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.