My guitar grade 1 results came yesterday. I was astonished to see that I had actually done pretty well. I scored 87 out of 100, which is a distinction, as the distinction range was above 87 (just made it :)).

Here's a copy of the examiner's report:

Right after my exam I started practicing the grade 2 scales and they were incredibly easy. I was practicing these scales until today when Dhinesh sir finally told me to just jump straight to grade 5.

I started practicing the grade 5 scales today after a coming back from school and before I ate dinner I could play all 7 grade 5 scales effortlessly. I will be learning the grade 5 pieces tomorrow (which is very exciting as the last time I tried to learn sheet music was at the start of grade 1.

Me and my friends (Aniruddha: Grade 8 Pianist, Nishanth: Beginner Drummer, Me: Grade 1/Grade 5 noob guitarist / lead/back up vocalist) have also started a band (kind of) and we can play a two songs completely: Demons by Imagine Dragons and Counting Stars by One Republic.

We are still in search of a vocalist. I can sing pretty well but its hard to sing while playing the guitar so maybe if I get better I could actually try.

Practice session timings: (have 't been keeping track of my practice sessions for                                           over a month)

I haven't been keeping track of my practice sessions for a very long time, but I have been practicing a lot. I'm having a lot of trouble finding time to write posts.
My guitar grade 1 exam is on the 23rd of June, less than a week away, and I'm feeling pretty confident. My guitar teachers have conducted a couple of mock guitar exams in which I passed with flying colors but I'm still going to be a bit of cautious about the final exam.

I have almost perfected playing barre chords and i can breeze through normal chords. My lead guitar playing skills have improved considerably.

The most exciting news is that my friends and I are planning to start a band. One of my friends is learning to play the drums and another one of my friends is a grade 8 pianist. Malli is learning how to play the bass guitar, but we are still looking for a lead singer. I also think that I can be a backup vocalist.

I will be posting videos of me playing very soon.

Total no. of hours put in:  142.75
                                          (I have done way more than 250 hours but I havent recorded any of the hours :( )

Practice session timings: 3:00pm - 5:00pm, 7:00pm - 12:00am
Total hours: 7

Today I mainly practiced "Let Her Go" by Passenger and "Counting Stars" by One Republic. "Counting Stars" required me to switch between lead and chords and this very difficult. I am still far from mastering this.
I have almost mastered playing the B major chord but barring all six strings is proving to be an obstacle.

Total no. hours put in: 142.75


11/5/15
Practice session timings: 3:00pm - 6:00pm, 10:00pm - 2:00am
Total hours: 7

 Today I started to learn the "Let Her Go" by Passenger and this song needed a B major chord and this one of the hardest chords other than the F major chord. It's hard because you have to bar all six strings with one finger plus play three other notes.

Today I tried playing "The Beginning" on the electric guitar while listening to the actual song and I found that it was actually easier to play while doing so.

Total no. of hours put in: 135.75

Practice session timings: 3:00pm - 5:00pm, 11:00pm - 3:00pm
Total hours: 6

I haven't been updating my blog recently because I have been preoccupied with homework and I guitar practice. Unfortunately I didn't keep a log of my practice sessions.

On 4/5/15 my parents finally bought me an electric guitar after a lot of pleading. The model is the Cort X6 and with it came a free electronic tuner, earphones, spare strings and a stand. I also bought the VOX Amplug metal sound filter which was a small device which converted the normal electric guitar sound into a grating heavy metal sound.

I've been practicing a lot in the past couple of days. I can now play "A Fistful of Pesos" fully and at the correct beats per minute (160 bpm which is pretty fast).

Total no. of hours put in: 128.75

Practice session timings: 3:00pm - 4:00pm, 7:00pm - 9:00pm, 10:00pm - 12:00pm
Total hours: 5

Today I just kept playing all the songs I knew randomly I was mainly focusing on the lead parts, trying to get my fingers faster and nimbler.

Total no. of hours put in: 127.75


May 1/5/15
Practice session timings: -
Total hours: -

I forgot to record the timings at which I practiced yesterday but I did some similar practice that I did today.

Total no. of hours put in: 122.75

Practice session timings: -
Total hours: 0

Did not practice today.

Total no. of hours put in:122.75


29/4/15
Practice session timings: 10:00pm - 12:00am
Total hours: 2

Today I just went through all the songs I knew a couple of times.
I found out about a band called "The Gazette" who were considered the best rock band in Japan. There music was really good but I still like One Ok Rock's music better.

Total no. of hours put in: 122.75

Practice session timings: 10:00pm - 1:00am
Total hours: 3

Today I started learning another song by One Ok Rock called "Answer Is Near". This song consists of mainly lead roles and so I found it very difficult (because I suck at playing lead). I did not manage to finish the song and the parts I know are far from perfect but my lead playing is improving drastically.

Total no. of hours put in: 120.75

Practice session timings: 10:00pm - 12:00pm
Total hours: 2

Didn't learn anything new today. I just focused on playing the lead parts of all the songs I knew.

Total no. of hours out in: 117.75

Practice session timings: 3:00pm - 5:30pm, 10:00pm 1:00am
Total hours:5.5

I wasn't able to blog for the past 3 days as I was caught up with school work and my internet was down for a few days. Unfortunately I didn't keep a log of my practice sessions on these days.

Today I started and finished another song from One Ok Rock call "Remake". I used Jkitmusic tutorials as mt guide again this time. It was fairly easy to play and it had a lot of challenging lead guitarist roles that I still can't do perfectly. The most challenging thing I'm facing now is switching from playing rhythm to lead smoothly.

Total no. of hours put in: 115.75

Practice session timings: 8:45am - 9:45am, 10:30am - 11:30am, 3:45pm - 4:45pm
Total hours: 3

At school today I continued teaching Rudra simple chord progressions. Another friend of mine (Mithin aka Chigi) also started practicing with us. He already has prior knowledge on the guitar.
I didn't do any practice at home today.

Total no. of hours put in: 110.25

Practice session timings: 8:45am - 9:45am, 3:45pm - 4:45pm, 10:00pm - 12:00pm
Total hours: 4

Today I taught one of my friends (a beginner) to play basic scales and strumming patterns just to introduce him to the instrument as he was interested.
Throughout the day I only practiced "Cry Out" by One Ok Rock. It had a lot of very difficult lead roles (strumming individual strings to create melodies) which I wanted to practice because playing lead is one of my weakest points.
I did manage to finish the entire song by midnight but it was far from perfection.

Total no. of hours put in: 107.25

Practice session timings: 8:45am - 9:45am, 10:00pm - 2:00am
Total hours: 5

I achieved a lot today. At school I completed decoding all the notes for "A Fistful of Pesos" but I haven't mastered playing it yet. Joshua sir taught me how to read chords of sheet music.

At home I practiced more One Ok Rock songs. I completed a song call "Kanzen Kankaku Dreamer" and I started a new song called "Cry Out".

I noticed that my fingers were really starting to develop. The tips were almost as hard as a rock and whenever I tried a power slide my fingers slid like butter along the strings. The songs were beginning to get easier to play.

Songs I've learnt so far:

• Impossible Mission - Lee Sollory
• Naturally Minor - Lee Sollory
• A Fistful of Pesos - Nick Powlesland
• The Beginning - One Ok Rock
• Deeper Deeper - One OK Rock
• Kanzen Kankaku Dreamer - One Ok Rock
• Animals - Maroon 5

Total no. of hours put in: 103.25

Links:

Jkitmusic YouTube channel - https://www.youtube.com/user/Jkitmusic

(Awesome channel has tonnes of covers and tutorials)

Practice session timings: -
Total hours: 0

I didn't practice today.

Total no. of hours put in: 98.25

Practice session timings: 10:00pm - 12:30pm
Total hours: 2.5

(I couldn't post yesterday as my internet was down)
Didn't do much practice today even though it was the weekend. Today I finished learning the whole of "Deeper Deeper" by One OK Rock. I practiced a few chords and that's it.
Didn't achieve much today :(

Total no. of hours put in: 98.75


18/4/15
Practice session timings: 9:45am - 10:45am, 2:45pm - 4:45pm, 10:00pm -12:00pm
Total hours: 5

At school today I finished the whole of the grade 1 theory book. Joshua brought his guitar pedals today. A guitar pedal basically changes the sound that comes out of the amp. I played "The Beginning" and it sounded exactly how it sounded in the song. There were all kinds of weird sounds that could be produced ranging from weird people screaming to death metal.

Total no. of hours put in: 96.25

Practice session timings: 1:30pm - 3:45pm, 6:00pm - 9:30pm
Total hours: 5.75

Today I continued learning theory from Dhinesh sir for two whole hours. I had almost completed the whole theory course in two days and Dhinesh sir told that it would normally be taught for a whole year. He also said that at the rate I'm going at, I'll be able to do my guitar grade 5 exam by this November.
At home I first practiced all the guitar grade 1 pieces, scales and arpeggios. Next I practiced "The Beginning" (as usual). I learnt the starting's of two new One Ok Rock songs: Kanzen Kankaku Dreamer and Deeper Deeper. These were fairly challenging as they required me to play single notes in rapid succession but I managed to almost do it without flaws.

Total no. of hours put in: 91.25

Practice session timings: 10:15am - 11:15am, 9:30pm - 1:00am
Total hours: 4.5

Today, Dhinesh sir began to teach me theory for an exam he said Ill be taking in March (next year). The book I was learning from was called "Music Theory in Practice" by Eric Taylor and was basically a book about how to read read and write notes so that you could become a more independent musician.
One thing that really got me excited today was that Joshua sir said that he would bring his electric guitar foot pedals tomorrow. Pedals are use to change the tone of the electric guitar while your playing it and it also allows you to distort the sound to get a more heavy metal feel.
At home I continued to practice "The Beginning" and all the scales and arpeggios that I learnt yesterday.

Total no. of hours put in: 85.5



14/4/15
Practice session timings: Can't remember exactly when I practiced at home and there was no school today.
Total hours: -

Today I mainly just practiced "The Beginning" by One Ok Rock on the acoustic guitar. I played it while my sister played the keyboard notes to the song and it sounded pretty good. I also practiced the new scales and chords Dhinesh sir gave me.

Total no. of hours put in: 81



13/4/15
Practice session timings: 8:45am - 9:45am, 10:00pm 12:00am
Total hours: 3

Today was amazing. I got to use the electric guitar for the first time! But before that Dhinesh sir gave me more scales to learn for grade 1 but they were really easy. I was introduced to a new type of notes called arpeggios. An arpeggio is basically all the notes of a chord played separately in succession with upward and downward strokes of the plectrum.

The new scales and arpeggios I learnt are below:

My First Experience with an Electric Guitar:

As soon as sir handed me the guitar I almost dropped it because it almost weighed 10kg literally. It was pretty small compared to the acoustic guitar and the strings were way loser. It required about zero effort to push the strings down and they were so smooth which meant power sliding would be a walk in the park. I immediately tried playing "The Beginning" and it sounded really good but it was not what I expected. The sound was very clean and it didn't sound like heavy metal at all. Sir told me to get a heavy metal sound (known as distorted sound) you need a separate unit called a sound filter which helps vary the sound. These units come in a pedal form but I had no idea about them and I haven't done any research on them yet.

I cant wait to pick up an electric guitar again.

Total no. of hours put in: 81

Practice session timings: 11:00pm - 12:30am
Total hours; 1.5

Today I only practiced "The Beginning" electric guitar style but the only difference was I played it while my sister was playing the keyboard. It actually sounded really good but I knew it would sound much better if I actually used an electric guitar. We could play the first third of the song fluently and we are planning to finish the rest tomorrow. I will probably post a video tomorrow on what we have achieved so far.

Total no. of hours put in: 78

Practice session timings: 3:00pm - 6:00pm, 7:00pm - 9:00pm, 10:00pm - 2:00am
Total hours: 9

I progressed so far today. I achieved things that I never dreamed of doing.
From 3pm to 6pm I only practiced the two grade 1 guitar songs. Unfortunately I did not start the new song, "A Fistful of Pesos". The songs were almost perfect.
After this I practiced the acoustic version of, "The Beginning" by One Ok Rock. This got really boring after some time as I knew all the notes to the song and I just had to practice the F chord which I was still struggling with.
After dinner I decided to do something new. I knew my main goal at the end of all this practice was to play the electric guitar like a BOSS. So I decided that I would practice electric guitar notes on the acoustic guitar so that I could reach my goal quicker because I didn't have an electric guitar at the moment. I decided to learn "The Beginning" again, but this time it was the notes for the electric guitar.
At first I thought it was going to be really hard, but surprisingly, within the first hour I had already learnt the song from the starting to the beginning of the first chorus. I got really excited because even though I was using an acoustic guitar it still sounded like the song. One disadvantage in playing electric guitar style is that you have to power slide a lot. this means that you have to slide your fingers over the strings to reach the next note. What makes it worse is that acoustic strings are more rougher than electric guitar strings and they really burn the life out of your finger tips.
Amazingly, after four hours of dedicated work I managed to complete the entire song (I was unbelievably happy). This was my first goal and I accomplished it today. Of course there are lot of mistakes here and there and I haven't actually played on a electric guitar yet but it was still a huge milestone.
Today's achievements have really made me more pumped up to learn more and become the best guitarist I can be.

(BTW: I learnt how to play "The Beginning" by this guy named Jkitmusic. He has tonnes and tonnes of tutorials on more awesome One Ok Rock songs.)

Total no. of hours put in: 76.5

Links:
"The Beginning" tutorial by Jkitmusic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgmUQWsnHmk

Practice session timings: 8:45am - 9:45am, 10:00pm - 12:30pm
Total hours: 3.5

Today I registered for my guitar grade 1 exam in June. I had a whole two months to practice so I wasn't really nervous.
Today in school I just practiced the two grade 1 guitar songs again and practiced a few chords.
At home I practiced the songs again! I didn't do anything anything interesting today but I am planning to learn a new song called "Fist Full of Pesos" tomorrow.

Total no. of hours put in: 67.5

Practice session timings: 9:45am - 10:45am
Total hours today: 1

Today I performed "Impossible Mission" and "Naturally Minor" to Dhinesh sir. There were a few errors here and there but he was pretty impressed. I didn't get to practice in my 4 hour CAS period today as we had to go on a field trip.
I did practice at home but not for a long time as I needed to study for an exam.
Another exciting thing that happened today was that Joshua sir said that I could use the electric guitar soon...........  :)

Total no. of hours put in: 64

Practice session timings: 5:30pm - 6:30pm, 7:30pm - 9:30pm, 10:00pm - 3:00am
Total hours: 8

Today I decided to compensate for the loss of practice yesterday and so I decided to keep practicing today until I mastered "Impossible Mission" and "Naturally Minor" while playing with the metronome.
After an hour so of alternate practice (switching between the either songs) it was starting to get boring and so in between the songs I began to practice the acoustic version of "The Beginning" which I loved to do because its my favorite song. But because the video I was referring didn't teach the strumming pattern, I had to figure it out my self. the chords were easy to figure out, they were: A minor, F, C, G. The F chord was the hardest but I was beginning to get the hang of it. After a few hours I figured out the strumming pattern, it was: D D U D D U D U (D - down stroke, U - up stroke). However this was only the first part and the second part seemed even harder and so I decided to try it later.
I was making some real progress with the two grade one songs and they were slowly starting to get etched into my muscle memory. I was finding it more easy to play along with the metronome but I kept making small mistakes that messed up my timing.
I spent a tremendously long time practicing today but I was really happy with the results. I could play bot the songs decently and my F chord hand position was improving.

Total no. of hours put in: 63

April 7/4/15:
Practice session timings: 8:45am - 845am
Total hours: 1

I couldn't post yesterday because I fell asleep while of studying and only woke up the next day morning (lol). I didn't get time to practice in the evening due to this fact and so my only practice time was at school.
At school Dhinesh sir made me practice "Impossible Mission" with the metronome at 92 beats per minute which was very hard to do. I didn't make much progress in class.
Malli showed me a video of a person playing the acoustic version of "The Beginning" by One Ok Rock. It wasn't a tutorial video so we had to figure out the chords and strumming pattern ourselves. Malli had already decoded it but I forgot everything as soon as he taught me. I didn't get to practice this either due to the fact that I slept.

Total no. hours put in: 55

Links:
"The Beginning" by One Ok Rock (acoustic cover): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gjhKRDQzWY

Practice session timings: 8:45am - 9:45am, 3:15pm - 4:15pm, 8:00pm - 9:00pm, 10:00pm - 11:30pm
Total hours today: 4.5

In school I practiced "Impossible Mission" to the point where it was presentable and then I started playing "Naturally Minor". This didn't go very smoothly as I had forgot half of the notes but I did manage to complete the whole song (with a lot of errors).
In the afternoon, Malli showed me how to play the chords for the song, "The Beginning" which I was really eager to play. The progression consisted of the chords: A minor, F, C, G. This was the first time I would use the F chord in a progression (it is considered one of the hardest chords). I wasn't able to play the F chord at all which really frustrated me. However I got the strumming pattern down and so I played the progression excluding the F chord.

At home I only practiced the F chord positioning for an hour before dinner. This made my left hand cramp a lot. After dinner I tried playing the whole progression together (including the F chord). It sounded perfect except for the fact that I had to stop for 20 seconds every time the F chord section came.

Total no. of hours put in: 54

Practice session timings: 11:30pm - 2:00am
Total hours today: 2.5

Today I only practiced one thing: "Naturally Minor" by Lee Sollory. It took about 15 minutes to decode all the notes. It was extremely difficult for the first five minutes but after finding the tune it got much easier. I finished playing the rest of the song (far from perfection) in the next half an hour. For the next couple of hours I kept repeating the song over and over again but I never found perfection. I stopped because it got too late.
I also decided to complete the beginner series in the website: freeguitarvideos. this would help me perfect my basics. Another reason for this is that there were some really good courses on the website that I was eager to take but I needed to know the basics to proceed.

Total no. of hours put in: 49.5

Links:
http://www.freeguitarvideos.com/

Practice session timings: Thursday: 1 hour at school and 2hrs at home
                                         Friday    : 4hrs at home (no school)
                                         Today    : 2 hrs

I wasn't able to post on Thursday and Friday because my internet was down but I did manage to get a lot of practice in. The song "Impossible Mission" is almost done (somewhat) and I have begun to decode the notes on the next piece, "Naturally Minor". I also came up with my own strumming pattern today using the A minor, C, G and D chords which sounded pretty good. Also, on Thursday Dhinesh sir told me that I could take the guitar grade 1 exam in June if I managed to learn all the songs perfectly before then. There are videos of me playing "Impossible Mission" and my new strumming pattern below.

My New Strumming Pattern

"Ipossible Mission" by Lee Sollory

While I was waiting for the video to upload I found another brilliant website called: http://www.freeguitarvideos.com/

I learnt a new strumming pattern in less than 45 minutes which used the E minor and B7 chords.

Total no. of hours put in: 47

Practice session timings: 6:00pm - 7:30pm, 10:00pm - 11:30pm
Total hours today: 3

I did not have any practice sessions in school today. As soon as I got home I began practicing "Impossible Mission". After I played through it a couple of times I decided to practice my chord transitioning. I learnt the Gmaj7 chord ('maj' stands for major).

Source: www.learn-acoustic-guitar.com

This was a really easy chord to play considering that it required no barring. After learning the chord I listened to a new song by one of my favorite band's: FTISLAND. The song was called "Pray" and it really inspired me to one day be able to play the electric guitar like them.

I practiced "Animals" again and this time I was feeling pretty confident with it so I decided to record myself, here it is: (I have not learnt how to embed an audio file so I have recorded in the form of video)

After half an hour my grandmother came into my room and screamed at me for making too much noise in the night :)

Total no. of hours put in: 38

Links to songs mentioned:

Pray - FTISLAND - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1ZUFyS3-e8

Animals - Maroon 5 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpgTC9MDx1o

Impossible Mission - Lee Sollory - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8azpK2PDwM

Practice session timings: 8:45am - 9:45am, 11:00pm - 1:30am
Total hours today: 3.5

Today I started learning my first song for grade 1 guitar called, "Impossible Mission" by Lee Sollory. It was a simple piece that would make use of my sheet music reading skills. Here is the tablature:

Source: Scanned copy

Before I tried to learn this song, Dhinesh sir taught me the C major scale which was complicated at first, but got easier in a couple of minutes. I spent half an hour on the song and in this time I managed to learn the first four bars (first line in the sheet). Dhinesh sir told me that the ideal practice would be to spend 1 hour on 1 bar everyday and in that way we could complete this song in 16 hours (16 days), as there were 16 bars and was considered good progress. But I was too impatient. As soon as I started practicing at home I decoded every note on the sheet and then began practicing each bar for about 2 minutes (instead of 1 hour). In about half an hour I was playing the complete song (with a few errors) pretty easily. I had made tremendous progress and I was really proud of myself.

I still wanted to practice more so I tried playing "The Beginning" by One Ok Rock and singing to it . It turned out to be extremely hard and so I stopped for the day

Total no. of hours put in: 35

Practice session timings: (Didn't have time to practice over the weekend)
Total hours day before yesterday and yesterday: 0
Total hours today: 1

Unfortunately I did not get any time to practice over the weekend as I had a lot of homework and the school sports fest was conducted on Sunday.
Today however I did manage to sneak in an hour of practice in my free period at school. I just revised the basic chord shapes and tried to play, "Animals", which was beginning to start sounding really good. I did not learn anything new today but decided to try a new song when I went home but then I realized I had a French exam tomorrow and so I was already preoccupied for the day but I am planning to play for a bit after finishing this post.
I've decided to try a song called, "Let Her Go" by Passenger.

Total no. of hours put in: 31.5

Practice session timings: 8:45am - 9:45am
Total hours today: 1

Today was my first theory class. I learnt about how to read sheet music and it was actually pretty simple. It consisted of many things that would take too long to explain here, but this table summarizes mostly everything I learnt.

Name	Value	Note	Rest
Semibreve whole note	4 crotchets
Minim half note	2 crotchets
Crotchet quarter note	1 crotchet
Quaver eighth note	1/2 of a crotchet
Semiquaver sixteenth note	1/4 of a crotchet
Demisemiquaver thirty-second note	1/8 of a crotchet
Hemidemisemiquaver sixty-fourth note	1/16 of a crotchet

I only learnt to read them, not play them.

At home I did not practice much today. I just practiced a few chords and and worked on my strumming a bit. I tried to sing while playing guitar but with little success (it's harder than you think). I gave up after a short period of time.

Total no. of hours put in: 30.5

                               

Practice Session Timings: 9:30am - 10:30am, 1:15pm - 4:45pm, 10:00pm - 12:00pm
Total hours today: 6.5hrs (wow)

Can you believe it? Six and half hours of practice! In my first free period, (between 9:30 and 10:00), I practiced with a friend named Ashwin who had four months of experience with the guitar. His chord transitions were smooth and so I asked him for tips but he just told me to keep practicing and I'd eventually get it. I practiced the following rhythm: E minor, D, C, E minor, G, C. I kept practicing this over and over again for 45 minutes without strumming. For the last 15 minutes of the hour I approached another guitar teacher named Dhinesh sir and asked him if he could help with my chord transitions. He told me to use my foot as a simple metronome by tapping it and then asked me to play the chords according to the rhythm. It was fairly easy and I picked it up in a few minutes.

After lunch, we had our CAS period for the next four hours and so i went straight to the music room with my friend Malli. I started with the foot tapping practice that Dhinesh sir had taught me. After a few minutes I increased my pace until after about 20 minutes I began to play 'Animals' by Maroon 5 perfectly (almost, but I was still very impressed with my single day improvement). Malli is a really good guitarist (he specializes in finger style). I tried a few tunes he played but with little success. I continued playing Animals for over an hour. It was actually beginning to sound professional.

After 2 hours, Joshua sir came in and so I tried to play Animals, but it was an epic fail. He then taught me a simpler strumming pattern and asked me to play it 'dead slow' and then gradually increase the speed. I felt really frustrated as that's what I had been doing for the past two hours and it all ended up in a fail. I perfected the simple strumming pattern in a short while and Joshua sir was impressed. He then taught me a new chord called B7 which was fairly easy to play.

The rest of the practice session consisted of me repeating the same things I mentioned above and trying to increase my playing.

At 10pm it was too late to practice strumming so I just focused on practicing chord transitions. After some time I decided to learn a new song and so I decided to try learning my most favourite song, "The Beginning" by One Ok  Rock. I found this YouTuber called 'ken lights' and he immediately became my inspiration. He had done acoustic covers for all my favorite One Ok Rock songs. I set my next goal as being able to play 'The Beginning' and sing along (sounded a bit intimidating at first but also sounded like it'd be fun.
 (Here's the link to kenlights video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTAiOvebYZ8)
I also came up with the idea to try and make a beginner guitar tutorial website to help all the other noobs
out there who were just like me. This would however take some time and would not be happening in the 
future.
I decided to wrap up today's practice. It had been a long day.

Total no. of hours put in: 29.5hrs

Practice Session Timings: 10:00pm to 12:30pm
Total hours today: 2.5

I did not practice guitar in school today. At home I started practice after dinner at exactly 10pm. I decided to perfect the first tune Joshua sir taught me and after a couple of perfect run through's I decided to revise the chords I knew. I found this useful chart that showed the chord diagrams of the most basic beginner chords. Here it is:

The chord diagrams of G, D, C, A and E

After this I decided to add more chords to my mental chord library. There were two more chords that were considered basic: the F chord and B chord. I decided to learn the F chord first and went to YouTube to see a tutorial. The first link was a video called, "The Dreaded F Chord", by a person called JustinGuitar. The title was pretty intimidating and as I watched the video I realized why it was "dreaded". The F chord required the guitarist to press all six strings with one finger (index). At first I thought it was going to be a piece of cake but as I tried it I realized that it was almost impossible. The chord used all four fingers on your left hand. My index finger did not have the strength to push all the six strings down and while I tried to apply all my force with my index, my other fingers became even more harder to control. The F chord diagram:

As you can see, the first finger has to press all the strings from 1 to 6.

 After 30 minutes of epic failure and frustration I decided to stop for the day, but I still had a nagging feeling that I hadn't accomplished anything today.
So instead of stopping I decided to learn another simple song. I chose 'Animals' by Maroon 5, and searched YouTube for a good video. I came across this video by a dude called martysongs, (Here's the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aK17DLi17k), and he taught how to play along to the song in a really simple way by only using four chords: E minor, D, C and G, and I knew all of them so the first part was easy. The second part however was the strumming part, which I found extremely hard for the first ten minutes but surprisingly I got the hang of it fairly quickly and I was matching Marty's speed after just twenty minutes. Unfortunately I had to mute the strings, (half press them so they didn't make any sound), because it was 12 o'clock at night and I didn't want angry neighbors knocking on my door.
At the end of today's practice session I felt great, especially because I managed to pick up the strumming part of the song easily.

Total no. of hours put in: 23hrs

Practice Session Timings: 12:00pm - 12;30pm
Total Hours: 0.5
Well today is the day I officially start my blog. I will be posting a recap of everyone of my practice sessions at home, right after the session. Without wasting anymore time, lets see what I accomplished today.
Well, today I didn't practice at home because I received a tub full of homework from school but I did manage to sneak in half an hour at school. To my surprise, I mastered the tune Joshua sir had taught me five minutes into the practice session. Sadly Joshua sir was absent and so I couldn't learn anything new. My G chord to C chord transitions were looking good so I tried changing from C chord to D chord which was pretty challenging.

Total no. of hours put in: 20hrs and 30mins

I actually started learning guitar on the 8th of March and i had been recording what i had learnt on a loose piece of paper but I started this blog late so this post is going to be a complete summary of what I did over the first few weeks.

11/3/15, Duration: 15mins
I picked up a guitar for the first time, (it was my sister's). It felt weird and unbalanced and seemed to keep giving out this deep strumming noise every time I touched it. At this point I literally felt like I could learn how to play this instrument in a matter of weeks, I mean, how hard could it be? My sister had gone for a few guitar classes and so she knew the basics so I decided to learn from her. She began to teach me how to read notes but I told her that I just wanted to learn how to play (she got pretty mad :). So she gave me a simple task. She said, " Place your first four fingers on the first four frets respectively on the high E string". Frets? High E string? Was she speaking english? I got fed up after a grand total of 15 minutes, (Hooray), and decided to stop for the day.

12/3/15, Duration: Easily over an hour
The next day I was a whole lot more patient. My sister taught me the parts of the guitar and the names of each string, (High E, B, G, D, A, Low E). I learnt a basic left hand finger exercise which would train my fingers to get adapted to the fret board. This exercise used all four fingers, and as a beginner it was really hard to coordinate them, especially when I was using my weak hand. I kept at it for over an hour and I finally began to see results. I was starting to gain at least some control over my left hand. After my practice session the tips of my fingers (left hand) felt like they were on fire.

13/3/15 Duration: 0
The tips of my fingers are EXTREMELY sore. Could barely touch the strings without cringing. Give up practice today.

14/3/15 Duration: 3 hrs appx.
As today was the weekend I practiced at every chance I got despite the throbbing pain in my fingertips. After an hour of practicing the fingering exercise, it was beginning to get very easy and this made me very enthusiastic. I decided to try learning a simple song. My sister suggested a YouTube channel called  "kidzguitarzone" where a guy named Andrew taught songs in a very, very simple manner. I decided to learn the intro to the song, "Smoke on the Water" by Deep Purple. It sounded good and it was easy to play. I continued to play it numerous times until my fingers were in the same state as they were a few days ago and then I stopped for the day.

15/3/15 Duration 15mins
Didn't practice a lot today. A was playing basketball and doing my homework for a majority of the time. Watched a lot of YouTube guitar videos and also got introduced to tablature, (guitar notes), but I didn't try to learn it.

16/3/15 Duration: Easily more than 3hrs
Today I decided to speak to my school's guitar teacher, Joshua sir. I told him that I wanted to learn the electric guitar and that I was hoping that he would teach me. He asked me why and I told him that I loved heavy metal rock and that I really wanted to learn how to play it. He told me that I should first learn how to play the acoustic guitar and then work my way up from there to the electric guitar and he also agreed to teach me and told me that i was always allowed to go to the music room to practice in my free periods. He also asked me to learn the basics so that I could learn faster.
The moment I came back home I immediately picked up the guitar and started practicing. After an hour or so my hands started paining and so I stopped and instead went to my computer and began to research about the guitar. I began to drown in a sea of information, there were so much things involved with guitar playing. First of all, there were loads of things that I needed to learn such as scales, chords, barre chords, arpeggios and more. Instead of getting intimidated I was getting more and more interested. I also learnt that soreness of my finger tips was due to calluses building up on them. A callus is a tough thick layer of skin that forms due to repeated friction. Once my calluses built then I would no longer feel any pain, (according to the internet).

17/3/15 Duration: 0 (didn't practice but researched a lot)
I have a friend called Ajithesh Malli, (but im gonna call him Malli just coz), who plays the guitar and he comes on the bus with me from school. I asked about some tips and tricks about the guitar and as the conversation went on I was introduced to finger style guitar playing. He also told me about a legendary finger style guitarist called Sungha Jung and asked me to watch some of his YouTube videos. He was amazing. The finger style allowed him to play multiple strings at once. I started watching videos about finger style guitarists and decided that I'd ask Joshua sir if I should do plectrum style or fingerstyle.

18/3/15 Duration: 2hrs
I found out myself that finger style guitar was for solo artists but I was trying to learn how to play the lead guitarist in a band and so plectrum style would be the best. I found this amazing website called guitarnick.com which had the most basic tutorials for beginners. It had finger style and plectrum style. I immediately started learning the plectrum strumming exercises. There were 10 exercises in total.

Website link: www.guitarnick.com/

19/3/15 Duration: 1.5hrs
Today I continued proceeding with lessons. I had cleared lesson 1 and 2 perfectly but 3 was proving to be really hard. Frustrated and tired I cut my practice by half an hour today. I was also beginning to develop a wrist pain.

20/3/15 Duration: 0
I decided to take a break today in the fear of injuring my wrist, (which I needed for basketball). Malli told me about an app called GuitarTuna. It was really useful as it had an electronic guitar tuner and also taught you how to play chords, (which I hadn't even started yet). A chord is a note that you play by strumming more than one string at a time and your left hand fingers are pressing 3 different strings at the same time. The app had some useful games that helped you memorize chord diagrams, (the patterns in which you play chords).

21/3/15 Duration: 2hrs
Surprisingly, I got the hang of playing chords in a matter of minutes. i learnt about 7 chords by heart today and I was pretty proud of myself. I did strumming practice today again and was able to progress to lesson 5 which was mind boggingly hard. I kept trying until I got fed up.

22/3/15 Duration: 2hrs
Today I continued the strumming exercises but wasn't able to proceed from lesson 5. I got fed up and tried practicing more chords. By now I knew how to perfectly play the following chords: C, D, G, A, E, D#, A#, E#, D7.
Tomorrow I was going to go to my first class with Joshua sir at school and I couldn't wait for what was in store for my first lesson.

23/3/15 Duration: 2hrs +1hr (practice in school)
As soon as Joshua sir handed me the guitar he was like, "So show me what you got". I was completely blank for a second and then I remembered the first song I learnt, Smoke in the Water. I played it flawlessly and sir was impressed and immediately started teaching me how to play chords. I showed him that I already knew how to play the chords and he was even more impressed. Then he played a simple tune with the G chord and C chord. It looked simple enough but when I tried it I was all over the place. My right hand wouldn't coordinate with my left hand. Joshua sir told me to keep practicing and that 15 minutes a day would be enough but I knew I was going to try for a longer time.
At home I practiced the new tune sir had taught me and not to my surprise, I failed epically.

24/3/25 Duration: 2hrs
I had no guitar class in school today as I had no free periods, but at home I practiced my hands felt like they were going to fall off.

The Journey Begins...

Well, I was never really into playing the guitar, or an any instrument for that matter. I was only into listening to music. You would usually find me with my earphones blaring day in and day out. I was addicted to music, only listening to music, but I had never thought about the amount of time and energy that artists had spent to come up with each of their songs. I was particularly fond of a Japanese band called One Ok Rock. I would spend hours and hours each week watching their music videos and I slowly began to become interested in the electric guitar after watching Toru and Ryota, (One Ok Rock's guitarists), go absolutely crazy with their 'axes'.

So, as I had just entered into my first year of IBDP, I was slowly getting used to how things worked, (IBDP was not going to be an easy course). There was also another area of IBDP that made it different to other boards, it was CAS, Creativity, Action and Service. Each student is allotted with a time period of 150 hours. The student has to take up tasks and activities that challenge them. Each part of CAS has certain criteria that needs to be completed if the student wants to pass his grade. So CAS was essential and I was breaking my head trying to find out what to do, and then it struck me, I decided to learn how to play the guitar. (It was gonna be a piece of cake right?)