songs

Week 33. Moving On

What’s going on chefs!

This week was kinda demotivating, because I’m not only failed to increase the speed of muted strumming but had to decrease the speed and my performance got much worse. It’s not what one expect from daily consistent practice, so I’ll drop that exercise for time being and maybe return to it later on. The same goes with the right hand muted string skipping exercise.

Other routines were however pretty okay. I improved in celtic exercise and will stop practicing it, Snow sounds and feels much more consistent and The Last of the American Girls solo appeared to be just a bunch of arpeggios and since that I learned it by ear in 5-10 minutes.

So my emotions are kinda mixed right now. I’m not really depressed, but these dexterity stuff needs to go for now. Today I’ll watch Module 30 and start its routines tomorrow.

Have a nice week everyone!

The goals for this week were:

Snow (Hey Oh) at 150 bpm consistently
Muted strumming exercise at 190 bpm consistently
[Done] Right hand muted string skipping exercise at 100 bpm
[Done] Celtic exercise at 120 bpm consistently
[Done] Learn The Last of the American Girls by Green Day solo by ear

My goals for the next week:

Snow (Hey Oh) with different fingering at 120 bpm
The Last of the American Girls by Green Day solo at 122 bpm playing arpeggios the right way
Implement Module 30 routines

Week 32. Lots Of Muted Strumming

Hey guitar chefs!

This week I mostly focused on muted strumming, since I was told that only applying much time to its practice I would be able to improve. Other exercises were kinda sent to the background for the time being.

Despite this I only increased the speed by 5 bpm – to 185 bpm, and there is still inconsistency in my playing. Next week I’ll try to really tremendously increase the time I spend on this exercise. Will be strumming for like several sessions 10 minutes each daily or something like this. We’ll se how it goes.

Surprisingly I still managed to record almost every other thing I set as a goal this week: 1234 with strings skipping, right hand muted string skipping exercise, celtic exercise, Snow by RHCP riff… They’re not very good but if the performance was awful I wouldn’t add them to the video anyway 😀

Take care, good luck and have a nice week!

The goals for this week were:

Snow (Hey Oh) at 150 bpm consistently
[Done] Muted strumming exercise at 190 bpm
[Done] 1234 exercise skipping 2 strings at 130 bpm consistently
Right hand muted string skipping exercise at 100 bpm
[Done] Celtic exercise at 120 bpm

My goals for the next week:

Snow (Hey Oh) at 150 bpm consistently
Muted strumming exercise at 190 bpm consistently
Right hand muted string skipping exercise at 100 bpm
Celtic exercise at 120 bpm consistently
Learn The Last of the American Girls by Green Day solo by ear

Week 31. Dexterity Plateau

Well, this week my practice wasn’t very regular again, but I’ve spent some time at pretty much everything I needed to.

It seems that I’ve hit some kind of plateau speed wise, and just can’t surpass it. I’m not depressed or demotivated, more like annoyed. Will try to practice more and more regular and see what happens. Still have some kind of spark inside that keeps me motivated on this behalf.

I’m not gonna write everything about every exercise today, there are a lot of them. All of the information is in the video with time codes for convenience as always.

The goals for this week were:

[Done] Clean up The Kids Aren’t Alright solo at 200 bpm
Learn the next part of Crowd Chant
Muted strumming exercise at 190 bpm
[Done] 1234 exercise skipping 1 string at 150 bpm consistently
1234 exercise skipping 2 strings at 130 bpm consistently
16th notes string skipping exercise at 100 bpm
Celtic tune at 120 bpm

My goals for the next week:

Snow (Hey Oh) at 150 bpm consistently
Muted strumming exercise at 190 bpm
1234 exercise skipping 2 strings at 130 bpm consistently
Right hand muted string skipping exercise at 100 bpm
Celtic exercise at 120 bpm

Week 30. Mostly String Skipping

Hey everyone!

There are holidays now in Russia, so a few days were spent with the family, hence the lack of exercise. But anyway I got something to share.

Mostly I focused on Module 29 routines which are on string skipping. 1234 exercises were a challenge mostly for the left hand, especially the one with skipping 2 strings at once. The right hand is not that big issue since I kinda feel what and where I need to play with a pick when I’m pressing something with my left hand. So I managed to play the exercise with skipping 1 string at 150 bpm almost right away. The one with skipping 2 strings is at 120 bpm for now though.

The next one (The Right Hand Muted Exercise) which I called just “String skipping exercise” in the video looks so simple yet I had to decrease the speed a few times in order to play it semi-consistently for some time.

I really liked Celtic Exercise cause it’s really simple yet sounds pretty cool. Again, not much time was spent practicing it, but the clip I recorded is pretty okay.

Also I continued increasing speed of muted strumming for The Kids Aren’t Alright. Not very happy about the progress but still I have one so it’ll do. I increased the speed to 180 bpm, but my right hand still stutters every now and then.

The same thing goes with the solo. It’s really much easier to play now, so the original speed of 200 bpm was not very hard to reach. But I really need some speed increase in the double stop strumming part in order to play it right.

Also, I kinda want to record something for my YouTube channel and start doing it on a regular basis. This thought appears in my head sometimes, but such a thing would take some time and planning in order to be able to do it. Just sharing my thoughts… Hopefully, this will turn into something solid in a few days or weeks.

Take care! See you next week 😉

The goals for this week were:

[Done] The Kids Aren’t Alright solo at 200 bpm
Learn the next part of Crowd Chant
Muted strumming exercise at 185 bpm
[Done] Implement Module 29 routines

My goals for the next week:

Clean up The Kids Aren’t Alright solo at 200 bpm
Learn the next part of Crowd Chant
Muted strumming exercise at 190 bpm
1234 exercise skipping 1 string at 150 bpm consistently
1234 exercise skipping 2 strings at 130 bpm consistently
16th notes string skipping exercise at 100 bpm
Celtic tune at 120 bpm

Week 29. Back On Track

I’m quite happy with my practice schedule and results this week, so let’s go through all I’ve done.

The first thing is bends. I managed to decrease the time between them, so now they sound more “legato” 😀 It applies to Bending, Glissando, Module 28 and The Kids Aren’t Alright solos.

The second point of focus was on learning Count to Three voice melody to the end and playing it at the original speed, which is also completed.

Have a nice week everyone!

The goals for this week were:

[Done] Module 28 Solo at 120 bpm
The Kids Aren’t Alright solo at 200 bpm
Learn the next part of Crowd Chant
[Done] Learn the next part of Count To Three

My goals for the next week:

The Kids Aren’t Alright solo at 200 bpm
Learn the next part of Crowd Chant
Muted strumming exercise at 185 bpm
Implement Module 29 routines

Week 27. Getting Back To Work

Hey guitar chefs!

It’s good to finally play some guitar after the vacation and getting sick for a few days. Apparently, I decided to play almost each and every solo I know at that point 😀

Bending and Glissando Solos were like the warm-up. I was wondering if something has settled in my brain since last time I’ve played them. The bends feel really easier and convenient now, and I (hopefully) look more relaxed while playing those solos. There are some flat/sharp bends still though.

Module 28 Solo sound less cooler that the previous two IMO, but it was still fun to learn and play. The original tempo will be quite crazy, so for now I just remembered the notes and played the solo at 80 bpm.

On the other hand, The Kids Aren’t Alright by The Offspring solo is coming together quite nicely. I haven’s spent too much time on it and still managed to play it at 180 bpm in comparison with 160 bpm I played it at two weeks ago.

Crowd Chant by Joe Satriani needs a lot more work, but I managed to finally settle down where and how everything is being played. So now all I need for this first part is practice 🙂

The last song is Count To Three by The Chalkeaters. It’s a comedy song about Gabe Newell not being able to count to three regarding the games VALVe made. If you’re familiar with this meme as well as the games like Half-Life, Portal, Dota 2, Left4Dead I definitely recommend to check out this song. I can’t stop listening to it since I started a few days ago. I left a link in the video description.

The goals for this week were:

[Done] Clean up The Kids Aren’t Alright Solo
[Done] Module 28 Solo with the metronome
[Done] Have fun snowboarding ?

My goals for the next week:

Module 28 Solo at 100 bpm
The Kids Aren’t Alright solo at 200 bpm
Learn the next part of Crowd Chant
Learn the next part of Count To Three

Week 24. Summary

This week I’ve been mostly working on the Pinch Harmonic Solo, trying to start playing it consistently and adding palm muting in order to get the sound similar to the original. It doesn’t really work, but I’ve managed to record an attempt which is pretty okay. It’s been three weeks now, so I’ll drop this solo as it is in order to start Module 27.

The other stuff was easier, so I’ve been practicing Chords Using Thumb and Santa Monica Intro as well. They sounded decent the last time, so now they are okay as well.

Next week – Bending solo. I listened to it and it’s really cool. Can’t wait to learn it!

I beat my record of interval ear training. Now it’s 138 of 140 correct guesses. Soooooo close to 100%… 🙂

Yeah, also my friend and I finally released the cover for Kids by MGMT. So if anyone haven’t seen it, you may do it here: https://vskolos.ru/covers/mgmt-kids-guitar-cover-with-seva/

The goals for this week were:

[Done] Clean up Pinch Harmonic Solo
[Done] Clean up Chords Using Thumb
[Done] Clean up Santa Monica Intro

My goals for the next week:

Bending Solo with the metronome

Practice time

Day 162 – 15 min
Day 163 – 15 min
Day 164 – 107 min
Day 165 – 25 min
Day 166 – 35 min
Day 167 – 39 min
Day 168 – 55 min
Total – 4 h 51 min

Solo

Module 26 – Pinch Harmonic Solo – 120 bpm

Strumming

Module 26 – Chords Using Thumb – 130 bpm

Module 26 – Santa Monica Intro – 70 bpm

Ear training

Intervals – 14 intervals – 138 of 140 – 98.57%

Day 168. Unsuccessful solo attempts

Today I failed to get a single perfect take of pinch harmonic solo in order to finalize the week. So I’ll drop it for now and maybe return to it later.

Practice time – 55 min

Solo

Module 26 – Pinch Harmonic Solo

120 bpm

Strumming

Module 26 – Chords Using Thumb

130 bpm

Songs

Santa Monica Intro

70 bpm

Ear training

14 intervals

Day 167. Adding palm muting

Today I tried adding some palm muting into the solo. It went quite well but needs some practice. Hopefully, tomorrow I’ll manage to make some decent attempts to finalize the week.

Also I beat my ear training record. Now it’s 138 of 140 intervals guessed right.

Practice time – 39 min

Solo

Module 26 – Pinch Harmonic Solo

120 bpm

Strumming

Module 26 – Chords Using Thumb

130 bpm

Songs

Santa Monica Intro

70 bpm

Ear training

14 intervals

Day 166. Trying out new tones

Today my friend and I finally released our MGMT – Kids cover. Also, I continued practicing Module 26 routines trying some different tones.

Practice time – 35 min

Solo

Module 26 – Pinch Harmonic Solo

120 bpm

Strumming

Module 26 – Chords Using Thumb

130 bpm

Songs

Santa Monica Intro

70 bpm

Ear training

14 intervals