Learning the Guitar: The Performance

After only 7 days of learning the guitar, I had to put my money where my mouth happened to be and perform Hey Soul Sister by Train for my colleagues and the Youtube fraternity.

Did I make it?

Did the phlegm affect anything?

Watch the video and find out...

Learning the Guitar: Day 7

I was really encouraged with the progress I'd made on day 6 and I was ready to go for it on day 7 only I got a cold.

Bleurgh.

Watch the video to see how this dampened my spirits...

Learning the Guitar: Day 6

So day 5 was quite disappointing. I felt like I'd gone back to square one and there were just some things I wasn't going to get. Day 6 had to be the day where I turned it all around otherwise I wasn't going to make good on my deadline...

There was only one thing for it...

Time to call in the experts and cue the music...

Learning the Guitar: Day 5

So day 5 has turned out to be a bit of a frustrating one... I've been concentrating on strumming all day and I'll be honest, I feel like it's a classic case of one step forward, two steps back.

Progress is slow with the strumming pattern, and to add insult to injury, the left hand seems to be falling to pieces too.

Well if it was easy it wouldn't be a challenge.

Learning the Guitar: Day 4

We've hit day 4 and you'll notice a suspicious lack of guitar playing today...

Watch the video to find out what I was doing instead...

Learning the Guitar: Day 3

So this is day three of my guitar learning challenge!


I've started to get to grips with the component parts of the wonderful Hey Soul Sister by Train, but I've not actually looked at how the song is structured, so cue some fast chord changes, a bit of bopping, and a lot of flapping...

Learning the Guitar: Day 2

So it's day 2 of my guitar challenge and I've introduced a little bit of right hand action!

Watch the video to find out the other trials and tribulations...

Learning the Guitar: Day 1

So the time has come...

Yesterday evening I started my challenge. Watch my little video to see how it went!

Learning the Guitar: The Challenge

So for my first 7 day learning challenge, I'm going to tackle the guitar!

This is an instrument many of us have picked up at certain points in our life, but few can say they've really got the hang of playing it, playing it well, and enjoying the whole process.

I'm going to try to get all that done in a week!

Now I'm not trying to be Tommy Emmanuel, I'm going to focus on just one song - Hey Soul Sister by Train and then perform it at the end of the week, hopefully to rapturous applause...

The idea behind this challenge isn't be become a proficient guitarist in a week, it's to try and get hooked. I will confess to you now that I own a guitar and this week isn't the first time someone's told me where the chord of G is and how you get from there to D... This is the first week, however, where I'll be sitting down to learn a song from start to finish with a view to performing it at the end.

Now there are some consequences, hopefully I'll have the motivation to get beyond 2 chords with lengthy pauses in between...

To prepare me for this week I've also had a lesson from 2 of the best guitarists I know: my dad and my brother. They are the guitar Jedis to my Padawan learner...

They've gone through the song with me, told me what to look out for, what strumming pattern I should be aiming for, and, importantly, where the other 2 chords are (E minor and C, if you're interested).

They've also given me a little help in structuring my week of learning so that come next Tuesday I can set the world (or maybe just a small pocket of Youtube) on fire with my rendition of Hey Soul Sister...

Now... I am a sneaky bass guitarist. I've been playing the bass for about 10 years now - though listening to me you'd never know (I smell another challenge in the coming months). So it should be easy to transfer yes?

Not really...

It's pretty easy to go from the guitar to the bass, but because you don't play chords on a bass, getting that co-ordination with all my fingers has been the thing that I've found hardest in my 2-chord guitar adventure up to now.

Also... I play the bass left-handed and the guitar right-handed. Don't ask why - it's kind of a long story... But the long and short of it is that my fingers have swapped roles effectively and I'm left having to re-teach my fingers what to do...

But less chat, more playing...

Onwards to day 1!