Okay, I did it. I got up the nerve. I had my lesson yesterday. It was awesome.
I had a bit of anxiety before hand, mostly because I had never used Skype and couldn't test it out beforehand. Connecting worked, but it was several minutes into my lesson before I realized that although I could see Justin, he couldn't see me. Haha. Oops. He thought I was being shy. I just didn't know I had to hit the video button.
But for anyone who is shy, Justin was very understanding of that, and you don't have to put yourself on video to have your lesson. You can still see him. I would not recommend this, though, because then he can't see if there's a physical issue going on, like mine, which was lifting my hand too far off the strings, and hitting some strings I shouldn't.
Before the lesson, I emailed him a list of things I wanted to talk about, and that's what we did. He was very kind and helpful. We mostly chatted about songwriting, engineering and mastering an LP.
We also talked about guitar practice. He said the most important thing to practice is rhythm. He suggested playing along with songs I like the rhythm of, with muted strings.
Then we worked on one of my problems. Bm is my nemesis, especially when coming from G. I knew the answer was to practice, but he gave me a really specific prescription of 5 minutes of changes from G to Bm really slowly, with strum pick out strum to make sure every note rings out, followed by 5 -1 minute changes. I will do it.
At that point, he had answered all my emailed questions, and there was still time left. I told him that I was happy, and we could end early, but he would have none of that, and started asking about my weather. Luckily I quickly thought of something else to talk about. Making small talk is not my forte. That would have been awkward. Haha.
So, then we talked about stage fright. I told him my physical symptoms, and he assured me it's really normal to have them. He told me if I want to perform, I should start in front of a small group of friends and then maybe do an open mic, working my way up incrementally until I was playing arenas. Haha.
He pointed out the worst thing that could happen would be forgetting the words, singing off key, or forgetting the chords, and even if those things happen, and even if I get booed off stage, it really isn't a big deal. But he told me how to write a cheat sheet so I'd be less likely to forget things in the heat of the moment.
That's about it. I didn't cry, even at the end when I told him how much he changed my life.
Thanks again Justin. That was fun!
Lynn
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Topic: The 1-to-1 Sessions ... (Read 39060 times)
