Thank YOU, Cool Announcements & Q&A

Hey, everyone. Looks like we are live. I have my little chat box over here. We're still a few minutes early, but I just wanted to pop on and say hello. So put your stuff in the chat box. My camera's here, so I'll be talking to the camera when I'm obviously answering questions and stuff from you guys. But I see some people in here, you know, I forget who. I think it was just Rob was talking about, you know, being in his 70s and, and learning guitar. And it's funny cause a lot of my students are actually in their 60s and 70s. I have some students in their 80s. I actually had someone last week who told me he was 102 and was learning to play guitar late in life. So it just goes to show you, you're never too old to start playing guitar. And I always tell people, you know, just have fun with it. The whole point of guitar is to have fun, you know. I know. I guess I would consider myself a professional musician. But you don't have to become a professional musician to be good at guitar. So just keep going with it. It takes time. It's a process. We have Sacramento, California in the house, checking in from the great state of Texas. Awesome. Good morning. I see Jim Ower in here. Gary Hinton, Aaron Clark, nama from India. Juice is also from India, I believe. Thank you. Thank. Yeah. Or have fun. Just have fun. Exactly. Hey, Scott. Awesome. Netherlands. The Netherlands. We got people from. From all over India. The Netherlands. I got people in my course from like Cape Town, South Africa, Japan. Melbourne, Australia. We've got people from everywhere. Switzerland. Darcy, down in Florida, South Africa. See? Awesome. See, someone's here from South Africa, Michigan, Kenya. This is awesome. This is what gets me excited about being a teacher and doing stuff on YouTube is because I get to connect with all these people from all over the world. When I used to teach privately, I would just see people in the Boston area. But this has opened up a whole new world for me and it's been so amazing getting to know Jack Waters from Gary, Indiana. Destiny's in here. Those are some of my course people who are in the paid course. If you guys are interested in the course, it's lauren bateman.com course. You can go check that out. Or the quick link is Lauren Bateman, guitar. LaurenBatemanGuitar.com will take you to that page if you are interested. Because some of these people here, I recognize their names because I see them all the time. We interact in the private group. Lisa, welcome. Darrell's on here. Hi. Daryl. Judy, Manning, Richard, Clarkson. So great to have you guys. Oh, wow. Kaylee and Jen. Wow, you got. Thanks so much, guys for the support. Actually, I'm going to get into it now because we hit the 12 o' clock hour and for those of you who know me, I'm like, I'm a punctual person. So first off, I just want to say thank you guys so much for being here. Really appreciate it. Really appreciate the support. I shared this with the private group, but I hadn't shared it with you guys on YouTube yet. And some of you guys have been commenting that you noticed that I crossed the 100,000 subscriber mark, which is actually like a huge milestone on YouTube. So I just want to say thank you because this is because of you guys. You guys liking my videos, sharing on them, commenting. And I do. I know I still have 100,000 subscribers. I still try to comment on every single comment you guys leave on my channel. And I know a lot of creators don't do that. Some of those bigger guitar teachers, you know, they have comments that have never been commented on. But I just want to say this, this is because of you guys. I know I put in a lot of the work, but if you guys don't watch the content, you don't like it, you don't subscribe, I wouldn't have this. So. So thank you so much. I got this plaque the end of last month just before I left for my trip to Iceland. So thank you guys so much. This is, this is all you. So I felt I had to personally say thank you to you guys and we'll work our way to a million subscribers. That's. That's the next milestone. So we'll get another plaque.

Yes. Don't forget to hit the like button. Greg says. Exactly. Egypt in Calgary. Awesome. Wow. Maryland, you guys are awesome everywhere. So something I want, I saw a couple people who made some donations. I appreciate whenever you guys support, I want to make an announcement because I'm actually going to be changing the way I do some things on my channel, so. Cause I know you guys are constantly asking me, lauren, when you do a lesson, can you play a little bit of the song and sing along with it so that we get a feel for, you know, how the song is supposed to sound. So I started doing that again. Actually, some of you probably saw the REM video that I released. It was about 19 minutes long. And the last 90 seconds of that video, I did do a play along. I didn't really even sing. And the copyright owner pinged Me with copyright. And it's not a copyright strike. It doesn't mean that the video gets blocked. It just basically means all the work I put into making that video I don't get paid for. It all goes to the copyright owner, whether it's WarnerMedia or Sony Entertainment, whoever owns the copyright for the song. So what I'm going to be doing with my song lessons is when people hit me with copyright, I'm actually going to be removing the ads from the lessons, which means you can watch the lessons from beginning to end. There'll be ads in the beginning, in the end, because I think YouTube makes you have to do that. But I won't be putting ads in the middle of the videos, which means those videos, like that REM video that I, you know, I spent probably a few hours on because I got to make the chord chart, I got to record the video, we got to edit the video and do all the uploading and everything. So I'm probably not gonna make any money off that video. So I appreciate, you know, when you guys go to the website and you make support donations to the tip jar and stuff, I really appreciate that. I know a couple of you made some here. So I'm just gonna be promoting that more in the videos that, hey, if you guys, you know, got something out of the video, go over to the website and make a tip from the tip jar. Because YouTube's not gonna give me any money for making those videos. And I think, you know, WarnerMedia and Sony and them, I think they make off the copyrights. Just because I'm singing and playing along to someone's song, they own the copyright that's theirs. I have no disputes with, with copyright owners. I'm big on copyright. So they put REM, put the work in. Although REM's probably not getting any money. It's, it's, it's probably like AMG or something that's getting the money. But I just want to let you guys know, you know, a lot more of my song lessons are going to be ad free. That means I make less money on the YouTube ads, but I think it provides a better user experience for you guys. So I'm going to be doing that going forward. So anytime I see them giving me a copyright hit on a song lesson, I'm just going to pull the ads right out this way. You know, nobody's going to make any money if I can't make money off of it. They're not going to make money off of it either. It's going to be A better experience for you guys too. So I just wanted to share that with you. Can I please come to India? I've never been to. To India. Yeah. Jack supports me all the time. He's on Patreon. He's in my course. I really appreciate that, Jack. You're the best. Brian from Buffalo. Awesome. Yeah, Gee, A hundred thousand followers at 147. Not everyone buys the course, Michael. I wish. That'd be awesome. I, you know, that'd be fantastic. That's why I do YouTube, because there are people in, you know, India or even in the United States. I get a lot of people who are on, you know, fixed incomes and I tell them like, you know, that's why there's YouTube. There's stuff for free. I do a lot of stuff on here for you guys. So, you know, if you can't afford to make a donation, don't worry about it. I appreciate the support supporting me and hitting like and commenting and sharing the videos. That's payment enough. I really do appreciate it. But, you know, if you can't afford to and you do it, all the power to you making donation. I'm more than happy. I appreciate it. So I want to take some question from you guys. Okay. That's why I kind of popped on here too. I just wanted to say thank you for the plaque and let you know that I'm making those updates to the song lessons. But I also wanted to answer some questions. And I know people all the time. One of the biggest things I get asked and I'll start off with this, is strumming. People like Lauren, those up strums are killing me. I can't get the timing down. And the biggest thing for rhythm, I'm really big. And if you guys have seen my lessons or if you've been in the course.

You'Ll know I'm big on using a metronome. Now, metronome is just a click, a click track. I'll pull up my phone here and now. Let's see. I just want to make sure. Okay. Should have probably pulled this up ahead of time for you guys. I guess I wasn't prepared with my metronome, but. So metronome is just like a heartbeat. That's what I tell people. It's the beat. It's the heartbeat of the music. Okay, so this is. That's 90. I'm gonna slow it down a little bit. Let's go to 60. Okay, so this is 60 beats per minute. Now, each one of these clicks, that represents a quarter note. So 1 2, 3, 4. And we count to four. And this is the basis of rhythm for most songs. There are some songs that are in what we call waltz time. 3, 4. But a lot of songs are in 4, 4. So I tell students, when you're working on rhythm, really try to focus in on those quarter note patterns. Lock in with the rhythm before you even start strumming. And you listen to a song. And I wish I could play a song for you guys, but then they might block the whole video. Listen to a pattern. Can I get that? 1, 2, 3, 4. And the best thing to do when you're doing this is to listen to the drums. Usually, particularly in rock music, the. The drums have a very specific rhythm. The snare drum, a lot of the time hits on the second beat and the fourth beat. So lock in with that first. And once you do, then you can start building your strumming patterns from there. So if I just play an E minor chord, so I'm going to line up with my metronome. Okay. This is the foundation of rhythm. If you can't do this, then trying to make things more complicated is going to be difficult. All right, so that's the basics of rhythm. And then the up strums just fall in between the down strum. Okay, here's the up strums.

Now, a little secret that you guys might not know is that when you're just doing down strums, you're already doing an up strum. I don't know if you notice that you're not hitting the strings, but in order to do another downstrom, your hand has to come up. So you're already instinctively doing up strums. I just think when you have to hit the guitar, all of a sudden it throws out this little mental. Everyone gets a roadblock. So you're not alone if you feel like, you know, you're jumping around with, with your up strum. So let's check on. Over in the chat, is the YouTube Sambha accessible from the beginner course or is it separate? It is included in, in the Lifetime membership. But yes, you can shoot me an email info lauren bman.com if you're interested. And basically I, I have some, some tabs and stuff for some of the. The YouTube songs that I do that you guys can follow along to. Yep, it's actually Lauren Bateman guitar.com backslash Vault V A U L T if you want to check that out. Can you play me fingerstyle? Yeah. And finger picking. Okay, cool. I see people here from the UK as Well, so with finger picking, it's another skill that just takes time to develop. And usually what I do is I start people off with either a four, four pattern, four notes. So four picks. And usually with finger picking, the thumb controls the bass note. Now the bass note is the lowest sounding note, lowest pitch of a chord. So for a G chord, okay, the top string is the lowest pitch. For a C chord, the fifth string, this, this note is the lowest pitch. So if I were going to go G to C, and I always teach people, first finger owns the third string, second finger owns the second string, third finger owns the bottom string. And just go, 1, 2, 3, 4 with fingers, thumb, 1, 2, 3. Works for a lot of songs. And then you go to C.

So C, I'm playing the bass note is the fifth string. If I were going to go to a chord like D, my bass note would be the D string.

Sounds pretty good, right?

And that's just one note per beat. Now if I were going to put that to a metronome just so you guys can hear. Here it is on my metronome.

Hear it. So that's how we work on timing with picking in a metronome. The other very, very common way. Think of songs like Hallelujah, okay? You got that swing feel. Or even REM's Everybody Hurts, you know.

And I won't play the whole thing, so I don't get hit with copyrights. But again, the thumb is playing the lowest string and you're playing six notes. You're playing the bass note and then fingers 1, 2, 3, 2, 1.

So that's how that one sounds. If you do a search for Lauren Bateman finger picking on YouTube, I have a video that shows kind of like the two most common finger picking patterns you can use for songs. So go check that, that lesson out. Can you post more finger picking songs? Yes, I definitely can. Are you willing to have a meet and greet at your music school? You know, now that things are kind of opening up a bit more, I've been having people asked me about, hey, can we do some meetups? So. So we will see. Let me know if you're interested in that. Put a comment, let me know. It would probably be somewhere in New England area for me, but let me. I'm just gonna back up. Standard tuning is E. Put the capo on the. Yeah, third fret to get to G. Yeah. So I know I got my capo here. So these are. This is. I don't know if you guys can see that Kaiser Capo. I became one of Kaiser Capo's top 40 artists. And now they actually put my logo on the capo, which is pretty cool. I have an orange one too, but I have the white one on the guitar. So what he's saying. And capos are great for beginners because it's a great way for me as a guitar teacher and for you as a student to eliminate some bar chords. And I think the example I use in the course or even online, I think I did it once is Stand by me. You know, you got the chords A D, F sharp minor. Well, some people don't know how to play F sharp minor. So you can put a capo on. This would be my F sharp minor. See, my finger would be on the capo and instead you can play the chord G, C, D, E minor would be your F sharp minor. So that's why I tell people, you know, when I teach people those, those four simple chords, the E minor, the two fingered C chord, the D chord, the two finger G chord. By using a capo you can actually play thousands and thousands of songs. Even if you don't know how to play an A, D or E chord, you do need, we call that transposing in music. You do need to know how to transpose the music. But it can, it can be done.

Can you talk about getting good at bar chords? Yes, Gordon Lightfoot does use a capo and then I will talk about bar chords. Larry actually went and saw Gordon Lightfoot the other day and I just put a chord chart of Gordon's on. It was the wreck of Edmund Fitzgerald. I just put that on the website laurenbatement.com you guys can go check that out. Very, very simple song, simple chords. Now for bar chords, I usually recommend people first start off in the middle of the guitar. The F chord, probably one of the hardest because you're up by this nut and there's a lot of tension on the string so it's hard to press. So I recommend starting and just as a caveat, if you have an electric guitar, bar chords are always going to be easier to play on an electric guitar versus an acoustic. You will build your strength faster on an acoustic. But if you're having a hard time, start on an electric only because the strings are thinner and there's. It requires less pressure. But I tell people, you know, start around either the seventh or the fifth fret. The strings are much more flexible in the middle of the guitar. So if you start at the fifth fret, just practice the shape. So this is like an F bar chord. Shape. And I'm just putting it on the fifth, fifth fret, right?

And then go down to like a minor chord. This would be a D minor. That's your minor shape.

And just work changing between the two of them.

Now, I find a lot of students, usually where they have trouble muting is the bottom, like two strings. They're pretty good at getting the top four. But then we get down to the bottom two and you get this sound. It just means that you're not squeezing enough with this bottom part of the finger. And also when you're playing bar chords, do not play flat on the finger. Your finger is actually on a 45 degree angle. So I'm not playing here. I'm actually playing on this part of my finger. So it's flat. And then I roll it about 45 degrees. So I'm. I'm playing on the angle because. Sorry, but that's where the bone of your finger is. Remember, your finger is acting like a capo. So we have to use the heart. This is too soft and fleshy. It'll just sink in. And the other caveat is that over time you will develop a callus, the side of this finger. If you play bar chords enough, which will make your finger tougher. And it does make playing the bar chords easier over time. So those are a couple bar chord tips. First, start in the middle of the guitar.

And then work your way down the guitar. And the same thing on with the minor shapes.

Do it that way. So hopefully those are a couple of tips that help you guys out on that. Lots of people from India here. Where to get my acoustic guitar strap. Yes. So this acoustic guitar strap, this one here, I have the, the racetrack one on my, my Gretsch. These guitar straps are made by a good friend of mine who's here local, in Massachusetts. It's Carlino. C A R L I N O. Carlino Guitars. He's in Medford. He custom makes these. So they're handmade. It's super soft too. He gave me this and I was like, love this. I've had this. I've probably had this seven or eight years now. It's wonderful. It's held up. He makes guitar straps for like, Taylor Swift, Justin Timberlake. Think he's making guitar straps for Kiss now. He has really cool selection. So just look up Carlino Guitars, Medford, Massachusetts. Look him up. Give him a phone call, say, you know, Lauren Bateman said I could get a guitar strap from you. Have a conversation on my red electric. I've got the, the red Race the red Race Checker. So that. That's pretty cool. So, yeah, Carlino guitars meant for mass. If you want to. If you want to get a guitar strap like mine. I think I forget the name of this. What it's called. If it's called, like, the Aztec or something. But. But he can make one for you. Absolutely. Let's see. Internet is fuzzy, so I'm not. Okay, Destiny, Not a problem. I'll see you in the course.

Yeah. So do you place bar index for. Okay. Yeah. So in terms. Steve, in terms of the bar chords. Let's just go back there. One question. How to enroll in your online teaching class and Williams. Go to Lauren Bateman guitar dot com. Actually going to type it in the chat. And then I'll go back to bar chords. It's Lauren Bateman, guitar.com.

Yep. Lauren. Oh, I put a space. Hold on. Sorry, guys. Ah. All right, cool. All right. I don't know. It's doing that automatically. Laurenmaitmanguitar.com that's. That's how you go. Check out the course now for bar chords. What fingers am I placing first? Usually I'm doing the bar last. That's usually what I do. Even when I. When I'm moving around the guitar, if I'm playing something.

I usually leave these fingers down. The second, third, and fourth fingers. And then I move with the bar. Now, if I'm going from an open chord saying. Going from G to, like a B minor, instinctively, I move these two fingers first. The third and fourth fingers, they're buddies. Okay, Bend your pinky. Hold your hand up. Bend your pinky. You cannot bend your pinky without bending your third finger. They're friends. All right, that's that exercise. If you guys have seen my finger exercise, the up and downs, it's working on finger independence. These tendons. You cannot bend the pinky without the third finger. So if you're going from a G chord to a B minor, get those two fingers down first. They're the hardest to move. Just get them out of the way. G. And then my second finger goes. And then the bar goes last. Because I'm adjusting for the size of the frets as I move down the guitar. So if I'm here.

And I have to play a bar chord up here, well, these frets are much wider than the ones down here.

So. See, I just. I lifted up my first finger. I don't know if you guys saw that.

And I just slid the shape and then I put the bar chord back down. So, yes, there is an order. I wouldn't make the bar first. Do the bar at the end. That's probably helpful. Great question. All the way from South Africa. Great. Awesome. Awesome. Long Island, Alabama. Fantastic. You guys are awesome. I scroll back and see if there were some more questions here. LNB Music Cruise. That would be cool. I think Melissa Etheridge does it. Does a cool. Let's see. Gordon Lightfoot. All songs with chords can be played arpeggio style. They can. Yep. Is my lifetime course. Bobby Nash wants to know, is my lifetime course as good as having a teacher? I think that's. I think that's relative to the teacher. I have a lot of students in the course. Some of them are in the chat, so you guys can chime in on your experiences. If you find a very, very good teacher, someone who's really good at teaching, I think they can be as good as the course. The downside is there's not a lot of good teachers out there. I mean, there are, but just because. What I mean by that is just because someone can play guitar and play it well does not mean they know how to teach someone to play guitar. A lot of my students that I work with in the course online and even when I used to teach in person, you know, I'm from Boston, so there's a lot of teachers here who went to Berkeley. Like, you could. I could throw this capo and probably hit 20 teachers that teach guitar that went to Berkeley. The issue is that a lot of players at that level cannot break things down for a beginner or they have a hard time or they get frustrated with beginners that take a long time to learn things. I understand repetition. I could sit here and do a C and G chord change all day and not get bored with it. The student would probably get bored with it. I would not get bored with it. So I tend to have a lot of patience with my students to really break things down. It's not about me. And I think that's the downfall of a lot of teachers, even in person, is they make the lessons about them and what they want to do in the lessons versus what the student wants. Wants to learn and do in their lessons. And. And there's a balance. Like, obviously, I know there's certain things a student needs to know to progress on the guitar, and I will do my best as possible to. To teach it through them through. Through a medium that they enjoy, like someone like Gordon Lightfoot. So I put a Gordon Lightfoot song, you know, on the website. The goal is for you to reach your dream With a guitar. Not everyone wants to go to Berkeley. I've had students that I've taught that have matriculated and gone to Berkeley so I can teach at.

But I really specialize in teaching students at the beginner to late beginner, early intermediate level. Just getting into knowing their guitar and having fun on it. I don't expect you to be perfect. I just expect you to have fun and enjoy the instrument. That's. That's my biggest thing. How to be faster in melody. Yeah, truly one on one is better. If a good instructor online is open 247 in today's schedule. It is. They'll see me. I'll be in like, they're like, lauren, do you ever go to bed? I'll be like, I was just up late, guys. But I'm answering your questions. So. But yes. Let me just see here. How can I apply for the lifetime course? What is the cost? South Carolina. Yeah. So I do a really cool thing with my course. This is Sammy with my course. I do a very cool thing which is, hey, if you buy the beginner level program, because the lifetime membership it is 497 for the lifetime membership that gets you saved. Seven courses get you access to, you know, the YouTube vault. It also gets you access to some other stuff that lifetime members get access to. But you can always start with the beginner course, which is 147. Okay, that's Lauren Bateman, guitar dot com. If you decide you want to upgrade, I will credit your 147 down the road towards your lifetime membership. Okay, so if you buy the beginner program and it takes you a year to go through that or a year and a half or two years, however long it takes you, it's your journey, not mine. If you say two years down the road, Lauren, I bought your beginner course. I want to upgrade to lifetime. Can I do it? Absolutely. I'll give you a coupon for whatever you paid for the course. That's just how I do things. If you spend money with me, I'm not going to double charge you. You know, if you're going to, you need to work your way. And I do have payment plans too, so, you know, you can always email me inforrenbatement.com if you need a, you need a payment plan. So. Yeah, I don't have any teacher without you playing guitar all night. Yeah, there's a lot of people who, who don't have access to a good teacher. Like up the road. I know some people who live in rural parts of the United States. And. And they can't get access to a teacher to answer their questions. Or they did take lessons with the teacher, but they felt the teacher treated them like they were an idiot, or they felt like the teacher was speaking French because they used a lot of, like, the technical mumbo jumbo and the music theory stuff, which I'm not knocking on. Music theory. Music theory is very important. I just don't think it's a great way to start someone on their journey. If I start telling you, okay, so we're gonna play a de augmented chord. And then we're gonna, you know, flat the third and sharp, the five and add a nine, divide by two and take the square root. You're gonna be like, I have no clue what you're talking about. So that's what I try to do. I just try to talk to you guys, like, on your level. Okay, I understand that you don't know the terminology. So if I start talking using the terminology, you're going to think I'm speaking French until you learn that terminology. We learn it slowly. That's what we do. How many grades have you completed in guitar? Well, that's interesting. I've completed zero. I actually, this is part of my backstory, and I emphasize this. I'm honest with people. My degree is in archaeology and biology. I was a scientist by trade. I just really loved the guitar. So I'm much like you guys. I actually started learning guitar when I was 16. I started on piano. I hated it. My sister got me a guitar when I was 16 for a confirmation present. My mom told her not to spend the money, that I was going to waste it. So because I wasted the piano lessons, they didn't pay. You know, we didn't have a lot of money growing up, so we didn't. I didn't get guitar lessons, so I had a VHS tape. I don't even remember who the guy was at a VHS tape. He had, like, long blonde 80s metal hair. Learned my first chords. I used the Hal Leonard books and mostly taught myself for 10 years. I didn't start taking guitar lessons until I was 26 because I felt like I wanted to be much better at the guitar than I really was. So I understand the frustrations and the struggles of, like, playing guitar for a really long time and feeling like I feel like I should be way better at this than I. Than I am. So when I was 26 years old, I decided to take some guitar lessons with which. With people who could actually play the guitar. Learned a lot about rhythm, finger picking I had never done finger picking before, so I learned a lot of technical skills. I learned some of the music theory. So I wouldn't be able to tell you what grade I am at. I know overseas they have grades, and I honestly couldn't answer that question for you. I just really love the guitar and I learned a guitar out of my need to want to create and write my own song. So that's my guitar story for you guys. Spain. Wow. Do I have a more depth course on power chords? Yeah, I actually have a power and bar chord course. It's part of my stage two items again. Laurenbatementguitar.com backslash stage two has all my. My finger picking course, my lead guitar course, lead guitar 101 power and bar chords. It has the expressive rhythm course, which I think is amazing. I think that's my favorite course, is the strumming course, is my expressive rhythm course. And there's a music theory course. So it's basically five courses all built into one. It's kind of like the next step after. After the beginner course. Yep. So I definitely do have that stuff in there. And I also go over, you know, not just. Not just bar chords. I go over, like, how to play seven chords, you know, your sus chords, you know, all other kinds of stuff. That was a horrible sus chord. But see, I'm not perfect. And I love that I show you guys that I'm not perfect. If any of you have gone through and seen videos, you'll see I, like, hit myself in the face with pics. We did a song circle session. That's where you guys play live songs with me. And I actually dropped the pick in the middle of the session. Everyone was like, oh, my God, you dropped your pick. And I was like, yes, guys, 20 years later, I still drop my pick. It's going to happen. You're welcome. Thank you so much, Jan, for. For the positive comments. See you in the group. Lauren, dinner time. Nancy, so nice to see you. Thank you for being here. Teaching others makes you better as well. It does, Dean. When I first started teaching, I actually felt like I wasn't qualified to teach guitar just because I didn't have a degree in music. I was like, all right, who's going to want to take guitar lessons? For me, I don't even have a degree in music. But when I started teaching people, because I personally, I did not have a repertoire, I was writing my own songs. I wasn't learning other people's songs. So when I started teaching guitar, I actually had to Teach myself a lot of songs that these students wanted to learn. And that 100% made me a better teacher, like a million times better. So I'm very grateful for that. I'm grateful that I got over the fear and was like, you know what? I just want to help people. And even though I wasn't, you know, I'm not an Eddie Van Halen, you know, I'm not Slash, but I knew I could help people, you know, play the guitar. So that's what, that's what I did. And that's what I decided to do. That's why I quit my job as a scientist to become a musician and enjoy life and enjoy music. So. So let's see. Yeah, definitely get the direction on the basis. Can you give us interlocking lessons? I'm not sure what you mean by interlocking lessons. You might need to define that more. Good morning from Argentina. Do you plan to make a playthrough lesson for Losing My Religion? I did do a little bit at the end. 90 seconds. I do try and do some playthrough songs. I know I have a hey Jealousy one that's going to be coming out. I don't do those ones too, too often, only because a lot of people don't watch those like some of the other videos. And YouTube doesn't like when your subscribers don't watch your videos. So I try and do them here and there because I know they're important. But you might not have been here in the beginning. I am going to start doing more playthroughs or at least playing through parts of songs in the lessons this way. I know you guys have been asked, everyone asked that. Lauren, why aren't you singing in the lesson? Can you please sing and play? And I will start doing that again, I promise. I recorded bunch of videos and I think I performed the song for most of them. We have Nirvana. I have Nirvana's. Come as you are coming out this weekend on. On Saturday. So I do a playthrough where I play through the lick. I play through, you know, the strumming for the verse. I play through the lick again and the strumming for the chorus. So I'm gonna be putting more of that stuff in there for you guys because I know you want it. I know you want it. And I'm so tired of worrying about the copyright thing. Let me make sure my computer's plugged in. My battery says it's dying. Chibi. Oh, I might have to go plug my computer in real quick. I think I unplugged the wrong thing. Hold on.

All right. I turned my back light off. That's fine. We don't need the backlight, but I do need the power on the. On the computer. So. Thank you so much, guys. 197 people on here. 110. 10 likes. Thank you so much. I really appreciate your support. What is my favorite song on the guitar? One of my favorites. I mean, there's lots of favorite songs, but the. The song that I wanted to play on the guitar when I was growing up was a song by Melissa Etheridge called, like, the Way I Do. And she. It's all bar chords, but she does like this, really. I think it's in D min.

So it's something like that. It's a really cool. And, you know, when I was. When I was growing up and I started playing guitar, I was like, wow, that's so cool. And I had no clue, like, how to do that. I'm like. I tried playing the song and I was like, I'm totally lost. I'm over my head. Like, I'm never, ever going to be able to play this song. So that was the song that really made me want to. Want to play the guitar. I. I think the first song I actually did learn on the guitar was Come as yous Are by Nirvana. It was that and I think some other. Like Blink182. I learned a lot of, like, licks. You know how you do that? Like, you learn, like, a lot of parts of songs, but you never learn a full song. So I did a lot of that, you know, like Metallica's Enter Sandman. So I knew a lot of, like, licks, but I. I wasn't able to play a song from the beginning to end. I'm sure some of you guys can. Can relate to that. So I just started writing my own songs because I was like, I'm never gonna be able to learn these people's songs. I'll just write my own songs. And I was so wrong, because when you learn other people's songs, they sometimes do things that you would never think of doing. And it really made me a better songwriter. It made me a better rhythm player, and it just made me a better musician overall. So sometimes, you know, when you're learning a song and you may not like the song, but sometimes there's a skill in that that can be learned. It's why I like so many different genres of music and because people will be like, you know, you. Like. I was in college, and my. You know, my. I was an ra and they would say, you're the only person I know who can listen to like Karen Carpenter followed by Boys to Men followed by Metallica. And I'm like well, I like it all. I like it all. So. So that's great, Zane. How look it, Zane. There's the orange capos. Whenever I use the orange capo I have a white one too. Now Zane, he always comments on my capos. So. So see I do read your comments. I do read your comments. I do try to respond to them all. Isabel says I'm 65 years old and would like to learn guitar. What is the best way to learn from you? How do I find out about the lessons? Yes, the lessons. Lauren Bateman guitar.com www.laurenbatementguitar.com Go there. That that will take you to the main beginner course page. My song is blackbird. I love blackbird.

I haven't done that one. I have the chord chart written out and I know someone else asked if I could do picking song. So maybe the next finger picking lesson I will do will be blackbird. I'll put that on my to do list. It's a great song. That would be a very long video lesson. There is a lot of technical stuff and. And they don't repeat a lot of things. I mean they do but they don't. There's always little intricacies with the Beatles. They never. There's always something that's different but that's why you know my George Harrison guitar. So I love the Beatles. They're great. Yeah, blackbird would be okay. So it sounds. Stop teasing you with those K pops. Those.

Yeah, Blackbird would be great. I'm gonna put that on my to do list. I'm actually gonna write it right down right here on my blackbird. I know. I have the chord chart worked out. I haven't published it on the website yet but I will, I promise you guys I will work on blackbird. Richard. Love you too. Thank you so, so much.

How exciting. Counting to four. Yes, counting to four is the basis of all rhythms. My accent is coming out today. Wicked. You know it's funny because when I get excited so I'm from Boston so I packed my car and have a yard. I'm Italian. I grew up, you know, just, just north of the city. I only grew up like five miles out of the city so I do have a very severe Boston accent. But you know, I was a voice teacher and when I went to school I went to school at Boston University in Boston and everyone Would make fun of me for my accent. Like, hey, guys, where's the party? Where we going? I mean, that's pretty much how my parents talk. It's funny, but my wife will always say, whenever I'm on the phone, she'll be like, I know when you're talking to someone in your family because all of a sudden, you sound like the Sopranos. I really get that, you know? Hey, Ma, what are you doing? Okay. Yeah, I got a guy over here. Well, I'll call Tony. Tony will take care of it. Don't worry, Ma. I get it. And that's literally how I used to talk growing up. But becoming a singer and a voice teacher, I became much more aware of my voice. But the hardest thing for me. See, I can put Rs in. The hardest thing for me is idear. I can. Words that end in a. I cannot. I have to put an R on it. I don't know why. Like banana. I can't say banana. It's banana. So. Yes. I'm from Boston, so love it or leave it, guys.

Oh, Art, thank you so much. It is. It is. It is surreal to see me live. I'm going to try and do these a little bit more just to touch base with you guys. You know, I do it a lot in the paid course. We do two live zooms every month. So the course, people get to see me a lot. And I do pop in stuff in the Facebook group. But, you know, I would love to pop in here every once in a while. I think it's great to say hello and actually interact with you guys in real time. They make fun of me for having a New Orleans accent. Isn't it New Orleans? New Orleans is the way to say it. Old guy from Texas. Love relearning guitar from you. Oh, thank you. So can I play the river flows in you? That's a great song. I actually tried learning that on the piano. I can play it on the piano. Like the easy version. I've never attempted playing it on the guitar. I think that would just. Because there's a lot of trills in that. Which. Which are very easy to play on a piano. A little bit harder to play on a guitar. I'd have to see if I could find. That's an interesting. That might be a challenge song for me, but. But yes, I played it on the piano, but I. I'm not very good. I. I'd have to practice that one on guitar. Definitely. First time with you. Awesome. Nolan's chord changing exercises. You recommend. So Aaron chord Changing exercises I recommend just change the chord back and forth. Pick your hardest one everyone always seems to like. If I find a lot of people struggle with C to G, those tend to be hard chord changes or anything with the C to D, G to D, those tend to be the hard ones in the beginning. And what I recommend people do, and I do this in my course, I have videos. That's me just going back and forth between two chords for like a minute, two minutes. And you get to practice along with me, is just to sit there. So if your challenge is going from C to G.

Back and forth, you can do this while you're watching tv. Okay? It's all about getting the muscle memory. Bruce Lee said, I'm not scared of the man that knows 10,000 kicks, but the man who's practiced one kick 10,000 times. So it's the same, it's just muscle memory. And the more you do this.

The more your fingers start relaxing. And you can start doing this with your eyes closed. When you get to that point, your fingers will start speeding up. The other thing, what I teach in the course, so I know a lot of people and I know a lot of guitar teachers are against this, is they start everyone off with the three fingered chords and if you have great flexibility, great, stick with them. But if you find you're having a big challenge with those three fingered chords, I recommend just taking one step back, doing the two finger chords, alright? E minor to G, getting that finger dexterity moving. I think that's the biggest problem for a lot of students, particularly older students, is it's really hard in the beginning to move three fingers. It's hard to move just two fingers. But moving three is even harder. Moving four is even harder than that. So you can try those. The other one, if you look up a video, it's called Stuck Like Glue chords. They're my Stuck Like Glue chords. It's a cgd.

It's basically the time of your life chords. But funny enough, there's a song called Stuck Like Glue. I forget who does it. I can't remember the name of the band, but those are the chords they use in Stuck Like Glue. They're very big. They're kind of like cowboy country. You see a lot in country and singer songwriter music. Those tend to be very easy because the bottom two fingers are locked. You just have to move the top two fingers. Okay. So for a lot of people that can be a good option in the beginning. So check those out. The Stuck like blue chords put Search Lauren Bateman Stuck like glue. And you'll, you'll find those F to C is difficult. It is. And. But the good thing is there is a pivot point. I don't know if you know. So I love pivot points. I like trying to find places where you can leave fingers down. So on the F chord, this third finger is already in place for C, it's a pivot point. Look at that. I never have to move the third finger. So try that just. And again, back and forth. F to C. You can practice it. I know it's not going to sound the best there, but practice it in the middle of the guitar and then move it back to the open strings here.

But you've got that pivot point, so pay attention to that. Use. If you have a pivot point point, use it. I know a lot of people ask me, Lauren, why do you play your E minor chord with your first and second fingers? I don't know. I was self taught. That's just what I did. I also use my second and third fingers sometimes. So that, that Gordon Lightfoot song, it's a substitute to an E minor. So I just use the second and third fingers. But going from E minor to C, there's a pivot point. Look at that. That finger doesn't move.

Seed E minor to G pivot point. This finger stays there. You have to slide them in the frets. But. So I love using pivot points. That's what, that's what I do. So are. You're clever. Thank you. I try to be. I don't know if I feel clever, but I, I just try to find things that works. And, and you know, I, I taught in person for a decade, so I did, I did a lot of experimenting, unfortunately on my students. I feel bad for the students who had me like my first year or two of guitar teaching because I really was experimenting. I was using other methods and I was seeing what worked and what didn't. And I found when I introduced the pivot method that it just made a lot more sense for students. Now I know there's a lot of people out there who have, you know, students ask me all the time. I've got really fat like sausage fingers. Whatever finger pattern works for you. If the second and third finger is more comfortable, do it especially for this A chord where you're, where you're fitting three fingers. You might have to do a bar chord. If you've got really fat fingers or some people, your fingers are so big you can play an A chord with just two fingers. So if you're one of those people who really does have sausage fingers, really big fingers, you may want to get a slightly wider neck guitar, but you may need to use some variations, and that's okay. Find what works best for you. You know, people are like, oh, I learned my G chord with the pinky on the bottom. Cool. If that's fine for you. Do it. I don't like it. It feels awkward to me. But, you know, there's flexibility in the guitar. My guitar teacher told me guitarists are lazy, so do whatever's the easiest way for you. So that's the bottom line. You know, I get to watch for 10 minutes, the back door. How long are you gonna be live? Probably for another, like five minutes or so. So stick on for work. Yeah. Two inch nut spacing. Yeah. There's a great guitar company called Zagger Zagar Guitars. A lot of my students have liked them. They're a little bit expensive because I think they're kind of like a custom guitar. But I've had a lot of students who really love them. And they're specifically designed to be easier to play. I think they're acoustic guitars. I haven't bought one. I really should because I have so many students who. Who play them and like them, so. So check those out. They're definitely guitars that have, you know, a wider fretboard. You can even get extra large nuts. Sorry, frets. So these. These fret inlays here, you can get them in different sizes. So guitars are highly customizable. They're like cars. Like. Like my Camaro. I love. I love Camaros. That's my big thing. Please do a tutorial on Jamaica farewell song. I don't know if I know that one. I'll have to look it up. Do you have any good pinky exercises, Craig? Yes, Pinky exercise. So the best thing to do for Pinky is. It's almost like a spider Exercise 5. Just do the pinky and the third finger up and down.

So I'm on the. You can do fifth fret, seventh fret, whichever is easier. Let's do seven and eight, because that's usually where my spider exercise ends up. And you're just gonna go third finger pinky on the top string. Third finger pinky. So it's five or seven, eight, seven, eight. Seven, eight, seven, eight, seven, eight, seventh, eight, seven, eight, 7, eight, seven, eight, Seven. Okay. And when I first learned this, it was horrible. You can do all fingers. You can do 1, 4.

2, 4.

And then three, four. Okay. So just work that pinky and remember to breathe. A lot of people when they're working on these exercises, they go.

They get down to the bottom and they're like, so make sure you're breathing because if you're not breathing it builds tension and it will cause you to cramp up more instead of relaxing. So. Oh. Canada by Cyprus A song. Okay, cool. Close to Lafayette. Are you nearby? I'm in Boston. I'm in Boston, Massachusetts. That's, that's where I live. We all been emailing. Oh yeah, we've been emailing Kaiser, Janet. That's what we've been doing.

I've been trying to tell them like Kaiser just, just put a page on your website that I can send my students to. I told them, I was like, I probably sell 100 plus capos instantly for you. Gu. I'm working on it. I'm trying. They gave me a few free samples that I gave to a couple long term students. I think Jack Waters actually has one of my capos. He just got it, I think yesterday. He has the orange one. They gave me a couple, couple samples but you know, I think they wanted me to order them and then ship them out. And you know, if 200 or 300 people order guitar capos, I just don't have the time to individually mail them. So I'm working with the company, with Kaiser to try and see if we can, we can work out a deal where you guys go to their website, you order the capos from them directly and, and, and work it out. So power cord exercise. How do I play the guitar in the shower? Vedic warrior. You're, you're my 102 year old. He told me he was 102. Please confirm that because you would then officially be my, my oldest student. Power cord exercises. David. Yeah. So there's there's a three different ways to play power chords. There's the two string version, the three string version and the three string version with the bar, whichever shape is more comfortable for you. For this I'm just going to use. So if you know what a power chord is, you'll know first finger, third finger and hopefully you know the shape. Okay. So what I would do first is work on one string, sliding between, use the dots, slide between your dots. So third fret, fifth fret, seventh fret, ninth fret and then go backwards.

And just do an eighth note pattern because most rock songs use eighth notes. Strumming patterns.

And notice my first finger. I'm lifting my first finger to adjust for the spacing.

Once you do that, great. You've practiced horizontally. Now I want you to practice.

Horizontally. Now I want you to practice vertically. So you're going to jump between strings, move down.

Okay, so now you're practicing moving up and down and getting used to that. Then you go.

Now diagonal.

And maybe I will need to to make a video lesson on that. I do have that exercise. It's in the power and bar chord course in the stage two items. But that's a great way to practice power chords. The biggest thing with power chords is, particularly if you're on an electric guitar and you're playing with a lot of distortion, is making sure that you mute these bottom strings with your finger so you can hear. I also kind of muting it with the first string. So an electric guitar versus acoustic, we have to worry about what strings were muting, what strings were not muting. So that's very. That's very important too. So great, great question. My praying really is happening since I went with you teaching me. Well, I'm very happy, you know, to help you. And, you know, my goal is if I can get you started and you see some success and then you go decide you want to learn from someone in person. I actually had a friend of mine who's in the UK and he said I had a student come in and they had been learning from you online. And I was like, that's awesome. Tell them I said hello and that they're in good hands. So. So that's fantastic. You know, my goal is if I can get you started. If you gave up on guitar a long time ago because someone told you you weren't good enough, you weren't talented enough, you felt like you were too old, or they made you feel stupid. I actually had a guitar student who told me went to a guitar teacher and they told me that I should stop playing guitar and I should pick up the harmonica. That's horrible. And I'm so sorry if you've had that experience. There are guitar. Guitar teachers out there that, that just have that mentality. They expect all their students to pick it up instantly. They expect everyone to be, you know, this prodigy. And the bottom line is not everyone is. It took me time to learn the guitar. I am not a guitar prodigy. I am the only person in my family that plays music. The only person who plays an instrument in my family actually did learn that. My dad. My dad played banjo. I think in high school he took a banjo class. But other than that, no one else in my family plays a musical instrument. So I don't have like the Music instrument, Gene. I had to work hard to learn this instrument. And I understand the frustrations, and I understand that it takes patience. Anything worth doing in life takes time, it takes effort, and it takes patience, because you're not going to get good on this thing overnight. All right? It's a lifelong process. I'm still learning 20 years later, I'm still learning things on the guitar, still finding ways to challenge myself. And that's the great thing about music, is that there's always something. There's always that next step if you want to go there. If you just want to play Kumbaya around the campfire, awesome. I'm never going to force you to go any further than you want to. I might encourage you to, but for some people, that's all they want, and I am perfectly happy with that. You don't have to go be a professional musician if you want to. I fully support you in that. But if you don't, you're not gonna break my heart. It's not a problem. So awesome. Awesome. Learning so much from my channel. Edward. Thank you so much. Hi. You were on my recommendations. Awesome. I love being recommended. What, no magic pill to be great? No, there's no magic pill to be great. What are the daily must do practice? Cool. This will be the last question I' answered. I think that's a great question to end on. What are the daily must do practice for beginners? So the biggest thing I tell students to do, especially beginners, I focus on the three fundamentals of guitar, which I think are rhythm, strumming, chords, actually learning and changing between chords, and finger dexterity. So that would be finger exercises to work on, getting your fingers to be faster. Okay, so. Or picking exercises. Okay. Those are the biggest things that are going to get you the most results the soonest. That's why I don't focus on music theory in the beginning, because what's the point of learning music theory if you don't even know what a C chord or a G chord is, and you can't change between them? So what I recommend for students, usually the biggest issues is just getting the fingers moving, getting the chord changes fast enough. So I tell students, if you can make a regiment of 15 minutes, that's five minutes doing chord changes back and forth between two chords. Okay. Or practicing chord progressions, going like G, you know, E minor, C, D. Practicing chord progressions. That would be chord practice. Do that for five minutes. The other is five minutes of a finger exercise. That could be your spider exercise. Okay. I do have a Finger Dexterity playlist.

If you search Lauren Bateman Finger Dexterity, it should come up. So I recommend five minutes of that because that's gonna help you start stretching your fingers. A lot of people with this C chord, they're like, I can't get the C chord to ring. It's probably because your fingers aren't stretched out or relaxed enough yet. Happens to everyone. So that will be five minutes of that and then the last five minutes. What did I say? Strumming. Working on rhythm and strumming patterns. Now, if you do that, say two or three days in a row, great. Take the next day and work on a song. Try applying it to a song. Because that's the ultimate goal with anything we learn on guitar is that eventually we want to take those skills and we want to apply it to a song. And I want you guys to understand in the beginning, in the beginning, a lot of people ask me, like, it just doesn't sound like the song. Listen, when you're doing this.

Four strums per chord, it may sound like the song. If it's a really intricate song, it's probably. It's not going to sound like dust in the wind if that's what you're doing. But I want you to accept that that's the level you can do right now. That's why it's the seven level guitar system, okay? Because it's just like learning karate, okay? If you are a white belt, you can't do the black belt stuff yet. You haven't learned the foundational items that you need to to play that at that level. So I teach you level one, and then level two, we build on that. Level three, we build on that. Level four. So that's the foundation is I teach you the skills and then the goal is to go apply it to a song because doing C to G is great. Doing a quarter note strumming pattern is awesome. But if you can play Brown Eyed Girl.

Then that makes you feel amazing, okay? And even if it's just four strums.

That'S it. Okay? If that's all you did, then that's awesome. Okay? And. And another thing, people are like, I can't sing and play at the same time. Don't focus on singing out of the gate. You have to be able to like, walk around the room and strum without tripping your own feet before you can sing and play at the same time. So maybe we'll do that another live. So. So thank you so much, everyone, you know, for showing up for all the people. Jack and I know someone else who, who, who made some donations and, and supported the chat here. Really appreciate it. I have a Nirvana song that's going to be coming out on Saturday, Come as yous Are. We'll be doing the lick, but not only that, we'll be doing the chords. It's a great electric guitar song. It's great for acoustic as well. So I'll see you guys in that lesson. Thank you so much for being here. Don't forget to hit the thumbs up. Leave me a. Like I'm going to be ending this stream. So thank you so much for being here. Alicia, Graham, Zane, Jack, Arian, thank you guys so much. Daryl, I'll see you in the private lesson group. Thank you, everyone. You're amazing. Love you all. Have a wonderful week. Bye Bye, everyone.