🎸 I Learnt to play Chateau by Djo on the Guitar | Skills Series #SK10
Learning a new song feels pretty good!
I spent 24 hours learning a new song that I quite like. I have recorded my progress for today and plan to compare it in a month’s time to see my progress. This was quite fun and it felt rejuvenating to learn a new song again. I also go over the process that I use to learn new songs.
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We here are keen on trying new hobbies to increase our repertoire of skills. Whether you’ve stumbled across this for the first time or are a regular, thanks for taking the time to look through what I have created. Read on to start your journey towards mastering skills that you are passionate about.
Today we are looking at how I learned to play Djo’s Chateau. Learning new songs was the reason why I started playing the guitar. It is satisfying to be able to play a song that you have on repeat. Many guitar masters can just pick up a song and play it with no problem,s but for me, this took a while.
Stick around till the end to find out how I learn new songs!
How I learnt the song
Luckily the song I picked was quite popular, and so there was a YouTube tutorial and chords on ultimate guitar. Therefore the first phase of my process, which is finding chords, was simplified and done in less than 10 minutes.
Then I started playing the chords and gauge how well I could transition between them. I then made a note of the chords that I found difficult to transition (you’ll see where I struggle by listening to my cover). Right off the bat, the transition between the second and third chords of the verse were giving me trouble. Therefore I started my metronome at 30 bpm and kept transitioning between both chords. At first, it was a struggle, I wasn’t able to do it at all. Therefore I removed a few complications and only transitioned one finger first, then practised transitioning two fingers and finally, after about 10 minutes, I managed to transition without any issues. Then I ran through the entire song and did the same for any other chords that were giving me a hard time.
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After I felt comfortable with the chords of the song, I played the whole song once based on my instinct without looking at any reference material. This is to understand how well you connect the song with its chords. It’s easy to play while looking at a screen with everything in it but more difficult when you have to do it yourself without any reference. When I did this for the first time, I made many mistakes. For many of the chords, I knew no idea how they progressed, but after doing this for a while, I managed to learn the chords by heart.
The next step was to learn the vocals. I like to do this by first humming along with the song to understand the feel or key of the song. After that comes the hard part of actually memorising the lyrics. I do this by reading the lyrics out loud once or twice with a monotonous voice. This helps build a story in my head. I like to visualise the song as sung by the artist in as much detail as possible. This way, I can learn the lyrics relatively quickly.
Finally, once I feel comfortable with both aspects, guitar and vocals, I slowly start combining them. Initially, I only hum the song while playing the chords. Then slowly, I try to learn them both at the same time. It’s not perfect the first time around, but I can slowly understand where I am lacking and focus on them in further practice sessions.
At the end of the day, I like to have fun with the song. I play it without a metronome, and I enjoying as much as I can. This embodies the spirit of why you started playing in the first place.
After 24 hours, I recorded the song. You can listen to it here:
Framework for learning a song
My framework for how to learn a song comes from Andy Guitar on Udemy. This is the process I have used for the past year whenever I learn a new song:
Part 1: Guitar
Step 1: Find the chords
Step 2: Practice transitioning between chords
Step 3: Progress from strumming once every bar to strumming with a pattern
Part 2: Singing
Step 1: Learn the lyrics
Step 2: Hum the song and learn the key of the song
Step 3: Sing the song to your satisfaction
Part 3: Cover
Step 1: Play the song on the guitar while humming the song
Step 2: Perfect both singing and playing the song on the guitar
Step 3: Do both at the same time
Playing songs helps us appreciate the song more as you start to understand the intricacies of playing a song.
I’d love to hear from you. Did you find my journey interesting? Am I missing something in my framework to learn a song? Do you love listening to Djo as well? I’d love to hear all about it in the comments below or tweet at me with your thoughts.
That’s all for this week. I hope you enjoyed reading my journey of learning a new song (SK10). It wasn’t perfect the first time around, as I haven’t been doing this regularly, but I hope to improve over time. Do leave a comment and subscribe if you want to be inspired to learn new skills on a week-ish basis.
Until next time,
Tony
Additional Resources
- Udemy: Complete Guitar Lessons
- YouTube: Djo Chateau Chords
- Guitar Tabs: Djo Chateau
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