Part Eight: Rock School grade one

Pleased with that week’s progress, I went to the next lesson with Max keen to show him what I had learnt. I played Gotta Lotta Rosa quite well but not as well as I had been playing; Max still seemed pleased with my progress though. He then gave me 6 more Rock School grade one pieces plus a backing track cd. I could now play along with the band! 

Whilst I don’t want to do the Rock School course (I’m not learning the guitar to get qualifications), the grade one pieces have definitely helped with my learning so far. I’d recommend the course to a young beginner or someone who would like some music qualifications. For me, I am happy with my bespoke pick and mix teaching, accompanied with my growing repertoire of folk songs. 

I had a few goes at playing along with the backing tracks but was unable to keep in time. The cd was useful though as it’s obviously easier to play a tune when you’ve heard how you should be playing it first. Previously I had just been reading the sheet music and tab, now I had the music I listened to it whilst reading the sheet music and tab. It was a good job I did this as I missed a few repeats in my reading. For musical novices like me, a repeat symbol is a colon like sign at the end of a bar, you go back to where you see a colon at the start of the bar and play that bit again.

IMAGE: Repeat symbol in musical notation

Overall I managed these tunes OK, the only problems being the parts that involved playing fourth fret notes. At first I used my third finger for these but then found that I was getting my fingers tied up when I went to move to the next notes, so I tried my fourth (little) finger a few times but found that it didn’t have much strength. Remembering a part of a previous Rock School Grade One piece that I had struggled with but could now play quite well, I accepted that it was just a case of practise. These tunes, whilst not very exciting, are good practise as involve a mixture of chords, alternative strumming, picking and syncopation.

My rediscovery of guitar music continued with the purchase of The Bends by Radiohead. I have always felt reluctant to buy a Radiohead album as there is something about the band that doesn’t quite sit right with me. Maybe it’s because they’re from Oxford or maybe it’s because they’re a bit pretentious. Despite this I was glad with my purchase of The Bends as it’s a great album full of really good guitar songs. It’s Radiohead writing tunes and for that reason many rate it as their best album. I must have a go at the opening chords to Just.

Lessons learnt: Better understanding of musical notation, keep practising.