The Teacher's Warning and Day 25

There is a warning that I hear a lot from videos on youtube and from teachers giving free advice to players in general.  The warning is "if you focus so much on learning 2 or 3 songs, then all you're learn is 2 or 3 songs".  This does speak to me.  I have a few songs I obsessed over on guitar as a teenager, thinking "if I learned to play this, I'd know I'm a guitarist".  It is dangerous because if you devote months of time to such a small set of skills, you will absolutely learn those 2 or 3 songs, but the risk is that you have left yourself with no new goals.

Well, I feel that I am past that point of danger, but my songs are still there.  I still have that list of "I want to break this out in case I'm playing in front of Cousin A" or "I want to play this one for my sister because she and I enjoyed listening to this song when I was little".  The warning still creeps in, and I'm worried I'm not advanced enough to do them without getting caught up in them.  But I think acknowledging the risk will help get over and past the risk.

So what's my list?  Here's a few.  I may add others to other posts later.

ACDC Highway to Hell.  I've mentioned before that this song shaped my music tastes, forever putting me on the path of pure Rock and Roll.  Plus all my cousins will love the hell out of hearing it.  All my cousins come over on Easter, so I can tell anyone thinking its inappropriate, "Catholic dogma says that Jesus descended into hell to rescue the righteous of the past".  So there.  Highway to Hell is appropriate for Easter and don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

Sweet Child O' Mine is a song I used to ask my cousin to play all the time.  The beginning just seemed so amazing to me as a young kid.  I hear that it is not all that hard to play the whole song.  I do have to contend with the whole E flat tuning though.

Yellow Ledbetter is a song that got me back into wanting to play guitar after learning bass.  I've learned that this song is basically a love letter from Pearl Jam's guitarist to Jimi Hendrix.  This got me back to listening to Hendrix and several songs of his that I had never heard before.  After Angus Young's style of playing, Jimi's bluesy stuff is the 2nd style to have the most influence on me.



Day 25

It was a Sunday, so it was a late practice.  In Rocksmith I did the guitarcade, and for a second time went completely through Return to Castle Chordead.  This game really does help.  In fact, I was going through the chords I had in my memory today and wow, I have actually learned quite a few that I can name while changing between them.  They aren't the super useful ones, but they are chords and I am able to practice with them.

I practiced tuning to drop D without a tuner.  I'm making headway.  I know there is a way to make a harmonic of a note and tune correctly using that by using your ears, but I need an example of that with some lessons.  There is a "special" lesson section in Rocksmith, and one of them is "Tuning by Ear" so I need to mark that for watching tomorrow.  I'll let you know how the video is.  Its rather unfortunate that its at the bottom when you sort by "recommended".