All along the watchtower - Verse 2

Today, my aim was to learn the second verse and the second chorus/lead solo - the verse isn't too bad in the sense that I'm already familiar and comfortable with the chord changes and shapes, but the strings are individually plucked for two beats then an upstrum on the third, then a one beat rest; this wasn't too hard, just took me a while to get used to and memorise - so I just practiced it slowly bit  by bit until I was confident and comfortable with playing it. I think I played this well n the end, my chord transitions are still smooth, and the plucking was smooth and consistent throughout, however I do need to work on my chord shapes because sometimes I get a muffles sound from the upstrum because I'm pushing down on the fret board hard enough. .

All Along the Watchtower - verse 1 and chorus

In today's practice, I was learning the first verse of the song. Throughout the verse and chorus, it is the same chords repeated (C#m, B, A), just sometimes played in a different way. At the verse, the chords are just simply strummed for one beat and a rest/mute for another, then after the A there is a hammer on to pull of which I pluck with my finger to get more of a harsh sounding staccato sound.
Then chorus is the same chords in the same time signature and positioning of chords and strums, but they are strummed twice for two beats, then an upstum/downstrum chuck/tassel is added on the offbeat after each chord.
I found the verse very easy straight away as it is just simply chord changes, all on the same route string (A string) so switching between chords was easy because I just had to slide down the fretboard with a couple minor finger position changes. However in the chorus, the addition of chucks/tassels took me a while to get used to because they are on the off beat so it threw me off a bit, and also made the chord changes quite hard because had to move my fingers completely to cover over all the strings.

Jesus of suburbia: Guitar - 'I. Jesus of suburbia and II. City of the damned' keeping correct tempo 23/09/16

In today's practice I learnt the first two 'sub songs' 'I. Jesus of suburbia' and 'II. City of the damned' and I learnt them both by using tabs with the music score and notation above the tab. Both are quite easy and not very challenging, as it is mainly just using different power chords. The only challenging part about both is the strumming pattern at some points, because when I read what the pattern is, it is different to how I thought it would be from just listening to the track - for example there are up strums where I thought they were down strums, and sometimes there are more strums in a bar than I thought. This threw me off a bit because it is obviously different to what I am used to. I practiced this by playing it slowly to get used to it, and I got faster and faster then eventually played along with the track. I eventually got the strumming pattern, and I now find it easy because I have practiced it a lot. One thing I do need to work on is switching between the bar chords - I have never really felt very comfortable doing bar chords, and in City of damned there is lots of switching between just normal 5 chords (power chords) and bar chords. I practiced this by getting familiar with the bar chord shape and working out the easiest way to switch to them from the power chords. Once I had done this, again I practiced it slowly and got faster and faster to get used to the switch, and I eventually got it however I still find it hard so I do need to keep practicing.