last week on Facebook I got in reels add about these books âProgression Classicsâ and in the video the guy is showing that you dont need capo for playing for example G to C and he is playing those chords on different places on neck.
I would like to ask here if it has any value at all or its just summary of something that comes from theory and can be learned by myself?
Like I dont know much, but I guess there will be something with CAGED or some triads related⌠so can this book be really handy or it will be âuselessâ in later playing?
You absolutely do not need capo to play chords in different positions and it is absolutely helpful to learn how. I find the CAGED system is very helpful in playing different voicings which sounds better (circumstantially) especially if you are playing with multiple guitars, but also is helpful in getting familiar with the whole fret board. Though I donât think you need those books or that particular course work.
I know Justin addresses the CAGED system but I am not sure at what point in the course. The CAGED systems also goes hand in hand with learning scales in different positions. I.E. you can say playing Cmaj with an A shaped barre chord (which is a function of the CAGED system) is also playing that chord in the Cmaj scale in the second position.
It is all very helpful in adding color and flavor to your playing.
I donât know about this company, and they donât show whatâs inside the books. Personally, I prefer to learn the theory behind things before setting out to memorize. Understanding how thins work makes it easier to memorize. Itâs difficult to tell from their website, but it would appear these three books are the culmination of their methodology. I donât think youâll get a lot out of them. Learn the theory, and youâll probably be able to identify â10 Different Voicing Options for Every Progression in Every Single Keyâ yourself. But Iâm not sure youâll ever need to do that exercise!
@Carreta I donât have these books, but I am always curious about music theory etc., so I checked the website where you can get the books and watched one approx. 5 min long video, where they are marketing the books.
Seems, they are advertising these books as some kind of âshort cutâ for songwriting and are introducing nine chord progressions (three per book) all in all. Thatâs not much, to be honest. Overall, I get the impression that rather than having found a short cut to songwriting, they seem to have found a short cut to making money.
It surely depends on what you want to get from these books and how much of an investment these books are for you. If you think, you want to test these books, go for it
Still, I think learning and discovering music theory yourself and being able to apply it, is more fun and much more rewarding. Justinâs Practical Music Theory course is a brilliant resource for that, and I am sure there are very good reasons why CAGED shapes are introduced only in PMT grades 6 and 7.
Btw⌠If you are interested in different chord voicings, maybe apps like Oolimo could be helpful for you.
Iâve been getting ads for these books for quite a long time now. Kinda annoying, tbh, that I keep getting the same ads.
My take on the books is that they donât necessarily present anything new.
They seem to serve as more reference materials with the content organized specifically to show alternative voicings to chord progressions. Itâs not like you canât look up the information elsewhere. However thereâs some value to having a quick reference guide like that if you need a bit of help to find/recall them.
Iâm honestly not even at the point where Iâm stretching my chord vocabulary that far so they have very little value for me. I have a wall chart of different chord shapes thatâs more focused on open position stuff. Thatâs a bit more useful to me at this point.
Cant say Iâve heard of these books or this author.
However, from checking his website, he seems to be detailing all 12 keys for each progression, which to me says heâs simply repeating himself, padding the book out, and possibly doesnt have a whole lot to say.
Hard to confirm, but Iâve seen this âformulaâ in other books.
Plus, he doesnt really mention chord construction etc, which is kind of the whole point.
Plenty of great books/ courses out there on this stuff; some of it 100% free.
Justin provides some great modules on chord construction; a physical book though can help complement this. Check some reviews on similar books.
You are much better learning this stuff from the ground up in my opinion. You then progressively become your own teacher as your internalise the chord structures.
Thank you all for your time and your thoughts about that. I was thinking something similar⌠and trying to make any big shortcut in guitar journey would show itself soon or later as some negative.
I like to understand why I am doing something and this seems like result without process.
I am gonna think more about Justins Theory course, because I finished Grade 1 and it is really great.
yeah, itâs better to learn all the theory behind this. but simple reference material like this can still be helpful as a quick-lookup, especially while youâre learning it and canât yet just pull everything out of your brain.
the marketing behind them is the problem, imo. Because they arenât marketed quite in the way I describe. who gets rich off of reference materials? so the marketing makes it sound like they help you skip all the work. the problem with doing it that way is that if you keep taking all the shortcuts, itâs going to be obvious that you did.
Hi @Carreta Iâm clearly way behind you in what I know about music. But it seems to me that there are loads of books and videos out here claiming shortcuts to learning guitar and the music theory that goes with it. We get bombarded with it in You Tube with THE ONE TRICK THAT WILL OPEN THE FRETBOARD FOR YOU ⌠etc etc. I suspect that by following Justinâs course, you will get to learn, in the right order, what you need to know, when you need to know it. Iâm only at the end of Grade 2 of Justinâs course and going slow, but for sure, Iâve had a sneak peek at what is in the other grades. I also subscribed to the music theory course and am learning level 3 of that course at present. It seems to me that this is eventually going to be enough to be able to work the contents of those books out for yourself once you know all the theory. Working it out for yourself is more valuable than someone just telling you to memorise some patterns they show you. I know, Iâve been a teacher for over 30 years (biology, not music obviously ) and we try to teach students to work things out for themselves.
I think that what @JokuMuu and some of the others say is very wise and I agree.
I donât believe that there are shortcuts to learning all of this. Letâs face it, itâs a long journey and we should just enjoy ourselves on the way and perhaps not be looking for the shortcuts - it just means we are probably going to miss out something useful.
I try to ignore most of these adverts. They are just distractions. They are always telling us what we need, even if we donât need them. There was another discussion on the forum about âfinding the right guitar for youâ, or something like that. Several people mentioned that we are just getting bombarded with people trying to tell us what we need for our guitar journey, even though we donât need it.
I think we are all on a good track following Justinâs course and I like the music theory the way itâs presented by Justin too. If I had skipped through the course to what I thought I wanted to learn, I would have missed some very enjoyable parts of the course. For example, I have enjoyed the basic fingerstyle exercises and songs and find that it makes the guitar sound really beautiful. Since I originally took up guitar to play punk, I might have just skipped to the powerchords and missed basic fingerstyle.
@Prof_Thunder Thank you very much for your point of view. You are right that there are many distractions and many of them are offering âeasy waysâ, but if it is easy everyone is doing that⌠so why it is not like that, huh?
Getting addicted on videos like that and demotivate at same time is really easy and its feeding rut.
I wont buy that. I just wanted to know your opinion.
Yesterday I purchased Guitar PRO 8 and now I will try to use this tool to improve myself.
) and we try to teach students to work things out for themselves.