Hey, how you doing? Justin here. Today we're gonna talk about developing your
repertoire. If you've been following the course along now, you're nearly at the end
of Grade 2. You will have checked out a whole bunch of songs; if you're anything
like me, you probably struggling to remember them all; so, I just want to
talk a little bit ways to figure out what your repertoire should be, and ways to
help remember your stuff. We've talked about this a little bit before, about the
idea of having a songbook, and that still stands, so, if you're learning a song and
you really like it; you like to add it to your repertoire, I would recommend
printing it out on a piece of paper; think that's a really good idea, and I
think it helps us remember things. It's like keeping books; when I read a book
and I leave it on the shelf, it seems to help me remember it, the fact it's there;
it's probably not true, but printing out a page and looking at it, definitely, I
think, helps maybe to have like a bit of photographic memory, where you can, kind
of, envisage what the page look like. If you write notes on it, like in a red pen,
then you might be able to, kind of, trigger remembering those by imagining what the
page look like; so, definitely, printing out your stuff is good idea, but how do
you choose, what it is that you should learn? So, the first thing I would
recommend, like goal number one, is to have a small repertoire of songs that are
really easy, that you can play straight away, preferably stuff that you really
like, but that is really simple, okay? The reason for this is, if it ever comes out
that you play guitar, and you're at a party, and there's a guitar there, somebody
is gonna ask you to play, so you need to have a few tunes in you bag that you can
just go, "yeah, I can play that", I've talked about this before in previous
lessons, but I really think it's important to have, between five and ten, really easy
songs, really easy songs; just a few chords that repeat themselves over and over again,
that are good, kind of, singalong party favorites, preferably ones that sit well
with your circle of friends, you know, if you're a seventeen year old guy, you
probably don't wanna be doing loads of really old-school stuff that none of your
friends will know, so, pick things that are, kind of, current, that you enjoy,
that might be good ones for a party, and try and make a list of those ones, and
revisit them semi-regularly to make sure that they are memorized; that's the key
thing here! You want songs that are simple enough to remember straightaway, "Knocking
on Heaven's Door", 'G', 'D', 'A-minor', 'G', 'D', 'C', repeat for the whole thing;
that kind of idea; songs with simple chord progressions that you can remember, that
are dead-easy, even if you've had a few beers or a bottle of wine, or whatever,
you know. You wanna keep it that simple; but there's another goal, which I also, I
think is quite an important one, and I call that goal, the 'open mic' goal, and
that's like the next step up from having like, easy songs that you can play for
your friends, and we're talking about, say, maximum three songs here, but you really
work on making them fantastic. So you memorize them, and they might be a little
bit harder; songs that you really feel connected with, that you really love, and
then you work on the performance part of it, that you really think about, like the
dynamics, you know, making sure that when you perform it, you've got the nice build
up to the chorus; the chorus is really big, it drops down for the next verse,
builds up through the chorus, then you got the bridge, which is different then.
One of these things, which I've talked about in the course so far, they all wanna
culminate together there, for three to five songs, that you would be prepared to
play in public, like in front of people that you don't know, and it's a great
goal, is to be able to say, like, "by Christmas next year, I wanna perform at
an open mic - every town has open mics; if they don't, well, call a big party and
invite all friends, and then offer to play a few songs. A lot of this is about
focuses, about developing your focus and your quality control; 'cause if you're
gonna play for friends, things can be a bit fluffy; it doesn't really matter so
much, but if you're gonna play out, if you're gonna play in public, you should
be lifting the bar, a little higher, and when you lift the bar a little higher, you
find that lots of other things lift up with it - even if you're just working on
those specific three songs, by say, really nailing the chord changes , so there's
no gaps in those songs, then it'll infect it's way through all of the songs that you
learn, and every time you learn a new song as well. So it's bigger than just what it
appears at the beginning, which is, playing at that open mic; it's about focusing your
energy on playing better; about lifting your game, making sure that you're aware
of the chord changes, the strumming patterns, how accurate they are, making
sure you're not rushing or dragging, speeding up, slowing down; that everything
is good, if you're singing, that you can remember words, that you're in tune. It's
just, it's such a great thing to have as a goal, and then definitely to accomplish
it, is a fantastic feeling; the fact that you've actually performed. If you're at a
place where they don't have an open mic night, do it as a YouTube video, you know,
make a little home concert, where you're gonna play three songs and put it up, and
try and promote it a bit, so some people might see and give you some
feedback, hopefully not troll-y idiots, but that's the danger with the internet,
as opposed to being in public. See it, try! Have a go at picking three songs, set it
as a goal and see if doesn't improve almost every aspect of your playing. The
third goal, I would encourage you to work on is, what I call the 'ten song set', so
if you're ever gonna play in a band, you play between ten and fifteen songs, so
that's called it ten songs, so I would encourage you to work on ten songs, that
you can play, all of the way through, with the record, and there's the key thing. So
finding songs that work well for you in the key of the record, and being able to
play along with the original recordings all of the way through. There's a heap of
advantages that happen here. One, you make sure that you learn the song properly, and
that you know the bridge and the chorus, and the arrangement, okay? So, you know
when it's going verse, chorus, verse, verse, chorus, chorus, bridge whatever. You'll
make sure that you know that stuff, you know the chord progressions for each one,
you know how it works. Of course, you should be picking songs that you really
love, okay?, that you wanna be inspired when you practicing, not feeling like,
"oh, I really didn't wanna play this daggy old song that I don't like", so make sure
that you're picking stuff that you relate to that you're feeling, and that particularly
resonates with playing along with original recordings, because you're gonna absorb a
whole heap of goodness, every time you do that; these subtle things that you might
not even be aware of at this point, like what we call a 'time feel', like exactly
if there's a swing at all, how much swing is involved?, 'cause it's not always like
one or the other, it's a little bit; and by playing along with the original
recordings, we absorb some of that; we get the feeling of being in the band, and if
you're in the right headspace, and you're not thinking and staring at your fretboard
too much, you might get carried away with the music and become part of it. So,
there's like a bigger picture here, where you're learning to become part of the
whole thing; preparing for playing in a band. It might be something you're able
to do already; if you happen to know some people playing in a band that you can have
a jam with, that's incredible! Sooner you can play in the band, that's like
accelerates things a hundred times more than just playing with another person.
Playing in a band is, you know, really really good for you, and I definitely
encourage that; but this, what I'm talking about this stage, really is just developing
the set and playing along with the original recordings. Think about a little bit, about
tone; think if you've got an electric guitar, what's the sound?, how does it
sound right with the track; using too much distortion, not enough? Is there a delay?
What's a delay? What are delay settings? How do I set my delay? What's
the reverb? Oh, there's a chorus; sounds different; how do I get that sound? There's
a heap of different things that, doing this exercise will lead you to; and a lot
of those things are things that you can get shown online, but lot of things aren't.
They are things that are better learned on your own, where you just sit down and
figure them out, you know. I think that was Dr. Seuss, said, "you can learn a lot
from the teacher, but you learn the most sitting alone in a room", and I just feel
like that's, it's probably not the exact quote by the way; I'll look it up and stick it
on the screen, but that's, there is a lot of stuff that you're gonna learn when
you just sit down and problem-solve, and work you way thorough, any of the problems
that you encounter. Try and figure-out the things that you have a hurdle with, because
we all struggle with different things; so one person will remember all of the
arrangements in the chords really well but really struggle with the changes;
other people will be making the changes but forgetting to, what the order of the
chords is. We're all different; we're all gonna have different battles, and sometimes
you're gonna have to figure-out your battle, and what the best around it is for
you. I do my best in these kind of courses and lessons to help out everyone, and try
and figure out all of the problems that people might have, and solve them in
advance if can, but I can't second-guess every problem for every individual 'cause
we're all so different. So, a little bit of this game now, at this point, at the
end of your real beginner course, is learning to problem-solve and figure your
way through that; developing your repertoire, thinking about the big picture
and actually playing and performing, getting in the zone, getting in your, you
know, finding the connection with the music; these things that I talked about
earlier, about the, you know, not looking at your hand. All of these things weave
together, when it comes to performing, when it comes to playing songs, when it
comes to focusing on a few songs and lifting your game on those, okay? This is
important, I think, you know, so think about each one of the goals that I've
suggested here and see which one feels the most relative to you; which one's the most
appealing, and then have a go at it! You've got nothing to lose and everything
to gain. I really hope you enjoyed this lesson, I really appreciate your support
hitting that subscribe button, slapping the like, and let me know in the comments,
what your favorite goal is, and what songs you'd be picking at the same time? I'll
see you for plenty more very soon; you all take care of yourselves. Bye bye.