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 – 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
It’s the last day of the week so I tried to do my best in everything I practiced this week. How did it go out? Let’s see…
1234 on the 5th fret
I started with 240 bpm again to seal my alternate picking skills. It felt natural and was not hard at all.
After other routines I decided to check if this week somehow changed the way I did 1234s before. So I did the same exercise at 300 bpm to find it out.
I felt no challenge at 300 bpm so then I tried to do it again at 320 bpm. There are a lot of messed up moments in this video, but still I’m sure tomorrow I will do it flawlessly at that speed.
Chord transitions
Last time I practiced these two days ago. Today I tried to increase speed of each of them a little.
C/D transition
Despite the fact that a part of my palm became very tired after the exercise and some chords wasn’t clean enough at the end, I see this as a win and look forward to increase the speed even more. But I really need to do something with my thumb and my palm being too tensed and becoming tired after I intensively play just for a few minutes. I did it at 90 bpm this time.
Am/C transition
It’s the easiest one of all three, so I nailed it easily at 140 bpm.
E/D transition
The D chord didn’t always sound clean, so I will work on this transition more, but despite that I played these transitions at 120 bpm.
Strumming
I missed this one yesterday – it’s so much fun! So I started at 140 bpm again to make sure I can still manage this speed.
Then I started increasing the speed. At first to 160 bpm.
Then even more – to 180 bpm. It was really messed up at the beginning, but I focused and made through the whole sheet 3 times in a row without major mistakes.
Fretboard knowledge
This time my first attempt became my best one yet – 1:44.
And after a few tries I started to think a lot about beating my time and this anxiety was so great that I kept messing up again and again and didn’t manage to beat my record. Anyway, that’s 1:54 attempt.
Summary
These reports increase in size every day and it takes a lot more time to upload all the videos to YouTube. Maybe I need to rethink what I record and how much I record. Anyway, the week was a very busy one. So I’m happy I found time to do these posts every day.
I forgot about these routines which are pretty useful. Last time it was Am/E chords transitions and it was very easy. Today the trickier ones come to place.
For now the trickier chord for me to change to it C. It’s about the index finger which become situated too close to the bottom of the fretboard. It’s not as convenient regarding the way I hold the neck while I play. Will ask about it in the week 2 summary.
C/D transition
It appeared to be the hardest one for me, so I gradually went down to 80 bpm and practiced at that speed.
After other exercises I returned to this chord transition and did it once more at 90 bpm.
Am/C transition
It was the easiest one today, because basically you just need to move the ring finger and slide middle one a bit. So here it goes at 120 bpm.
E/D transition
It went quite well, I set the metronome to 100 bpm and did it for a minute as I was supposed to.
Strumming
I started with my previous best speed – 120 bpm.
Then I tried to do what I failed to do yesterday – go through the whole sheet at 140 bpm multiple times in a row without any errors. And I nailed it this time!
1234 on the 5th fret
Again, yesterday I failed at 180 bpm, today I managed to do it the right way.
And then I proceeded to 200 bpm. Should practice more to decrease the number of errors, but it was decent for sure.
Fretboard knowledge
As always I filmed the first attempt, which ended in 2:15.
Then I practiced a few times and got my new record there – 1:52! Unfortunately I didn’t repeat it on camera. This attempt was in 1:55.
Summary
I’m happy with my results today. I’m starting to formulate what I will ask in the week 2 summary to increase my technique and dexterity and some other stuff.
The day was quite eventful and I got tired by the time I had time to play. So today I haven’t proceeded to much, mostly just repeated my yesterday results.
1234 on the 5th fret
I started with 180 bpm like the metronome was set yesterday, but the number of mistakes was huge.
After other routines I tried to repeat this one again and it was a bit better this time.
Strumming
Yesterday I managed to sort of play the whole sheet of strumming PDF at 120 bpm while counting out loud. So for starters I did it again today.
It wasn’t perfectly fine, but I decided to increase the speed to 140 bpm to test myself.
And I started to fail at the second half of the sheet. So after several attempts the decision was made to set the metronome back to 120 bpm.
Fretboard knowledge
I continued to did this a few times every day to increase my speed. As always I recorded my first attempt of the day, then practiced a few times and tried to beat my last record. The first try went quite well – 2:21.
And the goal was achieved, I beat my previous record by 6 seconds. Now it’s 2:07.
Summary
I’m glad that even after so much activities during the day I still wanted to practice. Maybe the enthusiasm wasn’t as great as it was before, but this daily upload thing keeps me tight. Hopefully tomorrow I will practice in the morning when I’m full of energy and will to do it.
I continued progressing in speed. At start I tried to set the metronome at 160 bpm and it worked out.
Then after other routines I felt like I could do it faster, so I set the metronome to 180 bpm and got a quite decent result.
Strumming
I watched the strumming module and started to play given sheet one line at a time to figure it out.
Then I was ready to connect it all together and try to play and count at the same time. It was reeeeally tricky, especially at higher paces. Here are my attempts at 90 bpm:
And here is where things became hard to play – 120bpm. My first tries:
Then I practiced a bit off-camera and decided to record some more successful ones:
Fretboard knowledge
I practice it just a few times per day but still gradually get better 🙂 Today I managed to do it in 2:28 the first try (no notes played before).
And after several attempts here is my new record – 2:13.
Summary
It was a busy day, I have only like one and a half out in the morning to play the guitar and film it. My every day uploads keep me in great mental shape, I think. There is no reasons for me to skip my guitar practice. And I will do everything to keep it that way!
