practice in the morning or so. It should be enough time for this now.

Day 19. Tricky transitions

Finally I had some time in the morning to play the guitar. I went through module 7 and took some routines from it. I didn’t touch new strumming patterns because I didn’t quite master patterns from the previous module.

1234 on the 1-12 frets

I started the exercise at 300 bpm. It got better than before. My phone ran out of memory again so I didn’t record the first attempt and repeated 1234s one more time.

1243 on the 5th fret

This time the speed was increased to 240 bpm.

And I repeated the routine in the end of today practice just to improve the results more.

Chord transitions

In module 7 there were two chords added – G and B7. The latter was almost not used by me at all, so these were tricky ones.

A/E transition

Did it at 140 bpm. Not sure if I will practice this transition more – it’s pretty easy to play it.

A/Dm transition

This time the metronome was set to 120 bpm. I decided to mute the strings after each strum to hear if all the strings are played in each chord.

G/D transition

This one was easy. The ring finger serves as the anchor point to rotate other fingers around it. The pace was 120 bpm.

B7/E transition

There is where fun begins… I played this chord literally several times in my life. And the hardest part of it is to place the fingers so that open strings are not muted. So I started at 60 bpm. I wouldn’t say it was too fast, but for now my transitions are not very consistent at that speed.

B7/C transition

Somehow this one was a bit easier for me despite the fact that in terms of fingers movement there is much more going on here. I think that that one song I played which contained B7 chord was with this transition, so I have some kind of muscle memory for it.

Fretboard knowledge

As always, first attempt for today – 1:41.

The best one was in 1:35. And the last one on camera was in 1:42.

Strumming

I continued increasing the speed for module 6 strumming pattern. At first I played it at 110 bpm.

Then I increased the speed to 120 bpm. Will start from this speed tomorrow, because it was not perfect.

Summary

I want to play 1243 on the 5th fret at 300 bpm by the end of the week. So I will be practicing mostly this thing as long as I could in terms of my hand and finger exhaustion.

It’s cool to finally get to the point where I need to practice something from level zero. I’m talking about B7 chord. I was surprised to see it as one of the crucial ones. I saw it maybe in 1 or 2 songs I played. It will be fun to improve my chord transitions speed with this one.

Day 18. Repetition

Today I didn’t have much time to practice so I just repeated every yesterday exercise, some with the metronome speed increased.

1234 on the 1-12 frets

I repeated it at 300 bpm. There were errors but not so many. I missed a string with a pick a few times, messed up timings of my ring and pinky fingers a bit and messed up with transitions between the frets once or twice.

1234 on the 5th fret

I continued to practice different combinations of fingers at the same 220 bpm. It’s quite hard for muscle memory and for the brain to master all combinations at once so I decided to practice them one by one for a few days each to get to the consistent playing at 300 bpm or so.

1243

1324

1342

Chord transitions

I practiced the same transitions as yesterday at the faster speed.

A/E transition

Did it at 120 bpm. Because of the way I play the A chord this transition is easy for me. Tomorrow I’ll increase the speed even more.

A/Dm transition

That’s more tricky, but not impossible, especially at 100 bpm. Tomorrow I’ll increase this value.

Strumming

I started with practicing it a bit more without the metronome, because I did’t quite mastered it yesterday. Then I tried to do it on beat. After several attempts this chord and strumming progression was written to my brain and I managed to do it pretty seamlessly and clean.

This is my last attempt, I recorded it separately to have it in other video.

Fretboard knowledge

Maybe I need to practice more of it every day or maybe it’s really hard to get below 1:30, but I didn’t get closer to it yet. My first attempt was in 1:42.

My best one for today was in 1:38 and the last one I recorder – in 1:41.

Summary

I don’t have much to say today. It was quite an eventful day, so I got only 1 hour or so in the evening to practice. I did nothing new, just repeated the previous day routine. But that’s ok, I think. The best thing is that I find some time to do it. And my consistency with these daily posts is what makes me happy.

Day 17. Proceeding further

I decided to continue doing different 1234 combinations but at the same time look through some following modules to start practicing something more exiting. These 1234s are great but not so enjoying. Not mentioning the fact that my left hand gets tired after 1-2 practices 5 minutes each so I need to do something else. So I watched the 6th module today.

1234 on the 1-12 frets

I spent my time at the same speed – 300 bpm. I need to make this consistent. For now, it’s not like it.

1234 on the 5th fret

I kept the speed to practice all these new combinations more and try to make less errors while playing. It was not very successful so I’ll continue to practice at the same speed for a day or two more. The metronome was set to 220 bpm.

1243

1324

1342

Fretboard knowledge

I somehow deleted the video of my first try of this day, but it was in 1:42.

The last attempt was faster, I managed to finish it in 1:38. Still not the new record but pretty good. All my attempts today was below 1:50 even regarding the fact that I messed up a lot.

Chord transitions

In module 6 there was A and Dm chords presented. So transitions included these two.

A/E transition

That’s a pretty easy one but I decided to start safe at 110 bpm to have some room to proceed to.

A/Dm transition

That’s trickier, so I set the metronome to 90 bpm just to be sure I would make it.

Strumming

A new PDF was given, so first of all I started to learn all new strumming patterns without playing actual chords. I played them line by line and then all together at 100 bpm.

After that I included chords in the equation. As I saw this combination the first time, it was quite tricky at first, and I set the metronome to 80 bpm to play it consistently.

Unfortunately, my phone ran out of memory again so I had to record the final attempts at 80 bpm as well. Surely, I will increase this speed shortly.

Summary

After the answer to my week 2 summary I started to practice being plugged in when it’s possible. And the first thing that I got from it was the fact that after practice I wanted to play more, to do something beyond the routine. So yesterday I started to record The Kids Aren’t Alright by The Offspring. And after a few major problems with my software it all is set up and running, so I’m gonna work on it the next days.

Day 16. Step by step

1234 on 1-12 frets

I returned to practicing this routine on different frets. Last time (it was in the week 1) I did it at 270 bpm. So today I started at 300 bpm. It wasn’t perfect, but it was ok.

1234 on the 5th fret

Other combinations I practice is not enough well-played to do this kind of stuff, so I practice them at 5th fret only for now.

1243

This one is the easiest one of the combinations left, but I want to improve them simultaneously, so the speed was increased to 220 bpm as for the others.

1324

That’s the combination at which my fingers stopped obeying my brain… The first two minutes went pretty decent but then… So many times I stopped because of my fingers mixed up and pressed the strings at the wrong time. Tomorrow I’ll repeat this routine with the same 220 bpm.

1342

Another tricky one. Emotions are pretty the same here. Need more practice. Tomorrow it will be at 220 bpm again.

Fretboard knowledge

Same as always, there is my today’s first attempt. I finished in 1:42.

Unfortunately, I was thinking too much about the record and my goal to beat the 1:30 time and it interfered with my playing which led to me messing this up. So the last try was in 1:52.

Chord transitions

I sped up every transition for a bit and nailed it.

C/D transition

Transitions were made at 110 bpm. The hand started to feel pain, but not much so nothing unusual.

Am/C transition

I increased the speed to 180 bpm. I have no idea why would anyone in any song did so many Am/C transitions at that speed.

E/D transition

I did it at 160 bpm with some errors. Don’t know why this is needed too.

Summary

I decided to stop doing these chord transitions. They are not fun and I am pretty good at them when it doesn’t go to the speed where the transitions start to sound unnecessary fast.

I will practice as many 1234 combinations as I could this week and will proceed further into the course.

Day 15. 1234, 1243, 1324, 1342

Finally I managed to start doing different combinations of 1234s. At first I thought about taking 6 combinations and practicing only them today, but then my fingers started to get tired and I switched to other routines to continue the practice and ended up with 4 variations for today.

1234 on the 5th fret

I definitely need to come up with another name for this part because there are not only 1234s, but some other stuff happening here now.

1234

I started with 1234 at 320 bpm. I failed at that speed yesterday so I kept it to become more consistent at it. But I still ended up making lots of mistakes so I will continue practicing at this pace tomorrow as well.

1243

Before recording the video I tried to play these a few times. It turned out that this combination is quite natural for my fingers so I set up the metronome at 200 bpm right away and considering it was the first time ever to play this combination it went pretty well.

I had the opposite issue with my pinky. At 1234 it flied away form the strings before needed to be placed on the string. Here it stayed on the strings after being played with. I’m gonna be working on that.

1324

Here comes more tricky one. From now on I needed to think more about finger placement order and it led to quite a lot mistakes during the routine. Still first time though so I’m not gonna be very upset about it and just continue to work on my precision tomorrow. Did it at 200 bpm too.

1342

There was some problems with letting my ring and pinky fingers off the strings after being played with. So when I was supposed to play with my middle finger, sometimes the string was muted. So… again, lots of work here to be done 🙂 But still kind of did it at 200 bpm as well.

Fretboard knowledge

You know the drill. First attempt of the day – 1:43.

Last attempt of the day – 1:40.

I managed to set my new record off-camera which was 1:36. I’m getting closer to my goal which is to do it below 1:30.

Chord transitions

Not much to say here. I sped up each pair of chord a bit to face the new challenge.

C/D transition

Nailed it at 100 bpm.

Am/C transition

Did it at 160 bpm.

E/D transition

Practiced at 140 bpm.

Summary

Let’s just say I’m glad to start working on different variations of 1234s for now.

Week 2. Summary

This week I worked mostly at my 1234s technique. I tried to keep my fingers on the strings to keep my pinky from moving too far away from them. Beyond that I watched the 5th module and did some strumming exercises. This is my week 2 summary video.

Fretboard knowledge

All strings at once â€“ 2:26 → 1:44

1234

On the 5th fret (with all my fingers on the strings) – 80 bpm → 240 bpm
On the 5th fret (without paying attention to the fingers) – 300 bpm → 320 bpm

Chord transitions

C/D – 80 bpm → 90 bpm
Am/C – 120 bpm → 140 bpm
E/D – 100 bpm → 120 bpm

Strumming

Whole PDF at once – 80 bpm → 180 bpm