Hmm, is this alright for 4 months?

[dragonfire]

Hiya, i'm not sure if this section is the right one to post this in, it seemed the most appropriate, but it might be too 'beginner' for this section. Hopefully i wont b penalized 2 much by the mods if it is wrong:p

Anyway, I've been reading up here and practicing for bout 3-4 months now (around 5-10 hrs per week), although not as much as I would have liked to b/c of univ and all. I haven't been working on too many 'real' songs yet, just practicing basic scales/fingerpicking/basic chords. I haven't gotten around to getting lessons yet, just wanted to see how far I could get without one (I'm planning on getting around to it by early next yr, hopefully) And well, I tried learning stairway to heaven today. Got as far as the intro, and just thought I'd put it up to see if I'm on the right track, or if I'm making too many mistakes.

Yeah, so..any input is appreciated. This is my best of 3 full, mostly mistake-free recordings (which is kinda sad hehe, you can imagine how bad the other ones were) And be as honest/critical as possible please :) I don't know if i'm doing alright 'on average' for this amount of time, and I'm hoping I can get some kind of response for that.

thanks in advance

[Madaxeman]

Here's honest, hopefully not too critical. The guitar is a bit out of tune. As far as taking on "Stairway..." at 4 months, I was still working on 3 chord folk songs and just barely at that!
Soon you'll be nailing it if you keep on practicing.

[UKRuss]

A bit out of tune???:eek:

You must and i mean MUST tune your guitar properly before you play. It is horrendously out of tune!

However, on the plus side I think your picking technique sounds very good for your length of time and it is a nice song to play for practice as you pick the bass lane simultaneously with the melody.

I can still hear tension in your hand through the changes and that comes across in your tone and staccato note phrasing, but that will also come with time.

Try to focus on relaxing your fretting hand as you play and get a flow going from note to note, letting them ring through for the required duration.

All in all though good progress!

But ear training must be a key feature on your practice schedule if only so you can hear when you are out of tune or not. Without it you are at best going to be copying things badly rather than understanding the music you are playing and hearing intervals and harmonies correctly.

[Padawan]

Looooooool :D , sorry but there is nothing more funny than an instrument that is out of tune :D

Besides you you should play the notes as a chord and not like an arpeggio, the notes must ring together and don't forget to play the bass notes!
Just keep practising, good luck.

[dragonfire]

thanks for the input every1:) And I just re-tuned it and it sounds better now :p
Yeah, I actually couldn't play the bass line fast enough, but i've been working on it the past couple of days, killing my fingers at this point but its working out quite nicely :)
I did sort of notice it was out of tune...but I always just thought it was a tone + hardware difference from the original since the relative notes sounded the same. Now I know better hehe.
Again, thanks a lot:D

[smallbusrider]

One thing I do understand is when you first start playing, you make leaps and bounds fairly quickly. This causes a euphoria of playing and wanting your music to be heard. This euphoria usually causes the beginniner to neglect certain issues...like...say...TUNING THE GUITAR!!! Believe me I think we have all been there! You get points off for song selection...should have played something like...hmm...SMOKE ON THE WATER!! LOL (Thats funny because that was the song I started out on, and , believe me , i used to break out my out of tune guitar and crank my Fender Champ on my front porch for all to hear!!!)
One thing I would highly recommend would be to take lessons if you have not already. I started playing at 15 and became a fairly well accomplished guitarist, but it wasn't until I took lessons for 4 years at age 24 that things started really opening up for me. I had wished I had taken them from the very beginning.
Keep it up! It will eventually make you the most frustrated and poor person on earth!!! HA HA HA! JK

SBR

[GuitarLausing]

Whoa. There goes constructive commenting.

My input= If there is some timing or "placing your fingers in correct order" problem, then try, try and try to play the damn thing until you get very frustrated (or get it right ;)
The logic is: Your brain will still work on the problem even though you are not playing guitar. Next time you pick up your guitar, you should be able to play the thing better within a few minutes.
I use this technique sometimes myself: Work on a mindblowingly complex thing (exaggerating) just before going to be. Sleep, wake up, go to school, come home, try to play it again and usually something just clicks and i understand it.

It works for me.

[dragonfire]

I think i get what you mean, i can play half the song in 'chord form' now, even though it's still not perfect or fast enuf it sounds a whole lot better than when i posted it:) WHen i was playing this i didn't play it like a chord (as in I was fretting with each finger like mad) but after a few hours I finally figured out it was just a few chord shapes played in different orders:/ talk about wasting time huh;)

[GuitarLausing]

nice that you know about chord shapes already. I think i took a year for me before i realized that the chords i knew were just the same chord shapes moved..
Now talk about wasting time trying to learn "new" chords when they were all the same. My mind thought every chord shaped i played was different. Strange but true