Making strides over time: Revisiting previously dismissed songs, hope for beginners

[Methos1979]

No, I'm not a beginner. But I'm also very much not in any way accomplished. That's my fault. Although I've been 'plugging away' at this for about 10 years, my method has been almost completely self-taught with no real structured process like learning scales that would have helped with soloing. I'm on the slow, long road to self-discovery and improvement, the 'scenic route' as I like to call it. I started by learning basic open chords and then bar chords. What worked for me has always been learn a few chords, find a simple song that I know and love with those chords and learn to play the song. As time went by, more complicated songs that added a chord or two would come up that forced me to learn a few more chords and chord variations.

Early on it was the OLGA website. (Remember OLGA - the On-Line Guitar Archive?) It was eventually shut down due to legal issues it couldn't resolve. But websites like the Ultimate Guitar forum sprang up and stuck. This is a great website for finding simplified guitar tabs for many, MANY songs. They are user supplied and often overly simplified and inaccurate ways to play songs. But it's free and a good place to start. Like many, we (wife and I, acoustic duo) started slow, learning a few simple songs and started to play them at open mics. Eventually we learned enough to play some short, freebie 'shows' for food or tips. Ten years later, we're retired and gigging out, booking around 150 shows a year and having a blast.

What has been fun the past few years is suddenly having the ability to learn songs that I'd previously looked up on UG but dismissed as being 'too hard' to learn, usually meaning it had too many chords, and too many difficult chords. This was often most apparent when looking up songs that were originally played by piano players. Whereas most guitar-based songs would have anywhere from 3-12 chords, your average piano song would have upwards of 20-40! And many of those were these seemingly overly complicated chords to boot with impossible fingerings not meant for mortal humans. I would pull up one of these songs and immediately just move on knowing that I'd never learn that in any short time. Why spend a month learning a single complicated song when I could add 10 easy songs in the same time with much less effort.

Yes, I'm a 'path-of-least-resistance' kind of guy! But what I'm discovering now is that I'll often go back and look at these songs again and I'm now able to play many of them as those chords have slowly worked their way into my vocabulary. Also, many chords that I dismissed as too hard turn out to have simpler versions (as with all chords) because there are many different ways to play that chord, oftentimes way easier than the one displayed in UG. One neat trick it took me a bit of time to discover on UG is if you hover your cursor over a chord diagram it will tell you below how many different variations of a chord there is and how to play it! And then add to that there are many ways you can add little flavorings to chords you already know that make them hybrid chords that are oftentimes good enough to get you by.

Of course as is well known many of the UG tabs are somewhere between fairly to very inaccurate. Most of the time they are showing you a chord structure that is similar to the melody line rather than what is actually being played by guitar in the actual song. But when (in my case) you're the only guitar/instrument in the band, sometimes this is the only way it can be done. You're oftentimes trying to simulate what the entire band is doing, playing parts of the guitar, keys, bass and even percussion on a single instrument. These days I'll get the basic chord progression I like best from UG (there is almost always several versions), find the key I want to play it in, and then spend a few days listening to and playing along with the song and learning my own version, adding or subtracting chords that sound better to me.

As a recent example, my wife and I have always loved the song 'L-O-V-E' by Nat King Cole. I'd looked it up several times over the years. In the early days, just seeing that it had over 20 chords turned me off. Then I'd try again and make a little headway but it just never sounded quite right. A few weeks ago we started working up some new material for our 2024 setlist and I decided to give it another go. This time I took the version I liked the most and then just started replacing chords that didn't sound quite right with chords or variations that did sound right. I was shocked that in short order I had a working version that is now allowing us to perform this song in upcoming shows! To say we're ecstatic is an understatement. Finally, after all these years, we can add a song we've always wanted to play but never thought we could.

So what is the point of this length treatise? Mostly to let those just starting out on this journey know to not get discouraged. Even if you take the most laid-back approach to learning to play, as long as you continue to do it, steadily and regularly, you will improve. Even at the most snail's pace of practicing, if you play daily you're improve. It's nearly impossible not to. Of course a dedicated course of private, structured instruction will have you get to where I am much faster and you'll be much better. But as a (formerly) working adult, who has the extra time and money to do that? I know I didn't. I started playing in my early 50's. A decade later and we're getting paid to perform which has become a nice little fun and money-making 'side-hustle' that is helping keep us busy and making some welcome money in our early retirement. Win-win.

How about you? Any of you AGF'ers take the 'scenic route' to learning to play guitar like I did? Do you remember having those seemingly sudden epiphanies where you could play things you had previously dismissed as just too hard?

[ljguitar]

Originally Posted by Methos1979

…So what is the point of this length treatise? Mostly to let those just starting out on this journey know to not get discouraged. Even if you take the most laid-back approach to learning to play, as long as you continue to do it, steadily and regularly, you will improve.

…How about you? Any of you AGF'ers take the 'scenic route' to learning to play guitar like I did? Do you remember having those seemingly sudden epiphanies where you could play things you had previously dismissed as just too hard?

Hi Scott…
Nope, I'm not a meandering kind of player. I'm an obsess-n-dive-in kind of guy.

It has served me well, and in the past 15 years YouTube has been a wonderful source of enablement!!

I taught fingerstyle guitar (intermediate to advanced) for 40 years. So part of my 'drive' was learning new things (or firming up technical things I was to casual about) in order to help others.

The best thing that happened along this road was finding a playing partner who is also an explorer, but who plays quite differently than I do. He's primarily a bassist, and I'm a devoted acoustic fingerstyler.

Over the years he's turned into a wonderful hybrid fingerstyler, electric backing and lead guy, and I've moved into the electric backing and lead role often as well.

The thing I took from your post is you didn't give up and it's paying off.

[SaintClarence27]

Originally Posted by Methos1979

No, I'm not a beginner. But I'm also very much not in any way accomplished. That's my fault. Although I've been 'plugging away' at this for about 10 years, my method has been almost completely self-taught with no real structured process like learning scales that would have helped with soloing. I'm on the slow, long road to self-discovery and improvement, the 'scenic route' as I like to call it. I started by learning basic open chords and then bar chords. What worked for me has always been learn a few chords, find a simple song that I know and love with those chords and learn to play the song. As time went by, more complicated songs that added a chord or two would come up that forced me to learn a few more chords and chord variations.

Early on it was the OLGA website. (Remember OLGA - the On-Line Guitar Archive?) It was eventually shut down due to legal issues it couldn't resolve. But websites like the Ultimate Guitar forum sprang up and stuck. This is a great website for finding simplified guitar tabs for many, MANY songs. They are user supplied and often overly simplified and inaccurate ways to play songs. But it's free and a good place to start. Like many, we (wife and I, acoustic duo) started slow, learning a few simple songs and started to play them at open mics. Eventually we learned enough to play some short, freebie 'shows' for food or tips. Ten years later, we're retired and gigging out, booking around 150 shows a year and having a blast.

What has been fun the past few years is suddenly having the ability to learn songs that I'd previously looked up on UG but dismissed as being 'too hard' to learn, usually meaning it had too many chords, and too many difficult chords. This was often most apparent when looking up songs that were originally played by piano players. Whereas most guitar-based songs would have anywhere from 3-12 chords, your average piano song would have upwards of 20-40! And many of those were these seemingly overly complicated chords to boot with impossible fingerings not meant for mortal humans. I would pull up one of these songs and immediately just move on knowing that I'd never learn that in any short time. Why spend a month learning a single complicated song when I could add 10 easy songs in the same time with much less effort.

Yes, I'm a 'path-of-least-resistance' kind of guy! But what I'm discovering now is that I'll often go back and look at these songs again and I'm now able to play many of them as those chords have slowly worked their way into my vocabulary. Also, many chords that I dismissed as too hard turn out to have simpler versions (as with all chords) because there are many different ways to play that chord, oftentimes way easier than the one displayed in UG. One neat trick it took me a bit of time to discover on UG is if you hover your cursor over a chord diagram it will tell you below how many different variations of a chord there is and how to play it! And then add to that there are many ways you can add little flavorings to chords you already know that make them hybrid chords that are oftentimes good enough to get you by.

Of course as is well known many of the UG tabs are somewhere between fairly to very inaccurate. Most of the time they are showing you a chord structure that is similar to the melody line rather than what is actually being played by guitar in the actual song. But when (in my case) you're the only guitar/instrument in the band, sometimes this is the only way it can be done. You're oftentimes trying to simulate what the entire band is doing, playing parts of the guitar, keys, bass and even percussion on a single instrument. These days I'll get the basic chord progression I like best from UG (there is almost always several versions), find the key I want to play it in, and then spend a few days listening to and playing along with the song and learning my own version, adding or subtracting chords that sound better to me.

As a recent example, my wife and I have always loved the song 'L-O-V-E' by Nat King Cole. I'd looked it up several times over the years. In the early days, just seeing that it had over 20 chords turned me off. Then I'd try again and make a little headway but it just never sounded quite right. A few weeks ago we started working up some new material for our 2024 setlist and I decided to give it another go. This time I took the version I liked the most and then just started replacing chords that didn't sound quite right with chords or variations that did sound right. I was shocked that in short order I had a working version that is now allowing us to perform this song in upcoming shows! To say we're ecstatic is an understatement. Finally, after all these years, we can add a song we've always wanted to play but never thought we could.

So what is the point of this length treatise? Mostly to let those just starting out on this journey know to not get discouraged. Even if you take the most laid-back approach to learning to play, as long as you continue to do it, steadily and regularly, you will improve. Even at the most snail's pace of practicing, if you play daily you're improve. It's nearly impossible not to. Of course a dedicated course of private, structured instruction will have you get to where I am much faster and you'll be much better. But as a (formerly) working adult, who has the extra time and money to do that? I know I didn't. I started playing in my early 50's. A decade later and we're getting paid to perform which has become a nice little fun and money-making 'side-hustle' that is helping keep us busy and making some welcome money in our early retirement. Win-win.

How about you? Any of you AGF'ers take the 'scenic route' to learning to play guitar like I did? Do you remember having those seemingly sudden epiphanies where you could play things you had previously dismissed as just too hard?

I have had a remarkably similar start to you (though I started at 20, and took a substantial break). Over the last year, I've started playing with a group, and that has helped me both break bad self-taught habits and encourage me to expand my repertoire.

[tbirdman]

It's part of the journey. I have started some songs i tried before, and now I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Some songs I have been able to play a decent B7 chord which opens a lot of songs.

I've put effort into songs eventually deciding the song was not for me...yet!

[jjbigfly]

I keep a good number of songs on my On Song app that I do not play, yet. But I always work on some and if I try enough (practice?) I will see a path to learning the songs there. Usually it sounds bad enough to throw away, but now and then I get a flash and find a way to play it. After that the rest of the song falls into place…..I tend to NOT focus on a particular song. But I will play it through (or close) and if it sounds bad enough I will follow up with tunes I know and play well and then go back to it.

NEVER give up!

[Charlie Bernstein]

Originally Posted by Methos1979

. . . How about you? Any of you AGF'ers take the 'scenic route' to learning to play guitar like I did? . . .

That's probably how most people learn and practice guitar. That's why it's called the people's instrument. A good one doesn't cost as much as a good piano or violin or saxophone, and you can start in on playing songs right from Jump Street. No learning bowing or embouchure, either.

Also keep in mind that it's a sideline or hobby for most — something to do after work or after school and in between other activities and responsibilities.

So the majority of guitar players have little or no formal music education. We don't have those five hours a day that full-time jazz students put into practicing scales. Pros can woodshed all day and gig all night. Or teach all day and woodshed all night. Most of us can't. We do it on the wing and make up in enthusiasm what we lose in ample dedicated time.

Originally Posted by Methos1979

. . . Do you remember having those seemingly sudden epiphanies . . .

Sure! That's what it's all about.

(And for what it's worth, all epiphanies are sudden — the shout in the street. That's what makes them epiphanies.)

Originally Posted by Methos1979

. . . where you could play things you had previously dismissed as just too hard?

And not just too hard. Most epiphanies are about things you just didn't know, like how Em and G relate or how to make a D9 or what a shuffle is.

[JonPR]

Originally Posted by Methos1979

Eventually we learned enough to play some short, freebie 'shows' for food or tips. Ten years later, we're retired and gigging out, booking around 150 shows a year and having a blast.

Well done!
I was roughly the same, in that I was self-taught, and after 10 years I was in a band gigging roughly that much. But that was nearly 50 years ago now! (I was mid-20s then.) I still gig (in a different band), but no more than 2 a month, if that.

Originally Posted by Methos1979

So what is the point of this length treatise? Mostly to let those just starting out on this journey know to not get discouraged. Even if you take the most laid-back approach to learning to play, as long as you continue to do it, steadily and regularly, you will improve. Even at the most snail's pace of practicing, if you play daily you're improve. It's nearly impossible not to.

How about you? Any of you AGF'ers take the 'scenic route' to learning to play guitar like I did? Do you remember having those seemingly sudden epiphanies where you could play things you had previously dismissed as just too hard?

Yes! And this still happens today. I'll hear a piece I think sounds impossible, then I sit down and work on it, and eventually I can play it.

So it's not quite the same as your experience, in that I'm not going back a long way - although of course I have the same sense of understanding the bigger picture, so I make sense of things more easily. Things that were once foggy or baffling are now common sense.

My experience is about tackling fingerstyle pieces that I once had a go at, maybe only a year or two ago, and didn't get very far at all with. But it's like, once you make a first step on a journey, the second is easier. I go back to the tune, and it's not as bad as it was. I spend a little more time on it this time, and it starts to come together ... and before long I can play the whole thing!

The first example I remember is Bert Jansch's Chambertin, which I though had to be two guitars when I first heard it ... but I worked at it, and managed to play the whole thing with no mistakes (OK just one), for one take at least: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weJ1...Z0I87Y&index=5

Currently, I'm in the middle of Jansch's The January Man - not quite mastered it yet in the sense of playing it all through flawlessly, but that end is in sight.

So I fully agree with your main point. Nothing is impossible! Firstly, yes - you always improve, automatically, the more you play anything. It might not feel like you're getting much better, but that's because you always take your current skills for granted: you think you're "OK" but not "great". But with hindsight - which you get by revisiting tunes you tried learning way back - you see how far you've come.

But secondly - and it's related - when confronted by a tune that seems out of your reach, all you need to do is just start on it, and take your time. If you can maintain your interest in it - that's crucial! - you will get there. We can all climb a mountain. We just need to keep putting one foot in front of the other. But the secret is to enjoy the walk - not to think about the mountain top.

[raysachs]

Originally Posted by Methos1979

How about you? Any of you AGF'ers take the 'scenic route' to learning to play guitar like I did? Do you remember having those seemingly sudden epiphanies where you could play things you had previously dismissed as just too hard?

When I first started playing in the 70's, I was into electric playing, learning riffs, a couple of scales (minor and major pentatonic mostly), and jamming. I got semi-decent at that, played in public a lot, bounced off of other players a lot, etc. I played acoustic, but didn't give it a lot of time. I was heavy into it and then all but totally quit to have a family, career, other interests, etc.

After 30 years of barely playing at all, when I got back into it seven years ago, I started down the same road I'd been on, but quickly realized I wasn't into the social aspects of it anymore, and playing acoustic was more conducive to being a "sole-practicianer" playing at home on my own. I messed around with finger style for a bit, realized it wasn't an avenue I wanted to really pursue, and for the past couple of years have just been doing what you describe - finding songs and playing them and singing them. I used to be an unbelievably bad singer - so bad I couldn't stand listening to myself as I tried to learn. But I realized I was gonna have to sing if I was gonna enjoy playing these many songs I've loved, so I just kept doing it and danged if I didn't get a little better by a little better. Not to the point of being good, but to the point of being good enough to enjoy doing it and rarely, but occasionally to put a recording out there for others.

And yes, absolutely, over time I now find myself playing and enjoying and even being proud of being able to take on songs that I couldn't even think about playing a few years ago. Either too many and/or too difficult chords or, couldn't begin to sing them, or just couldn't even get a feel for how to approach playing and/or singing them. And now, some of those previously discarded songs are among those I play and sing and enjoy the most. And they just kind of showed up all at once - after giving up on them at some point, I'll decide to try one again and THERE IT IS - I can suddenly play it, have a feel for it, and SORT OF even sing it. I'm not better in any structured way - I didn't dive in to learn any particular approach or technique. I just play a LOT and osmosis seems to bring improvement. Barely noticed on a day to day basis, but fully obvious and undeniable with the fullness of time.

I'm having a lot of fun, I'm getting better in ways I'm aware of, and I don't think I'm anywhere near my ceiling, so I'll hopefully continue to get better just by doing. I'm not "practicing" per se, but playing a lot brings plenty of practice and, over time, it pays off. And it's a stone BLAST. As long as that's the case, I'll keep doing it. Maybe, just maybe, someday I'll even get to the point of considering myself a pretty good singer, rather than just "no longer horrible". All in due time I guess. If I live that long...

-Ray

[SaintClarence27]

Originally Posted by raysachs

When I first started playing in the 70's, I was into electric playing, learning riffs, a couple of scales (minor and major pentatonic mostly), and jamming. I got semi-decent at that, played in public a lot, bounced off of other players a lot, etc. I played acoustic, but didn't give it a lot of time. I was heavy into it and then all but totally quit to have a family, career, other interests, etc.

After 30 years of barely playing at all, when I got back into it seven years ago, I started down the same road I'd been on, but quickly realized I wasn't into the social aspects of it anymore, and playing acoustic was more conducive to being a "sole-practicianer" playing at home on my own. I messed around with finger style for a bit, realized it wasn't an avenue I wanted to really pursue, and for the past couple of years have just been doing what you describe - finding songs and playing them and singing them. I used to be an unbelievably bad singer - so bad I couldn't stand listening to myself as I tried to learn. But I realized I was gonna have to sing if I was gonna enjoy playing these many songs I've loved, so I just kept doing it and danged if I didn't get a little better by a little better. Not to the point of being good, but to the point of being good enough to enjoy doing it and rarely, but occasionally to put a recording out there for others.

And yes, absolutely, over time I now find myself playing and enjoying and even being proud of being able to take on songs that I couldn't even think about playing a few years ago. Either too many and/or too difficult chords or, couldn't begin to sing them, or just couldn't even get a feel for how to approach playing and/or singing them. And now, some of those previously discarded songs are among those I play and sing and enjoy the most. And they just kind of showed up all at once - after giving up on them at some point, I'll decide to try one again and THERE IT IS - I can suddenly play it, have a feel for it, and SORT OF even sing it. I'm not better in any structured way - I didn't dive in to learn any particular approach or technique. I just play a LOT and osmosis seems to bring improvement. Barely noticed on a day to day basis, but fully obvious and undeniable with the fullness of time.

I'm having a lot of fun, I'm getting better in ways I'm aware of, and I don't think I'm anywhere near my ceiling, so I'll hopefully continue to get better just by doing. I'm not "practicing" per se, but playing a lot brings plenty of practice and, over time, it pays off. And it's a stone BLAST. As long as that's the case, I'll keep doing it. Maybe, just maybe, someday I'll even get to the point of considering myself a pretty good singer, rather than just "no longer horrible". All in due time I guess. If I live that long...

-Ray

I'm glad you mentioned improvement in singing as well. People would be surprised how much practice helps with this too! A lot of people sort of assume that it's entirely innate talent, and it's not.

[tbirdman]

I also play the piano. I tell my piano teacher when I get a new piece I'm in the pit despair. Woe is me...I'm never going to be able to play this piece. After a few weeks, I tell him, I'm now on the edge of despair. Then eventually, I can play the piece fairly good after a lot of practices. I joy I get from practice, is the continuous improvement I see or I know I will see from practice sessions.

I started golf lessons. I hope to see the same type of practice from lessons and practices!

Amazing what happens when you practice.

[12FanMan]

Originally Posted by Methos1979

No, I'm not a beginner. But I'm also very much not in any way accomplished. That's my fault. Although I've been 'plugging away' at this for about 10 years, my method has been almost completely self-taught with no real structured process like learning scales that would have helped with soloing. I'm on the slow, long road to self-discovery and improvement, the 'scenic route' as I like to call it. I started by learning basic open chords and then bar chords. What worked for me has always been learn a few chords, find a simple song that I know and love with those chords and learn to play the song. As time went by, more complicated songs that added a chord or two would come up that forced me to learn a few more chords and chord variations.

Early on it was the OLGA website. (Remember OLGA - the On-Line Guitar Archive?) It was eventually shut down due to legal issues it couldn't resolve. But websites like the Ultimate Guitar forum sprang up and stuck. This is a great website for finding simplified guitar tabs for many, MANY songs. They are user supplied and often overly simplified and inaccurate ways to play songs. But it's free and a good place to start. Like many, we (wife and I, acoustic duo) started slow, learning a few simple songs and started to play them at open mics. Eventually we learned enough to play some short, freebie 'shows' for food or tips. Ten years later, we're retired and gigging out, booking around 150 shows a year and having a blast.

What has been fun the past few years is suddenly having the ability to learn songs that I'd previously looked up on UG but dismissed as being 'too hard' to learn, usually meaning it had too many chords, and too many difficult chords. This was often most apparent when looking up songs that were originally played by piano players. Whereas most guitar-based songs would have anywhere from 3-12 chords, your average piano song would have upwards of 20-40! And many of those were these seemingly overly complicated chords to boot with impossible fingerings not meant for mortal humans. I would pull up one of these songs and immediately just move on knowing that I'd never learn that in any short time. Why spend a month learning a single complicated song when I could add 10 easy songs in the same time with much less effort.

Yes, I'm a 'path-of-least-resistance' kind of guy! But what I'm discovering now is that I'll often go back and look at these songs again and I'm now able to play many of them as those chords have slowly worked their way into my vocabulary. Also, many chords that I dismissed as too hard turn out to have simpler versions (as with all chords) because there are many different ways to play that chord, oftentimes way easier than the one displayed in UG. One neat trick it took me a bit of time to discover on UG is if you hover your cursor over a chord diagram it will tell you below how many different variations of a chord there is and how to play it! And then add to that there are many ways you can add little flavorings to chords you already know that make them hybrid chords that are oftentimes good enough to get you by.

Of course as is well known many of the UG tabs are somewhere between fairly to very inaccurate. Most of the time they are showing you a chord structure that is similar to the melody line rather than what is actually being played by guitar in the actual song. But when (in my case) you're the only guitar/instrument in the band, sometimes this is the only way it can be done. You're oftentimes trying to simulate what the entire band is doing, playing parts of the guitar, keys, bass and even percussion on a single instrument. These days I'll get the basic chord progression I like best from UG (there is almost always several versions), find the key I want to play it in, and then spend a few days listening to and playing along with the song and learning my own version, adding or subtracting chords that sound better to me.

As a recent example, my wife and I have always loved the song 'L-O-V-E' by Nat King Cole. I'd looked it up several times over the years. In the early days, just seeing that it had over 20 chords turned me off. Then I'd try again and make a little headway but it just never sounded quite right. A few weeks ago we started working up some new material for our 2024 setlist and I decided to give it another go. This time I took the version I liked the most and then just started replacing chords that didn't sound quite right with chords or variations that did sound right. I was shocked that in short order I had a working version that is now allowing us to perform this song in upcoming shows! To say we're ecstatic is an understatement. Finally, after all these years, we can add a song we've always wanted to play but never thought we could.

So what is the point of this length treatise? Mostly to let those just starting out on this journey know to not get discouraged. Even if you take the most laid-back approach to learning to play, as long as you continue to do it, steadily and regularly, you will improve. Even at the most snail's pace of practicing, if you play daily you're improve. It's nearly impossible not to. Of course a dedicated course of private, structured instruction will have you get to where I am much faster and you'll be much better. But as a (formerly) working adult, who has the extra time and money to do that? I know I didn't. I started playing in my early 50's. A decade later and we're getting paid to perform which has become a nice little fun and money-making 'side-hustle' that is helping keep us busy and making some welcome money in our early retirement. Win-win.

How about you? Any of you AGF'ers take the 'scenic route' to learning to play guitar like I did? Do you remember having those seemingly sudden epiphanies where you could play things you had previously dismissed as just too hard?

=====================================
Well....I, for one, am still turning the page to an easier song...though I've been "playing" for years. The only audience I ever played for was a few ladies in a nursing home..most of whom probably turned off their hearing aids. I was never blessed with a voice anyone but my collies would like to hear. Nonetheless...I do enjoy playing melodies for myself.

[pf400]

Until recently, I would not give up on a song and gradually I found or copied ways to get through tough parts, eg "Romanza", "Fur Elise", "Classical Gas" and "Tears In Heaven". Took several years in some instances. Now as I'm well into my senior years, I sometimes get part way through a song but cast it aside when a tough section must be learned. As long as I'm learning new songs and maintaining a long list of repertoire, I am happy.

[Bob Womack]

When I started back in 1970, I learned mostly through listening to albums and then watching In Concert Tonight and The Midnight Special. I had studied music so I went out and bought some sheet music with chord blocks above the staff. This was before tab was popular and the transcriptions were horrible. I remember getting the big rainbow book that contained YES' Close to the Edge and another album, hoping to improve my transcriptions by ear. I immediately rushed to the section for "And You And I" and discovered that the part (1) they offered was not what was played on the album. What a let-down.

There were a couple of log jams in my early learning: there might be multiple parts going at once and I wasn't sophisticated enough to discern that. My crappy little stereo didn't have enough channel separation for me to detect it either. I actually learned some songs playing both parts at once, thinking, "How do these guys play these incredibly tough parts every night?" Well, they didn't. The other problem was that the artist might have used a tuning to create a part and there I was reproducing note-for-note his sounds with these incredibly awkward spider-like chord shapes.

Do you know how hard it is to unlearn an improperly transcribed song in order to relearn it correctly?

But a real interesting thing occurred recently as I revisited a James Gang song. There was some guitar construction history that was fascinating and hilariously made a difference in the construction of the song. i wrote up a little article about my discovery, and you can find it HERE.



Bob

[TBman]

If there is something really hard, that my fat fingers can't handle (like Asturias-Leyanda), I will just keep going back to it periodically trying small parts at a time.

I have found it much more productive to find tunes that I can learn in a 1-2 week period (even less at times) and then work on them to get them to sound musical. There's a lot to be done about legato in playing finger style that effects how complete something sounds.

[Methos1979]

I'm glad a few people mentioned singing. I have found the same thing. There was a time I couldn't sing to save my life. I hated the sound of my voice. Still do, in fact. BUT I find I can now sing and stay in key. Another really fun thing that I've begun to be able to do is sing harmonies. My wife is the lead vocalist but since it's just the two of us and I'm the only one playing an instrument, having JUST one acoustic guitar and ONE voice makes for pretty spare arrangements of songs. But now that I am more confident in my singing (and guitar playing) I sing along backup and harmonies to her on many songs and I even sing lead on a few. I don't have a great voice by any measure but people don't make faces or throw things at me when I sing so I guess it can't be all that bad, right?