JPF Home Page Forums Musician Gear and Techniques Guitars and Guitarist Forum Guitar Practice

I thought I would revive this to add an update. There might not be much of an update, but here goes. First, I decided to set a goal. That was simple and clean. What I mean is no frills. Playing cleanly and in time (whether just playing and singing over chords or singing over basic fingerpicking patterns). I believe I've finally achieved that for the most part. I also have mastered the Bm and F bar chord shapes. Now, I'm looking to add basic melody playing somehow. I would like to do this fingerstyle and have been practicing a fingerstyle version of Freight Train forever that incorporates the melody. But when I'm working on my own stuff, I get lazy about finding the melody notes, etc. I want to eventually play a style similar to Caroline Herring's (video). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--RMxPB7h-w

I have been playing/singing in church now for over a year. I've learned to change-up strumming patterns, add little rests and breaks and modulate the volume of my strumming/picking to make the songs a little more interesting. I haven't really had many opportunites to play with other people but I am involved in a songwriting group and a couple of the ladies and I plan on doing open mics together this summer, so hopefully that will involve playing with others.

As far as practice goes, it's still a nightly crap shoot. Here's a synopsis of what it's like. I play a few scales and somebody needs a glass of milk. I get the milk and start a song. The phone rings. I take the call. Then kids have homework. I try to practice during homework, but kids have questions, won't do their problems, argue, etc. practice is constantly interrupted. I give-up on practice during homework process. The younger kid gets in the bath and I sit on the bathroom floor and sing/play while she is in the tub. I put the guitar down to get them in bed. I pick it back-up at 10:30 - 11:00 p.m. and noodle around for a while. Some nights, I don't pick it back-up. On the weekends, it's basically the same schedule but I do get a bit more time to actually play through an entire set of songs. Somehow after playing for five years, I'm finally playing like most people would at one year. It's a slow process.