Day 53 | Overthinking
What a frustrating couple of weeks!
My plan was to look again at the intro, focusing on technique, to make it cleaner. Well, I ended up looking at it a bit too closely. I think I broke my brain by questioning everything I was doing… Is my hand position right? Should I keep my thumb at the back of the neck or on top? Is that an open string that I can hear ring? Am I holding my pick right? Would it help if I slanted my guitar upwards a bit more? Would it be more comfortable if I played standing? How do you even hold a guitar!??? AAAaaAAhAaAAAAAAAAAhaA…
Result: I haven’t been able to make any progress on the intro for days. Actually, I’m pretty sure I’ve regressed 😒
Anyway… While that was going on, I managed to learn the first wind-down and second verse. Like the first verse, it took me some time to get the timing “right” (I’m sure it’s still wrong, but I can refine it later)
After listening to the recording a few more times this past week (arguably, I should do that more often…) I noted two things:
- The second chorus has many variations from the first one that I’ll have to learn. I guess the third one will be as different. Nothing comes for free in learning this song!
- I’m starting to doubt whether I’m playing swing eighths in the right places and the right way… or am I overthinking again? 😱
Bottlenecks
While I was obsessing over the intro I realised that there are a few segments that will cause me trouble and slow down my progress. Not sure yet how to tackle them. Should I just throw repetition at them? I’m taking any suggestion or advice!
- Bar 4: It’s a classic riff, but half the time my fingers just can’t process it. It even feels uncomfortable. You know that icky feeling when you’re trying to bend your ring finger without bending your pinky or your middle finger? Ew.
- Bar 5: My problem here is with my picking hand. I often miss the 3rd string with the D and trip over it.
- Bar 14: For this one I struggle with the position of my fretting hand and getting clean notes, especially out of the 32nd’s at the end of the bar. This might also be the fastest run in the song, so unless I have a breakthrough at some point, this is going to be painful.
My plan for the coming week(s):
- Work on the bottlenecks!
- Find a way to progress beyond 30% of the tempo on the intro. This was a completely arbitrary speed limit that I set myself as an initial goal, and now I can’t move past it! Even a single extra beat per minute! What the hell? My brain and I need to talk…
- Look at the second chorus
- Speed up the first wind down and second verse. For now they sound really lame…
See you soon! Leave your comments below :) (I need advice on tackling these bottlenecks!!)
