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