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?)