Back to Playing

Hi all,

I just had my next practise; after I had not been playing during some days, due to illness and catching up a lot of work. Now I had a chance to grab my guitar and give it a go.

Picking up where I left off was OK; I practised the songs a few times and it went not so bad. Good that having a few days break does not completely throw me back to level 0!

I decided to pick up my classes with Master Ben again, and not mix it too much with the other instructors. So far I am happy about my result with him; I enjoyed looking at the video's from the different pro's and learned a bit from that, but I concluded that Master Ben is the best teacher of the bunch on this website. His explanations are very clear, his tempo quite high and he aims really at Rock. This suits me best; I like this style. Other people maybe have different preferences and ideas, but for me this works best so far.

Hence, I repeated a bit the 5 lesson, which I still pretty well remembered. From here on, I decided to step it up and go to lesson 6: Bar Chords. These, as Master Ben already commented, are a bit harder to play. They are not really complicated, but my fingers need to be really spread all the time, so it takes some time and concentration to practise this. The lesson is quite a bit longer than usual (almost 15 minutes!) and Ben explains quite a bit about the Bar Chords: why are they important, how to play them, which technique, what to mind (and what not to mind!), and so on.

Luckily the video is splitted into 2 parts; I watched the first and stopped when Ben commented to learn these Bar Chords first. That is what I practised for some 15 minutes more, after I managed to jot down the exact string/fret/finger combinations.

It was really fun, but I need to practise some more. It is satisfying, though, to hear more and more that my efforts produce a sound slightly comparable to music - very motivating! Now I will get some rest (mind you: it is 8PM on Saturday evening here, and now already tired-unbelievable!), as I still feel a bit weak after my illness and busy period, and hopefully will have some time again for playing tomorrow!

First Practice in the New Year!

Just had a chance to grab my guitar and log into the website for the very first time this Year for practising. I did not really plan to take so long before the first class in 2010, but somehow I got busier than expected and it was not until now that I could go ahead.

I went straight on to class number 5, where the major chords E-major and A-major is explained. This is a short video of around 4 minutes, but it holds some key information. As Master Ben explained, this is the last lesson about the basic chords and next we will move on the the bar chords. Not really sure what these are, but I am bound to find out soon.

This 5th class I saw before and I jotted down, as I usually do, the strings and frets, but somehow I made a mistake and could not get the second chord right. So, the help of having the video at hand at all times is really great; I could just start up the video and correct my mistake.

It was good to get some practise again and I will try to do some more tonight, after I come home from work.