When to progress...

Hi everyone

I've been doing Guitar fundamentals one for a week or so now and I’m on the lessons on simple chords.

I'm trying to work on the system of, practice in the evenings during the week and lessons at the weekend/

I can 100% get the chords and mostly do the chord changes depending on how quickly I need to do it. The only thing I'm still not 100% on is playing the songs along with Lisa and the band, I can keep time but it always involves a bit of technical sloppiness at certain points

What I wanted to ask is, at what point should you move onto a new lesson i.e. now that I know and can do the basic chords should I move on or do I need to wait until I can perfectly play them in time along with the band on the melodies?

I appreciate the initial simple chords lessons are pretty mundane material, so if you choose to move on to the next lessons in the early stages, then just remember to keep practising the previous lesson material in conjunction with it until you achieve a level of demonstrated competency expected of the 'play along with Lisa' melodies.

[br]As a general guide to Fundamentals One lessons.

IME&O you don't have to play them perfectly by lesson end at any single viewing, but my take is that you should be comfortable with playing the chords and making the chord changes at tempo along with the melody consistently [u]most of the time [/u]before you move on to a new lesson.

Occasional errors are OK. You'll work them out over time.

Why? Guitar is a doing thing/tactile skill, not just a knowing thing/mental knowledge. Because as you move on you'll be building upon what you learnt previously and using it in conjunction with new material. You only want to have to focus on the new material without being encumbered by not being able to perform to standard something the next lesson expects you can with a level of competency.

[br]The main thing. Enjoy the learning process.

[br]All the best with it.

I couldn't have said it any better than manXCat did. Great clear advice.

Have fun, both of you!

-Lisa

Hi Matthew

My input is from the perspective of 4 mos into it and is in step with what is previously said by manX & Lisa.

I am constantly moving forward and going backwards. What I mean by this is as I learn something new, I get it to about 75% and push ahead. That does 2 things for me: it keeps frustration at bay and keeps me excited in learning new material. So today provides a good illustration. I have been learning HW2H but last night decided I needed something new to keep my mind and engagement on point. So I started Wild Horses. At this morning's practice session the only song I worked on was WH. I am happy enough in my progress with the intro, chorus, verse that tomorrow I'll do some work on both songs and eventually I'll have HW2H down. And when I say down, I mean I can play the song without looking at a video or reading tabs and am able to keep time with the band. I don't put any pressure on myself to play a song as though I had years of experience and established muscle memory. However, the more time I have in the smoother things seem to get. I also bother my family by making them listen to a song without first telling them what it is. If they can identify the song then I figure I'm on the right track.

One other thing I do as I go through the various stages, I skip ahead to the play along and practice the section along with the band. This helps my timing and feel. So for example when I have the chords down for the intro, I skip ahead to play the intro with the band and so on.

1 last item: I keep good notes on what I need to work on, such as a very pesky Bm chord. It's painful. But I'll keep working at it until it sorts itself out. Similar to an F chord I suppose, I struggled with that as well but it's much better now. Luckily in the lesson plan, Mike foresaw this chord as a long study for some and provides a workaround so I can keep the song going.

GL