Hey, how you doing? Justin here,
to talk about practice for Lesson 7, and you know that's the consolidation stage.
I've just been through all the things you need to do to pass Grade 1.
So, probably as I was going through that, you were going like,
"Oh yeah, I could probably do a bit of work on that".
Now, as a rough guide, I would recommend that you've got 2 minutes
on working on your Chord Perfect.
Whatever chords are weakest, you wanna practice.
But if you're cool with all the chords, then you can skip that bit.
Change it. My practice routine is editable, so you can go through
and change the stuff, get rid of things that you don't need,
or add extra time onto the stuff that you really need.
I would recommend that you've got 2 minutes on 1-minutes changes
between two of the weakest change pairs.
So, figure out which chord changes you need to play the songs you wanna play.
Make a list of the ones you find the hardest,
and pick two of them, and put that into the routine,
until you get them over 30, 40, maybe 60 changes,
depending on where you're setting your bar for your changes.
You wanna try and get them all fairly consistent,
and at least good enough to play in the songs.
But maybe just two, 1-minute changes sessions.
Then I'd suggest you do 2 minutes of strumming in 4/4 with a metronome.
Just working on making it feel good.
Pick a strumming pattern, play it with a metronome,
practice playing it along and making it feel as good and relaxed,
and as consistent as you can. Maybe adding some fills here and there.
Just making sure you keep the hand moving all the time. That's the key thing.
If the pattern varies a bit, that's okay.
If you add a couple of strums or take one away or whatever,
as long as you keep the hand moving and stay in time, you're going fine.
I would also recommend that you spend 2 minutes on the 6/8 time.
Now, you might not have picked any songs in 6/8. I think that you should.
I would recommend that you pick a song in 6/8 to work on.
Cos it is a very common time feel, and it's a nice one to have.
Feels a little different. Very nice thing to have under your belt,
is to be able to play in 6/8.
So, again, spending some time with the metronome,
just put the metronome on so it's got 6 clicks.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.
Tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick...
that kind of tempo.
And then practice playing along. It's the same as the 4/4 thing,
where it wants to feel relaxed. Just cos there's a different time series,
doesn't mean you're allowed to be tensed with it.
It has to be feeling good, feeling nice and relaxed when you do it.
Now, if you really didn't get on with 6/8, you're like,
"Don't like any songs in 6/8, rather spend my time working on my other strumming",
then do extra practice on the 4/4 strumming,
on strumming patterns that you're using in the songs you're playing.
It should all be targeted toward the songs you're working on.
I think that's a really strong reasoning behind anything in your practice routine,
should be it relates to the songs that you wanna play.
I would recommend that you spend a couple of minutes on having fun
with the riffs that we've checked out so far in the course.
Any of the riffs we've done so far just for fun.
You don't even need to play any riffs to pass out.
It's just for fun, and there's lots of stuff, as I mentioned a few times,
there's lots of things that you'll learn in the process of practicing those riffs,
that you will find very beneficial.
Picking out the notes individually, which we'll do more of in Grade 2.
Okay? So just find some riffs. Have some fun, and just enjoy that.
And then you wanna be spending 10 minutes working on your songs.
Whatever the songs are that you really like.
You could spend more time on songs, and less time on the techniques,
I think it should be all about playing songs.
That should be where the weight lies.
I think half on songs, and half on developing techniques
that will help you play the songs, is a really strong balance.
I would kind of recommend sticking with that maybe.
But, again, at this point in your journey, you're allowed to fiddle with it a bit.
If you're finding yourself struggling with some of the finger stretching stuff still,
then it's okay to bring back the finger stretching exercise,
and pop that into this routine.
It's very easy to drag it from one of the earlier routines,
and pop it into this one.
Some of you won't find it necessary, some of you will.
Okay? Again...
It's a little bit adaptable, and it depends on you.
You might find the finger stretching is something you feel is holding you back,
but you feel confident with the strumming. So you wanna find the little balances now.
If there's anything like tuning guitar, if you're not feeling confident
with tuning guitar, it's time you sit down,
knock all the strings out of tune, grab your tuner and tune your guitar.
Only practice is gonna help that.
So, things like tuning your guitar, it won't go in your practice routine, okay?
That would just be silly.
Go through the list, and the things that you need to do to pass Grade 1.
Tick them off, make sure you're confident with each one of those things,
and after a week or twos' practice, if you're like...
"I'm ready. I'm good with all of this stuff",
then sit down and give yourself a test.
Literally just go, "Right. I'm testing out now. Can I do these things?"
Knock your guitar out. Get them all in tune. Okay, 8 of the beginners chords.
"Can I play all of those chords?"
Just go through and tick off all of the things and make sure
that you've done them, that you're confident with them,
and that you're like, "Yeah, I've done this".
And even when you've done it, I would recommend having
maybe a month, a whole month, of not moving on to the next grade,
And just letting this stuff really consolidate and soak itself in.
The slower you go in these early stages, the better the foundation is.
Because when things start to get a little harder,
if you've got a solid foundation, you'll always find that
you can fall back comfortably into the things that you can do, and be like
"I'll try this other thing. Oh, that's a bit hard, I'll just come back to here".
Whereas if that foundation wasn't solid, you'll try something tricky,
and go, "Oh!" and you'll just stop.
You won't have a confident place to go back to.
So, don't be in a hurry. The destination is the journey here.
Okay?
It's not the point to get somewhere. We're enjoying the ride.
You wanna be enjoying every stage of this, so don't be in a rush to get somewhere.
Cos at the next place, there's another place to get to.
The journey doesn't end. I'm still learning.
Maybe more now than I was when I started.
The more you know, the more you realize you don't know,
and the more you realize there are new things to study all over the place.
Don't feel like it's a linear thing where you go like,
"I've got to get to here. I've got to get to here",
cos it doesn't finish, and you'll be in a perpetual race all the time,
feeling like you're never gonna get anywhere.
Cos there isn't an end point.
So you got to enjoy the journey, and enjoy being able to play songs,
that you've got these chords that you know,
you've got strumming patterns you can use, and you can play songs!
That's awesome!
Be really super happy with that, and don't be in a hurry to rush forward
and try and learn new stuff.
If you start to feel bored of things,
"Oh, I'm getting bored with all these and bored with the songs"...
Great! Definitely time to move on, cos I don't want you to get bored.
You wanna try and keep it as fun as you can,
and learn to recognizing yourself.
What things keep you engaged, and keep you picking the guitar up,
and do more of that.
Hope you're enjoying the journey so far. I'll see you for plenty more very soon.
Take care of yourselves, bye-bye.