DAY 1 Learning Acoustic Guitar (Using Online Lessons)
Hey, I'm Shawn and welcome to my
guitar learning journey Why I'm doing this I do not know Well, I guess I do know. Ultimately, so that I can
track my progression over the coming days, weeks, months, years maybe… And also because I've noticed that when
scouting around for videos of beginners there's not a great deal out there. There's a few.. but not many. And that's because… well I can tell why because we are atrocious when we're at this level. So… just to give you a bit of background… I'm Shawn, I'm 38, I work as a
photographer so I'm sort of very fingers on with my job but I've quickly realized today on day one
that it doesn't transfer to the guitar. You know, fingers are learning completely new shapes so
yeah, that's no good, that's no good for me. Do I have any musical background? Not really.
I had a guitar when I was I'd say eight, nine, in Junior School where we took lessons, but it was
more…
I don't remember any strumming whatsoever. It was more sort of… Just plucking strings really. Didn't practice at all I was more interested in football, in sports, so
I'd go home… didn't practice. Sports, football. So, yeah, that hasn't helped me out at all
either with today. I thought maybe, maybe, I'd pick something up from that but no, zilch, zippo,
nada. Really, really bare bones beginning. So, I did go to music school. Well, not music school,
but I took music in college when I was 16, 17. I wasn't reading music, I wasn't playing music,
I was singing. It's gonna be a while before I incorporate any singing with my guitar so that'll
be maybe months or maybe years down the line. So, yeah.. I really have very
minimal background in music It's just what I've heard listening to music basically. That's essentially
the extent of me and my music abilities – nothing or next to nothing.
So yeah, so I'm going to document that. And where I'm at now today is I've got the guitar today, okay, I've had
it delivered today. What's really nice and I will just point out right now is it is an
Eastman guitar… my name is Shawn Eastman. That wasn't on purpose though, I just narrowed
down the guitar that I thought was going to be right for me and the budget that I was
happy to spend. And I love this sort of classic finish on this particular one and it
just sort of ticked all the boxes and it has great reviews as well so…
I've gone for the Eastman E10M I believe the model is. You know, it's probably more than I needed
for a beginner, that's for sure. They're not necessarily cheap but I thought well if I plough a bit of
money into it at least I may stick to it for a lot longer.
I'm not looking to trial this, I really,
really want to give this a real good go. So, anyone out there who's in the same boat as me
at the very beginning learning from scratch this is for you guys. Hopefully we can get
some sort of community going, we can motivate each other, help each other out, you know? So, feel free to subscribe, follow this journey,
comment down below, you know, anything you think might motivate me
we can motivate each other. So.. in the lead up to today… And by the way, I'm following, or I hope to follow the Justin Guitar lessons, which some of you may be
aware of already if you're searching beginner lessons. If you just tap into – and this is no
affiliation with him whatsoever – but if you just tap into YouTube or Google Justin Guitar
you'll come across his videos, his website, and the courses that he has mapped out.
My plan is to follow those. So we'll see how we get on with that. And I've sort of..
In the lead up to today with the
days through the past week.. today is Saturday – so, from probably Monday, Tuesday,
onwards I've been learning or hammering into my head the strings – so, E A D G B E – it
hasn't helped me yet because I haven't got to the point of picking out strings but I'm hoping
that that's just dealt with to some extent. So, if I hear right, you need to play a G – I'll know,
boom, I'll know which string to go for – G… third from bottom – and I've tried to remember
that it's string one, you know, it's usually referred to as the bottom string, string six at
the top so, one upwards.
So, just those little things, you know. The things that you can try to
memorize I've tried to do that through the week. My picks came before my guitar so I've
got a batch of picks, and I'm using what's recommended for us beginners. It's a Jim Dunlop Nylon.
It's got USA Nylon .38mm So, it's like a piece of paper really. A hard
piece of paper. Apparently this makes things a lot easier for us as well but I've hardly got
to the point of even thinking about strumming so that'll be a couple of weeks down the line maybe.
So, I've been trying to figure out how to hold it, probably a bit ahead of myself really,
it's… I don't really know what I'm supposed to be strumming yet so.. but I'm just
trying to give myself that little head start, just so you know where I'm at.
So, today, with my
first hour I would say I've had today – broken up into a few chunks because your fingers
cannot take much more than five to ten minutes at a time. So, I've probably had four or five, six little
intervals of 10 minute spells where I've just picked up and progressed with…
not progressed but it's repetition, I'm basically at the point of repetition and I
probably will be for weeks to be honest with you. So, I've learned the A and the D chord today.
And I'm doing this thing in the Justin Guitar lessons it's the one minute challenge, so you
need to try and switch the chord somewhat decent as many times as you can through
the space of a minute. Now, obviously, I've probably had four or five goes at this and I'm going to record maybe
my sixth and seventh attempt, something like that. It's terrible.
It's going to sound terrible. I'm
going to apologize right now, it's gonna be awful. But I'm not really focused at all on the sound,
it's more on the repetition of the switch. So, I even forget which strings I'm
supposed to be strumming for each chord. I need to try to forget about that
and just focus on the switching. So, we're going to give that a go… So, I'm just going to set myself up… That's wrong already. So, there, there, there, right, that's…
yes so I think that's my D, I believe.. and then I'm switching..
This I'm
really struggling with. The A.. Just cramming three fingers in there and none
of the fingers want to do it and the thumb's not happy with holding the neck and I don't know.
And then I think I play those strings. So, I'm switching there, there, to there. Right, so we're
going to give this a go for a minute and see. I'm not really bothered whether I get
10, 20. I don't really care. It's just to see what I get so that I can track it
going forward. So, we've got a minute. [Guitar Strumming] My fingers are already burning. [Guitar Strumming] Wow. [Guitar Strumming] Whoops. Whoops. Right, this is really hurting. Wow. [Guitar Strumming] [Alarm Sounds] Okay, so, there's my minute,
there's my little cuckoo. So, ouch, yeah, so even just when you're sort of halfway through that your fingers are…
apparently you're going to build up the calluses and that's going to get a
lot easier over the coming weeks.
So, yes, that was my first attempt.
Give those fingers a bit of a break and then we'll go one more and then
we'll call it day for this video. It's just so that I can track
it really and you can see that you're not alone, this is what we're going
through on day one. It let's you see the pain, it let's you see the frustration because it's…
it's everything your fingers do not want to do, you know. Like, it's everything your fingers do
not want to do. Getting from that D up to that A. So difficult. And that's
going to sound awful isn't it? [Guitar Strumming] I even forget see…
Bang, bang, bang. [Guitar Strumming] I can't even remember how
to hold the pick (laughs). Like… like that, there we go. That feels
a bit more natural. [Guitar Strumming] Seems a bit ringy [Plucking] Not too bad, not too
bad. Right, so, I'm gonna give that one more go. I'll do a little… when I finish this video I'll
do one more go and then I'll do a little close-up on the camera so you can see (my fingers). They
literally… earlier on they were literally blue. So, I think the key is to not do too much too
soon. I think the key is to literally do 20, 30 minutes a day, every day, until
it doesn't feel as painful.
Because you don't want to.. you want to try to enjoy
what you're learning but the first few weeks are going to be tough. I can see already.
So, right, we'll give that one more go. Set him up first like, even to the point
where I just, you know, I'm just looking forward to getting to the point where I don't
even have to think about it. I'm just right, straight in, you know? Like, right now I have to
literally place every finger on the string. So, there, there, and even just there it's hurting
just.. ouch.. ok, we're going to give it one more go, well, two more goes because I'm going
to record this one and I'm going to do one more, show you the fingers – I would have put
it in already – and then finish.
Okay. There, there, there. It's going to
be… something like that. Okay. Let's get ready. [Guitar Strumming] Ooh that rung true. Whoops. I'm missing those strings
completely but whatever. Oh, wow. [Guitar Strumming] Whoops. I played the wrong string. [Guitar Strumming] Okay, I think my fingers need a break, they are screaming at me.
[Alarm Sounds] Yeah, that was a fake one. So, there we go that's my first hour of lessons.
I've learned the A chord, I've learned the D chord. Sort of. I mean, I know where the fingers
need to go but the fingers don't want to go there. So, we're just going to see where that goes. Thanks for watching. Subscribe and follow this
painful journey. Again, I'm sorry for the sound. Thanks very much..
