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?



My string will snap

I know what you're thinking. There's been no posts for more than a week. He's clearly given up, chucked his dream of being a guitar hero after barely a month. He's lost the plot, his anger and frustration has got the better of him and he's chucked it.

And, in a way, you're right. I had to stop for the best part of a week because something just snapped...

It was early in a practice session. I was strumming along to Love Me Do, hardly the most arduous of songs ever - not even the most arduous of Beatles songs I'm trying to play - when I heard a twang. One of my strings - my high E and the thinnest of the six strings - had snapped.



This was not a major problem. The guitar pack I'd got for Christmas came with a complete set of spare strings. All I had to do was untangle them (not that easy as it turned out), find a video guide on how to restring a guitar and do that. Simple.

Don't do it Dougal!



Turns out there are a variety of ways to do this but I found one for dummies, appropriately, and followed that. Everything seemed to be going to plan, however like Dougal in Father Ted when he is told not to press the big red button I couldn't help myself. I decided to tighten it once more just to be sure when... TWANG!

Me about five seconds after the replacement string broke



Now it was time to panic. I had no more spare strings - but this wasn't the biggest problem. I had no idea what size of strings my guitar used.

I first thought this was a bit like getting new tyres fitted. You go to the garage and you have specific details of the tyres your wheel will take. You can't just fit any old tyre - or any old string. However, it's more like changing a lightbulb. There's a variety of types and they'll all work, however it's best to replace like for like.

This still didn't solve my problem. I didn't know what string size my guitars came with. There was no sign of it on the box and no sign on the web. This did not bode well so I did what can at times be a questionable thing to do in an emergency. I asked on Twitter.



Thankfully, this seemed to be the right thing on this occasion - kind of. According to Andy Crowley (@andyguitarleeds), whose website I had been using and have mentioned in previous posts, it came with gauge 10s but as a beginner it would be better with gauge nines. James Shipway (@JamesShipway1) agreed. This seemed a bit odd as surely I'd need to go through the arduous task of replacing them all, but I was assured I only needed to replace the broken one. Grand.

I won't bore you with the details of ordering new strings as this blog post is already dull enough, however I managed to order a job lot of high Es rather than a whole set of new strings. This way I wasn't in immediate trouble if they broke again when I was replacing them.

This time I seemed to have got it right. I fitted the string and began to practice. All my two chord songs seemed fine, as did my three chord ones when I was using a capo - which I thought might have been the problem before. After a bad day at work playing along to Chasing Cars by Snow Patrol seemed to be a great stress release as it involves a lot of strumming. Everything seemed fine.

The car chase from Bullitt. As opposed to Chasing cars from Snow Patrol.

 

At half-time in the football I tried to play Chasing Cars again and TWANG! You guessed it, the high E broke again and I had to replace it all over again. Still, at least I had four spare ones (now down to three) and everything seems fine. Hopefully I can get back to practicing and bring slightly more regular blog updates.

Although it's almost half-time in the football again...