My guitar learning log...

[NCAP]

43 minutes ago, OneLight said:

What is also important to know are what chords go together.  Check this site out to show you what three chords play together.  https://www.fretjam.com/three-chord-guitar.html

 

Yep, those are very helpful chord progressions.

And here, too, is what I learned in one YouTube video. As an example, let's just work with the C Major scale and build a nice sounding cord progression using 4 measures.

C Major Scale
|   C   |   D   |   E   |   F   |   G   |   A   |   B   |

And here is a chord progression with one chord in each measure.

   I     vi        iii        V    

So, try that and see how it sounds, that is....

C Major chord in first measure (4 strums)
A minor chord in second measure (4 strums)
E minor chord in third measure (4 strums)
G Major chord in fourth measure (4 strums and the turnaround)

And back to C.

Edited September 22, 2022 by NCAP

[Jedi4Yahweh]

8 minutes ago, NCAP said:

Yep, those are very helpful chord progressions.

And here, too, is what I learned in one YouTube video. As an example, let's just work with the C Major scale and build a nice sounding cord progression using 4 measures.

C Major Scale
|   C   |   D   |   E   |   F   |   G   |   A   |   B   |

And here is a chord progression with one chord in each measure.

   I     vi        iii        V    

So, try that and see how it sounds, that is....

C Major chord in first measure (4 strums)
A minor chord in second measure (4 strums)
E minor chord in third measure (4 strums)
G Major chord in fourth measure (4 strums and the turnaround)

And back to C.

Leaning some basic music theory will help advance much faster.  Learning what chords go together and why?  Learn your Major and Minor scales this will help you build awesome chord progressions.  Learn your relative minor and major chords.

https://www.randscullard.com/CircleOfFifths/

[NCAP]

Thank you for that. That is very helpful.

 

[Starise]

16 hours ago, NCAP said:

First, I want to thank everyone for their input. Next, I don't know how to actually get a picture of my guitar in this post. So, I'll provide some embedded links for you to click on to view pictures of my guitar that I took with my cell phone.

1. Inside the Guitar showing the make and type of model.

2. Picture of the neck and tuners.

3. Picture of the action where neck and body of guitar meet.

4. Picture of the action towards the nut on the neck and tuners. (Not a very good picture)

In the third picture, it is obvious that the neck appears to be rounded over quite a bit. And the action is high. 

 

 

 

I didn't read all of the comments yet on this. 

In order to get a lower string height on the higher frets the nut may need to come up some since it looks like the strings are very close on the lowest fret.Maybe it's that camera shot fooling me. Frets don't have wear that I can tell. 

 

If you can play it now without string buzz with or without a capo that's good, but I read you to say you are pushing very hard on the strings, so that's the thing that needs to be dealt with. Building finger strength in the beginning is expected, but some guitars make that especially difficult with the way they are set up. 

I think you have to like your instrument in order to enjoy playing it and getting something new is always a rush, but trust me it's also easy to fall out of love with a guitar a few months later if you discover things about it you didn't see right away. It's also very easy to blame lack of improvement on the instrument. It could be a little of both. A good player can make a cheap instrument sound very good, so that goes to show it often is a false perception. The wrong guitar or even the wrong instrument can hold a player back, especially when getting into more difficult techniques.

While Youtube is big on training these days, there are simply nuances you will miss using videos for training and there's no one there to tell you what you need to work on or the ways that would help you to individually progress best. Even if you are sending video in to an online teacher, they can't see everything about your playing the way an in person teacher can....and yes it's a pain driving to a teacher, but there really is no direct replacement for hands on teaching on this instrument. So if YouTube is all you can get, then use it. If you can get a personal teacher I wouldn't hesitate. Get a teacher with a degree in guitar, not a dude who self trained. It isn't difficult to learn classically and move down to playing simple worship music. Those skills will thank you the rest of your life. Playing worship chords will be 'easy' in comparison.

The best guitarists are like any other musician. They spend lots of TIME at it. I have heard stories of one person I know that had bloody fingers but kept on playing. He's a bit of an odd cookie since he tunes in C, but he is good enough to front for a Van Halen knock off band.

Geddy Lee tells the story of picking up his bass in a pawn shop. Then he got one that wasn't considered to be anything special. Now it's copied and resold as the "Geddy Lee Jazz Bass" . Just goes to show that while a good instrument is important it doesn't have to be a top of the line one. I went through maybe 4 violins before I found the one I thought I liked but this was over 8 years. That's mainly because the other violins didn't sound as good. Same with guitars. I have a nice large body acoustic, but I don't like to play it. I prefer my Martin or my classical guitar, even though both of those guitars costed less.

When I think of a wonderful finger picker I always think of James Taylor. His voice and guitar blended so well, and he invented his own playing style. Here's an article on his playing.

The limitation of most worship music is the rigid chord structures and if you attempt anything different you get a stern look from the leader asking you to "just play the chords". lol.