I badly needed this lesson! One of my (newly stated) goals is to have a repertoire of 25 songs I can play at gatherings. Pulling out all of my notes and papers, I found that I have worked on over 50 different songs in the past couple of years. While I can play & sing 11 of those songs all the way through, I have just ONE song that I am comfortable playing in front of friends and family. Going through this exercise prompted me to (finally) start putting together my songbook. Next step is that I’ll develop the other 10 songs I know into songs I can play in front of others. No doubt I can get to 25 songs, and using SMART goals will get me there much sooner than continuing to bounce around without goals to check my progress against. Thank you Justin.
Big goal: Start playing in bands
Long goal: become a great improviser for jam sessions, spontaneous solos. My preferred style being somewhere in blues, jazz and rock.
Mid term goals:
Guitar: Get G-scale open position/2nd position/5th position to at least 100 bpm 16th notes without looking.
Understand and apply vibrato and string bending.
Play barre chords to a good level
Ear training: Learn all intervals by ear with 90%+ succes rate
Learn to recognize notes by ear with 90%+ succes rate
Theory: Truly understand the ins and outs of chord structure, learn the theory behind motives and other improvisation theory
Short term goals:
Guitar: Practice G scale, practice finger control fretting hand, practice strumming the correct string consistently without looking, practice improvising over backing tracks/great songs.
Ear training: keep going over the intervals one by one
Theory: understand how to make 7 chords all over the neck
I want to become a Fingerstyle solo guitar player. I am doing some songs already but I’m finding it difficult to establish medium term goals. Having a suggested learning pathway would be very useful for me.
Denis I usually don’t recommend other teachers on Justin’s forum but seeing how Justin doesn’t have a beginner to advanced finger style course I’ll make an exception.
Chris has free lessons and paid courses from beginner to advanced
https://sixstringfingerpicking.com/songs/
I’ve completed the fingerstyle beginners course and currently working my way through the fingerstyle intermediate course albeit I’ve stopped at the moment to focus on BLIM. They kind of went hand in hand with Justin’s course as like most fingerstyle courses they expect you to already have good solid foundations.
Thanks. I’ve had a quick look and it seems very interesting.
My goal is to become a competent fingerstyle guitar player. I really enjoyed the lesson on playing Greensleaves. I want to get more guitar tabs to enable me to be able to play a large number of tunes using fingerstyle.
I’m only 12 in module 17 and my goals are that I can solo really good, have fast hands, have an understanding of music theory, have a good repitoire.
I would like to develop finger style and play Delta blues, as well as the rhythms associated with Hill Country blues.
Well first you will need to do is, Look for that jumper hanging on the line.
Man isn’t Hill Country Blues fantastic?
Welcome to Justinguitar Gimmer. Dont be a stranger.
It sure is. Kimbrough, the Burnsides…have such a great driving rhythm, it draws you in almost trance-like.
I am guessing you have seen and heard the Alan Lomax tapes and footage. Good stuff.
I have his recording of Fred McDowell, and read his book The Land Where The Blues Began. I collect music on both vinyl and CD, and have a lot of blues both early and late.
Just watched ‘Goals & Destinations’ video, and it made me think. 20 years ago I went on a BTEC Music course when I was 45 my main aim was to play guitar better but did not have any key goals or long term. Due to an injury I had to stop playing after 18 months, some year later I am retired and started playing guitar again as it and music has always been a key part of my life.
Having considered the ‘Goals’ question here are mine,
LT(long term - 3 years)
MT(medium term - 1 -2 years)
ST(Short Term - less than 1 year)
- Become a competent, confident and intuitive guitarist - LT
- Play in a small band for fun, performing Blues, Rock, & Jazz - MT
- Meet some other musicians to Jam with - ST
- Build a repertoire of songs that fits number 2 - ST (I have 8 or so I am working on already)
- Improve Blues playing, different styles, licks etc - Ongoing
- Be able to sing a few songs with confidence MT
- Face the challenge of public performance at local open Mic nights - ST
- Improve scales knowledge to help with improvisation - MT
- I really need to improve Strumming, Rhythm and Chord changes so I will focus on this. - ST
- Be able to play Steely Dan - Reelin’ In The Years well, I attempted this 20 years ago and it was a struggle to get through 30% of it and often badly. I love this classic - this is a LT, & I will not attempt it until my playing is better
I think that is enough for now but I am sure there or more, perhaps there should be more?
After having just watched the goals and destination video my thoughts are that I would like to play in a 3 or 4 piece blues band when I retire. I have been inspired by David and Teresa Prince and encourage everyone to check them out. I have 4 or 5 years before retirement so hopefully I can process and learn enough by then to get me going.
I´m having a hard time yet specifying my goals into medium and short term to be fair, so trying to see if someone can help me with that here:
So my general playstyle and motivation to play guitar would be to be able to play some Metal/Rock lead guitar style - often blues focussed (if I have to call a specific style I would love to be able to play like Zakk Wylde - with a little bit less country focus but more on the blues side of things)
also kind of Corey Taylor style (yea he´s a singer primarily but also a great guitarist also blues with some heavy riffs especially in his solo projects)
so nice solos, and blues improvisation, licks and riffs
Nonetheless I want to be versatile of course and be able to play multiple stuff, delve into fingerstyle and a bit of rythm guitar.
45 Seconds into the Video Justin talks about the guy who is me, I went wondering off for a few years getting distracted by shiny stuff and now i’m back wondering why i have not advanced… lol… I Guess having Goals is the answer.
@JGAdmin
Justin mentions making a few “Goal Maps” at time stamp 17:30 in the video, did that ever happen?
@caedezz Based on your interests, your medium term goal could be to join the Blues Immersion program after you have completed grade 3.
And you could learn some songs from Justin’s rock songbook as a short term goal. They offer a good challenge.
that does sound interesting, will have a look in that - thank you