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Old 03-15-2018, 07:00 PM
Johnny Raw Johnny Raw is offline
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Default My learning curve, from newbie to....Advice welcome!

I said I'd like to write a blog type thing about my progress and some were supportive so here we go.

I will keep updating this thread so that anyone interested can click, if they're not, well....

Back story is buying an old Yamaha acoustic on eBay (FG 401) about seven or eight years ago (much alcohol has passed my lips since so not really sure on that) but made the mistake of trying to learn online, quickly lost confidence that I was doing anything right so decided to book lessons immediately.

Being Irish, years later is as 'immediately' as I get so here I am, giving it another go.

This all started when I spotted a great deal on a Yamaha APX 500 that some guitar fiend on a football forum I'm on had posted a link to (it's a massive board and folk there post about anything and everything). Mrs Raw and I were halfway through a bottle of bubbles (that's another story) when I saw the post but I'm fairly sure this had nothing to do with my deciding it was too good a deal to miss, anyway, out came my phone and the purchase was about to be made.... "John, you already have a guitar that you can't play, why are you buying another one?"

"Well, erm....it's because this is a different one to what I have. Oh and it's semi electric so this will be much better than that second hand one I bought. Oh and erm....Ah, I just like the look of it and every other guitar head on the site is banging on about what a good deal it is."

Mrs Raw is pretty laid back, knows me like the back of her hand so asked to have a look at it. There was a choice of three colours, natural, black and a blue. She decided that despite my preferring the black, the blue 'looked nicer'.

I bought the blue one.

I think I realised that the only way I could justify it was if I finally bit the bullet and booked some lessons.

Two weeks later, I was sourcing a local tutor and spotted on a website that they do couples lessons, so as Mrs Raw loves music as much as myself (keyboards is her thing) and we now had two guitars, I thought she may as well learn as well. She wasn't interested but I may have inadvertently given her the impression that I'd already booked and paid for our first lesson, so she agreed to give it a lash.

Tutor is amazing, obviously good at what he does, was a bit surprised when he asked me to put my (rather large) hands against his and exclaimed "Oh, what I could do with those hands"...

We both left the first lesson absolutely buzzing!

First chords we were on were E minor and D6. He's teaching us using America's Horse With No Name, a song we both love.

We've since had a second lesson, update to follow.

Last edited by Johnny Raw; 03-20-2018 at 05:40 PM.
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Old 03-15-2018, 07:37 PM
jstroop jstroop is offline
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Looks like this is going to be a fun thread to follow.
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Old 03-15-2018, 07:38 PM
rokdog49 rokdog49 is offline
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Good luck and most of all have fun!
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Old 03-15-2018, 09:48 PM
v32 finish v32 finish is offline
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A good song to learn for an extreme beginner is a basic "blues shuffle" or 12 bar blues progression. (hard to call it a song, as it encompasses a distilled version of an entire style, really)- anyway, sounds like you're having fun! learning guitar is very, very rewarding.. it will eventually just become a very familiar, very comforting aspect of your life.. and you won't even remember what it was like to Not play.

Good luck and happy trails
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Old 03-15-2018, 09:56 PM
Steadfastly Steadfastly is offline
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Doing it as a couple is great! Keep us updated.
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Old 03-19-2018, 04:49 AM
Johnny Raw Johnny Raw is offline
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Thanks guys, I will update this soon.
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Old 03-20-2018, 11:06 AM
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KDepew KDepew is offline
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Gonna enjoy following this! Keep up the work and have fun!
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Old 03-20-2018, 06:41 PM
Johnny Raw Johnny Raw is offline
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Thanks for the interest.

So, a couple of lessons later and we've established that our tutor might have a great ear for music but a terrible one for accents. Growing up in England (here since a child) this Irishman has an English accent which the tutor got, however, Mrs Raw has an accent that, in comparison, would make Gay Byrne sound like the queen of England.

He actually thought she might be from Poland....

Anyway, second lesson was learning rhythms for A Horse With No Name using E Minor and Asus2, then at the end of the lesson, he showed us the G chord.

FFS! Here now, it's one thing using two fingers for a chord but to kick straight up to four fingers is a bit strong!

On our way back from the lesson, traumatised by this step up in finger requirements, I insisted to Mrs Raw that a quick pint in a local hostelry was required. Following the maxim that a bird doesn't fly on one wing, two pints later we were heading home and passed the big communal bins at the end of the road, where we came upon an acoustic guitar, trashed.

I couldn't help but send a photo of it to Henry (for it is he) telling him that practicing the G chord had made me lose the run of myself and thanks to his insane demands, my instrument was now looking like a leftover from an early gig by The Who!

We had given ourselves a two week gap to the next lesson but a combination of work and life in general (pubs might have played a part, hardly our fault they're open every night) meant that by the Monday (the next lesson being due that Friday) we both felt we hadn't practised enough so I asked our Henry if we could postpone the lesson by a week, unfortunately he had a holiday booked for Easter so it was either this Friday (16 March) or a five or six week gap (we were away home to Ireland as well) so we dedicated ourselves to a decent practice session and went ahead with the lesson, as planned.

After a quick recap on what we'd done, Henry introduced us the the one minute chord change, between E minor and G. Mrs Spur managed 15 (she did three or four more but he ruled them out as bad chords) so I was next. I'm not the most competitive person in the world but, you know, it was the missus, she had already proved she was picking other things up better than me so I thought this might be my chance...

I did 18 and no, I really didn't feel like jumping up and punching the air.

Much...

Anyway, Henry introduced the D chord and our 'homework' now is practising the bit of Oasis' Songbird we'd done, the D chord and doubling our one minute change numbers.

I'll say this, even given it was Paddy's day at the weekend, we got some of that homework done, however we have decided to only check our one minute changes after a couple of weeks, to give our practice a chance to kick in.

We have a month and while we're a way for some of it, I reckon doubling our numbers doable.

IF we practice enough!
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Old 03-20-2018, 07:29 PM
Gordon Currie Gordon Currie is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Johnny Raw View Post
We have a month and while we're a way for some of it, I reckon doubling our numbers doable.

IF we practice enough!
I got a little secret for you - progress (with honest practice) will likely accelerate. By that I mean you will struggle to reach a hilltop, then struggle less to reach the next higher hilltop, on and on for a bit.

Then you may plateau (happens to EVERYONE). It's OK, just a signal that you need to change up the approach for a bit. At some point, onwards again!

I can still remember the frustration and elation, back and forth, of the early days (in fact that's all I remember about it).

Your post brought back some distant and fond memories. Best of luck.
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Old 03-21-2018, 10:55 AM
Johnny Raw Johnny Raw is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Gordon Currie View Post
I got a little secret for you - progress (with honest practice) will likely accelerate. By that I mean you will struggle to reach a hilltop, then struggle less to reach the next higher hilltop, on and on for a bit.

Then you may plateau (happens to EVERYONE). It's OK, just a signal that you need to change up the approach for a bit. At some point, onwards again!

I can still remember the frustration and elation, back and forth, of the early days (in fact that's all I remember about it).

Your post brought back some distant and fond memories. Best of luck.
Thanks for this, it's encouraging.
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Old 03-21-2018, 02:36 PM
tonyo tonyo is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Gordon Currie View Post
I got a little secret for you - progress (with honest practice) will likely accelerate. By that I mean you will struggle to reach a hilltop, then struggle less to reach the next higher hilltop, on and on for a bit.

Then you may plateau (happens to EVERYONE). It's OK, just a signal that you need to change up the approach for a bit. At some point, onwards again!

I can still remember the frustration and elation, back and forth, of the early days (in fact that's all I remember about it).

Your post brought back some distant and fond memories. Best of luck.
Sure enjoyed reading this whole thread. It brought back happy memories of when I finally started learning guitar after years of wanting to play.

Practice every day, fifteen minutes is all you need and get those one minute chord changes happening. Focus on learning a song all the way through, the satisfaction that provides will drive you to your 2nd, 3rd, 4th song etc.

Keep enjoying it, only gets better! And you have a great pub music community in Ireland to join in.
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  #12  
Old 03-23-2018, 04:04 PM
Johnny Raw Johnny Raw is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by tonyo View Post
Sure enjoyed reading this whole thread. It brought back happy memories of when I finally started learning guitar after years of wanting to play.

Practice every day, fifteen minutes is all you need and get those one minute chord changes happening. Focus on learning a song all the way through, the satisfaction that provides will drive you to your 2nd, 3rd, 4th song etc.

Keep enjoying it, only gets better! And you have a great pub music community in Ireland to join in.
Thanks for the encouragement. Can't say we've managed to practice as much or as often as intended yet but we have time this weekend so will be getting into it.
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