Started playing guitar as a retirement project. Six months in and love the lessons. Tend to gravitate to different styles (country-rock (eagles, pure prairie league), rockabillly (brian seltzer, chet atkins), folk (dylan, prine) and older rock and country classics (van morrison, rod stewart, brooks and dunn etc)
Short term goals 3-6 months
1: Be fast and accurate with chord changes so that I can keep up with song tempos
2. Be more fluid with finger picking
3. Continue to grow knowledge of fretboard and connecting chord changes
Intermediate (1 year)
Develop a list of at least 15 songs that I know and can play reasonably well and confidently
Sing along with these songs without losing my rhythm
Be able to throw in some lead licks, rhythm changes, and transitions to add more interest to songs I play. I think sometimes that playing straight chords over and over can be boring over a whoe song for a listener
4: Maybe play some of these songs for a group of friends
This was an interesting lesson. I just finished to previous module and there are a lot of lessons that I found challenging. The Greensleeves finger picking, rolling chords for fingerstyle and figuring out how to play a melody are particularly hard for me.
What I would like to do is to be able to play a lot of ācampfireā songs. And within that, learning to learn the finger picking parts in the chord changes. I recently saw Sturgill Simpson on āTiny Desk Concertsā and he made that style look so easy. I would eventually like to be able to do something like that. A goal I have is to play āBlackbirdā by The Beatles in that style.
Also, Iād like to be able to link up the different strumming patterns with the chords in easy songs. I canāt seem to get that correct.
I have only 1 LT goal at this point. I downloaded the tab for Classical Gas by Mason Williams. When I reach the point where I can play that, I know have made it.
This is simply a fantastic, fantastic song. We played Classical Gas one year for DCI when I was young, it was a huge crowd pleaser, lots of sound big volume and really cool dynamics. I absolutely must revisit the horn section too. I have no idea how I had forgotten about this song after all these years. It is such happy and a inspiring type of song too.
I had not thought of actually playing the OG on guitar. And I dont belive the song has even enter my thoughts since 1988. And certainly not since I have been playing guitar, not until the moment I read you comment. This is an amazing and obvious goal for guitar. Great post Michael. Thank you for a new extra tough goal I have set for my self.
Looking forward to hearing you.