Learning Guitar in 2024 - Tips For Sucess

Hey, guitar enthusiasts. Lauren Bateman here. Happy early New Year's. I wanted to hop on today because I was. I was sick last week. I actually came down with COVID and was able to make a video for today. So I said, you know, I'm gonna go live and I'm gonna talk to everyone about New Year's, New Year's resolutions, and learning guitar is 2024, if that's one of the things that you're looking to check off your bucket list this year, let's do it. Let's get started. I'm going to give you the tips that you need to kind of keep with it one second.

Still have a little bit of a cough. But we're going to talk about the two things you kind of need to be successful with guitar, because I don't know if you know this, but 80 to 90% of people who start guitar give up within the first three to six months. They really do. They don't make it to a full year. And a lot of that comes from frustrations. Hello, I'm looking at my chat down here. I see we got some people from the Philippines in the house. No, there is no snow here in Boston yet, but maybe. Maybe in the next coming months, we'll get some for the new year. So the two things I want to talk about. The first one is accountability, because that's a huge one. You know, many of you are here on YouTube. Some of you might even be in my course. Some of you might be part of my community. And, you know, having accountability is so important. I actually very recently started working with a trainer myself on the nutrition side of things because I wanted to be better about my health, especially in 2024. You know, I work a lot here for you all. Big fan. Spidey says big fan. I don't have my Spidey shirt on. I have a. I have a Batman underneath here. No, no, I'm not stripping live on tv, but I do have Batman here. I'll take. Maybe I will strip live on. On YouTube here so we can have the Batman shirt because you guys are used to seeing me in my superhero shirts. So we'll just do that for you guys. No snow in Buffalo either, and I doubt there's snow in any Texas. Jim says he's been playing for 50 years. Happy New Year, Rhonda. Nice to see you. Sorry, I was not expecting to do a strip tease here on. On YouTube live, but I have the Batman shirt on. I saw someone say Spidey, and. And we're doing it okay. And we're talking about accountability. And superheroes have great accountability, but accountability is when you have someone to check in with. All right? And I have a trainer because, you know, health has always been a big thing for me. Many of you know, some of you don't know. I had cancer when I was 16. I had Hodgkin's lymphoma. So health has always been a big thing for me. And you know, I'm in my 40s now and you know, they're going through some, some changes and I'm working a lot. So I wanted to kind of start prioritizing my health again because I've been working so hard building this, this YouTube channel for everyone that's here live on the chat. And you know, I've been working hard building all the courses at, you know, at the expense of my health just a little bit. So. So I actually hired someone to get me accountable because when you're checking in with someone, that really helps. And that's why so many people like my community, the community aspect, because they can post questions, you know, and I'll respond to their questions and I can give them answers or even here, you know, you ask questions. Oh, Ken Rhodes, thank you so much for your super thanks. Appreciate you, Hope you're doing really well. Yeah. If you want to, you know, there is super thanks that you guys can do. So if you appreciate, if I've helped you this year, you appreciate anything, feel free to use the super thanks button. Thank you, Ken Rhodes, for doing that. Really appreciate it. But the accountability side of things is the most important. No matter what you're doing in life, whether it's getting healthy, whether it's learning guitar, whether it's playing drums. Okay. We all need to be held accountable to someone. And for a lot of people, especially when it comes to fitness, I used to be able to hold my, myself accountable, but I have so many other things going on in life. It's been very hard for me to hold myself accountable recently. So sometimes we need a little help. And like I said, that's why a lot of people, they, they sign up, they join my community because they want to be around other like minded people who understand how hard it is to play a C chord. I saw someone earlier, was talking about the two finger chords and how they're working on those and like, they're not the best right now, but they're working on it and it will get better, I promise you. Whoever that was. But you know, you, you try to explain that to, to a family Member and you're like, oh, my God. You pick up your. Your guitar and you play a C chord. You play your D chord and you play it perfectly. And, like, you're so excited that you just played the C chord and it sounded good. And then you go tell someone who knows nothing about guitar, and they're like, well, that's great. Good job. And you're like, no, you don't understand how much time and effort I put into this single C chord to make it sound good. So having another community that you can go to and share those wins with. We have a section called share your wins. And students post their wins, what they've accomplished so far this week, good things that have happened. And, you know, I'm in there providing advice, answering questions. Other students are in there answering questions. Because there's a lot of students who've been with me for a few years now, and. And they've been exactly where you were, you know, two years ago, you know, three years ago, even three months ago. They know how difficult it is in the beginning. And having a support system, I guess there's three things I'm going to talk about. A support system is very, very important because whenever you do something, it can seem very, very lonely. Okay. Even as a YouTuber myself, and doing this YouTube journey, I don't know too many other people who do what I do in life, and it's very hard to explain it to people, and it can be very, very lonely sometimes, which is why I'm so happy that I have my community, because I have my friends, people I've met. I've met some people in person. I know. Leslie. Leslie, you're coming to the event that's coming up in August or September. August is August. We only have seven tickets left for that live event, just as a FYI. So if you're interested in coming and seeing me in Boston in August, jump on the event. It's on the homepage. I think I updated the. The event page for everyone and, you know, the communities, the support system, it's so important, especially when you're having a down day, because I have down days, too, to go on and tell someone. You know, I just wasn't feeling the guitar today. I picked it up. It was sounding horrible. I wasn't feeling it. I put it back down in the stand. And then you get a bunch of people like, you know, I have those days, too. It happens. Don't worry. Stick with it. It's not the end of the world. Sometimes you have good days, sometimes you have Bad days. But it's always good to know that you're not alone, that you're not the only one that's experiencing this. You're not the only one going through this. So, you know, if you are looking for a great support system and a great community going into the new year, my community is open. It's open enrollment right now. The price is going up January 1st. So if you hop on today, you will get that at a discount. I think I pinned a link over here. It's laurenbateman.com backslash membership and you can sign up for a year. 197 gets you access to the live calls. Kind of like this. I go live a lot in there. Sometimes I just do like a, you know, a 20 minute pop in or a 15 minute mini lesson. Sometimes we'll do Q and A like this. I did Q and A earlier this week, right. Answered questions live from students who are going through my course. And we also have, you know, a song challenge of the month. Every month we try to challenge you to play something and do something musical no matter where you are in your journey. And that also provides more accountability because you're like, I'm going to try this one thing and see if I can be successful at it. And maybe you're not quite there yet, but you give it a try and that's the good thing. And we have myself in there who's. I focus mainly on the acoustic guitar stuff. I also have my friend Charlie Long who's in there. He does a lot of the electric guitar stuff. He's been helping me out on the electric guitar side. He's going to be producing some courses with me into 2024. Speaking of courses, a little tangent. I do have a singing course that's going to be coming out very soon. I actually just finished up writing the workbook for it. I just have to proofread it. And if you've read my emails, you know I am horrible at proofreading and spelling. In English and grammar, it's Grandma. Wow. That. So Boston Grammar. But I, I'm gonna do my best. A student has offered to, to proofread it. So Kathy, thank you so much. I really appreciate the proofreading and I'm sure all the students here will appreciate it. Can you play Ellen or Rigby? I don't have it here in front of me. But the great thing about Eleanor Rigby is it's two chords. Okay, just very briefly since you asked. And I have a guitar. I don't even know if this guitar is in 2. I didn't even tune up a guitar for this. So we have E minor and C. Okay. And if you use the easy E minor in C, you can just pivot. Okay. Someone mentioned earlier about those pivot points. Okay. And for that song, depending on what level you're at, you may need to go quarter note strumming because eight notes.

Eight notes might be too hard for you. But see that this is stuff we do in the community. Someone will ask me a question, I'll answer it. We might do a video sometimes. I'll do a live video to answer the questions as well. Oh, happy birthday, Spidey. I actually don't know happy birthday off the top of my head. Ken says I've been learning some great stuff, but it only sticks when you keep at it. Exactly. It does. You know it. And, and that's the accountability side of things. And that's why, you know, there's so many students, they start learning the guitar and it's exciting in the, in the front. You know, the first 30 days, you're excited, you're going to learn this new skill. Woohoo. And then, you know, you get through the first 30 days, 60 days, 90 days, and then you realize there's a lot of work that goes into learning this instrument. It is not an easy instrument to learn. Anyone who tells you that it's easy to play guitar, it's not. It is not easy to play guitar at all. It takes a lot of time, takes a lot of effort, but it is a hundred percent worth it. It is absolutely worth it, the effort that goes into it. And that's where having accountability helps someone holding you accountable to what you say you're going to do. I'm going to practice three times a week. Well, share that with people, let people know you're practicing, hold yourself accountable. Two, you need a support system. All right? Whether that's a teacher locally, whether it's me, whether it's another online teacher here, you need some support. You need a community to interact with, to have fun with and you know, kind of celebrate your wins with, but also commiserate in the low times and get some motivation, get boosted back up. And then the third thing is a blueprint, okay? And in my blueprint is called the seven level seven system. Okay? You guys know that, the seven level guitar system. I'm sure there's some people that are in the chat here who are part of the seven level system. So if you're in my course, you know, say hello in the chat here. And that is My blueprint. Okay, that is the blueprint that I have used for over a decade. I started teaching in 2010, and I kind of, you know, I feel bad for my first students because they were like, my experiments of, like, what works, what doesn't work. And you're observing and you're like, okay, this seemed to help better than this. Oh, I move too fast here. That's what a lot of students tell me. When you, When I read your emails and you guys send in emails, a lot of people, they're like, you know, a lot of these teachers just go too fast. And in the beginning, I also went too fast because as teachers, we think if we are not giving you new materials all the time, that we're failing you. So it's, it's hard for a teacher to slow down because, you know, we want to be giving you new stuff all the time. Oh, they're, they're paying for a lesson. I have to give them new things. But what I learned over time is that less is actually more. If you teach people less things, but they actually learn to do those things very well, in the long term, they will be a better guitar player. They will stick with it longer, and, and they will be more likely to go on to play music with others or share their talents with people. I have many students who've gone on to do open mics, perform for their churches, you know, so having a blueprint is important. And, you know, YouTube's great. I actually had someone who emailed me last night. His name was Phil. So, Phil, if you're on here, thank you for your email last night made me smile. I believe he's from the uk, But Phil wrote into me and he said, you know, Lauren, he's an older student and, you know, I can't afford, you know, I can't afford your, your seven level system. I wish I could, but, you know, I'm on whatever retirement income. And he said, I'm so happy for all your YouTube videos that you put out. He's like, I'm. I'm actually playing music with others. And I never thought that was going to be possible. And I think that's so awesome. And YouTube is a great resource. Okay. And that's why I have so many free things on YouTube, because, you know, I just like helping people. And I know there's people, like, I see some students here all over the world. We have students all over the world. So many. Rhonda says, I. I'm in your course, and your teachers have made me feel like a guitarist. That's awesome. I love that. Thank you so much, Rhonda. Yeah. And that's what people, you know, they want. They just want to feel like they can do this. And you know, that's even my crash course. That free crash course I give. It's just, it's just to tell people you can do this. If you have the right blueprint, you can do this. Because that's the downside of YouTube. Like, the great thing about YouTube is it's free. There's a lot of information that's out there. But unfortunately, the downside of YouTube is, is that you're kind of doing this. You're all over the place. All right? And you watch a video and then YouTube suggests another video, and you don't know if that next video that they're suggesting is actually right for you for where you are with your guitar playing. And that's how I structured my seven level system. It's seven levels of learning, okay. And we start at the very basics, all the way from how to hold your guitar, how to tune the guitar, how to hold the pick, what picks I recommend for beginners, picks for acoustic versus electric. What's the difference between an acoustic and electric? Kind of getting all that stuff. How to set up your guitar strap properly, how to hold the guitar properly. And then we move into level one, which is kind of like your foundational skills. And then each level builds upon the next. So you start in level one, you work on the exercises in level one, and then when you graduate, we leave level one behind, we move on to level two. So you always know what's next, what's expected of you. I give suggestions in the workbook because it is a self guided course. Of course, if you're in the community, I'm there helping you out too, if you have questions. But it is a self guided course and I have suggestions for when to move on. You know, when should I move on from level one to level two? When is that okay? Or if I'm in level two, when should I move on to level three? And you know, for some students, you know, there's, there's a number of students here that I'm sure have been playing guitar for years. And they email me and they go, you know, I learned so much just from your intro items. And they're like, you know, level one and level two were pretty easy for me. But I'm glad I went through it because I feel like I was missing a lot of those foundational items, especially in timing and strumming. I saw Someone else did some strumming. What did Mark say here? Sorry. If you've done this one. A great strumming song is I get a kick out of you. Oh, I don't know that one. I'll have to look that one up. Hey ho, from the uk. Love your T shirt today. Thanks, Alex. If you missed it earlier. I did. I. I had a long sleeve shirt on and I forgot I had my. My superhero shirt underneath, so. So here I am, the Batman shirt. But Claire says I learned that I like the classical position in the intro section. Yeah. So, Claire, you know, there's a number of different ways to hold your guitar, and one of them actually is the classical position. And you can see my guitar here, which is this hip. The bottom hip of the guitar sits in between. In between your legs. And you can see my guitar neck. This is probably the most important thing that beginners don't understand. Even when you're doing it the way I like to do it with the guitar strap. I like my guitar being in front. I hold my guitar when I'm sitting as if I'm standing, playing the guitar. There's no difference between me standing and holding my guitar and me sitting and holding my guitar. And that's how you know you've set your guitar strap up correctly. But you'll always notice with my guitar, it's pointed up. The neck is always pointed up. We never want the neck to be flat, and we never want the neck to point down. Why? It puts a lot of pressure on your wrist. And that's why some people, like Claire said, they prefer this classical position because look how high up the neck is. This is the most ergonomically correct position for playing the guitar, for. For your wrist and everything else. So some people really, really like that, that classical position versus, you know, this one here, it's hanging out. But even if you are just resting, you know, the guitar on your leg like this, still I have my strap and my guitar is always.

Always pointing up. And I can hear this guitar slightly out of. We'll. We'll fix that. Jerry says, hi, Lauren. How proficient can I get in two years with constant practice? That's a great question, Jerry. Especially if you have a good blueprint and a good practice routine. So you're saying you want to practice a few times a week? I recommend students practice three or four times a week. All right, so we're getting into the new year. You want to be accountable. Set up a good schedule. Okay? Set up a good schedule. Whether it's going to Be, you know, I'm going to practice every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, or maybe you're going to do Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, whatever your schedule is, pick two or three days and set aside the time to actually do it. That's part of the accountability. So in two years, and again, this depends. There's a lot of factors. Age is one of them. Understand that as we get older, our muscles do move a little bit slower, but over time we can build strength and flexibility and dexterity in two years. So my seven level system is usually what I would teach students within, say, nine to 12 months. So it's about a year's worth of lessons. All right, in that seven level system. So at the end of that, you should be able to feel very, very comfortable playing along to songs, strumming songs, maybe doing some basic finger picking. Okay. But you should feel really good about your strumming, your timing and be able to strum along to a lot of chords. You might not be doing a lot of percussive rhythms and stuff like that. But that's where my next level, I have five mini courses called the Next Level. And we teach you about lead guitar, scales, music theory, power and bar chords, expressive rhythm, percussive strumming, all that fun stuff. More intensive finger picking. So in two years, if you really do put in the time and effort, you can actually become a really, really good guitar player. Now will you be an Eddie Van Halen? Maybe, maybe not. Depends on how quickly you get your fingers moving. But in two years, you should be what I would consider a very good guitarist. You should be able to play music with others. You should be able to perform music on stage with others if you wanted to. I have, like I said before, a lot of students who, who come into my course and then one of their goals is they want to join their church and they want to join the team and the band in the church so that they can play. So I love when I see students post videos and I love when someone posts a video. We had a student recently, I don't know if Abby's on here, but Abby, she posted a video from her child's homeschool performance. They had like, I think like a little Christmas performance at the end of the year, and she actually performed hey Jude with her daughter. And I think her daughter had a tambourine. And it's stuff like that. That's amazing that you're like, wow, you couldn't do that a year ago. And look what you're doing. You're creating an awesome Memory with your daughter, it's. It's. It's phenomenal. I find as a late beginner, my right hand isn't developing enough. Is it okay for strumming? But doing string skipping with the pick is really what throws me. Yeah, using a pick is. And I have an exercise. I actually start the exercise. It's a string skipping exercise. And we started in level one. Because knowing the distance between your strings is very important. And what I would recommend is if that's a skill you want to develop, especially in 2024, if that's one of your goals for 2024 is to develop this string skipping.

Learn songs that have that in there. You know, learn, you know, simple man. Or even something like, you know, Sweet Home Alabama. How does that even go? I think it starts on a dink.

Okay. Stuff like Goo Goo Dolls. Slide the intro to. I'm trying to think of songs that I actually have lessons up on YouTube. Sweet child of Mine by Guns N Roses. Another good one. I don't have Boston's More Than a Feeling up, but that is a great intro with some picking. But like I said, simple man is a really good one. You just have to start learning songs. I'm just going to tune this up a little bit, since I seem to somehow ended up with a guitar in my hand here. But I think we all knew that was going to happen. Learn songs that have picking. That's really what you want to do. And I have students, a lot of times, students, they're like, my strumming, I get stuck. I get stuck on this strumming pattern. Pattern.

Like every song I play by default goes to that down, down, up strumming pattern, which is a great strumming pattern. There's nothing wrong with it. It works really well. It works for a lot of songs. That's why it's played on a lot of songs. But you're not learning songs that require something different. Okay, where my capo go? I know I have. Oh, it's hiding over here. I got my capo. It's our capo on here. Okay. So we gotta sound like wonderall, you know?

All right. The strumming is different. You get something like 4 non blondes. I think that's.

Okay. Wrong chord on that. It goes to D after that. But you can see these are different songs that if I just did that, that strumming pattern, it wouldn't sound as good. So I tell students, when you're getting to that late beginner stage is when things can get very frustrating because you know what you want to do. You know, you've come a long way, but maybe your strumming is not where it is. You feel kind of like you're stuck doing the same things over and over again. And that's where my next level courses come in, especially expressive strumming. If you guys feel like you really want to take your strumming to the next level, go to lauren bateman.com backslash strumming my expressive strumming course is really great. It's broken up into four modules. I added a new module for electric guitar this year and it's four modules. The first one's very beginner, very basic timing, you know, quarter note strumming, whole note strumming. You know, it's a good foundation. But then in level two, we get into accented rhythm percussive playing. And then module three, we get into like rock electric guitar playing. And then module four, I think is 16th note strumming patterns. Multiple. I give you some, like, examples. I can't teach you songs, but I show you strumming patterns. So like, for example, Stairway to Heaven.

I show you how to play that strumming without playing Stairway to Heaven. We play different chords, but I took the strumming pattern, which is very percussive. You can hear the, what I call the chicka chicka. I show you in the course. And it's like, you know, because we got the chords ringing through, we've got muted strings coming in.

Hear what I'm doing over there? I'm pulsing the rhythm.

So I. I'm. It's a very, very percussive rhythm. And it's a very. I don't want to say it's super advanced, but it's definitely not beginner. It's not late beginner. It requires a lot of coordination in terms of being a rhythm player. So if that's the kind. If that's where you want to go with your strumming, check out the strumming course. Lauren bateman.com backslash strumming all my courses. We just redid my entire website. So just so you know, all of my courses are now listed on the website. So if you go to lauren bateman.com backslash courses lauren bateman.com Backslash courses you can see all the courses, but the strumming is one of my favorite courses. Or if you want to buy the bundle, the bundle has the strumming course, the power and bar chord mastery, music theory. What else is in there? Finger picking. Okay, it has finger picking and it has lead Guitar. So there's five courses in that bundle. And I think it's. I think it's 297. Or you can do like two or three payments. It's a great bundle. That's like a whole nother year's worth of material right there, that next level. So the first step is the seven level. And that should take you about a year. And some of my students take longer. Some of them, it takes them two years. And that's the great thing about having a blueprint and having an online course is because you can go at your speed. You can go at your pace. I have some students who do it in six months. I have some students who do it in 12. I have some students who do IT in two years. I have some students who go through it, and then they go back and they go through it a second time. Okay. So that's the great thing about online learning is you can pace it to yourself. But then when you're ready to go on to the next thing, it's the next level courses. That's why it's called the next level courses. So, Lauren bateman.com backslash next level. But it has those courses that develop your skills further to all the things. People tell me, like, I want to be able to do these things, but I feel stuck. And that's the next level. But the seven level gives you all the foundation work. Okay, so definitely laurenbatement.com backslash courses. Go check those out. Definitely some great options if you. If you feel like you're not a beginner like Lauren. I got my chords down. I've got some basic strumming, but I feel like I'm stuck. The next level courses are. Are for you. Can you play the guitar that is hanging on the wall? The Gretsch? Definitely not in tune. This guitar. So this is. I'll tell you the story about this guitar. I think I've told it before, but we'll reiterate it. Let's pull it off the wall. So this is a Gretsch Duo jet. And it's very light because it's hollow. It's a hollow body chambered. It's probably not even in tune. Way out of tune, because I haven't played in a while. But I use this guitar exclusively in my Blues Guitar 101 course. So if you love blues guitar, I have a blues course too. I use this exclusively. Exclusively in Blues Guitar 101. This was given to me by a student. So I had a student many years ago who asked me. He's like, what if you could get one guitar, you know? And I was a poor guitar teacher at the time because this guitar is like $3,000 probably. And I said I would really love. Because I love the Beatles. I said, I would really love the George Harrison Gretsch guitar. I just think they're great looking guitars. They play well. So in 2014, I have a music school in Medford, Massachusetts, my hometown. And in 2014, was it 14? Yeah, 2014. A car. A car crashed through the front of my building and wiped out my business completely. And we had to go back teaching out of my home and all this other. It was. It was crazy. And it was a really, really difficult year for me. It's probably. It still is. Still is one of the hardest years I've gone through in my life. Even harder than. Well, maybe not as hard as cancer, but it was pretty damn close. Okay. But he took me out to lunch one day. He said, I have something for you. And when I showed up at. I have the case, because it's the tweed guitar case and everything, I showed up for lunch with him and I saw a guitar case and I knew what was in the case. And I said, I. I can't accept this because I knew how much this guitar was. And he said, no, I think you. I think you've earned this. I think you've had a rough year. And I just wanted to let you know that I recognize that. And I think you should. You should have this. So this is a guitar that a student gave me in 2015. So I've had it ever since then. And the interesting thing about this guitar is it has a floating bridge which I didn't recognize, which is not my favorite thing. But I would love to. To have a more steady state bridge like I have on my Ibanez because if you hit this a little bit, it can sometimes go out of tune. And I do like the playability of my Ibanez more, but I play a lot more rock music. This is great for blues. It's great for like the Beatles stuff, obviously, clean tones. But when you want to get a little bit more distortion on it. I tend to play my Ibanez for more of the rock type stuff. Stuff that I like to play on electric. So that's the story behind this Gretch. It's a lovely guitar. It's a great sounding guitar. I think it's great for blues, which is why I used it in the Blues Guitar 101 course. So if you buy that Blues Guitar 101 course that's a giant core. That's another course that could take you. I have a bad habit of making my courses really big. Everyone's like, you should make your courses small and sell them for less money. But it's just like I. I want to give you. If you buy a course for me, you buy my blues guitar course. You spend a couple hundred dollars on that course, you're going to be sitting with it for a little bit. I want you to know that if you're spending a couple hundred dollars, you're spending $300 with me. You're getting a year's worth of information. Okay? And that makes it worth it for you because even when I taught privately at the music school, I used to charge. This is a few years ago. It's been a while since I've taught. I used to charge 180 for a half hour every week. So what was that, like $45 a lesson or so? So I used to charge $45 a lesson, and that was moons ago. We now charge $49 a lesson at my music school. So it's basically $50 a half hour. So you'd spend $200 and you'd get four lessons, whereas you can spend $200 and you get a year's worth of blues guitar lessons. If you really want to get into blues guitar, it's a phenomenal course. It goes from kind of like really beginner, but it's not for absolute beginners, but it goes from beginner to kind of late beginner and into more intermediate type concepts. I get into the rhythm and strumming, but I also talk about the soloing too. So overall, great course. If anyone has it here, you know, let me, let me know in. In the chat. Love seeing people here for the most part. You don't need nails for finger picking. No, I actually don't like the feel when I'm finger picking. I like the feel of my. My flesh. Do I have. Oh, I have Mark here. These are great picks. Let me just pull one out right here. So this is a company that I support. They're called Black Mountain Picks. And you can see it here. It's got a little loop. You put it on your thumb. This is. There's a couple reasons I like this one. If you're an older student. A lot of my students who are in my course are in their 60s, 70s, and 80s. Okay. The majority of my students are in their 60s, 70s,. I have a lot of students in their 50s as well. Arthritis tends to be an issue that comes up very frequently, especially in the thumb. So with this. This is a light gauge. They're called black mountain picks. It's a light gauge thumb pick. You can use it for finger picking. But also because it's like gauge, you can use it for strumming, too. So if you are a student that suffers from arthritis. I have a lot of students who really like this because it's a spring. So the spring actually holds. Look, I'm flicking my hand and it's not. It's not coming off.

So the spring actually holds the pick on your finger. Really, really great for students who have arthritis. So that's something to check out. Can I do your blues course on Acoustic 100? I do have a few lessons that are on the acoustic guitar in there. I mainly play this guitar because just like someone says here, can you play the Gretch? Can you? So I had so many people be like, can you play the Gretch? But there's a lot of stuff I would say, you know, you can do almost everything. The things that are tricky to do on an acoustic are the bends. Okay. Because of the thickness of the strings. But I would say you could probably do 90 to 95 of the materials in the blues guitar course on an acoustic. And I do have a few. I think there's two or three lessons in there that I hop on the acoustic just to show you, like, an acoustic blues type setting and how things can sound. But the majority of it I play on this Gretsch. And there's a few lessons I do on the Ibanez because they're a little bit more rock oriented. So you'll get to see a variety of my guitars in that blues course. That's a great question. Thank you for asking that. Yeah, anything you can do on an electric, you should be able to do on an acoustic. And this is a great practice tip. Again, as we're going into 2024, should you practice on an acoustic or should you practice on an electric? Practice on both. And when I was learning the Stairway to Heaven guitar solo over Covid, I had. I learned that solo. It was my third time attempting the solo. And I really wanted to get it up to full speed because that. That solo is cooking. It's a great solo. If you want something that focused primarily on a minor pentatonic. The Let It Be guitar solo is great, but also the Stairway to Heaven guitar solo is really great. Lots of cool little blues licks. Focuses primarily on a minor pentatonic with a couple additional notes. But it's Flying. That thing is cooking. And I would. Would work on this. I would practice it on the acoustic first because everything is a little bit harder to play on the acoustic because the strings are thicker. And then I would take it over to the electric and it would be easier to play. So it's kind of like a psychology thing. Same thing with chord changes. Practice on your acoustic first, then go over your electric. I tell people with bar chords all the time. I actually tell them the opposite. I say start on the electric with the bar chords. They're going to be a lot easier to play. But practice them on the acoustic too, because the acoustic is going to help you build up strength so that you can do them more consistently, more often. And you'll just feel a lot stronger overall playing with those bar chords. Denmark says hello. Hello, Jorgen. Nice to see you here. Can you recommend a good tuner? Yeah, I just, you know, I use these right here. This is just a little clip on. This is a snark tuner. Any. Any of the clip on tuners are good. You just want to make sure it's a chromatic tuner. I also, it's in my case when I would perform live, I would use a boss pedal tuner. But if you're not performing live, you don't need that. These things work. Work great. This is what I use here. It's just a snark clip on tuner. You could buy any brand, but these ones work really well. I've liked them. I've used them for years. And that's what I have here in my. In my home studio. So that's. That's what I use on my guitars. So can you demonstrate the difference between F and simple F major 7 as an example of simplifying difficult chords? Sure. I just released a video on this recently, actually, the easy F chord. Because I have a lot of students are like, Lauren, those bar chords are hard. They're hard. So I always tell people you can do the Easy F Major 7, which looks like a full C chord just smushed. And if you want instruction on this, just type in Lauren Bateman easy F chord. And I'm sure the video will come up. But you can hear it has a lot more open sound. So there's. That's your F bar chord. Here's F major 7.

Because we have an open E string. So that's your major seven. Is that E note okay? Because if I bar this on the B and E string, I'm back to a regular F chord, the open E string. And this is a little bit of music theory. The open E, that note is the major seven note and that's why it's called an F major seven. But it can be used. I did a lesson recently, Piano man by Billy Joel, and it was, it had some rotation between.

Had like F, C and G or something. And you could play the bar chord.

Or just play F major 7.

There's a little bit of a tonality different difference because of that major 7, that high E string ringing through. But it works. It's just like those stuck like glue chords that I teach you. You know, with the double fingers on the bottom. This is a G chord.

But if I use the double finger G chord here with the pinky in the third, the stuck like glue chords, I get a brighter tone because I've got this note here that's also ringing. So whether you play a C chord, a C, add nine chord.

They'Re all C chords. They just have what we call different voicings because there's different notes that are ringing through. So that's a little bit of, of of music theory for you. Do you play a 12 string acoustic? I have played some. Pam? Yeah, I have one on the wall that I'm looking at. I don't play it very often. Acoustic. 12 strings are beautiful. They sound great because you got the octaves on these bottom strings. They're a pain in the butt to tune. I will tell you that they sound beautiful. I don't think they're that much harder to play in terms of strumming and chords where it becomes a little bit more difficult and you need some finessing is when you want to pick the strings because you got to pick two. It's the. Every string is in duplicate. So. Beautiful sound. They sound great. It's. If you think again, if I go back to Stairway to Heaven.

That part I believe is played with a 12 string acoustic guitar. So it's, it's very, very full. Great sound. They're. They're great guitars, but those are the cons. They're a pain in the butt to tune when they go out of tune because you have 12 strings instead of six. And imagine changing the strings and then they sound beautiful. But the picking sometimes can be a little bit more tricky. You have to finesse them a little bit more. So. So great question.

Dean. What gauge strings you prefer on the acoustic? Okay. Or my electric. Yeah, great question. Do I still. No, I put the, the strings away before I. I had some strings out here. My preference on strings for acoustics, I prefer 11s. I think it's a good balance. Mediums are too heavy for me. Even lights. So my. These are light. I think these are light. They're elevens. Or these are custom lights. Sorry, Very sorry. Custom lights. So they're even thinner than light strings. Medium. While you get a much better sound from medium, it's just too much for me. I prefer to use what's called phosphor bronze strings. 80, 20. Bronze is just a little bit too bright for me. I do prefer D' Addario Phosphor Bronze 11s. And then on my electric guitars, I use D' Addario Hybrid Strings. All right, it's a green or sorry, green. It's a yellow package. And I wish I have the strings here, but I don't. It's a yellow package and it has a mixture of strings. So I have light strings. I have what. What are called nines on the bottom, three strings and tens on the top. And the reason for that, the reason for this hybrid string is because it's much easier for me to bend strings into pitch on the electric guitar when they're lighter on the bottom. But the thicker the strings, the beefier the sound. So I like thicker strings on the top. Before, I used to buy two packs of strings and flip them, and now I can buy one pack of strings. They're called hybrid strings. Again, I use d'. Addario.

I forget the number. I think it's like the EX125 or something. But it's. It's a yellow circle is on the package. That's the one I use so much. Gracias. Hello from Mexico. What do you make about some being strictly pick and others strictly fingers for strumming? It's a personal preference. Just like, you know, which pick do you use? Do you use the. This pick? Do you use this pick? Do I use a wood pick? Do I use the thick pointy. You know, like, look at all these picks. I got the whole. There's probably like a hundred picks in here. Which one do you use? It's a personal preference. I always tell students I actually did a live in my community on this. Again, if you want to be part of my private community where I do stuff like this all the time. Laurenbatement.com backslash membership. I think I pinned it to the post here. That's open right now. The price is going up January 1st, so hop on now. Get a full year membership. And you know, we were talking about. Because I have a lot of students are like, I hate the pick because it's uncomfortable in the beginning. Do I have to use a pick? And I tell them, learn it both ways eventually. You know, I don't care if you use fingers or if you use a pick. It's your personal preference. But don't ignore the skill just because it's uncomfortable. Because all things are uncomfortable in the beginning with a pick, you know, Unless you're like a flamenco. Flamenco guitar players are really great. They also play on more nylon string guitars. But with a pick, I can get.

I can get a lot more dynamic and attack out of a pick than I can.

Than I can my fingers. I mean, I can still hit the guitar even if I got a pick. If I want to get percussive, I can just grab a pick here. There we go. I can still get percussive with a pick in my hand.

I can still hit the guitar whether I have a pick in my hand or not. Just know you're going to get better attack and better.

Definition on your notes. Whereas when you use fingers, you kind of get a warmer, mellower sound and. And it blends the notes. It's a little bit more of a balance sound with the thumb. So different tonal qualities as well. But really it is a personal preference thing for a lot of people.

12 strings players spend 50 of the time tuning in. 50%. That's funny. I like that. Thank you so much for that. Have you ever tried string Joy? String Joy sent me some. I still have them in the box. I'm not gonna lie. I. I'm not a big person that when I find something I like, it's really gonna impress me to change. String Joy did send me some strings. I'm sure they're a great company. I've just. I've never used them. I used to originally I used elixirs, but I kept breaking the strings. I just found. For whatever reason, I would just break those strings so easy, even when I would play live. So I switched over to d' Addario and. And they last for me. That was the reason why I changed away from elixirs is because I was breaking the strings way too easily. I'm a pretty aggressive player. I'm pretty aggressive with strumming. You can maybe even see on my guitar if I can get the light. There's pieces of wood missing. You can see maybe a little bit there where it's not as shiny. I'm missing wood from my pick. I'm digging wood out of my guitar. So I'm. I'm a pretty aggressive strummer. Very aggressive. I love rhythm playing.

But what was. We were talking about picks, and now I can't remember. I totally lost my train of thought. So sorry about that. But, you know, whether you use a pick or whether you use a thumb, it's just a personal preference thing. Okay, that. That's the biggest thing. And in terms of strings. Sorry, we were talking about strings. I switched over to Diodarios and I stopped breaking my strings as much. So that's why. That's why I switched. Just so if you want to know, it's nothing again against elixirs. I know elixirs come standard on a Taylor guitar. Deodora comes standard on Ibanez. Those are kind of like, you know, my mains. And then Crafter, I think d' Addario came standard on my Crafter, but I just. I just didn't like Elixir, so I switched away to d'. Addario. But I have tons of students who have tailors who have those GS minis. They love elixirs. Again, it's a personal preference. My favorite for acoustic guitar, D' Addario 11s phosphor bronze, purple packaging. So there you go. Check those out. Aside from your Travis picking videos, are there any songs in your library that focus on using that technique? Yeah. Dust in the Wind. I have a video on Dust in the Wind that does that there. What else? I. I think I have Country Roads, the Country Roads lesson. I think I use Travis picking on. What else? You could use it on Landslide. But my Landslide video doesn't show you that version. And that's actually a really great exercise. Oh, I'm like, where did my capo go? So if you have a song like Landslide, you could use that.

You could use Landslide on this. You could also use Travis picking on Blackbird if you wanted to.

You can use it on that too. It's not what they do exactly, but you can use it. It's very, very versatile picking pattern and. But I think Landslide is.

I think it's something like that. You know.

Something like that. Not.

So it's very different.

But that's a good exercise. Taking the pattern I teach in Landslide and going between that and Travis picking it will try that back and forth. It'll throw you for like a mind loop for a bit. But it's. It's a really versatile pattern. You could really use it on anything. But I do believe. I know I have Dust in the wind, which 100 uses it. And then I believe my Country Roads lesson use. I did the Travis picking on that as well. So Great question there. So fun to catch you lie. Thanks, Ken. Thank you so much for your super thanks too. I appreciate that. I appreciate you guys so much. You know, it's. It's the end of the year and I just have to give thanks and appreciation to, to everyone that's on here. I see we have like you know, 130 so people that are on live right now. And I just want to say thank you for being here. Thank you for supporting me. My channel, my new channel. I have a play along channel that we're working on creating play alongs to some of the popular songs and I'm getting those up on the new website as well. So definitely go over to the new website, laurenbatement.com forward/songs. There's a new button now that says play along. So I think we have seven songs that have play along videos that we're working on. Just trying to always improve and do things better based on. On your feedback. So thank you so much. Spain. I'm gonna be in Spain in May. I'm going to Spain in May. So nice to see you, Steve. Thanks for being here. Aside from Travis picking video, are there songs in your library? Oh, that. We already did that one. Thanks, Dan. Sorry, I'm just reading again. Anything else here? Hello from London. I'll also be in London in May. I'm going to London very quickly before I go to Spain. So there you go. Thank you all so much for being here. I hope you have a wonderful New Year's. When you have a goal, write it down, be accountable, find a support system, whether it's something like my guitar community and just have fun. Remember, this instrument is not easy, but have fun. It's definitely worth it. I'll see you all in the new year. Have a great day, everyone. Bye bye.