tvarga learning to play Speak Softly My Love acoustic guitar

[AndyT]

Very nice Tom. You might try playing to a metronome in a headset as you do the recording. That will give you something else to concentrate on instead of the camera. LOL

[jim56]

Well done Tom. That sounded beautiful. Consider having a case of G.A.S. and get a nylon string guitar.

[Yamaha48]

Hello Tom.

Thanks for sharing this video.
A verry nice tune,and you can play it my friend.
It sound good to my ears.

greetz Anton

[neverfoundthetime]

Excellent Tom! That sounded near perfect so next time you won't have to worry about any nerves, not that they showed through. It looks like you been brought up on classical guitar with your easy style and that thumb nail! Well done.

[tvarga]

Thanks everyone for all the kind words!

Brad, I am mostly trying to leave the recorder on. Believe me, even then I probably played the song a few dozen times before managing a relatively clean play. The problem is that because I know that I'm caring about NOT making mistakes gets me more and more stressed about making a mistake as I get close to the end of a song. I know it's ridiculous, but I'm embarrassed to admit how many takes I messed up in the last few measures just because I'm thinking to myself ... I got this far, so don't mess up. Uugh. How silly. It's a mental weakness that I have to keep working on...

Marc, yup, I only started on it when it came out. Here's what seems to be working for me lately. I'll watch the play-through a few times to get a feeling for the cadence of the song. Then I start playing the tab over and over again without too much concern yet about fingering. I know that's probably not right, but initially my goal is to memorize the tab. It doesn't work for me if I 'try' to memorize it. But, it does seem to work if I play it over and over a few dozen times. Usually at that point, I only have to work at memorizing a few of the tougher measures. Now, I go back to the lesson details to really learn how to play the song. Since I've got the tab memorized, I can work on playing along with the video over and over. It's surprised me how quickly I'm now able to learn new songs now. I could never have done that a year ago and have TG's lessons to thank for that!

Willem, I was thinking about tackling Greensleeves. I'll have to see what grabs my attention next though.

AndyT, maybe I'll try that next time. Thanks.

neverfoundthetime, Uugh how embarrassing! My wife absolutely hates my long fingernails. As soon as I finished this recording, I cut them all back to 1/2 that length. I just didn't want to change anything while learning this song. Even the slightest change to one of my fingernails has a big impact on how things feel to me. Worse yet, gasp, breaking one.

[6stringbostic]

excellent job tom! i think you may have inspired me to give this one a go...

[jayswett]

Lovely. Your playing is inspirational.

[TGMatt]

I had a little chat to Hector on this..

See what we can do in response..

Great to see you grab it so quick

[TGHector]

Wow!. Wonderful work. It did not take you long to learn the piece. It is already sounding fluent. Usually, it takes a while for a piece to sound totally fluent and the only way to make it happen is to play it and play it again and again. I also like the way you are expressing the music.

As mentioned, once our fingers learn how to play the notes of a piece, we need to concentrate in making the notes sound clear and with the color that we like. After that (or sometimes at the same time) we need to work on the musical sentences, making sure they are delivered in a way that makes the music more expressive. This whole process takes weeks or months. You really are on your way! Congratulations.

Hector

[AcousticAl]

One of many songs I haven't stumbled across on TG yet.
Really nice work, Tom! I particularly liked your finger rolls.