Remembering my Rhythm // October

Brushin' Up

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I decided to begin my Quest by brushing up on the guitar I had played earlier. I used to play guitar last year as an elective course, however I did not continue after the school year. So to tune up my skills back to a playing level, I decided to learn the basics of Guitar once again

I began by relearning the order and letters of the strings, without which it is impossible to read tabs or sheet music for guitar. Though it is quite easy to memorize, the speed in which you can pick these up can be increased by creating an acronym. Since the order of the string letters (up -> down) is E A D G B E(m), there's a simple acronym to use:

Another big part of learning guitar are the basic chords: A, B, C, D, E, F and G. Though some variations of these chords are very common (such as A minor or G#7), it's critical you pick up these before you start strumming

I decided to do a video of me doing this because it's kinda pointless to my learning to just put the tabs of the chord as a post :) (I also forgot to say which chords I was playing but, it's just in order from A -> G)

Finally there are some tricky things that I wanted to get right that I couldn't do before: strumming upwards, placing the guitar properly and moving between chords. These skills will be instrumental to making my music actually sound like a progression of sounds and not a floppy mess. There wasn't really much of a way to document my progression because it was over a long period of try over and over again but practice makes perfect I guess! For helping my strumming I used a sight called Guitar Player and it was great in using videos with a combination of written instructions to help with my strumming. I had a really hard time strumming upwards, but the site taught me all i needed was an angle downwards with my pick to fix the problem! (here's a link to the site)

With the basics out of the way, it's pretty simple for me to get started with some of my favorite songs, speaking of which:

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Song of the Month!

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Hurt by Johnny Cash

I've been wanting to learn this whole song for ever, because of its simplicity and great pairing with lyrics! It's a very personal song that looks back on life with regret, exclaiming the worthless feeling you feel after everyone you love passes away and your life is simply suffering. Considering the musician's history this song is an accurate portrayal of how it must be to be Johnny Cash.

(album image)

#Fingerpicking #Pop