I finished all of Grade 1 at the end of January except memorizing 5 songs. Took me 2 months (I have 2 years experience but was all over the map in what I was learning, so not really a 2 year guy). I’ve memorized only 1 song so far. I can play them all fine, but keep referring the lead sheets. I am close to memorizing 2 more.
I spend almost all of my practices playing these 5 songs. Sometimes I’ll do chord changes, strumming, etc. but not much since they’re decent.
I want to start grade 2 but I’ll have to practice songs that have new chords. I feel like I will never memorize my grade 1 songs if I do this.
If I practice only 1-2 songs progress goes fast, but I won’t practice all my songs. If I practice all of them in one day it will take too long. If I practice all of them on different days, progress will be slow.
I have other songs too, like Come As You Are and Paranoid, but I haven’t been practicing those much. So, these are falling by the wayside too.
What is the solution? Every way to do this has its downsides.
One approach would be to take your 5 songs and just play through the chord sequence for the verse and chorus of each once a day, that will help embed the chord sequence and strumming for each, try and do it from memory and only refer to music sheet as last resort.
You could also play one through each day and rotate the song.
You will should try and review them all on occasion. I have a couple practices a week where I dedicate a block of time just going through my repertoire and work on songs I have not played in a long time, it allows me to brush the rust off and even improve my skill on some of the songs.
There has been a number of songs where while I reviewed. Suddenly I remembered there were cool advanced tricks or fills I meant to go back and learn. Back in first or second grade it seemed impossable, this cool extra stuff justin shows at the end. But now its doable and great time to add and upgrade the songs. Justin has a lesson on repertoire review at the end of 3 I believe. I could be in 4.
Yeah, it just seems like a lot. I have to memorize 5 songs, I would have to practice new songs with grade 2, I have to work on and solidify my old songs, then I have learn the fretboard, then I have to practice the new chords and strumming patterns as well as practice the old ones.
I practice about 45-60 mins a day. It just doesn’t seem like I have enough time to get to everything, and therefore, progress seems really slow. I’ll attach a couple of screenshots. One is a practice schedule, the second is the song list.
Maybe I just need to cool my jets and give it more time?
I would advise you to work on just maybe 2 songs a day, and don’t practice them for hours. Do the same songs a couple of days, then change. Even though this might sound like a slower way to learn songs, there are a couple of advantages:
There’s only so much your brain can process. You’re confusing your brain if you try to learn 5 songs at a time.
Taking a break often results in noticeable progress, just by allowing your brain to process what you learned in the days before.
At this point, “learning songs” means learning simplified versions. Memorising the (simplified for beginners) chord progressions and being able to play them with a simple strumming patterns is enough. You don’t have to learn the solo etc at the end of grade 1. So take into account where you are in your journey, focus on what you have learned in grade 1 and translate this - but only this - to the songs you’re learning. And most of all: be kind to yourself.
Right now you are ok. I would learn songs suggested in your lessons so you can practice the skills. Make notes of them put them in your practixe routine maybe. I didn’t learn that many songs until my 2nd grade consolidation. Then I did a few of them but still focused mostly on skill training and the solid basics. It was not until towards the end of 3 that I really started feeling like a had enough fundamentals to begin playing more of the songs I was interested in. I personally always load up my dailys with technical and baseline skills.
The better and strong foundatiin amd technical skills I have, all the better I become at plating the songs I dig and the more options I have to get things I am trying to get from my head through my guitar, out to people ears. The last few months, I have been all about songs. Probobly learned 100 of them. You will get them. It just takes time, in 16 months if you keep practicing your lessons you will be looking back amazed.
The class was great. I made my own grid sheet but just used two columns. Then I can write Verse, etc. in the left column, and chords in the right column. So, if my Verse or Chorus have different numbers of lines, I can just use what I need. The original is awesome but this seems to fit my style.
