In response to Justin’s Tip 2: You Can’t Learn Everything, I have a (run-on) question:
Is taking JustinGuitar lessons and practicing acoustic and electric guitar almost every day for one to two hours since mid-December, 2022 on target to complete Grade 3 by the end of this December, learning and practicing bass guitar including online lessons almost every day for one to two hours for the last two years, doing online singing lessons for 1/2 hour a day for the last couple of months (thank you Justin for your “Master Song Practice & Learn to Sing” lesson), researching a potential home recording studio (thank you Justin for your “Record Yourself & Production Basics” lesson!) for the last few months (which I won’t implement in the near future), and organizing my guitar journey in an online visual workspace app (Walling) since the beginning of the year excessive? Am I spreading myself too thin? Oh, and I forgot to mention, I recently started doing some ear training using an app, Functional Ear Trainer (excellent) that I typically spend about 20 minutes a day on. Gotta love being retired and having an understanding wife!
I started fooling around with guitar in the 60’s. I took some lessons and learned to read music. Reading and playing were very different. I learned basic chords and could play a few songs. It was fun, but life got in the way and the guitar sat in its case for too many years. After I retired, I guess the bug came back. I dug the guitar out and started fooling around. I found this website and it is great. It really inspired me to work at it again. Unfortunately, the many years sitting in the case did not do good things to my guitar. The action had gotten almost impossible to play. Fortunately, I found a great luthier nearby and he was able to resurrect my guitar. He got it back to the way it was when I bought it. I have learned a tremendous amount from Justin’s website. I grew up through the folk/rock era and I still love that music. I like classical too. I really like the idea of this lesson - decide on what you like and work with it. I didn’t think I would ever be able to finger pick songs, but now I can. Some even sound pretty good. I realize now that my goal is to make myself happy when I’m playing and that is what’s happening. Thanks Justin.
What a great update, Edward @uncleah. Thank you for sharing your progress! I can only imagine the comfort you must have felt when the luthier returned your guitar after doing his magic.
Justin, this is why I’ve stuck with you for years – this is what I needed to hear and it resonates because it’s clear that you’ve lived it. Love the passion and the recommendations/advice you provide. I’ve finally earned enough throughout my career to start paying for several of your products and – compared to other online “advice” or courses I’ve selected, I felt good about paying…as opposed to feeling obligated. Clearly, that’s due to the genuine relationship you’ve built with your learners over time. Anyway, hope that makes sense. Keep up the great work and thanks for the kick in the ass once in a while!
This lesson seems eminently sensible to me. The main reason for this, I think, is that my aims have been evolving as I’ve worked through the beginner grades and I am no longer interested in doing everything in the course. I now feel free to pick and choose.
I started nine months ago and at that time I got a lot of value from simple things like Justin’s suggestion for how to finger an open A chord.
Now, I want to play songs well, and not just any old songs. If all I can do at first is play block chords on the first beat of the bar, so be it. Later I can throw in bar chords if I need to, get that under my belt and then refine the rhythm, perhaps adding in single-note riffs as I progress, and finally adding solos too. I’ve even been picking up the bass lines and sometimes switching to them. There are many rungs between playing a basic accompaniment to a song, and carrying the whole song on one instrument. Climbing that ladder is my goal.
For me, this is a great way to learn, and these days I don’t care about much else, to be honest. Consequently, my attitude to some material in the course is that I feel free to ignore it:
- Finger-style is for hippies!
- Transcription is for masochists!
So, I’ll be pressing on through to the end of grade 3, and beyond, but not unduly stressing if I don’t satisfactorily complete 100% of every module.