Richard Baker

Hey Roger, don’t let it discourage you, this is normal. Depending on how much you practice, you’ll start seeing improvements to how long you can stand playing in 2 to 4 weeks.

But also remember, when you’re fingers can’t take the strain anymore, you can still do the muscle memory practice and the strum pattern practice, to get some more time in and continue making progress. For a…Read More

Here is this week’s live class replay.

We discussed transitioning faster to the G chord in the C chord family, as well as how to accompany other musicians on rhythm guitar.

Awesome Dave, glad to hear it!

I look forward to seeing your progress with the song.

Here’s the replay from this live class:

I went over a song suggestion from Beth Hess and David Wilroy, both of which I discussed how to transpose down, when the song is too high to sing.

Hey Beth,

It looks like you did a great job transposing.

The only change you may need to make is the A should be transposed to an F#, not F#m. If it was Am, then you would transpose to F#m. A major is not that common in the G chord family, although it does happen in some cases, like here. You may be able to get away with F#m, but if it doesn’t sound right, you’ll probably need F#, which…Read More

You’re welcome, Beth. Unfortunately, I’m not familiar with the tool you mentioned.

Here is the replay from this live class:

Hey Beth, yes, great question.

That is the song “The Way You Look Tonight” by Frank Sinatra.

It is challenging, but so fun to play when you get it. I am using quite a few barre chords. There’s no way around it for that song.

The Pop pattern is interesting because the focus is on the up beats. What I’ll do is go over this song, with the barre chords and this particular pattern in…Read More

In this live class, I covered a question from Tom Marques about practicing chord transitions.

Here is the replay from this live class:

Hey Tom. Don’t worry, this is a common hurdle, and you’ll improve with time.

The best practice to improve this in my opinion is the launching point practice. But take one chord at a time. So if it’s C you are working on, practice going from C to another chord and then back to C again. It doesn’t matter what chord you are going to, but typically, the more different the chord is the…Read More

Hey David, that is awesome. Yes, playing together as a family is such a wonderful thing. It creates some memories that you’ll never forget. That’s one of my favorite things to do with music. There’s just something about sitting around with those you love and creating music together.
I hope you’re able to see that become a reality soon.