Tony's Guitar Learning Log

 A different and most enjoyable learning experience started for me about six weeks ago. We have a local group that plays Old Time Appalachian - we call it Old Timey down under. A good friend of mine has been playing with this group for some time and she’s often raved about what fun it is. I’d been to some Old Timey jams a few times and while the music is enjoyable, it never really grabbed me. I went to my first rehearsal with this group six weeks ago and it was heaps of fun. The leader of the group is a retired professional musician and he puts up large chord sheets for each song on an easel. This helped a lot as the other Old Timey jams I’d been to relied on you being familiar with the songs. We typically have 15 to 20 musicians show up for rehearsal, it’s once a week. Two things make the experience there really great. First is the vibe of the people, it’s positive, enthusiastic and up beat. They enjoy being there and are reasonably social. Several times some...

Minor epiphany for me this weekend. I’ve had a pickup fitted to my new Kallquist guitar and had a small gathering of muso friends. One of them is a luthier and he was interested to hear how the pickup (LR Baggs Anthem) sounded with my acoustic amp (AER). I had played it briefly and was happy with the sound. When I played it much more over the weekend with my friends, I noticed how sloppy my playing was when amplified. While I live for the chance to perform publicly at open mics and such, I normally rehearse unplugged except when I know an open mic is coming up. So today I rehearsed for well over an hour plugged into the amp and was amazed at how quickly it improved my playing. Because the sloppy bits were much more obvious, it was easy (relatively) to tidy up my playing and concentrate on playing cleaner. So my epiphany was that playing unplugged made it easier for me to be sloppy. Going forward I’ll be rehearsing amplified a lot more than previously. Another thing...

 Onwards to 100 open mics. For some reason I started a diary with the details of the songs I played at my first open mic back in Feb of 2013. I had hoped to reach the 100 milestone by the time my 10th anniversary of starting playing happened. Covid had other ideas, no open mics at all for a while. Played 2 open mics in the last 2 days, #92 and #93 . Woo hoo. Both were very different. Justin has talked about having various songs in your back pocket for when the chance to perform happens. Ensuring there is a variety of songs is also very good. My nerves did concern me a bit as I’d played a couple of songs for friends at home after a dinner party we hosted the weekend before and was surprised to see the old performance anxiety creeping in when I least expected it. First was an amateur night hosted by a local musician and beekeeper. It was at a local hall and was standing room only. A draft version of the programme was emailed out a week before and after reading...

 To give you some context, we’ve spent the last 2 years, 11 months and 4 days living in our RV caravan and traveling around Australia doing what 's called the “Big lap”. And a big lap it was, during that time we traveled well over 65,000 kilometres and had many a wonderful experience. Due to covid, we didn’t go to many open mics along the way but in 2023 have gotten back into that and really enjoying it. While traveling I learned the thumb and finger technique from one of Justin’s lessons which opened up for me a whole bunch of new songs, especially those with a strong back beat, like a lot of Credence Clearwater songs. I’ve easily added a dozen songs to my repertoire with that technique alone. Getting back into the open mic scene has opened up for me a new learning experience which is playing without ever looking at the fret board. Previously I was fairly good at mostly not looking but when I started playing the open mics again after not doing so, it was clear to ...

 I retired in 2019 and we spent 6 months renovating our house ready to hit the road in our SUV and caravan (aka RV / camping trailer) and circumnavigate the continent of Australia. This is called doing the “big lap”. We signed a 12 month lease on our house and moved into our caravan only to have no where to go as covid hit and travel restrictions meant we had to delay our trip. Thankfully we live on 6 acres and were able to live off grid in our caravan until we could hit the road later in 2020. Many evenings were spent sitting around an open fire playing guitar and singing. We had fun in our own back yard. We’ve now been on the road permanently since late 2020 and hope to keep going for another 2 years or more. When I chatted to a local friend about our plans, he said with the guitar we’ll be popular on the road. I wasn’t really sure what he meant, as time has gone on, we’ve had some great camping experiences thanks to the guitar. Much of the time I’m playing ...

When I first started playing I would hear Justin and others encourage me to play along to the original song / video. I just couldn’t do that so I’d play the song my way. In my head it was close to the original, in reality it was a fair ways off. It was just such fun to be playing old favourites. Now I’m much more able to play along to the original song yet don’t feel compelled to always do that. I’m proud of several of the songs I do that are along the lines of the original song, and also love it when an artist reinvents a cover. One example of that is the Civil wars cover of Billie Jean.  Civil Wars - Billie Jean Completely different to the original and yet awesome in it’s own right. After I’d been playing for a while, I noticed many of my songs sounded too similar. Justin has commented on this in a number of his lessons when he talks about the D D u u D u strumming pattern that’s very common, esp among beginners. So I started looking for songs that forced me t...