Praise You In This Storm by Casting Crowns

Yea! Music!

Tinwhistle
Morrison's
Guitar (and singing)
Psalm 62
Fiddle
Cripple Creek
Vocal
Emmanuel

Feels good to practice again!

Another good song. She has a crazy voice...

Emmanuel...

Jordan and I are singing this at church on Dec. 13. I'm hoping he'll sing the lead and I'll do the background. Good song!

a quick practice...

My callouses are getting wimpy, but I did go through:

Beautiful Blood
Hiding Place
Take Me In
My Savior, My God

Sunday...

Guitar

Take Me In
You Are My Hiding Place
Beautiful Blood

Doing a little fiddling...

I haven't practiced the fiddle since Sept. 21st! So...

Fiddle

Old Joe Clark
Cripple Creek
Bilem Cabbage Down
Ida Red

Well, I can still get through them, but I'm not getting anything memorized so far. I'm not going to beat myself up about that because this is just a HOBBY...for FUN! And for some reason it IS fun, even when I don't seem to make much progress.

Guitar

Take Me In
You Are My Hiding Place
Pioneer
My Savior, My God
Beautiful Blood

Just enjoying playing these contemplatively. Now I'm going to listen to "Crimson Stream" and "Psalm 62" instead of trying to play them, because I'm all played out!

Adding a video of Leeland teaching "Enter This Temple" on New Song Cafe.


Shalom!

Some progress...

I have to be content with small steps of progress. Real life just doesn't allow me time to sit and play the guitar, fiddle and whistle for hours at a time every day, which is what one must do to be a good musician. So, I enjoy the small steps...

Guitar

I was a little frustrated at the sloppy, scribbled lyrics and chords I had for "Crimson Stream" and "Psalm 62", so I took the time to find good versions online and printed them out. I found lyrics for "Psalm 62" in one place and good "chord cheats" to make it easier for me to play in another place, so I spent a good deal of time typing the chords in over the lyrics in Wordpad. It worked out really slick and I attached copies of the chord diagrams for the "cheat" chords. Ready to really practice!

Played through both of these songs several times.

Fiddle

Played "Old Joe Clark" a couple of times.

Crimson Stream by Paul Oakley...

Psalm 62...

Guitar

I began to work on the chords from "Psalm 62" by Aaron Keyes. Not easy since he has more of a classical style on this song and plays lots of individual notes rather than chords. But he did mention some chords, so I'm working from there. I may look online for chords also.

I also went through "My Savior, My God" and "Beautiful Blood".

Sheesh! I'm gettin' pretty bad about practicin'!

Guitar

But I'm not giving up! =0)

Today I've practiced:

My Savior, My God-I watched the video tutorial and wrote down the basic chords and played it through several times in my simple style. Aaron Shust does a lot of little extra notes (and uses more fingers than I can!) but at least I'm getting a simple version worked out and I'm practicing changing chords and I'm singing my way through it.

Beautiful Blood I tried this with the capo on the 2nd fret. It's a little high on a couple of notes and a little low on a few, but it's about as much in the middle as you can get. Here again, I'm playing it very simply. You change chords just about every other word, so that's enough to think about right now. I love the message!

I started to do "Through the Motions", but I don't really think this is a song I'm going to do in "real life". Nice message, but I'll let him do it. LOL! Probably same story with "East to West". I'll listen to them a lot, but probably won't play them. Just not ready to learn all those chords with slashes in the middle. ;)


Take Me In Strummed through this to practice the chords and sang through a couple of times.

You Are My Hiding Place Strummed and sang through a couple of times. Need practice on B, B7 and Bm chords.

Pioneer Played and sang through.

I'm not learning lots of new things as far as technique on the guitar, but I want to at least "tread water" as far as practicing the chords I know and trying to figure out simple versions I can actually play. And I'm keeping the callouses tough so I don't have to start from scratch. Very important! =0)

My Soul Finds Rest-Psalm 62 Aaron Keyes...

Like this song! Tutorial at New Song Cafe

Also practiced "Take Me In", "Pioneer", and "You Are My Hiding Place".

Better practice before I lose my callouses!

Guitar

Haven't picked up the guitar for a few days. Since I put it in the case with the "humidifying device" (ziploc bag containing damp washcloth, bag opened slightly) I just don't pick it up like I would if it was sitting there in the stand. Maybe I'll leave it out more and put it in the case at night?

Today I played through:

Take Me In
You Are My Hiding Place
Pioneer

Trying to figure out "East to West". The chords I found are a little different for me. Going to look for a tutorial.

East to West...another good song!

I listened to this song over and over, trying to get the tune down.

Also practiced:
Take Me In
You Are My Hiding Place
Pioneer
My Savior, My God.

Monday and Tuesday...

Guitar

Monday-worked on the chords for "Pioneer"

Tuesday-worked on chords for "Pioneer"
worked on "My Savior, My God" using video and writing down chords

My Savior, My God by Aaron Shust (practice video)

This is a song I want to learn and it's great to get a teaching video from the artist himself! On the down side, it looks like the most useful part (the inset close up of him playing the chords) is chopped off here. So I'll have to go to You Tube to see that. I put it here anyway just to remind myself to practice it.



I've been practicing:
Take Me In (Petra)
You Are My Hiding Place (Selah)
Beautiful Blood (The Waiting)
My Savior, My God (Aaron Shust)

Wednesday...

Guitar

"You Are My Hiding Place"
"Take Me In"
"Pioneer"

Just played through them, getting more comfortable with the chord changes and trying to think of various strumming patterns or picking that could be used. This will take some time and some more viewing of tutorials.

With "Pioneer" I can't find a tutorial, so I just listened to her (Nancy Honeytree) play it and figured out a group of chords that sounded like the "palette" she's using. From that I should be able to figure out chords for the whole song. Kind of fun!

Monday...

Guitar

Practiced "Take Me In" and "You Are My Hiding Place".

The video I used for "You Are My Hiding Place" was made by, I believe, an East Indian lady and I thought it kind of unique. She isn't a great singer, but she's using what talent she has to praise the Lord. I like her! (I made a couple of slight changes in chords and even invented one! Well, probably not...)



Fiddle

"Old Joe Clark"

Tinwhistle

"Morrison's"

Practice video for "Holy of Holies"...

Tinwhistle-Morrison's

Fiddle-Old Joe Clark's

Guitar-Figured out chords for "Take Me In" using practice video below:

Another epiphany...

About the guitar thing. Just remembered that Jordan showed me how to find You Tube tutorials for individual worship songs, so that's the direction I'm taking now. These folks even show you where to place each finger for each chord as well as strumming and picking patterns they use for that particular song, so you learn quite naturally, by imitating their moves. Sounds like a good idea to me! As with the fiddle and tinwhistle, I'll work on one guitar worship song at a time. Knowing me, it will take a LONG time to learn one song, but that's fine. Thinking of starting with "Take Me In" (to the holy of holies) by Petra.

Shalom!

Thursday...

Guitar: strummed through chords

Tinwhistle: Morrison's

Fiddle: Old Joe Clark

Having an epiphany concerning guitar. I really don't enjoy it much. I may keep up a little practice just to keep my callouses and get to the level of being able to play around the campfire, but to really play well involves much more practice than I'm willing to do. The fiddle and tinwhistle, on the other hand, are still fun and though I won't be a great violinist, being an average fiddler is within the realm of possibility, eventually. Tinwhistle will become natural with time without the complexities of guitar. So, there you go...

Tuesday...

Guitar

Practiced folk fingerstyle 1 and also strumming pattern 9 using all chords learned so far.

Beginning Stage 8, but his video seems to be malfunctioning.

Fiddle

Went through "Old Joe Clark" a couple of times.


An interesting rendition of "Old Joe Clark" by a group of what appear to be drunk Montanans in a hay loft! =0) I watched a lot of other videos, but this was the only one that resembled the song I practice.

Tinwhistle

Went through "Morrison's" a couple of times. Here's a video of how it should sound:

Monday...

Guitar

Practiced "Amazed" by Desperation Band. Learned a few new chords (D/F#, Asus, Em7) to play it. It's still not in my range, but I'm going to mess around with the capo a little more. I also listened to it on You Tube over and over to get the hang of the tune. Even if I don't use it for anything other than personal worship, it's good practice. Gotta keep those calluses...callused.

I have been going through the chords on the guitar a bit even though I didn't record it in the log.

Sunday...

I'm going to try a new tack with my practicing. With tinwhistle and fiddle I'm going to pick one song and work on it until I have it memorized. That's the only way to begin building up a repertoire. If I just keep going through lots of songs each time I'll keep relying on the sheet music instead of memorizing things. SO...

Fiddle

Working on "Old Joe Clark" because it has some cool features like those two half-notes on the 3rd string. And it's short enough to be do-able!

Tinwhistle

I worked on "Cooley's Reel" today, but I may change my mind. I'm going to visit Whistle This and see if I like any others better. (I'll probably work on "Morrison's, though it makes me dizzy!)

Guitar

Haven't done today. Probably just more practicing chords, strums, picking patterns and maybe playing through a song or two.

Wednesday...

Man, I'm getting really behind on practicing. It's a good thing that I'm just enjoying the journey instead of getting all uptight about getting great at this...right?

Yesterday I practiced my folk fingerpicking for a while and played through all the chords using strumming pattern #9.



I also found a great chord chart online that shows charts for just about every chord known to man. Now maybe I can play some of those songs I'm finding online!

Sunday...

Guitar
I just worked on some folk fingerstyle picking-purty frustrating stuff!
It takes so long to figure out which strings he's picking and to put it down on paper in a way that I can understand what I did later. But, I'll keep picking away at it.

No wonder my fingers are sore!

Guitar

It's been 5 days since I've practiced!

Folk finger style 1-still working on learning this one.

Practiced changing from F to various chords.

Practiced Rust #9 strumming pattern with all chords learned so far.

Blues progressions.

Practicing finally!

Guitar

1 minute changes
F-C 36
F-E 26
F-D 42
F-Am 41
F-G 42

Picking exercise (mentioned last time)

Rust #9 strumming pattern

Blues progressions

Folk fingerstyle #1

Played through chords for El Shaddai and There Is a Redeemer

Tinwhistle

Morrisons-decided to concentrate on one song-played on D and C whistles.
Ran through Cooley's Reel quickly.

Fiddle

Shortnin' Bread
Ida Red
Bilem Cabbage
Old Joe Clark
Cripple Creek

Not gettin' much better on fiddle, but not gettin' worse neither.

Today (Friday)

Guitar

changes:
FC
F-D
F-E
F-Am
F-G
I didn't time these or count them. Just worked on my F's and changing chords.

Picking exercise:
1 pick on each string-all down picks
1 pick on each string-all up picks
2 picks on each string-down, then up
4 picks on each string-down/up/down/up

Rhythm Guitar
#9 D D U skip U D
Practiced this strumming pattern with many chords.

Stage 6...

Guitar

Yesterday, I started Stage 6. I spent a lot of time just watching the various videos. I learned about the "dreaded F chord". I already knew how to play an F chord, but it is one of the difficult ones.

So, that's about all I did yesterday.

Gotta learn some actual songs on the guitar!

Guitar

Got the lyrics for Jordan's song written out. Now I have to figure out the chords. The chords he gave me don't sound quite right. I also need to find some other chords so I can play some of my old '70's Christian music. (Keith Green, Honeytree, 2nd Chapter of Acts, etc.)

Tinwhistle

Road to Lisdoonvarna
Star of the County Down
Si Bheag Si Mhor
Morrison's
South Wind
Cooley's Reel

Fiddle

Ida Red
Bilem Cabbage
Old Joe Clark
Cripple Creek

Late night practice...

Got home from work at 9:30 p.m. Bob's gone for the moment, so I snuck in some practice!

Guitar

Finger workout

Strum and pick chords

Practice folk fingerstyle 1

Practice blues shuffles

1 minute changes:
C7-D 38
D7-B7 52
G7-G 56
Am-A 66
E7-A 68

Ear training
He played 10 chords and I had to guess whether they were minor, major or 7ths.
I got 7 out of ten right. Those differences can be subtle!

Tinwhistle

Morrison's

Day off!

Guitar

Finger workout

Strummed and picked all chords.

1 minute changes:
D7-B7 45
C-G7 56
Fmaj7-A 54
Am-G 64
C7-D 33

Worked on Folk Fingerstyle 1

Quick practice before work!

Bob went to church and I'm going to work soon, so I'm trying to practice a little of this and that!

Guitar

Finger Workout

Strumming all chords

1 Minute/Air changes practice
C7-E7 34
B7-A7 49
C-Dm 46
D7-Dm 50

Blues shuffle
Watched the video again and figured out the shuffle he's playing so I can practice.
Here's the progression of chords he plays:

E7 A7 E7 E7 A7 A7 E7 E7 B7 A7 E7 B7 (play one bar of each chord as shown)

Repeat with a different ending which I haven't figured out yet!

There's the timer. Gotta go!

A "little" guitar practice...

Guitar

Didn't get as far as I'd planned. Seems Justin's guitar lesson site is experiencing a few problems and I get a lot of "broken link" boxes. Anyway, I did...

Finger Workout-1st fret

Pluck and strum on all chords.

1 minute changes:
C7-E7 34
B7-A7 44
D-Dm 58
G7-C 50
D7-Dm 50

Fiddle

Shortnin' Bread
Ida Red
Bilem Cabbage
Cripple Creek
Old Joe Clark

Not getting great on the fiddle, but I'm getting less inhibited about trying new things. Who cares if I'm holding the bow exactly right! It's comfortable for me. I don't think all of those old timey mountain fiddlers really worried about that. They just practiced until they got the sounds they wanted. I'll never be a classical violinist...but I sure do like to listen to them! Onward and upward!

Tinwhistle

Road to Lisdoonvarna
Star of the County Down
Cooley's Reel
Si Bheag, Si Mhor

Not getting great on tinwhistle either, but it's getting a little more intuitive to match my fingers to the dots in the tablature. That's progress! Now I'm going to copy off some new songs at www.whistlethis.com.

Vaya con dios! (My language lesson of the day. Go with God!)

Blues shuffle!

Guitar

Finger workout

Pick and strum all chords

1 minute changes:
C7-E7 30
B7-A7 42
D-Dm 46
G7-C 40
D7-Dm 42

Rhythm Guitar-watched video about shuffle/swing rhythm

Practiced "common chord sequences" for blues. I got a pretty good shuffle going! Fun! Look out Johnny Lang!

Been a while...

Was sick. Didn't practice for a few days.

Guitar

I just started Stage 5, so I didn't get through a whole practice routine. It takes a while to watch the videos about the new stuff to be sure I don't miss anything.

Finger Workout

Picked and strummed through all chords learned so far.

1 minute changes:
G7-G 46
B7-Fmaj7 33
C7-A7 31
Dm-E7 38
D7-A 47

Learned about using the note circle.

Began learning about triplets.

Fiddle

Shortnin' Bread
Ida Red
Bilem Cabbage Down
Cripple Creek (tried advanced variation)
Old Joe Clark

Good day!

Had a fun practice today. Bob went to visit a neighbor, so I took advantage of the quiet house.

Guitar

Finger workout

Played all chords using strum #8

Practiced folk fingerstyle picking-Example 1 (I think I'm beginning to understand what he's doing on this.)

Tinwhistle

Star of the County Down

Road to Lisdoonvarna

Si Bheag, Si Mhor

Cooley's Reel

Fiddle

Shortnin' Bread

Ida Red

Bilem Cabbage

Cripple Creek

Old Joe Clark (listened to my CD to learn how it sounded, then played it)

Whew!

Friday...

Tinwhistle

Si Bheag, Si Mhor
Cooley's Reel

Guitar

Practiced all chords using Rust #9 strumming pattern

Finger workout

Mother Lode...

Tinwhistle

I listened to a CD I made of several tinwhistle tunes from the Whistle This website. Does that count for anything? =0)


I found quite a few songs I can work on for guitar practice. Some Selah, Keith Green, Honeytree, etc. I'll have to look up a few chords we haven't covered yet, but that shouldn't be a problem.

Guitar

Finger Workout-2nd and 3rd fret (I should see what the next level of exercises is like.)

Chord practice

1 minute changes:
B7-Fmaj7 32
C7-G7 27
Dm-D7 39
A7-E7 60
B7-Dm 30

Practiced the strumming patterns learned so far.

Started to practice "Killing Me Softly", but had to go help Bob fix the fence and get the horses back in. Farm life.

Duh time...

Guitar

Here I am, scouring the internet for Christian song lyrics and chords so I'll have something worth practicing, when, DUHHHH! I did this same thing a while back and I have a folder full of songs upstairs! PLUS, I have several CD's of myself singing some of the songs I'm looking for. SO, I can transcribe some of those to practice. Yes!

Otherwise, I strummed through "Little Pilgrim". I have to look up a couple of chords that I don't know.

Tinwhistle

Cooley's Reel
Si Bheag, Si Mhor
I am getting a little smoother on these. Not bad, considering how seldom I practice the whistle!

All for now.

Monday...

Re-run of yesterday...pretty much.

Finger Workout: 3rd and 4th fret

Chord practice-played through all chords a little.

1 minute changes:

B7-E less than 50
C7-Fmaj7 42
G7-Dm 41
C-D7 52
E7-A7 60

Rhythm Guitar-practiced strumming patterns

Ear Training:

I had trouble distinguishing between D and D7. Dm was easy. Only did the first ear training exercise.

Practiced "Killing Me Softly".

Sunday eve...

Guitar

Finger workout-began on 4th and 3rd frets. Working toward the 1st fret, which involves the most finger stretching.

Chord practice-went through all chords learned thus far, playing them each for four strums. Went through all several times.

1 minute changes:

Dm-G 53
B7-E 40
C7-Fmaj7 28
D7-A7 48
C-G7 48

Rhythm Guitar Practice-practiced a couple of strumming patterns

Practiced playing "Killing Me Softly"-went okay but I'd like to do more with the strumming pattern. In time.

Yup...

Guitar

Finger Workout

1 minute changes (stage three chords)

Worked on the Folk Fingerstyle a bit. (Lesson 1)

Checked out Stage Four and learned G7, C7 and B7.
Also learned how to use Fmaj7 in place of F.

Drew up chord charts for all chords I've learned so far.

Wow...two days in a row!

Guitar

Stage Three Practice

1 minute changes:
C-Am 54
C-A 42
C-G 50
G-E 50
G-D 54

Basic Finger Workout

CPR
GCDAm
AEDE
AmCGEm

(Got some of those wrong!)

SSR
GCAmEDm

Explored the website to see what's there.

Finally!

Pigged out on practice today! It's been hard to fit it in the last few days. I kind of have to alternate between exercising and practicing music. Only so many hours in a day!

Tinwhistle

Cooley's Reel
Si Bheag, Si Mhor
South Wind

Fiddle

Ida Red
Bilem Cabbage Down (get it? boil them cabbage down...)
Cripple Creek

Guitar

Did 1 minute changes:
Am-E 58
Am-Dm 42 hard
A-Dm 52
E-D 66
Em-D 54

Went on to Stage 3 Training.
Learned (re-learned) G and C chords.
Also learned names of open strings. (already knew)
Did the Basic Finger Workout which is really hard, but gets your hand in shape to stretch for harder chords.
Learned a basic strum with an upstrum.

Ear training:

Chord quality recognition (is it major or minor)

Chord Progression Recognition:
1. G C D C
2. Am Em D C
3. Am C G E

1 minute changes with new chords:
C-Am 57
C-A 36 hard
C-G 42 hard
G-E 49 hrd
G-D 60

Whew!

Saturday...

Guitar

Practice was pretty much the same as yesterday.

I also watched a video on the Technique page on Folk Style Fingerpicking. Very interesting!

I see there are finger exercises also, which I may try soon.

Friday...

Guitar
Stage 2 Practice:

1 min. changes
Am-E 56
Am-Dm 40 hard!
A-Dm 42 also hard
E-D 63
Em-D 63

Ear Training:

Worked on hearing the difference between A and Am. Easy.

SSR-Recognising a single chord: E A D Em Am Dm

CSR-Recognising chord progressions:
1. Am E Am Dm
2. D A Am E
3. E D Dm A

Wednesday...

Fiddle

Cripple Creek-2X

Tinwhistle

Cooley's Reel-2X

For Guitar practice I should dig out some old CD's of myself singing old songs and figure out the chords; then use those for easy song practice.

1 minute changes: DA(65)DE(66)AE(70)AminD(59)AminA(62)AminE (52)

Chord practice: strum/pick/strum all 4 chords

Today's practice...

Guitar

Did 1 minute changes-60 reps of each chord change, which means I should go on to the stage-two practices.

Ear training-SSR (Single Sound Recognition)
CPR (Chord Progression Recognition)

Started Stage-Two Practices by working on Amin chord.

Tinwhistle

Si Bheag, Si Mhor
The South Wind
Cooley's Reel

Fiddle

Cripple Creek

BTW, for tinwhistle I'm using the www.whistlethis.com website. They have special tablature which helps you quickly learn songs and you can upload yourself playing songs for others to hear and critique. I wouldn't dare!



For fiddle I ordered a course from www.fiddleguru.com. This also uses a special tablature which makes it easy to learn to play songs. I sure wouldn't want to do anything the hard way!

Playing catch-up...

I started guitar practice a few days ago after taking a 29 year hiatus from the instrument. Mind you, I didn't play all that well 29 years ago, but I had taught myself some chords using a John Denver songbook with chord charts. In that way I learned enough to accompany myself at church singing fairly unsophisticated songs. Hopefully, I will learn some new skills this time around and someday I hope I will be able to compose some worship songs which will glorify God. He'll have to help.

So in this post I'm going to list what I've done in the last few days and afterwards I'll try to do one day at a time.

I'm using a free online guitar course at justinguitar.com and it looks like a good place to refresh my memory and learn some new things.

Hopefully, I will list some definitions in the side-column so I can remember some of these new terms.

July 4
*practiced finding all the C's on the fretboard
*watched beginner videos so I can figure out sequence of practicing (turns out this is the most difficult part of the course-hee,hee)
*1 minute changes DA DE AE

Stage-one practice schedule
*chord practice-strum/pick/strum 5 min.
*1 minute changes-DA DE AE 1 min. each
*songs/chord sequences 5 min.
*JUSTIN training-ear training 5 min.

July 5

Did chord practice, 1 minute changes, strummed along on easy song and did JUSTIN training.

July 6

Did chord practice, 1 minute changes, chord sequences and ear training.