This, and all other entries in the “guitar” category are going to be a little boring so sorry about that. They are more for me so that I can chart my own progress: the main thing I want to get out of this year off is to get better at the guitar. I have been playing since I was about 15, but it has only been in the last 7 years that I started to play more or less every day. My playing improved a lot as a result, but only up to a point and then I soon hit a plateau and never progressed from there. The problem was that I wasn’t actually practising – all I did was play along to the same old songs over and over again (as long-suffering Matt will testify). Nothing new learned that way.
Well, now I mean business. This week, I have been actually practising for several hours a day. Lots of boring scales, learning to arpeggiate (finger pick) properly, and trying to learn new, harder songs. It’s all slightly tedious until you realise that it is working. So far, I have been concentrating entirely on a song called Faust Arp, from the Radiohead album “In Rainbows”. It is a very pretty, acoustic number and involves some silly chords and lots of finger picking so is a good first project. On Wednesday this week, I couldn’t play a bar of it but I more or less have it sussed now. I aim to be able to rattle it off without thinking about it within a week or two.