One last blog

It's probably time to call it quits with this blog. This is the first entry for more than two months and I don't have a great deal to write about. Not because I've stopped playing the guitar - I've not - but because I haven't been learning a great deal of new techniques, concentrating instead on some songs. Various posts about "And then I learned this song" would not have been very exciting!

It's about a year since I first thought about getting a guitar and 11 months since I got it on Christmas day. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I'd be able to do what I can. For starters, I reckoned I'd chuck it within six months, frustrated because I wasn't getting anywhere. Not so. Sure, I have had to put a lot of time into it (an hour or so most nights) but, unlike many other things I've tried, I've been able to see and hear progress.

I can play a whole bunch of normal chords, some barre chords and I'm working on power chords and doing a bit of finger picking. I can play a fair number of songs - and some of them even sound like they're supposed to. I'm now at the stage of choosing songs I want to play and can play songs I've listened to for years. It's a great thrill. There's still a long way to go as playing an instrument isn't like a video game that you can complete. There's always new things to learn, be it skills or music, and I've no plans of giving up. I'm just stopping this blog, which has become more and more infrequent as the weeks and months have passed.

So if you're thinking you'd like to play guitar - go for it. I am proof it can be done without paying for costly lessons. The beginners' courses on www.andyguitar.co.uk and www.justinguitar.com are invaluable. They make it easy and they make it fun. There's also a ton of useful stuff on YouTube if you have a quick look. If I can play guitar to a half-decent standard (well, compared to what I was hoping for rather than to Eric Clapton or Jimi Hendrix) within a year then I'm sure you can too.

This is Oasis soup. Why? Because you getta Roll With It. Hoho!

But let's not finish on me preaching. Let's go back to the start, to what inspired me to give this a go. It all came one sunny morning this time last year when I was out for a walk and listened to Oasis' "(What's the Story) Morning Glory" - one of my favourite albums. For some reason, over the next few weeks, I became hooked to "Roll With It", the track that reached number two in the ultimate Britpop battle between Blur and Oasis. Wouldn't it be cool to be able to play that?

Several months ago I found the video above which, aside from starting with the same feeble joke I've just made, showed how it could be done. It looked pretty complicated and, aside from messing around the odd time, I never really thought about it. However, last week I reckoned I could probably give it a go so I set aside around half an hour on Sunday morning to focus purely on that.

Turns out I didn't need that long. I was able to pick up the main part fairly quickly and then focussed on getting the more complicated bits. Does it sound perfect? No. Is it recognisable? I'd say so. How does it feel to be able to play it? Incredible - I'm addicted to it at the moment and some times I've found myself bouncing up and down as I play it, which makes things a bit tricky. That aside, it is fantastic.

Is Wimbledon as engrossing now a Brit has finally won?

So there you are. From absolutely no skill or ability on the guitar to being able to play one of my favourite songs within a year. Hopefully getting to this stage won't put me off - the same way watching Wimbledon doesn't seem as exciting now that Andy Murray has ended Britain's wait for victory. I've reached my goal - but there's plenty more of them to aim for.

Happy strumming!

Finger pickin' good

Learning the guitar wasn't getting boring, but it perhaps needed a bit of freshness. I'd worked my way through most of the beginner's course on www.andyguitar.co.uk and had tried nearly all the songs - certainly the ones I was interested in playing. There were varying degrees of success with this, as you'd imagine, but for the most part I seemed to have got the basics down, could play the chords and could change between them. So, what next?

And now for something completely different. Well, slightly different.

I noticed a section on the site called scales. I'd already briefly tried one, so knew this wasn't a web page about fish or weighing instruments. People who have tried to learn an instrument will probably have encountered scales at some point and they are often the bane of people's lives. From what I can gather it's playing every note in a particular key, working your way up and then back down.

This required a rather different way of playing. So far I'd been working mainly with chords, which involved strumming most of the strings. Playing scales - which leads to cool guitar riffs - means playing each individual string. I've no idea if finger picking is the correct term for this, but it seemed a good name for the blog. If it's wrong sue me - although you're wasting your time as I don't have much money. Although, in a cruel irony, you might be able to get my guitar and that would be the end of these blogs - and then where would be?

Try to sue and you'll have my crack legal team to deal with

Anyway. First up - and to be honest the only one I've really had a sustained go at so far - is C Major. There's two ways of playing it. There's an easy way, which only involves the bottom two strings, and the harder way that involves playing a few more. Unsurprisingly, the two string way seems to involve playing three or four notes on each string - with the other way two seems to be the most. It takes a wee while to master and the rule of thumb seems to be to be able to go up and down each scale perfectly four times before moving on. That doesn't mean you've mastered it, but if you can't handle the basics then you've no chance when things get a bit more complicated.

There's a total of 10 songs to learn at this stage, most of which I've managed to go through. As you'd imagine, it starts off easy and gets increasingly hard. As an added twist, for some reason there don't seem to be tabs for the various songs so I have to watch the video and try to remember the notes before playing myself. As if learning to play new songs wasn't hard enough...

It's a wide and varied selection. There's Happy Birthday - thankfully I don't need to pay a copyright fee every time I do it - there's Ode to Joy and there's Oh When the Saints, a great song to learn considering my football allegiances. But most interesting is The Chain by Fleetwood Mac.

The legendary Muddly Talker

I am a huge F1 fan and grew up to the BBC using the riff from The Chain as the intro to their coverage. Take The Chain, add in Murray Walker and you have a winning combination for a young boy. It was a travesty when ITV got the rights and didn't use the music and that, combined with the lack of adverts, was one of the best things about the BBC getting the rights back in 2009. The chance to play it so early in my guitar learning career is not to be missed. Incredibly, it's fairly straightforward - and it's popular as well as there's plenty of tabs kicking around the internet, making it even easier.

So, let's weigh up how learning scales has gone so far - see what I did there? Like everything so far, it seems to have been rather difficult to start with but has quickly got better with a bit of practice. And things would be a heck of a lot easier if I could see the tabs.

All through this guitar learning journey I've been practising for an hour or so every day. The only times I've not done this is when I've not been able to, due to meetings and such like. It certainly hasn't been out of choice and two or three days is probably the longest time I've gone without picking up the guitar. That all changed when I went on holiday for a week.

A hungry, hungry squirrel on holiday. Well, I was on holiday, nobody knows about the squirrel apart from the squirrel itself.

When I got back and tried to play the guitar for the first time it felt... strange. It wasn't quite as if I'd never played it before but it certainly felt unusual and I had to go back to some easier stuff to get myself back up to speed. Thankfully that only lasted a day or two and the fact I had long finger nails probably didn't help. Now that's out of the way I can get back to trying to scale new heights - hoho!

The one with the theme tune

 

Forgive me Father, it is four weeks since my last blog post...

Aye, as you can see I haven't written a great deal recently. It's not as if I can say I've been too busy either as I'm coming to the end of a fortnight off work and have had plenty of days where I wasn't doing anything. It's just I can't be bothered to write.

Don't think this is me saying I can't be bothered with the guitar any more as it's not. I'm still playing, still putting in an hour or so a day. I recently had a break of about four days without playing which is probably the longest I've gone in the last seven months without playing.

For the most part, I'm continuing with the trend that I mentioned in the last blog post in that when I'm learning songs, it's stuff I want to learn rather than what is on the various courses I've been following. It's wide and varied - perhaps best described as eclectic - to go with my weird music taste. REM, The Beautiful South, some more Oasis and a bit of Taylor Swift, with a few other things thrown in.

Who doesn't love Friends? If you don't then I no longer acknowledge your existence

I'll focus on two songs in particular for this one. The first is the theme to a little known TV show that was only on the air for a decade or so. Chances are if you've turned on a TV in the past 20 years or so you'll have stumbled across an episode of it (and if you don't have a TV, what does your furniture point at?). It is, of course, Friends - or rather, the theme from Friends, called "I'll Be There For You" by The Rembrandts. And as this is a blog post about learning guitar and it involves Friends, it would be remiss of me not to include the following GIF.

Thankfully, learning this did not lead to me dropping my guitar (mainly because I play sitting down). The video I used did include how to play the intro (although not how to stop to clap at the end of the first line), which seems easy until you play along to the music and then it seems ridiculously fast, especially if you're not used to plucking individual strings.

On the plus side, I once again seemed to have stumbled into something that can help me practice my barre chords when that wasn't the reason for choosing a song. The only problem is these are barre chords I can't play already - and although the two new ones are the same shape as each other just at different frets, they are slightly different to the F barre I can already do. Plus, they are further along the fret board and I still need to try to switch back to normal chords which are in their original positions. This is not easy. To change Channel 4 Friday night shows for a moment, I feel at times as if I'm Father Ted trying to play his and Dougal's Eurovision entry.

I can do this bit...

Surprisingly, it proved easier to get a grip on it than I thought it would. I still struggle with the changes but I'm getting there and being able to get these chords in just now should stand me in good stead. I can play most of the recognisable part of the song (that'll be the bit used as the theme tune) although after that is a bit of a struggle, mainly because I'm not sure where the chords change.

 

Joey and Chandler react to the news I can play the theme song

Moving on, I've mentioned before that it was listening to Oasis last year that made me want to take up the guitar. However, I didn't really enjoy listening to them when I was growing up - probably because my brother liked them and therefore I was contractually obligated to hate them. Instead, my favourite bands when I was in my mid-teens included Cast, Semisonic and Travis.

 

The latter I was particularly fanatical about around the turn of the millennium - although I've never seen them live - perhaps because they are Scottish. Some of the stuff on The Man Who is superb so I thought I'd give Driftwood a try. However, the weather during my holiday has been utterly atrocious so I thought it was more appropriate to go for "Why Does It Always Rain on Me?".

 

Just a normal summer's day in Dumfries



From looking at the chords it seemed my work on the Bb with the Friends tune was going to come in handy. However, there were lots of chords I didn't recognise and really have much of a clue how to play. Fortunately, from watching a video, they were actually rather easy - they were similar to chords I already knew but with one finger lifted or added or moved along slightly. I appreciate it this applies to all chords but they were rather similar.

 

Incredibly, my first attempt was a pretty good one. Being able to play a song that I listened to a lot about half a lifetime ago, and being able to play it so well and so quickly, was a great thrill. It's probably in my top five guitar highlights so far. Unlike many of the songs I've played I'm convinced it would be quickly recognisable to anyone I played the song to (assuming they had heard of Travis).

 

Travis Pastrana - not to be confused with the Scottish band Travis

So that's about where I am at the moment. My enthusiasm for playing is still there and I'm still trying to learn new songs, although I'm not writing as much as I used to because there's not much to write about. On the off-chance if anyone reads this, I'm open to suggestions for easyish stuff I can try and also help with power chords, which I have briefly tried but struggled with as I can't get my high E string to mute even though G and B don't sound. To anyone who doesn't play guitar, this last line will probably be rather confusing - just like it was for me last time I turned on Radio 1...

Relighting my fire

It's now a fraction over six months since I picked up my guitar for the first time. When I started, part of me reckoned it would be an achievement if I was still playing at this point. Another part of me felt this would be the time my interest started to wane.

At one stage this is how excited I was about another night of guitar playing

A few weeks ago the latter happened. Sure, I was still playing every night but I was beginning to get tired of it. The law of diminishing returns was kicking in - I was getting less enjoyment as I wasn't learning much, if anything, new and I was going through the motions. I was still trying to get to grips with the F barre chord and while I could use it on a few songs, the rest of the tunes on the courses at this stage weren't things I was particularly interested in playing.

What I needed to do was recapture my enthusiasm somehow. When I started there were regularly times when I would pick the guitar up before going to work just so I could strum a tune I'd learned the night before. It was a long time since I'd had that sort of feeling. I initially wanted to learn guitar so I could play the tunes I wanted. It was time to re-take control from the courses. It was time to go rogue.

Not quite what I had in mind...

Obviously there were limits to what I could try. Clearly I couldn't dive into Stairway to Heaven (not that I'd want to). Neither could I jump into Oasis' Roll With It, even though that's what had given me the motivation to start in the first place. However, from listening to my iPod there were a few things I had in mind.

First up was what could probably be described as a modern classic - "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life". I could already play along to a few Greenday songs, however this is probably about as different to "Holiday" as you can get without changing to a different band. It holds a lot of emotional memories for some folk as it's used at proms and the like. For me it stands out as I went to the "American Idiot" musical the last night of my holiday to New York five years ago.

Any excuse for a picture of New York

For this it was back to my old pal Marty from GuitarJamz. I couldn't believe how easy it was. It uses four chords - all of which I'd been playing for months. It uses an easy strumming pattern. It was just a case of putting it together. Sure, there's slightly more complex bits involving only playing/plucking some strings but for now I wasn't bothered. I could play it easily. Suddenly the wide eyed wonder and enthusiasm were back. I could hardly put the guitar down. It was about the only song I played all night - and I usually play for about an hour a time.

There were a few other songs I was interested in playing. If you want to learn a song on guitar, put the name into YouTube, stick chords on the end and chances are it will come up. Sure enough, I found success with "Kiss Me", a teen movie/rom-com classic (watch She's All That for proof) from Sixpence None the Richer, whoever they are. This seemed more complicated. While the verse just used a few variations of C, the chorus seemed packed with chords and the guy on the video wasn't exactly going through it slowly. Thankfully he said to look at the Ultimate Guitar website for the full chords. Two minutes later and I was away and running. Again, not much else was played that night.

Not that sort of train

One I really fancied was Train's "Drops of Jupiter". Another slightly soppy, emotional song (aye, what of it?). My main memory associated with this is singing along to it loudly while swinging on a chair at a wedding reception a few years ago (and I don't drink). Unfortunately, I couldn't play along on guitar while swinging on my seat but I could produce a passable version. As an added bonus, the likes of this and "Kiss Me" also included F chords. I'd started off down this route as I was bored trying to practice barring, yet I'd stumbled into being able to incorporate it into songs and getting better at it.

Me and the guy from 90s band Deep Blue Something have never been seen together.

Other songs have since followed including some Kasabian, U2 and Deep Blue Something's "Breakfast at Tiffany's". I've probably satisfied myself enough that I'll soon go back to learning techniques rather than songs but the important thing is I have rekindled my enthusiasm - hopefully for at least another six months.

No holds barred

And so we come to what feels like the beginner guitarist's equivalent of hell on earth - the F barre chord.

You're barred!

Up until now all I've been doing are open chords, where you put fingers directly onto the string and then strum away. Barre chords involve putting your index finger across all the strings in a straight(ish) line. Effectively you are using your finger as a capo and then using your other three fingers to make chord shapes.

Getting your finger across all the strings so that they still make a sound when you try to play them, rather than a dull, muted noise is hard. However, I had problems even before I got to that stage as I couldn't physically put my finger across the strings and then put the other three fingers down. This wasn't a case of laziness or anything like that. For whatever reason when I put my index finger down, my other fingers were flailing all over the place and there was no chance of getting one of them, let alone all three of them, in the right place while keeping my index finger down. This did not bode well at all. So I did what I often do in situations like this when I'm struggling - I screamed for help.



It was good to discover on Facebook on Twitter I wasn't the only one who had gone through this struggle. A few tips came in quickly and following them, along with a few other hints I'd found on Google, got me going. The improvement wasn't as dramatic as I've seen when learning new chords but that's understandable. While open chords are different, they all use the same technique to make the shape. This was a completely new style of playing and was always going to be hard to master.

Gradually I was able to make progress. Some extra strumming while watching TV definitely helped and I began to feel confident - perhaps too confident. As I keep thinking the best way to learn chord changes is to do them in a song I thought it was time to give something a go.

Unfortunately, while playing any chord on its own seems straightforward after a bit of practice, changing between chords is usually quite difficult. And while I can do most chord changes so far without looking at my fingers, I'm nowhere near that stage with the F barre. While plonking down some fingers and changing to some other fingers can be done, plonking down fingers and then trying to barre a chord is extremely difficult.

A laid back polar bear. Don't think that's what the song is about...



So it proved when I tried to play Laid by James. This is a family(ish) blog so I won't go into detail about what the song is but let's just say it doesn't involve chickens producing eggs. Anyway, as like so many songs so far, it was effectively the same chord sequence over and over. This meant there was only one change to and from an F barre during each sequence, an ideal way to get started. However, I found it rather difficult - and it would usually be about half way through the bar of barre (more bars than Wetherspoons in this blog) before I'd managed to get the chord shape AND was able to play a note that sounded something like a chord.

Sadly not the type of bar being talked about



To quote The Beatles, I have to admit it's getting better. Practice doesn't make perfect yet, but it does lead to improvement. Problem is, this is only one chord change - F barre to G and back. The number of chords I know must be into double figures and trying to change between all of them with some degree of competency is going to take some amount of practice. Fingers crossed - although that was the problem when I started barre chords...

Beckoned down by the mirage of an Oasis

One of the main reasons for me starting to learn guitar was because I fancied being able to play Roll With It by Oasis, particularly the intro. While I'm still some way off being able to play that, I have been able to dabble with a few other Oasis songs.

Er, different oasis...

I'd previously mentioned that I'd done some playing of Songbird which, while an Oasis song, is hardly one that springs to mind when you're asked to name one of their tunes. It's a bit like someone telling you they met one of Manchester United's famous Class of '92 only to then reveal it was someone like Ben Thornley or Keith Gillespie.

One of the Class of '92. Apparently.

However, in the last fortnight I have moved on to some proper Oasis - tracks that they are easily associated with and most people who have heard of them will know.

One of them is Live Forever from Definitely Maybe, and now I can definitely maybe play it. It's rare for me in that it's a song that doesn't require a capo and the chords seem fairly straightforward. It's not the fancy lead guitar stuff but the rhythm is there and you can just about spot the song in amongst it all.

One thing I found interesting is while a strumming pattern was recommended on the Justin Guitar website, there seems to be a bit of freedom. If you follow the suggested one there's nothing to stop you adding in a few up or downstrokes of your own for good measure and it still sounds fine. If I was writing my last blog - about my top five favourite songs to play along to - today, it would almost certainly feature in it somewhere. That's how much I like playing it.

Different Strokes always make things interesting

While Live Forever has an interesting strumming pattern (along with a funky F chord to try to change to) the same can't be said for Stand By Me. For the most parts it uses what's called "power eights" - strumming down eight beats a bar. And it's all one chord per bar, so it's not too much to write home about and doesn't sound much like the song.

However, perhaps the fact it's so straightforward is a good thing as it's part of a section on a new chord. The B7 is pretty complex and involves using four fingers. On its own it's not too bad but changing is a bit fiddly. The song is a good way to get used to that as it's involved a fair bit in the verses. There's also some nice bits in the chorus that involve a single strum of three chords in between all the monotonous stuff, however it's hard to see it ever reaching my favourite songs in its current form.

Last, but by no means least, comes easily the most complicated song so far - but as a result it sounds incredibly like it. Wonderwall - and I don't mean the Mike Flowers Pops version I liked when I was younger just to annoy my brother.

On paper, it's fairly straight forward as the verse involves four chords, two beats at a time. The chords may be tricky however you keep two of your fingers in exactly the same place for the entire song and just move the other two about.

But while songs may be written on paper, they aren't played on it. The strumming pattern is rather difficult, which is what gives the song it's unique, instantly recognisable sound. Actually, for three of the chords it's not too bad once you get the hang of it - especially as for two of them it's the same. The problem is the final chord in each sequence - a slightly fancy A - is different, involves lots of upstrokes and even bits where you deliberately take two of your fingers off. It's incredibly difficult - and just when I thought I was mastering it I discovered I'd been tackling it totally wrong. Oops!

That's been more than enough to keep me occupied so my attempts to tackle the chorus have been pretty unexciting. I'm not quite sure of the strumming pattern - it sounds similar to the verse but it's also ever so slightly different, just to annoy me. Thanks for that.

Seems this chap has heard my efforts to play his songs.

So I can muddle through not one but four Oasis songs - not bad given I've only been at this for little more than four months. It's certainly enough to keep me occupied before I move onto the dreaded barre chords.

The Sound of Silence

 

Apologies for the lack of blogs in recent weeks. I haven't given up the guitar - I'm still practicing for an hour or so most days. It's a combination of a lack of time to write and a lack of anything exciting to talk about.

At the moment I'm still learning songs that have introduced the C chord and am making the first steps into songs in the key of G. Some are hard, some are easier and that's about the long and short of it.

It's hardly riveting stuff to write a blog on so I thought I'd do something different. In a High Fidelity style, here's the top five songs I've learned in the near four months since I got my guitar. Most of the songs I've mentioned on previous blogs but there's a bit more detail here.

I don't think they're too impressed by this idea...

5. I'm A Believer - The Monkees

I often get confused between I'm A Believer and Daydream Believer. Both are songs from The Monkees and both have the word believer in the title. That's more than enough to confuse an idiot like me. A way I should use to try to remember them is Reeves and Mortimer did a cover of I'm A Believer while in my youth I used to sign a song to the tune of Daydream Believer to various Morton players.



It would be rather rude to tell you what was said about Marko Rajamki through the medium of Daydream Believer.

Anyway. I digress. Daydream Believer. Wait, no. I'm A Believer (I wish I could say that mix-up was for comedy effect but it was actually genuine). A number one for The Monkees and written by Neil Diamond. So says Wikipedia.

It's one of the more recent songs I've learned but already I love it. It's quite fast paced, the version I know is fairly straightforward as it only uses C, G and D and the most common strumming pattern of down, down, up, up, down. It's a great song to play along to and even strumming on it's own it sounds fairly recognisable. A classic.

Here's how it should sound. I'll point out I can't do the fancy bits, like the intro.

4. Brown Eyed Girl - Van Morrison

Everyone knows Brown Eyed Girl, however I always used to mix up Van Morrison with Morrisey, often talking about Van Morrisey. A rather weird combination. I also had no idea until recently that Van Morrison was Irish. Who knew? He did, presumably.

Keira Knightley is a brown eyed girl and that's as good a reason as any for a photo of her

I blogged before about my struggles with this song. When I first tried it I was all over the place and thought my guitar journey was in real trouble. I played it 24 hours later and pretty much nailed it, something I've been unable to do since. What happened in that time is anyone's guess, but it gave me a huge confidence lift and made me realise I will be able to do this after all.

Like I'm A Believer (got the right one this time), it is mainly C, G and D with a bit of E minor thrown in for good measure. It uses the same strumming pattern too, although obviously the chords are in a different arrangement or it would be the same song. I'm almost so confident in it that I tried singing along to it, although that attempt at multi-tasking quickly backfired and hasn't been tried since!

Brown Eyed Girl is a great song, an absolute classic and my version sounds fairly like it - again without the fancy bits. Here's how it should sound.

3. Chasing Cars - Snow Patrol

Another Irish entry, although I have also heard them described as Scottish because they met at uni in Dundee. And for some reason I thought they were Welsh. So there you go. Lead singer Gary Lightbody is currently going out with Courteney Cox, who is more than 10 years older than him. She is in a programme called Cougar Town. No further comment.

Looks like Chandler is unimpressed by news of this relationship.

Chasing Cars is not actually about folk running after Hondas or Fords, which is a bit of a pity. It's about emotions, or something. It only got to number six in the charts, which is crazy. It was also the last song played live on Top of the Pops. Wiki to the rescue again.

The version I have learned of Chasing Cars is not complicated. Three chords - A, E and D - and strumming the same way the entire song. Played on it's own it doesn't sound much like the proper version. However, when you reach a late chorus and realise you've done your changes right and everything still synchs it's a great feeling. There's also the fact the strumming can be a great stress release after a crap day. And I can almost sing along to it, although sing is perhaps the wrong word to use.

Here's the proper version.

2. Closing Time - Semisonic

As I said before, I love Semisonic. Top keep with the list theme, they'd be in my top five favourite bands. It's a close call between Closing Time and Secret Smile to be my favourite of their songs. I was gutted to discover recently that lead singer Dan Wilson had been in Edinburgh last year and I hadn't realised - although that revelation was tempered somewhat by the fact I was on holiday at the time so couldn't have gone anyway! He's also worked with a ton of other artists, including Adele on Someone Like You and Taylor Swift.





There don't seem to be any pictures of Taylor Swift and Dan Wilson together so this will need to do

Closing Time is a really recognisable song, although there's probably a fair number of folk who don't know who sings it. I stumbled across a lesson on it on YouTube one day and immediately had to try it, even though it meant teaching myself some new chords!

Like other songs, I can't do any of the fancy stuff but I can get the basic chord pattern - G, D, A minor and C - and the strumming OK. I can judge the changes in tempo fairly well and I can sing (yes, I know) along to it as well. A great song and it's a real thrill to be able to play something from one of my favourite bands.

Here's how it should sound.

1. Have a Nice Day - Stereophonics

Stereophonics should not be confused with Semisonic. In fairness, I don't know if anyone ever has but as they both start with an S and include "onic" I suppose it's possible. Also worth noting they are not called The Stereophonics - a mistake once made by Comedy Dave when doing an anagram question for the pub quiz on the Chris Moyles Show. They are definitely Welsh though. Unlike Snow Patrol.

Have a Nice Day is based on a taxi journey the band made in San Francisco when the driver seemed to slate everything and anything and finished the chat with "Have a nice day". Having been to America a few times I can confirm that's what happens just about everywhere. "Sorry, I've just murdered your wife. Have a nice day now, you hear?"

The song is hardly a musical masterpiece and got slated in reviews, however I like it. To play it's is straightforward and, fact fans, it's the only song on this list is that I need a capo for. Lots of A and D chords with the odd E and G thrown in for good measure - and even an E minor.

The reason I really like it is because I seem to be able to sing along to it fairly easily without it having any impact on my playing. For that reason it's nearly always the one I end my practice with, regardless of what else I've been playing, and it's for that reason it tops this list.

Here's the proper version.

So what missed out? Plenty of stuff. Arguably Sit Down by James and Common People by Pulp would have been on that list had it not been a few months ago that I learned them. It's perhaps the fact that Daydream Believer and Brown Eyed Girl were covered fairly recently and are fresh in my mind that puts them on this list.

I can play an acoustic version of Sweet Child O' Mine but only up to a point. Same with The Gambler. I love Oasis but Songbird is hardly a classic. Greenday's Boulevard of Broken Dreams and The Fray's How to Save A Life were also in with a shout but just missed out.

If you can think of a song you think should be on this list, please keep it to yourself. I either won't be able to play it or destroy it while trying to.






Confidence is a preference for the habitual voyeur

Three months in and I'm still going strong. Still learning, still improving (I hope) and still playing an hour or so every day unless circumstances prevent it.

One thing I have learned is playing the guitar is like everything else - you'll have good days and bad days. There will be no reasons why it happens, it just does - and there's nothing you can do about it, no way to explain it. It happens to everyone, anywhere - at the office, playing sport or trying to play music. It even happens to superstars like Rory McIlroy, which is why they occasionally do this...

 



Of course, for a guitar player the equivalent would be this...

Now, admittedly for me that isn't really an option. I'd have to buy myself a new guitar, plus I don't have matches. However, I can't say I wasn't feeling a bit like that last week.

Having done some work on the minor chords I've now been working on the C chord. The websites I'm using show lots of great songs at this level and I eventually gave into temptation to jump ahead. Brown Eyed Girl? We'll have some of that!



It seems there is a Korean band called Brown Eyed Girls. Who knew?



The chord changes seemed easy enough. The strumming pattern looked straightforward. And yet, for some reason, I couldn't get the rhythm right and couldn't play along to the song. It was an absolute nightmare. This, I decided, must be where I hit what runners call "the wall". I'd reached my plateau, found the limit of my abilities and wasn't going to be able to progress any further. The rest of my session that night wasn't particularly great and I could tell my interest would start to wane if that continued.

Move forward a night. I hadn't done any practice of Brown Eyed Girl in the interim. After having a decent bash at another new song - Sweet Home Alabama - I decided to try Brown Eyed Girl for fun, even though I felt I was wasting my time. Suddenly, inexplicably, I could play it almost perfectly. I couldn't believe it. My confidence shot up and the rest of my practice was superb. Parts of other songs that had been problematic were suddenly a breeze and I could even sing along fairly well (timing wise, not singing quality wise) to some tunes.

The cast of Sweet Home Alabama welcome the news my playing has improved.



What caused this improvement? No idea. Maybe it's because Sweet Home Alabama was quite fast paced and helped me out, thus proving I should do songs in order and not jump ahead. Maybe it's because my expectations were so low there was no pressure on me to do it well. Or maybe it was just because the planets aligned and I could play it fairly well - I haven't been able to play it as well in the few days since.

It just seems that it was one of those things - there was a bad day, then a good day. It also shows that, like lots of things in life, confidence makes a heck of a lot of difference. One day it was pretty low and I was worried just how much I could still develop, the next it was unbelievably high and I feel I can still improve and learn a heck of a lot more.

Now I just need to keep practicing to ensure the good days come along more often and my confidence remains high.

Manic minors

What do Margaret Thatcher and I have in common? We both had problems with minors.

Thank you, thank you. I'm here all week. Try the fish. And in my defence, I reckoned that was a more appropriate joke than something involving a 1970s DJ and minors.

Anyway, I digress. My guitar learning adventure has led me on to playing minor chords. The chords I've been playing until now have been the regular, major chords. The minor chords are similar but a more downbeat, sadder version. And, on the face of it, they're pretty straightforward as all you need to do is move the finger on the highest string one fret along. Simple!

Not really. It seems you can't just move one finger along and fire on with it, you have to readjust your other fingers as well so it's easier to change between all the chords. The first three to learn - the minor versions of E, A and D - are easy enough to play on their own. Changing between Em and Am is also fairly straightforward. However, things get trickier when you're trying to go from Em to Dm (although back seems easy enough). A fair bit of practice will be needed there.

Now I know how this guy feels...

Thankfully, it seems there are few songs that are made up just of minor chords - a good thing as they'd all be pretty sad and depressing and I'd rather keep that sort of thing for when my team gets relegated in a few months. If I'm learning the songs in the order they are on the website I should be starting off with Bill Withers' "Ain't no sunshine when she's gone" but I am somewhat distracted by the fact there's an Oasis song on the list.

Hopefully all my practice sessions won't end up being Pointless

As I said right back at the start of my blogs, one of the reasons for taking up guitar because I wanted to play some Oasis stuff. My first chance has presented itself, although admittedly it's "Songbird" - a song that would probably score quite highly in a Pointless question about Oasis singles. It's actually not a bad place to start as it only has three chords and only one of them is a minor one - Em, probably the easiest of the ones to play. However, for whatever reason I'm struggling to get my head around things and keep messing up the simple strumming pattern and when I'm supposed to change chord. Fingers crossed a bit of practice sorts that out.

I know as much about reggae as this guy

This section of the course I'm following on www.andyguitar.co.uk also has a section about playing in a reggae style. My knowledge of reggae pretty much starts and ends with the fact Bob Marley played it. It seems playing it on a guitar is quite hard as you play a strum than instantly mute it. However, the really difficult bit is the fact you strum off-beat.

I put offbeat comedy into Google and got this...

This doesn't mean you play it while watching a quirky comedy show - rather you strum in between the regular beat. This is a bizarre experience if all you've been doing so far (as I have) is playing on the beat. It's difficult to pick up, especially if you're trying to change between chords - even more so if it's chords you've only just learned!

Finally - singing. A key part of songs, I'm sure you'll all agree. I am not a very good singer, and not in a comically bad way that would get me onto X Factor. I'm just bad. However, in the privacy of my own home I'm willing to give it a go - but I found it quite hard while playing guitar. Trying to sing along to stuff from James and Pulp was quite difficult and I found I could play or sing but not both. Multi-tasking is clearly an issue.

If I have X Factor a go this would almost certainly be Britney's reaction

"Have a Nice Day" from Stereophonics seemed the ideal way to solve that problem. Fairly straightforward strumming and chord changes and I know the lyrics fairly well. And it would have gone OK had I actually known the lyrics as well as I thought, because trying to play along to a video that included the words made me realise I know hardly any of them. Oops! Still, once I'd realised what they were I was able to play along OK without my singing ruining anything, so that's some definite improvement.

But the singing is a small part of this, an added extra it would be nice. For now - and the foreseeable future - the focus is on playing the guitar and tackling those pesky minors.

It's getting better all the time

It's February 25, which means Christmas was two months ago, which means it's two months since I got my guitar. Time to take stock.

So far I can play four chords - A, E, G and D (although don't ask me to change between G and E as that ain't happening). I can play along to plenty of songs. That's the bare statistics. But am I enjoying it?



I wish I'd taken the plunge and given it a go sooner. I love playing guitar. I don't see practice as a chore - I'm doing about an hour a night and the only times that doesn't happen is when I have to go out or I'm away for a few days. Or, like tonight, when one of the strings snaps and has to be replaced. Grrr.



And at times I'm limiting myself to an hour to ensure I do other things in my life. There are nights when I could quite happily play along to stuff all night, that's how much I'm enjoying it.

What has surprised me most of all is how much I can improve on songs or chord changes with just a bit of practice. Each time I learn a new chord it looks pretty complex, yet within a few nights I'm able to switch between them fairly competently. There are very few things I can think of doing before that I have seen such a big improvement in such a short space of time. I once downloaded a game called Simraceway which, as the name suggests, is a racing game. I played it for a few months and was as bad as when I started. My guitar playing I'm noticing a week by week - if not night by night - improvement.

67 different ways for me to be crap at a game with no different ways of improvement



Of course, eventually this enthusiasm will wain and practice will lead to diminishing returns, however I can't see that coming any time soon. To be two months into this and still loving every minute (aside from those sodding snapping strings) is better than anything I could have imagined.

That's probably because instead of just playing random strumming patterns I am, for the most part, playing along to songs. Some I hadn't heard of when I set out, some I had, some I listened to in my teenage years and one I've heard live. To be able to play along to them, no matter how simplified my versions are, is incredible and is almost certainly what's keeping up my enthusiasm. I can compare it to studying journalism at uni. Going to the lectures and learning the theory side was all very well but you needed to put those skills into practice to learn properly.

The fine learning establishment that is Napier University, where I studied journalism



There's still a heck of a long way to go. No one has heard me playing yet - and probably won't for a while. It wasn't until I listened to the recordings I made for the quiz on this site that I realised just how basic, simplistic and, let's be honest, poor my efforts were. Playing along to songs can trick you into thinking your sounding good because it adds the lyrics, drums and so on.

Perhaps the biggest downside is that the songs I'm learning seem to have a subliminal message about how my football team is doing at the moment. At first it seemed OK as Bob Marley's "Three Little Birds" had the line "Don't worry, bout a thing, cause every little thing, gonna be alright." However, as my team's slide down the table has coincided with playing "Free fallin'", "Highway to Hell" and a Beatles song containing the lyrics "Get back to where you once belonged". Perhaps the guitar Gods know how the season will end - not that that's difficult to predict!

Let's just hope I don't need Status Quo's "Down Down" to describe this lot's efforts come May.



When I posted my first blog I mentioned that what set me off on this journey was the intro to "Roll With It" by Oasis and wanting to be able to play that. I'm miles off being able to do that but while messing about I found a video on Youtube that showed you how to play the whole song. It's pretty complicated and there's only about two of the chords I know, however I thought I'd give the intro a bash. I'm miles away from getting it - there's about a five second gap between chord changes - but it's something to aim for. Eventually.



Another indulgence is far more realistic - Semisonic's "Closing Time". I love Semisonic, they are easily in my top five favourite bands, and this is probably their most famous tune - probably in part to the US version of The Office. Again, it uses chords I didn't really know - but the good thing is there's only four chords in it and two I've learned. Using a video from Marty of GuitarJamz fame I was able to work out the other two chords needed, change between them and muddle along to the song tonight. Again, it's a simplistic version but if you listen closely you can work out what it's meant to be.

 

So, to sum up, two months in and I'm loving it. And if that high E string could last more than a week I'd be enjoying it even more...

Here's how it should have sounded

I'll post a proper blog in the next week or so, however here's the answers to the quiz I posed last time around where I asked folk to guess what songs I was attempting on the guitar. You'll be amazed by just how wrong you were - mainly because I'm not very good!

1. The Who - Can't Explain

2. The Troggs - Wild Thing

3. Snow Patrol - Chasing Cars

4. James - Sit Down

5. The Beatles - Twist 'n' Shout

6. Kenny Rogers - The Gambler

7. Stereophonics - Have a Nice Day

8. Pulp - Common People

It's time for the intros round!

Not much to report since my last blog - I've tackled the first few stages of the G chord and am still persevering with A, E and D, however I've not really done enough to merit another post.

Instead, at the risk of hugely embarrassing myself, let's play a game where you have to guess the songs I'm playing on the guitar.

The quality of the clips is not great, mainly because I'm playing them. In my mind I'm headlining Glastonbury when I play guitar, however after listening to these clips I realise I am still just an eejit in my bedroom. These recordings were produced using an amp, not that I'd know.

The clips are of varying length - some are long parts of tunes, others are the riff - and nearly all the songs have been mentioned at some point in previous posts, which should help. The songs will open in media player or whatever you use for listening to music. Not many are obvious I'm afraid but I'll provide the answers next time around.

So, without further ado, it's time for Cheggers Plays Pop! Kids, ask your parents. In fact, anyone under 35 may need to ask your parents and thankfully that still includes me.

For the time being Keith Chegwin is one of the few personalities from the past who it's still safe to talk about.

Song 1

Song 2 Not a Blur tune...

Song 3

Song 4

Song 5

Song 6

Song 7 Long and repetitive - there's a slight change near the end though

Song 8 Probably the worst of the lot, sounds very tinny and there's even a whole line missing. A deliberate mistake to make it harder. Honest

If you want you can leave your guesses in the comments or chin me on Twitter @SMTID

Sweet D-reams are Made of This

The last blog should have been about me trying to learn a new chord, however instead it focused on my fun and games with snapping strings. The chord learning happened either side of those problems so this will just be a general ramble about how I got on - which is what most of my posts are I suppose.

With A and E and changing between them under my belt next up was learning D. I had already messed around a bit with D using the videos on the GuitarJamz app, however it was a few weeks since I'd tried it and I'd almost forgotten the fingering.

Playing a chord shape is fairly straightforward. The difficult bit is being able to change between chords. I used to play golf and could hit a shot, however what separates me - and just about everyone else on the planet from the likes of Rory McIlroy is he can do all the complicated bits too, like getting the ball to go where he wants it to so he can link them together. It's the linking together of chords as well as learning strumming patters that is the difficult part for me just now.

Sergio and Rory's guitar playing is almost certainly better than my golf.

The good thing from my point of view is that the new way I have learned to play the A chord using Andy's videos (http://www.andyguitar.co.uk/) helps with the change to the D. One of my fingers stays in exactly the same fret and just has to move over a bit. Of course, that doesn't solve the whole problem but it does make things easier.

It's incredible how much difference a bit of practice makes. It sounds obvious but it's true - and I've never known it to be more true than playing the guitar. I started off my adventures with the D chord thinking it would be impossible to get the changes between it, A and E ever up to scratch - yet after about a quarter of an hour of strumming away my confidence rises and I think I'm fairly confident.

No idea who this chap is but he seems to agree with me about practice.

Before moving onto the songs I also have a play about with power chords. Despite the name, these are not a snappy pair of business trousers. Instead, they're slightly different versions of the chords I'd learned before. You only put your finger on the root or base note (the lowest of the strings that make up the chord) and play it and the one above it. It gives a darker sound and is used for blues stuff - it sounds kind of cool but it'll take a bit of practice before I'm anyway near up to scratch as I keep strumming the wrong strings or playing too many of them.

A power cord. Not to be confused with a power chord.

And so to the songs. As I said in a previous blog, I feel the best way to learn the chord changes is to put them into practice in a song. Learning chord sequences is all very well - it's vital and it's how I start my practice sessions to get me warmed up - but when you're playing something real, no matter how basic a version, it makes it more enjoyable and you're going to want to keep playing.

One of the first songs I tried with my new found - but still developing - skill was Twist and Shout. Until I watched Ferris Beuller's Day Off (and that was embarrassingly only a few years ago) I had no ideas it was a Beatles song. I'd managed to get their previous ones on the course OK so this should be the same.

My version of Twist and Shout wasn't quite like this...

WRONG! It may only have three chords, it may only be the same sequence over and over for much of the song but good God it's fast. Playing it along without the tune - no problem. Playing it with the song? Forget it! Whatever speed it's meant to be at and wherever it's meant to slot in I can't manage it.

Lean on Me was at the other end of the speed scale and incredibly easy by comparison. Pretty much one strum of a chord per bar and it was easy to match in with the songs. That gave me a bit of confidence back.

Some of the other songs in this part of the course are fantastic - not just from a learning point of view but also because it's stuff I like and regularly listen to on my iPod. Can't Explain by The Who has a great riff to play over and over and it's easy to pick up. Chasing Cars by Snow Patrol has lots of strumming and, as I mentioned in my previous blog, can be a great stress relief - especially the chorus when you can hear your guitar match up with the guitar in the song.

The Wombles - a group of people who live on a common.



And then there's Pulp's Common People. From the lesson this seemed straightforward. Strumming the same chord for four bars before changing, then changing again after another four bars and so on. What could go wrong? Turns out everything (and not just snapping strings). It's fast. And, just to confuse a beginner, it gets slightly faster after each verse.

However, once again practice pays off. When I started out I could just about manage the first verse then I'd get lost and have to give up. I've now almost abandoned counting the number of notes (and my awful attempts to sing) for bits of the song and am changing chords with the lyrics. The exception is a section where there are no lyrics - but I was delighted to discover the other day that I'd got my note counting pretty much spot on. It was a nice feeling when I realised I was bang on track with my chords just as the lyrics were about to start again.

Special mention must go to another website I've been using called Justin Guitar - http://www.justinguitar.com/ As the name suggests it's run by someone called Justin. I already knew about this but when Andy's website was down for a few days I turned to this one. It too has a beginner's course, although the first stage dives straight in with three chords rather than two. Despite already knowing these three chords I watched through the lessons and found them really handy. There were some great practice tips and help with techniques.

Remember when Facebook goes down? Well Andy's guitar website going down was far worse.

Handily, there were also some different songs - and it was helpful to get an alternative view on some of the ones I'd been struggling with. It's surely no coincidence I've got better with Common People since I watched the video on the site. I've also tried a bit of Bob Marley and also The Gambler by Kenny Rogers, which I'm now addicted to playing and reminds me of someone I used to work with! It's slightly harder to pick up the songs as there are no chord charts, you have to write things out yourself, but it's definitely another great site worth having a look at.

I'm still working my way through the D stuff and I'm nowhere near the level I'd like to be at, but I've also decided to dip my toe in the water by taking the first steps with another chord. How hard could it be?