I understand how you feel, I’m in the exact same spot. I’ve learned scales, riffs, chords, etc., but I couldn’t play an entire song. After a bit of thought, I decided I should learn how to play some songs well, from start to finish. So last week, that’s what I started to do.
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Hello Michael, thanks for your reply.
Its good to hear that you have plan and good luck.
I can associate with not being able to play full songs and if anyone asked me play, then my repertoire is small.
So I would also like to remedy this situation by developing 5 to 10 popular songs that I can play from memory.
In my guitar journey, I always found it helpful to work on songs within my skill set, the issue being finding songs I liked within my skill set. I could play pieces of many tunes, but not the whole song, and still enjoyed that. Justin has suggested songs for each grade level, but we all learn the various skills/techniques somewhat differently, and it’s OK to skip something if you find it frustratingly difficult, and come back to it months later.
If your goal is to perform for others, songs are definitely better than pieces of songs. Without that specific goal, don’t feel you need to “get 5-10 songs that I can play comfortably”. As your dexterity and skills progress, you’ll find a bigger range of songs within your skill set, and you can learn entire songs easier. Liking the song was very important for me as I am more motivated to learn it (no motivation in learning a song I didn’t care for).
It’s fair to say my skills progressed as I found songs I liked and wanted to play, that forced me to learn some new skill. Certainly learning the “E shaped barre chord” and also the A shaped barre cord (let’s just say the F and B chords - the harder barre chords since they’re closer to the nut) will open up the number of songs you can play. As a tip to quickly learn them, learn to use your bicep rather than your hand/thumb muscles. I hurt my thumb once, and learned I could play almost as well without my thumb touching the back of the neck (but touching the neck with your thumb does help you know where your fretting fingers are relative to the strings).
I used to say an instructor or better skilled friend can help you find those songs to motivate you, but Justin has songs for each grade level, so look through those.
I used to avoid singing, as my singing sucked. But I kept working at it (one song at a time and by myself as no point in irritating people around me) and can now sing, and it’s made me a better musician. It’s nice you can practice singing without the guitar, which is how I usually learn to sing a song. My first attempts at singing a song usually are pretty bad, and I have to slow it down to ensure I’m hitting the right notes. I’ve gotten better with practice. But I think we all sang as kids in school, and I recall no problem doing it then. I bring this up because if your goal is to perform for others, being able to sing means you can play easy to play songs in a performance that would otherwise be kind of boring. E.G., I like to sing Last Kiss, which is simply a G Em C D progression all the way through, but without the singing, it’s kind of boring.
I like your goal of arranging songs for fingerstyle, as I do that and love finger picking. In fact, I learned fingerstyle playing House of the Rising Sun (it has the F chord). First I learned to strum the song, then I learned to play it finger style sounding almost exactly like the Animals’ version, though they used a pick and raked the strings. Later I learned to sing it.
Justin did a great job on his lessons and grade levels, but don’t feel you have to follow it entirely in order. Finding songs you like within, or just slightly beyond your skill set (not way beyond your skill set - that just leads to frustration) is the key to keeping motivated and learning IMHO, at least it was for me.
Good Luck and happy playing!
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Hello Dan, thank you for sharing your experiences and advice.
If I am honest, I am embrassed about my singing and this prevents me from practicing when people are around. Even though I sang and played on one of the open mics!
That was me until a couple of months ago having seen the light thanks to a few very well meaning members.
Indeed. Like finger picking Happy Birthday!!
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I am almost finished with Grade 3 (2 modules left) and this is exactly what I plan to do before diving into Grade 4 stuff. I want to learn as many songs from my DREAMERS list that do not require barre chords, other than the F. As an example, I’m currently working on “Mary Had a Little Lamb” by Stevie Ray Vaughan.
I really like this advice. It was not meant for me here but still digging it. I have a similar challenge and this really gives me food for thought too. Thanks.
FWIW, I suspect most of us would love to be able to play SRV’s songs, like SRV. I can play bits and pieces of a few of them, and enjoy doing it.
When at a jam session at a dive bar I frequented in Texas because the blues jams were so awesome (and beyond my skill set at the time) the uninitiated would think the players had been playing together for years (when in reality it was usually a group of random players of the various instruments the jam leader would pick out playing together for the first or maybe second time), one of the players told me the reason hardly anyone led a SRV song at the jam was because they couldn’t play it nearly as well as SRV, and the audience (lots of musicians) knew it.
And don’t let that stop you from trying. You can likely play pieces of one of his songs, or the entire song (and it’s usually worth the enjoyment) but expect to get frustrated without the skill set he had if you want to sound like SRV.
I can relate to much of your commentary. I still hate playing Happy Birthday though.
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I hate the happy birthday song as well. After going through it a few times I dropped it for the chorus of Jingle Bells! 
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