@hillbilly_joe

Joe, I’m always happy if I get input for improvement 👍. 

I will work on my thumb position thoroughly and I think that not only my thumb but my picking hand at all needs some fine tuning because my hand movement seems a little bit stiff and passive.

I will take a deeper look at Robert’s picking hand position in his lessons and try to work on it.

And yes, Joe, let’s talk about this topic again 2 months from now.

By the way, I didn’t use an app, I made the video with my mobile phone‘s camera.

Thank you so much, Birgit

@bluesiline

If you watch some youtube vids now, you'll see what I'm referring to about the position of their thumb.  There is just something about it that they just seem to be different in their style of playing.

I noticed that your thumb has the upward angle so I thought I'd mention it. Even though you may not increase the height of that position, as time goes on, you'll feel a relax movement and balance coming into place with your wrist. Key is to find that balance and relax, but that may take years. 😯  hey i can joke while i post, can't I 😀 

Nicely done. I noticed several things that I was glad to see...

Foot tapping to help with timing

Fretting hand pinky being used... I think many people don't use their little pinky, especially in the earlier stages.

All in all progress is still being made. Keep it up!

Now I am curious about a couple of things...

At 1st I thought the guitar had a cutaway but then I see it isn't....What make/model guitar is that?

Do you also play the piano?

@jestme

Thank you Chris. Foot tapping is now deeply anchored in my mind. And yes, I use my pinky. When I began playing the guitar in 2019, I had so many problems stretching my fingers, reaching the frets that I decided to include my pinky to better overcome the distances. The pinky needs a lot of training but I love playing with my pinky.

I have a Dean guitar Tonic S made in 2001. The body is solid mahagony.

In 2019, I bought my first acoustic guitar, a Yamaha F310P, but I had many problems with my fingertips because of the thick strings.

One year later, in 2020, my future daughter-in-law wanted to give away her E-guitar she had purchased 10 years ago but only played a few weeks. 

I had no idea about E guitars, but I gave it a try. It was not love at first sight because the Dean is heavy in comparison to my light weight Jamaha. I had to get used to it. But with the thinner strings my fingertips recovered and ....... I took the Dean guitar.

Today, one year later, I really love my Dean, and never played with my Jamaha again. So sorry.

But I miss a cutaway. It’s really hard to play on the higher frets.

And yes, I have an E-piano, but I’m a beginner too. But it's difficult for me to find a balance between the 2 instruments.

I admit that since I have my E-guitar, I’ve played more guitar than piano. When I’m playing E-guitar I’m deeply touched, more than when I’m playing the piano. 

Birgit

Posted by: @bluesiline

Foot tapping is now deeply anchored in my mind.

Essential, Essential, and yes, that's right...Essential! 

I just saw that practice video and have to give a huge applause for the persistence in pushing through and posting to video.  That's a lot of pressure and you're progressing because of that persistence.

Great to see you play! 

Tapping your foot is fundamentally important and I am glad to see you do that.

I think we need to talk about the picking hand though. It looks like your hand is not anchored on the bridge/strings. This is important and I'll cover this in the next live stream. 

Other than developing a decent techniques, it's all about timing and groove, and that will come.

Your commitment to learning is commendable and I very glad to see your progress!

@bluesiline Birgit: Roberto mentioned today on his Live Lesson Stream that you hail from Switzerland!! I grew up in Meggen, Luzern Schweiz (as an American. Dad was transferred over there by his pharmaceutical company) Anyway.......just thought that was a small world type of cool coincidence!! Jim C.

@jncinn

Jim, as you say, what a really cool coincidence. So glad to hear!

Meggen is about 5.6 miles away from my home in Luzern and turning point of one of my jogging tracks. Next time I’ll take a picture and send you greetings from Meggen.

Es liebs Grüessli,

Birgit

Here's mine!! My very good friend Walter Selebam lives next to this golf course and this was the beauty of the view from my parent's balcony!! Jim

Uhh, Jim, we need a road trip...

@clayton Believe me, Clayton.........there are far worst places on this green Earth (the past week here was white!!) for traveling..........and just think, Birgit can jog to here!!  Jim

@jcnn, been a little cold in Tejas?

Cold as a witch's....................broomstick........as exactly the saying goes!! I've been skiing in Killington VT in February where they actually closed down the ski slopes. This came pretty scary close!! It was 46 inside the house at one point (-8 F outside) which with 6 kitties and triple that in vintage guitars is very awful and really not long term survivable as sleep and even food goes out the window. We have a couple of cars luckily for some reprieve and thus far I've not seen any damage to any guitar but this is only short term. I don't know how Roberto handles this as a matter of course up north except there they are better prepared and less likely to have a total grid breakdown or failure or your state senators run off to the tropics in a complete panic!!

We have something called furnaces here. They make the house nice and warm. 🙂

It did break my heart to break up my pre CBS Fenders and Martin guitars along with that ancient LP and ES 335 just for a wee bit of firewood to keep warm, Robert!! Then I unfortunately burned the house down because nobody told me fire pits shouldn't be used indoors!! I so wish I knew about furnaces......I wonder if they have those up in New Hampshire???