F-chord: Practiced the barre F chord and practiced moving the chord shape up and down the neck. I also worked on the little F-chord. It is definitely not as far along as it is with the barre F. I’m still working on this. I’m still working on the F-chord to C-chord transition. It still sucks. There are a lot of f-chords that aren’t ringing out correctly, but I’m going to continue working on it.
Finger picking: Did my usual finger picking warm up with the Justin Guitar exercise. Also did the “California Dreamin'” intro riff practice on the acoustic.
Muting: I was watching the Lauren Brennan video on power chords, and she touches on fret hand muting when practicing Smells like teen spirit. This might be a good opportunity to do some practical fret hand muting with power chords, up-down-up strumming pattern practice and power chord practice.
Worked on the following practice riffs / songs:
- There She Goes: This one is becoming more and more comfortable. I have my on and off days, but today seemed to be showing signs of improvement. I still have to stare at the strumming hand to maintain a good timing, but I think that’s better than messing things up.
- Smoke on the water: Both versions are going OK. The Marty music version is not as proficient as the Fender simple version.
- Satisfaction: same as always. Just doing this to stay in practice
- Come As You Are: got this one going reasonably well. I’m still just doing the Fender Play version, so I’m not sure if there’s much of a challenge to this. I’ve rechecked the Fender version against the Songsterr.com version and the only difference in the practice riff is the speed. The Fender exercise version runs at 80 bps, while the Songsterr version in E tuning runs at 120 bps. So, about 50% faster
Power Chord Practice Riff:
- Blitzkrieg Bop: Spent a lot of time today working practicing the song with an eye towards learning the whole song. I’ve got more and more of this committed to memory. I’m doing this at a slower rate to work on improving the quality of the picked chords.
- Seven Nation Army: Did the simple Fender version. Check out the lesson / riff at Fender Play (subscription required). I’ve noticed that I’m able to do this exercise with a single finger like the Fender gal did it. I’m fretting the string much more lightly than when I first started. In the beginning, I had a death grip on the guitar and crushing down hard on the neck. I’m also working on the Marty Music version of the Seven Nation Army lesson. It’s more challenging than the Fender Play version and uses power chords. I’m using this exercise as power chord practice. Justin at JustinGuitar.com suggested this song for power chord practice too, but neither Marty or Just give you tabs to help. I don’t know about you, but I like having the tabs to reference instead of watching the video and rewatching things multiple times. You can find the Seven Nation Army tabs at Songsterr.com.
Resources
- Songsterr.com: Blitzkrieg Bop
- Fender Play (subscription required)
- Marty Music: Seven Nation Army lesson
- Songeterr.com: Seven Nation Army