Feel like quitting? Watch this first! - Live with Lauren Bateman

We are live. All right. How's everyone doing? Happy Saturday. Happy Saturday. I have the. The prs today. That was the grab for this morning. So welcome, welcome. As you can see today, I'm in my. My newer studio. I've got a slightly better setup, so I can see my laptop over here. So I will. 10 seconds. You all better sit up straight. Well, now I can kind of see the chat and I'll go through and answer some questions later. Hello. Literally started last Wednesday. Congratulations. And you help me a lot with your videos. You are so welcome. Good morning, Robert. Feel free to throw in the chat where you're coming in from so everyone can see all around the world where people are learning to play guitar are. And this is an important time of year. It's a pivotal time of year, especially if you live where I live in New England where it's starting to be sunny. It's actually going to be 75 outside today. So this is like the first official, like, real warm day of the year. So I'm excited to get outside a little bit today and I have some. Some friends coming over in a little bit. And we're going to be hanging out here at the house. I see Scotland and Wales in the house. Northern California. Yeah. Chris finding it hard with bar chords. And we'll talk about that a little bit today. I'll try to remember to make a note of that. But this is the pivotal time because the warm weather's coming and instead of being inside practicing, we tend to want to be outside. And for a lot of people, it's that time of year where they start giving up or quitting the guitar. You know, the New Year's resolutions have kind of worn off. And usually, you know, within 90 days of doing something new, whether it's a new workout routine, whether it's trying to learn to play the guitar, we eventually, for a lot of us, succumb to those feelings of like, this is too hard. I shouldn't be doing this. Why did I even start? And that's totally normal. Okay. Because that's learning. Learning has all these plateaus, and that's usually the first plate plateau is those first 90 days of learning. It's very exciting when you get started, especially if you've gone through my crash course. I saw someone here. I see Pennsylvania and Illinois in the house. Hello. Hello. Someone mentioned they just started playing last Wednesday. And if you've gone through my crash course, I have a free crash course over on my website, laurenbateman.com. if you've gone through that you can see how fun it can be to, you know, to learn to actually play a song. Okay. And it's exciting. Exciting. You know, one of the first songs I teach is Horse with no Name, you know, and it's usually very simple. You know, mostly two chords and a bunch of down strums. But it gets you excited because you're like, oh, it sounds like music, it feels like music. And it gets you excited. And then you start learning other stuff. You start learning C chords and D chords and G chords, and then you start learning how to do up strums and it starts getting hard because learning the guitar is not easy. Okay. And for a lot of people, they're just, they start getting that little voice in the back of their head, that self doubt of like, I shouldn't do this, or someone mentioned bar chords. They're starting to learn bar chords, and that can be frustrating. It's why I never teach beginners to play bar chords because it will make them quit much quicker because they, they are difficult. If you're learning bar chords, I recommend getting a guitar like this or an electric guitar. So this is an electric guitar. It's a hollow body, so it's hollow inside. And the, the setup though, on the fretboard is, is an electric. So the strings are much thinner, they're easier to press. It's much easier.

It's much easier to play bar chords on an electric guitar versus acoustic. So if you're learning bar chords and you do have an electric guitar. I just saw a bright blue light over there. Thank you, Matt's Weird World, for the Super Chat donation. Appreciate that. Thank you so much for being here and watching and supporting. So the electric is always much easier. So if you have an electric, I'd recommend, if you're working on bar chords, start on the electric one to just, you know, you're working on the muscle memory first, this actual shape, making sure that it's comfortable. Okay. And even if you're doing open chords, same thing. Okay. You can practice on an electric guitar first and then bring it over to the acoustic. Because the thing with the acoustic, it helps you build strength faster. It will help you build your calluses faster. Okay. But it is a little bit more difficult to play, especially if you have a cheaper guitar that you've never had set up before. It can be very, very difficult to play. I have some students, you know, it's not them, it's the guitar. So if you, if you've bought a new guitar, electric or acoustic, I always recommend taking it to the guitar shop and getting it set up so that you can make it easier to play because that's another reason that people quit it. The guitar just is so hard to play. I don't have my first guitar is. Is down in Massachusetts. I don't have it here. But my first guitar, like the strings were this far off the fretboard. It was a very, very difficult guitar to learn to play on. It was also a dreadnought. It's like the biggest guitar I own. So for me, I'm very small. I'm. Yeah, I'm just under 5 5, so I'm not super small. I'm pretty much average. But for me, a dreadnought is. Is very big. And you can see this. This guitar here, it's got a thinner profile. Okay. I tend to like thin profile. My Ibanez that I have back in Massachusetts is even a thinner profile than this. But I tend to like very thin profile guitars because they're just more comfortable for me to play. Okay. And that's why people are like, Lauren, what guitar do you recommend? I just recommend getting a guitar that's comfortable, whether it's a nice guitar like this. This prs. You've probably seen my crafter in videos. You've seen my. My tailor. I also have a parlor size crafter that you may have seen in a video or two. So it's whatever is most comfortable for you. That's what you need to get. Because the more comfortable the guitar is, the more you're going to want to play it. Okay. If you don't love your guitar, you're not going to want to practice, you're not going to want to play it, and then you're going to quit. Okay. And that's what this whole video is about, is not giving up when things get hard. Hard. Because the guitar is hard. Yeah. Someone said chord transitions are so hard for me. And. And yeah, they're hard for a lot of people. If you have trouble with chord transitions, just throw a one in the chat. All right. Particularly, you know, you hate that C to G chord change. Or maybe it's the C to D. Those chord changes are not easy. Yeah, throw those ones in the chat. Let me know if you have a trouble with those chord changes. I see them in there. Yep, there they 1, 1, 1. So you are not alone. Chord changes. Probably the biggest questions I get asked and the most frustrating points. And again, the points that made people quit guitar. My chord changes are too slow. How do I make my chord changes faster? How do I stop muting the strings. People don't like when they're playing a chord.

And it sounds like that, right?

Not. Not the best sounding. Not the best sounding thing when you're trying to play guitar. So those are kind of like the big things that I get from people. One, how do I make my chord transitions faster? How do I stop my chords from sounding like crap? Okay. And the other thing is, how do I make what I'm playing actually sound like the song? Okay? So in chord transitions, it's repetition, okay? And you've probably heard me say this before. One of my favorite Bruce Lee quotes is, I'm not scared of the man. And there goes my Boston accent. Very, very sorry. I am not scared of the man who knows 10,000 kicks. I'm scared of the man who knows one kick. But he's practiced it 10,000 times, which just highlights the importance of repetition. So if you hate that C to G. Look, I got a whole wall of ones over there. Hi, Jordan. How you doing? And you're practicing C to G.

It's just back and forth. You know, you can do this while you're watching tv, okay? Just sit in front of the TV and do this. If, you know, if your partner allows you to, you know, just don't drive them nuts, okay? But just go back and forth with these cords, and eventually they are going to smooth out. Because speed comes from relaxation. Relaxation comes from experience, okay? So remember the first time you were trying to learn to ride a bike or drive a car? It's very awkward. Your motions are usually very jerky. If you're on the bike, you know the bike's doing this. When you first start, you don't have enough speed. You probably got your training wheels on. Same with the car. You know, the first time you hit a brake on a car, it's usually like that. Dead stop, okay? Because you're not used to how much pressure it takes. And as you drive more and as you ride your bike more, it becomes a lot more natural. And that same thing is going to happen with the guitar, okay? It just. It takes time. And unfortunately, usually it just takes a little bit more time than you're used to it taking. All right? So patience is very important, particularly with those chord changes. We talked about this the last time I went live. A lot of people like, why am I muting my chords? And for a lot of people, if you see the way I'm holding my guitar, it's very straight up and down. A lot of people play their guitar like this so they can see the Strings. All right. We called it tilt Guilty. Someone on the live gave me tilt Guilty or something. So don't tilt the guitar. I know you want to see the strings. It's better look over the neck of the guitar as opposed to doing this. Because when I do this, what happens? We change the angle of the fretboard. Right? And when you change the angle of the fretboard, you're now changing the angle at which your fingers play into the fretboard. And then you get a lot of this. Okay? And granted, yes, there are some people with bigger fingers. Everyone's hand is different. Okay. I would say I have pretty average hands. They're not, you know, they're not too fat, but they're not. They're not skinny mini, either. Especially after years of playing basketball. I think I've jammed all of these fingers, and this one was. This one. No, this one was dislocated. So. So I. You know, my fingers aren't the best from playing basketball and other things, but, you know, I have pretty average fingers, but I definitely don't have as big of a reach as some of you guys out there. I know some of you guys got really, really long fingers, which, yes, can be an advantage when you play the guitar. But I've also taught people who have shorter fingers than me. Okay? So don't give up. Don't quit. Just understand it takes time. It just takes practice. All right? And playing a song, I want the song to sound like the song. A lot of times with songs, what makes them sound like the song is really the melody, you know, hey, where do we go?

Days when the rains came. So if you. If you take something like Brown Eyed Girl, if I was just strumming the pattern.

You might not know what song it is until I start singing.

Okay? It's probably a lot. I can't think of any off the top. Top of my head, but there's probably a lot of songs that use that same chord progression. Okay? And if you just strum a song, it might not sound exactly like the song, especially in the beginning, because you might not have the really intricate strumming patterns to make a song really come to life. Even Horse with no Name, when we start in the beginning, it's just very.

Okay. Very, very simplified. But eventually you can go.

Eventually you can make the song come to life a little bit more. But when you're first starting to play the guitar, you can feel a little limited. And again, don't give up. Keep going. I find people quit because they focus so much on what they can't do versus celebrating what they can do. And that's something I tell my students in my seven level program. One of the first things I do in level one, I tell them, record a video of yourself playing the guitar today. When you're just starting your journey, okay? When it's frustrating on the first part of the journey.

What a great little segue to horses. No name. But record yourself, okay? Because maybe you're going to record yourself and this is you playing Horse with no Name the first time.

You know, and you got like the chords are muted, your timings off. Record yourself. We're not here to make it sound perfect. What that recording does is it gives you a reference, it gives you perspective. So that when you get to these plateau points, because in learning, you're always going to have plateau points where you. Where you're like, question, am I going to keep going? Am I going to push through this hard point or am I going to give up? And when you get to that point, this is when that recording comes in handy. Because it usually happens every 90 days or so. You go back and you watch that recording and you're like, wow. You realize how far you've come. Because for a lot of us, we don't see the changes we make day to day, week to week, or even month to month, because we are with ourselves every day. That's why, like you, you see people who are getting in shape, they always have those before and after photos. Well, if you look at the before photo and you look at the after photo, like one week later, you don't see a lot of change, right? That's why when they do those before and after photos, they're usually like 90 days down the road. Because over the course of 90 days, you can see a lot of change over the course of an entire year. It's like a total transformation. And the guitar works exactly the same way. So if you haven't made a recording of yourself, you don't have to share it with anyone. It's here for you. Just, you know, if you have a phone, just record it on your phone, keep it on your phone. And then this way you have a reference point to go back to. So that when you feel like giving up, when you feel like quitting, don't, okay? Don't go back. Watch the recording and celebrate how far you've. You've come. Let's pop over into the chat. Someone says, what if my rhythm isn't good? I try to play along with the strumming patterns, but when I Sing. It doesn't always work. Yes, Queen bee. That is a very, very common thing. You know, when you learn a strumming pattern to be able to sing, it's. It's like doing this. Put the guitar down for a second. It's like doing this, okay? This is singing and playing the guitar at the same time. All right? Now, if you haven't practiced, I can do this because I play drums and, you know, I'm very coordinated, and I've done this so many times that I can sit here, I can tap my head and rub my stomach and talk to you. For some people.

You know that you ask them to rub their stomach and tap their head and, like, they're rubbing their head, rubbing their stomach. They don't, you know, it's very, very awkward, very uncoordinated. And that's what happens with singing and strumming at the same time. All right, so this is your strumming, and then you got to throw the singing on top of it. But for a lot of people, we don't have that coordination yet. Okay? We don't have that coordination. So how do we get that? We have to know the strumming pattern, like, inside and out, Meaning if I pick up my guitar, I should be able to, like, if I move, and I might go out of focus a little bit here, but I should be able to walk around the room while strumming my guitar and not skip a beat. Okay? So if I have a strumming pattern, let's just say it's one tooth, and I don't have my guitar strap, which is going to make this really hard. But it's 1, 2, 3, M4M. I'm going to try and go.

Of course, I'm very limited by space. I have here, and I don't have a guitar strap on this guitar, which makes it hard to hold the guitar. But you can see that's where you have to be. And I just want to make sure I'm in focus here. Perfect. That's where you have to be with the guitar to strum and sing at the same time. That strumming pattern has to be on autopilot, because as soon as you open your mouth, that takes all of your brain power. And you'll hear me sometimes when I'm teaching more intermediate songs on my channel, you'll sometimes hear me say, you know, I'm gonna do the best I can to. To play the strumming pattern that I've taught you. But once my mouth opens up, my hand, my strumming hand does whatever it wants. And that's a good thing. Okay. When you get your strumming hand to the point that has a mind of its own, that's actually a really, really good thing. And if you're someone like, say you know your open chords, you're like, lauren, I got open chords. I'm not a beginner anymore, but my strumming really stinks. Check out my expressive strumming course. Okay. Lauren bateman.com forward/strumming. Or if you go to my courses page, it's my strumming course. And I think it's over 50 lessons and all it is is about strumming and becoming a better strummer. Okay. So that's a great course. If you're someone that's like, Lauren, I'm not an absolute beginner. I don't need your seven level guitar system, but I'd like to work on my strumming that. That's a really, really great course for people who kind of want to take their strumming to the next level. I do start off with some easy stuff in the beginning, but then it progresses to more challenging things later in the course. Let's see what else we got here. Romania is in the house. Hello. 13 years old. Hi, Jordan. That's awesome. And I want to play Amazing Grace at my great grandma's funeral. Any tips, Jordan? 1. Very, very sorry to hear about your grandmother and what a wonderful gift to be able to give that for her funeral. I have two tutorials on YouTube here for amazing Grace. Okay. So I would go to those tutorials. I would use this. I have one where I strum and one where I pick, depending on your skill level. If you're just a beginner, I would just keep it simple and you might just want to strum one chord. Amazing grace.

How sweet the. I think it goes to the sound. Okay. That saved a wretch.

Like.

Me.

So. See, sometimes, especially if you're. If you're just a beginner. And that's the great thing about Amazing Grace is it's a ballad, so you don't have to be.

Doesn't need a lot of strumming. So just take it simple. Let the guitar ring. So many students are afraid to let the guitar ring and sing. And that's what I would do. Amazing grace.

How sweet the sound. And I don't know if I'm playing the chords in the correct order, but go to my website, laurenbatement.com under the song section, just look up Amazing Grace and you'll Find the tutorials there and you'll find the words with the lyrics. And all you need is three chords, a D and E to play that song. So, Jordan, I hope, I hope you can get that done and just keep it simple. Okay? I actually, years ago, many, many moons ago, I played guitar at my aunt's funeral.

I actually played a song that I wrote for her that's on one of my albums called Guardian Angel. And she asked me before she passed away, she asked if I could play that song at her funeral. So it's not easy to do that, to get up on stage and sing a song, especially when you've lost someone that you love. So good luck to you. I hope it works out. But definitely go ch out those tutorials, Amazing grace on my YouTube channel, and hopefully those will give you some, some tips and ideas as well as what I've said here. You're welcome so much. Thank you for asking. Don says 62 years old here. And thank you for your service and support. Appreciate your service. I'm just learning to play. Oh, well, you're welcome so much, Dawn. You know, it's just. This is just what I love to do. I love to teach. As you can see, I have young students, I have older students, and it's. It's just so much fun. Teaching guitar really is a passion of mine and I really just love helping students have those aha moments or more so when they finally realize that it's possible and that they can do this. And that's a big part of my teaching, even in my in person studio. It's about developing confidence in students as well that they can do this, that this is possible. Because for a lot of you, you know, some of you are older. A lot of my clients in my program are over the age of 50, a lot of people in their 60s, a lot of people in their 70s, and this is just something they've wanted to do their entire life. But, you know, stuff gets in the way. Okay, you have kids or a lot of you, you know, went into the military, maybe, you know, you had a job that got in the way. Life just gets in the way sometimes. And for a lot of my students, you know, they're retiring or they're coming up on retiring and, and they're looking for a fun hobby and this is it. And I understand that for many of you, your goal is not to go to music school. I didn't go to music school myself. Big surprise. My degrees are in archaeology and biology, if you didn't know. I don't have a degree in music. I don't have a degree in education. So if I can do it, you can do it. Okay. And I admit I was mostly self taught on the guitar because we didn't have a lot of money growing up so we couldn't afford the guitar lessons. My grandfather used to pay for my piano lessons. I hated it. So my parents weren't going to waste any money on guitar lessons. My sister, who's actually coming over later today, she bought me my first guitar when she was in college. I was in high school. It was a confirmation gift. I was 15 going on 16 and she bought me this guitar. My mom's like, do not buy her a guitar. She's just going to waste it, just like she did the piano lessons and here I am. But I think that just goes to show you how much guitar and music really, really spoke to me. And I know for a lot of you there's something just calling to you about the guitar and learning music. And I get that it was really the guitar, the piano, I just didn't understand. But it was really the guitar that made me fall in love with music and songwriting and performing. And I hope that you enjoy the guitar as much as I do. And if I can just be the starting point for you, that helps you get started and makes you believe in yourself. That's what I'm here for. And that's why I have so much free stuff here on YouTube. For those of you who live around the world or for those of you that can't afford the course, there's a lot of free stuff here on YouTube that you can learn from. Um, but if you are looking for more of a step by step system, I do have my seven level guitar system. Laurenbatement.com forward/course. You know, if you don't want to be bumping around and looking for videos all over the place. If you want things step by step in order, I highly recommend that you do go check out the course. Because, you know, guitar, as I said earlier, is not easy, but it's absolutely worth it. It is a hundred percent worth it. And you know, just emotionally, spiritually, there's so many great things with a guitar. I recently had a student who passed away who had been with me since, since COVID And he was one of the students in this course and his wife reached out to me because as a teacher, I sometimes don't realize the impact I have on people. And not just my students, but even, you know, their family members, the people in their lives. And his Wife reached out to me and said, lauren, you know, I just wanted to let you know I've been married to my husband for 41 years. 41 years. And she's like, he never, he never sang to me. And once he started learning the guitar, he started, he started singing and sharing his voice with her. And she said, you gave him the confidence to share his voice with others. And she thanked me for that. She thanked me because now, you know, she has all those wonderful memories of him playing the guitar and probably singing songs to her. And that's a wonderful thing. And as teachers, we don't realize the impact we have on lives and the ripple effect that we can have on people. So I'm happy to be here. Sorry to go off on a tangent like that, but, you know, you said, thank you, Dawn. And I just want to say that I really appreciate that. I really appreciate all the support here on YouTube. I was, I did an interview, you know, the earlier this week with someone and we were talking about my success. And I said, you know, In March of 2017, March of 2017, I uploaded my first video, my first reel where I was like, I'm gonna do guitar lessons on YouTube. And it was Hound Dog by Elvis Presley. And I uploaded the video to OneView, which was probably me just making sure that I watched the video, that it worked. Okay. So we went for. From, you know, getting one view to, hey, I have 176 people on this live stream right now in this. Hopefully this live will go and thousands of people will see it. And hopefully people who are thinking about possibly or thinking about quitting the guitar are going to think about that and say, oh, you know what? Lauren told me it's hard. I'm going through a hard time. Maybe I should make that recording. All right, if you're watching this, your number one assignment after I turn this off is to go record a video of you playing wherever you're at now, no matter your skill level. So you have that reference point to keep going. Let's see. Hi, from southern France. 18 months on the guitar. Congratulations. Yep. 64, retired. And you were my first online go to channel six years ago. Holy smokes. Well, thank you so much. You've been supporting me almost since the beginning. Thank you for that. I appreciate it. Hi, Lauren. Please, if I hold down the bottom strings and play the one finger chords and two finger chords, it's awesome, but the pitch is different. Can I strum all six strings? So, Peter, great question. So those, those one finger chords and those two finger chords Those are what we call inversions, okay? So they are. So like say this is a C chord. Like even this, just the one finger on the B string and you play the bottom three strings. That is also a C chord. This is a C chord. And then obviously this is a C chord. This is a C chord. This is a C chord, okay? There's C's all over the place on the guitar. Now the more strings you play, the fuller the sound you're going to get. Now you can't play all the strings. And the reason for that is you'll get some strings that don't sound good. That's me playing the C chord. The reason is, is this A note? Okay, E chords, A little music theory for you. I'll try and keep it simple. Chords are what we, or most of the open chords you're going to learn are what we call triads, okay? They're made of three notes. That's basically how do I know it's a C chord? Because it has three notes. It has a C note, it has a G note and it has an E note. Sometimes it will have two C's, two E's, Sometimes you know, it'll have two of each, okay? It just depends on where you're playing the chord and how you play it. But as long as there is one C note, one E note and one G note, it is a C chord. That's why this three string C with just your first finger on the B string at the first fret we have G, C, E.

So that is a C chord. The downside of that is you are only playing the treble strings, okay? So it's going to have a much brighter, tinnier sound to it versus.

If I play a C chord or I play this one, which is a C chord with the G in the bass.

If I play that one, yes, I can strum all six strings. And a lot of times if you play a normal C chord, if you catch that top string, it's E. So it doesn't sound horrible, but you get kind of this dark, muddy sound over the top.

Okay? So the more strings you play, the fuller the sound of the chord. And that's why a lot of people eventually, you know, if you're playing the two fingered C chord, we eventually want to graduate to the fuller chords just because they sound nicer, because you have more strings. But that's the reason why it might sound a little off is because we don't have all the strings ringing through to give the chord. It's. It's full tonality, its full sound. Okay, so like this two finger G chord I teach you, it's called. It's actually called the G6 chord. It's a G6. It is a G chord, but it's going to be a little dissonant. Dissonant is like harsh. Think of harshness on the guitar versus the full G chord. Okay, so. But it still works.

Just the full G chord has a little bit of a brighter tone to it. So that hopefully helps you answer. Answer that question. Peter, thanks for the encouragement. You're so welcome. Yeah. There are so many ways to play a triad or chord. Yeah. And. And again, I will admit I'm not the best guitar player in the world. I don't know a lot of inversions up and down the neck of the guitar. A lot of like jazz musicians know them all over the place. But obviously you saw there, you know, we have C chord. C chord. C chord. Okay, C, add nine. Okay, C, add nine chord. I got a bar chord here. I got a bar chord up here. So I know we're kind of like all the, the major stuff is once I get into inversions, I kind of have to figure it out myself how to play them. So. So if, if inversions and stuff you're not very familiar with, don't worry, they're a whole, whole nother. That's more of like an intermediate thing I would consider. If you're a beginner, stick with your open chords, progress to bar chords. And then eventually, like, if you want to get into, you know, jazz style chords and stuff, you can, you can do that definitely down the road. But in the beginning stages, just stick with the open chords because they're not as difficult to play as the bar chords. We already talked about bar chords. There is a strength component. They're awkward, they're hard to play, but once you play them.

Super fun. Yeah, like I always think of, like Stairway.

Is it. Man, it's minor.

Then it goes to E or F.

I haven't had enough coffee this morning to remember. But yeah.

You know, once you get into bar chords, you can do really, really cool strumming stuff. I teach some of that stuff in expressive rhythm. I actually, I teach you the strumming pattern for that. For that Stairway to Heaven section. It's not Stairway to Heaven. It's just a chord progression with the strumming pattern. But I teach you how to do that stuff in the expressive rhythm course. Someone from El Salvador, California. Hello. Hello. Hello. And Lauren, my husband is wanting to learn guitar now. He has watched me watching your teaching videos and practice and he wants play. Oh, that's exciting, Missy. Yeah, you guys can learn and play songs together. And it's really cool if you have someone to practice with because then you can get into doing like partner stuff where one person plays a capo much higher. There's lots of cool things. It's always fun to have someone to practice with. Someone says, any tips for stiff singer stiff fingers. Sorry for repeating my question. That's okay. You've been on the fence about quitting. Yeah, so. So thank you for asking, Chris. I don't want you to quit. So I'm guessing stiff fingers probably from arthritis or probably from some tendinitis or something. So typically, let me reach down here. If you have stiff fingers and you're having trouble with the strumming hand, Black Mountain Picks makes this pick. It's a spring loaded pick. Black Mountain picks is the company. I'm not getting paid, I don't have an endorsement with them. But I just. This is something I recommend to my students who have arthritis. Is this a clip? And I don't now I don't have to hold the string. So if you're strumming hands tight or you have arthritis, my brother in law is a physical therapist and he told me the name of this knuckle and I can't remember. But if you have arthritis in that knuckle, if you use this little pick, it can help relieve that on the strumming hand. Now frettingham with stiffness the biggest thing is movement. So sometimes, you know, I tell people to warm up with the spider exercise. If you have arthritis. Sometimes the best warmup is literally that a warm up. I've had students who use hand warmers just to get. Because you got to get the fluid in the joints moving and you got to get the blood into the fingers. So by just using a hand warmer first for maybe a minute or two to get your hands warm, then simply doing this opening and closing your fingers. Now I know my dad has rheumatoid arthritis. So trust me, I know how painful it can be. Sometimes he can't even open and close his hands. So if you're someone who has arthritis, I know there's gonna be good days, I know there's gonna be bad days. And you know what stuff aggravates it. You know like when it's cold outside, goes cold, hot, cold, hot, or it's a rainy day, weather can definitely have an impact. So on those good days, warm up your hands and just Start by opening and closing your hands. And you might have to start by doing this. Okay. You might not be able to fully clench your fist, but just start by moving the fingers. All right? And as they start warming up, increase the range of motion as much as you can. Then jump over to the guitar. Okay. So your warm up might not be a spider exercise. Okay. You might. Your warmup might be doing this, warming up your fingers, or just putting them in warm water. You know, you could. You put them in warm water, get a warm cloth, face cloth, put some warm water on it, and then it's jumping into your practice. So if you're someone who has arthritis or you have stiff fingers, that would be my recommendation. Yeah, it's more on the fret. Yeah, the fingers won't bend well, so that would be my recommendations. Chris, you know, if there is a lot of information, inflammation, I know there's certain diet things you can do to help reduce inflammation in general in the body. So those are things that. That you can look to as well. I'm not a doctor. I'm not, you know, a medical professional, but I do read a lot of books and there are things, you know, especially for arthritis and inflammation in the joints, in the body, supplements and stuff that can help too. So maybe talk to your doctor about that if you have someone that you're working with currently. Let's see. I learned about Crescendo the other day from your video. That is so much fun. I'm learning so many cool things. Yeah, Dynamics is great. Just having that because most of us, when we start our playing is like one level, and then we learn how to make things loud and soft and get a little bit more express. Exciting. Please don't quit. No, I'm not quitting. Don't you worry. You know, and I have those moments myself. I'm human. You know, sometimes I'll be like, oh, man, I really don't. I don't want to make a video today. I got to make a video. You know, I have my ups and downs, too, so don't you. Don't worry. I'm not. I'm not quitting anytime soon. I'm here. I'm more here to keep you guys from quitting and provide you a little motivation because as we see in the chat, you know, there's a lot of people who are questioning, did I make the right decision? Am I talented enough? Am I too old? Is this possible? Doesn't sound right. Is it not supposed to sound right? So my advice to you is to be patient. With yourself. Be kind to yourself. This is not easy. It does take time. And just trust the process, all right? As long as you have a process, you can trust it. And if you keep showing up every week, I promise by next year, you're going to be way better than you are this year. Okay? A lot of times our timeline is just too short. People are like, how long have you been playing the guitar? 30 days. I stink. Okay? Yeah, I would expect that. And guess what? You're going to keep stinking for another six months, so you better get that out of your head. I have a video on here. One of my teaching friends, he used to say, embrace the suck. And I have a video. See if you can find it. Go watch it after this video. It's Lauren Bateman. Embrace the suck. And it's letting you know you're gonna. It's okay. You're gonna be crappy. You're a beginner. If you did not stink, you would be called a prodigy, okay? And prodigies are very rare, okay? So accept that you are not going to be Eric Clapton overnight. You're not gonna be Jimi Hendrix overnight. You're gonna be John Denver, Tommy Emanuel, Johnny Cash, whoever. Whoever your person is that you look up to and want to play music. Like, you are not going to be that person in 30 days, 60 days, 90 days, not even in a year, okay? But maybe in two or three years, you're gonna feel so much better about yourself. So don't quit. Don't quit too soon, okay? There's a saying, or there was a book. It was called Three Feet from Gold, okay? You could be three feet from gold. You just kind of stick with it another 30 days or another 60 days, and you're gonna have your next breakthrough, okay? So when those plateaus, come watch that recording and make another recording. This way you can see your progress over time and just know that you are getting better. There's nothing wrong with you. You can do this. I believe in you. I hope you all have a wonderful weekend and a happy Easter if you celebrate. I'll see you all in the lesson video real soon. Thanks, everyone. Have a great day. Bye.