Not so "Sittin Easy Blues"

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aforrest

Guest
Finally worked my way up to sitting easy blues, and it seems to be a fairly easy tune to play at "really" slow speed but when I try to keep up with the playalong, Im lost after the first bar, I realize that it takes much practice, but two weeks without any improvement on keeping up seems a bit lame. anyone else out there with the same problem or am I just expecting to much as a beginner? :-[
 

stratogeezer

Blues Newbie
Finally worked my way up to sitting easy blues, and it seems to be a fairly easy tune to play at "really" slow speed but when I try to keep up with the playalong, Im lost after the first bar, I realize that it takes much practice, but two weeks without any improvement on keeping up seems a bit lame. anyone else out there with the same problem or am I just expecting to much as a beginner? :-[
Not lame ..just normal.
The speed will come with practice.
Lots of beginners quit after finding out how much work learning guitar really is.
Keep at it..make it a part of your warmup and move on to the next lesson if you want to.
 
J

jhagan421

Guest
Thanks for the offer Griff, but I don't think I'm stuck.  I think I'm making progress and will get it soon enough if I keep at it.  I realize "Sittin Easy Blues" will be simple relative to what is to come, but I'm just trying to say that relative to where I started, (considering getting the fingering and timing as a beginner) it seems more than simple.

FD - there is a lot o good info and encouragment here.  and good point with the post from Emi.  he sort fo breezed through BBG (IMHO) blowing by me - I'm still working through Barres and trying to get many other tunes to be "easy".

I guess if the issue is simply to point out that griff should be more sensitive to the abilities of us struggleing beginners, well you may have a point, in some cases - I have this mental block with the Dmin chord and that makes Big World (P. 41) hard to play - and in fact Griff's commentary on that one says that one should be easy ::).  It bugs me but hey, I'm not convinced that it should be hard, I'm convinced that I am just missing some very easy movement of one knukcle on one finger that would make it easy  - and I WILL GET IT!! :mad:

- don't fret :cool: ;)  It will come.  But seriously Griff's point about video taping is a great one - if you put it out on th forum - Griff may take a look but he won't be the only one there are meny here on the forum who will comment - to help you, video is a powerfull tool around here.

Oh yeah and there are a few lessons in BBG that seem to trip people up - Sittin' easy is one of them.  hang in there :)
 
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jhagan421

Guest
Finally worked my way up to sitting easy blues, and it seems to be a fairly easy tune to play at "really" slow speed but when I try to keep up with the playalong, Im lost after the first bar, I realize that it takes much practice, but two weeks without any improvement on keeping up seems a bit lame. anyone else out there with the same problem or am I just expecting to much as a beginner? :-[
Not lame ..just normal.
The speed will come with practice.
Lots of beginners quit after finding out how much work learning guitar really is.
Keep at it..make it a part of your warmup and move on to the next lesson if you want to.

Strats got this one pegged - The best advice to true beginners is - look this stuff is very hard, don't quit, paly a little everyday - it will get better, it may be slow, you will be frustrated, but it will get better.
 

Russ

Blues Newbie
This may not be "your" issue, but when I was having trouble with it, I wasn't listening to the provided CD at the same time as practicing. It took me a couple weeks to get it through to myself that Griff says,"Play along with me". I found that I was trying to go too fast. Once I slowed down and played "with" Griff, it was almost a breeze for me.

Like I said, just My situation. Hang in there. Trust me. You'll want to vomit for how many times you're going to read the word, practice.  ::)
 
L

Lame_Pinkey

Guest
You got it there Russ.If you take any lesson or song or riff & play it  trying to remember in your head the speed & timing you will end up going faster or trying to go faster.
a lot of times i just pick & play with something lets say the " Tore Down " rythm now I go through it a couple of times & think that i haven't played along with Griff on this for awhile now so I better check on my timing etc.I have all the lessons from BGU loaded into Riffmaster so a couple of clicks of the mouse & i'm good to go.Sure enough though I'm way to fast ! Thats ok for me I just bring it back & all is good but if you are playing something too fast or trying to & you haven't got it ' down ' then this will cause some problems for sure.So yeah play along with Griff as much as you can, load those CD tracks into Media Player if you don't have Riffmaster - or something similar.
Good on you Russ for pointing this out  [smiley=thumbsup.gif]

LP
 
J

jhagan421

Guest
Hear, Hear,  - Play with Griff If your not, well more than likely you will have aprt of it wrong.  But more to the point I find I make much better progress at playing the tune after a few times through the paly along.  Griff is always right about it sounding awful at first ;)
 
F

fda050

Guest
Thanks all for your great advice and thanks for your interest in plight of a struggling beginner.  Don't worry, I don't plan on quitting - I'll keep plugg'in away (with a lot of new tips to try!).  I think doing the posting on-line thing might be a bit involved right now and would rather spend the time practicing. 
 

Griff

Vice Assistant General Manager
Staff member
There's another thing that comes to mind with this, and that is the HUGE variety in the learning styles - and the strengths and weaknesses - of each person individually.

As an example, I had a student who came in week after week and played awful. Every week I was sure it would be his last and he would tell me he had given up. This went on for months... maybe even a year. We would work on the same lesson for weeks on end and it was tiresome for me, I can't imagine how he held it together.

We tried so many different things over that time. It wasn't like I just gave him the same lesson over and over, I really tried to help him and find a good approach.

Well one week he showed up and played what I gave him perfectly. It was like I had a completely different student in my room. The next week he nailed it again. It was like all of a sudden he just got it. From there we moved through a mountain of stuff very quickly.

It's unlikely that it will take that long for you, but keep in mind that down the road, something is going to come easier to you than it will for someone else. If you're struggling on the very beginning stuff, don't worry too much about it because later on there will be something else that comes easy for you, and doesn't come easy to most everyone else.

I see this periodically and it always works out that way.
Griff
 

RALKITE

Blues Newbie
amazingly Griff, I say the same thing to my kitesurfing students after getting the obligatory question of how long before I can do this thing that is trying to drown, and torture me.
I tell them that it takes a set number of hours of practice to get to a set point, and along the way you hit walls. Some big walls some small walls, and in kitesurfing some real walls, the area that concerns you now will give way to another further along and those that struggle early on breeze through the later stuff because the extra time spent early on pays dividends later. Those that breeze through the early stuff usually hit bigger walls later on. Then they will learn the benefit of extra time practicing on their weaknesses.

The walls are opportunities to consolidate skills.
 
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Lame_Pinkey

Guest
What the heck is kitesurfing , do you ride a surboard underneath a hang glider or something ?

LP
 
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Lame_Pinkey

Guest
$3600 to get eatin' by sharks ! Man could buy such a cool guitar for that - btw now I know where RALKITE comes from  ;D

the fishing look good though...


LP
 
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