Notes are all there for sure! What can you spot if you listen back and tap your foot throughout in rock-solid time with the metronome click?

Yo Seb! One way is to use the default setting on the excellent free web metronome Drummer's Pulse ... This gives 4 clicks and the first one has a higher pitch than the other 3. Using one click for each part of the beat means we're using four beats to represent one. In this case, although the metronome reads 60bpm we'd only actually be running the pattern at 15bpm (60/4 = 15). To set up Drummer's Pulse to count the 16th notes for us we can pull up the sliders at the bottom for 8th and 16th notes ... I've also clicked on the "Sounds" option until the setting changes to "Voice". Now the metronome will count for us; "One click AND click ... TWO click AND click etc.". The clicks are the "uh" and the "a" of our 16th note count. If it's tough to get going at the lowest setting (30bpm) then you can use the first method above to access slower speeds. Once you've reached 120bpm with the first method, that's the same as playing at 30bpm using the second method. How much sense does all that make?

Looking good! Wouldn't expect it to be long before that tops the magic target of 150bpm and consequently we see likewise using it in combination with other chords. All the time it's strengthening the down/up syncing of arm, foot and chord too which should have knock-on benefits for other chords and changes too! You should be able to ease off with the whip of the benchmarks slightly and start chasing a few tasty carrots (songs using that A chord) instead!

Getting there ... I reckon you could still use a bit of extra stretch - looks like there's a more of a battle to get the C down than would be ideal. Probably enough hard work gone into that though to get you to 100bpm before long and 150bpm shortly thereafter! Definitely one to zoom in on in the morning! 😎

G to D looking good and timing's certainly tighter with the band; my guess as to the reason for that is that you're getting the "ands" played for you. It's usually easy enough to set most metronomes to play the "ands"; if not you could set the metronome to double the speed and use one click for the down and one for the up. The metronome would read 140bpm in this case but of course you'd still really be running the pattern at 70bpm. It sounds like the top string may be being deadened on your C in the first video. Although it probably means losing a few bpm off your top speed the way forward is always to strip it back to the speed you know it's perfect at. Picking just the top string while executing the full G to C chord change will let you hear the issue clearly and should lead you to what works to cure it (a lower thumb may help for now). Congrats on getting your markers down on video! 🙂 Now ...

@John Bray A "bit" more work to get that (more like classical) version running nicely 😎 but our simplified (folk style) version should make a good stepping stone.

@John Bray Just needs programming so it comes up with the foot at the end of line 1 ready to fire down at the start of line 2. Same idea as a basic chord change but maybe a little trickier in some ways since other fingers have to stay put. Should be some fast progress on offer!

Here are those suggested breakdowns, replete with measuring boxes! Could use finger 4 for the only note we need to play for the G chord but if you can time the lift and aim of finger 3 as written in red that works fine too for a seamless change! How do you measure up?

At a leisurely pace:

As requested, the first ever Taplature commission in lieu of today's lesson! Pretty sure it's not far off at all. May see if I can get a video breakdown together to add to the YT collection. Will look forward to hearing what you make of it!

"Part of the problem was my lack of gaining headway so it was easy to pass on playing" We'll make that a thing of the past. Practise right and it's impossible *not* to improve. Without a video I can only guess as to where you ran out of steam but I'd expect chord changes to be a barrier. Here's a good question to get us started: What's your top speed on this test of changing a D chord "to itself" (demonstrated below)?

All in good order! I'll wager that's ready to start coming up to speed (235bpm viewed in 8th notes). Looks like the pattern's all there so a few days should be enough to yield plenty of those bpms!

Sounding good ... a rare Ramones rendition without distortion cranked to the max!😁

@GregS Looks a little convoluted though it's doable. How about just playing all the power chords on the lower 3 strings? (fret 8, 7, 5 then 2)

Sorted! There shouldn't be much that's out of reach to get through in this fashion and speed generally rises consistently from this point. Things hopefully feel like they're opening up quite fast now?

Welcome Chuck. 😀 I've issued you with a "Taplature Pioneer" badge in anticipation of some fast progress! The standard stuff people often miss is: 1) Keeping a solid beat, covered here: https://www.taplature.com/single-post/2019/01/30/fix-your-strumming-problems-today 2) The right way to change chords, covered here: https://www.taplature.com/single-post/2020/02/24/how-to-practice-guitar-chords-definitive-guide Everything else on guitar is related to and built on these basic skills so any problems at this level can stop progress dead. What do you make of the info presented in those links? If you're able to post a video of where you're at with things then that would be very useful in terms of seeing what we need to address.

Welcome Chuck. I guarantee we can get you there with a little digging! My guess is you've run into some of the usual problems which I cover in the Taplature blog. Take a look here for an easy guide on getting strumming working correctly which will give you the groove you're after! Struggling With Strumming? If you click the link below and then on "Create New Post" you can start your own practice journal here to keep a record of progress and where I'll be on hand to keep you moving forward: https://www.taplature.com/forum/the-woodshed-diaries Will look forward to changing your view of things! Paul.

Nice one Glenn! Voice holds up well under pressure and it all looks like it makes good sense even at the higher speeds. The only bottleneck I'm seeing is the speed of your chord changes. They're more than adequately stress-tested in the video and it's of note that their not landing perfectly at pace didn't interfere too much with the overall shape of things. Once we've got those cleanly up to tempo though, there'll be plenty of extra bandwidth to focus on polishing the vocal. I think a deeper dig into a couple of those changes on Thursday will pay dividends! The presiding question as always: "If my hand was a machine, how would I like it to function?"

@Peter - pajob2000 A month on ... any good?

Nice one Greg! A major point in there I note is that when you lost the beat slightly at 0:19 it didn't knock you off the rails and you'd pulled things back into shape almost instantly! That's the skill in a nutshell. Record speed's 85bpm so we'll be aiming for 100bpm to allow a comfort zone. I'd expect the physicality of the chord changes to be the challenge rather than anything on the mental side now. You've proven here that the mental side is now getting easier so that leaves more bandwidth in the brain to focus on the physical! Great stuff! Onwards and upwards!