Moving on too quickly? New beginner wanting to move from Module 1 after a few days

I started playing yesterday and have completed grade one, i hit 53/30 on the one minute cord changes, have got the 4 count song down, and know my a & d chords.
My issue being i’ve only been playing for 2 days, and this is the first time I’ve touched any musical instrument in my life. However, this is all i’ve been doing and put roughly 6 hours in yesterday, and today i’m at ~7 hours of practice. So compared to what he recommends ( i think 20 minutes a day i might be wrong) i’ve gone wayyy over that which could be the reason for my progress.
Is moving to grade 2 a good idea, or should i stick with what i’m doing right now and keep trying to perfect what i’ve done?

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Do you mean module 3 or grade 2? If you mean module 3 then yes your probably ready to move on.

Grade 1 has all of the basic chords, A, C, D, E, G, A minor, D minor, and E minor.

module one my bad, but he still said that people would be on it for like 3-5 weeks which has me bit confused

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Yeah I know, I practised almost as much as you, so I got done with grade one in like a week.

As long as your meeting what he says, you should be good to move on.

alr thank you, i just didn’t want to take things too fast considering the difference in his recommendations but i think its also for people with jobs and stuff to do instead of a kid on winter break

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I’ve no advise for you.
I’m no teacher.
I will say you’ll be using A and D chords in the future, a lot, so your not done playing them chords. The more ya play them, the better they’ll become. They will be used in future lessons.

My condolences to your fingertips though. They must be mighty painful by now… :wink:

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Yeah, you probably have a lot of time to play guitar. So do I. I’m also a kid on winter break. Nothing to do.

Hi Mason, gosh, it sounds like you have some natural talent! Absolutely, once you hit the mark for progressing, do that. You’ll know when you encounter a skill (or a chord) that requires more time.

The only comment I’ll make is this: be careful not to practice yourself into an over-use injury. Justin will talk a lot about strengthening small muscles in your hand and wrist. It comes naturally, but takes time. As I recall Justin recommends 30 minutes per day in Grade 1 – and suggests that some folks might need to break that into two sessions. You might consider backing off from that 6 hours per day. If you feel pain (aside from the obvious fingertip pain starting out!), it’s time to back off. Keep us posted!

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definitely give yourself some time to let stuff sink in. everybody moves at their own pace, and being younger, you’ll likely pick up at least certain things more quickly. but going too hard too quickly can wreck ANYBODY’s fingers. I gave myself persistent numbness and tingling in my fretting fingers once for ramping up my practice time too quickly. it didn’t show up immediately, but after a few weeks it was a real problem. it took a couple months for that to go away. this time I built practice time slowly until I had some calluses that could tolerate hours playing the guitar.

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I don’t know how anybody’s fingertips can take 6 hours a day the first week. I’m surprised they aren’t bleeding.

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6 & 7 hours Seems a bit excessive to me. You will burnout quickly

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right now i dont have any finger pain, but i honestly probably won’t know till tommorow morning.
As for the burnout i’m aware and am simply am hoping i’ll practice atleast once a day, I don’t have much to do right now because i’m on break so i’m just gunna practice as much as i can till school starts back up and my schedule settles out again.
I kept playing after posting this so i’m probably at like 10-12 hours of playing today, but I feel like my cord changes have improved immensely from this morning.
I’ll slowdown if i start to feel pain in my fingers but for right now I’ll probably just keep at it because i’m not gunna have the freetime to maintain the amount i’m playing anyways in ~2 weeks time.

Call me skeptical, but I’m finding it very hard to believe that in your first week you’re pressing down on strings for 8-10 hours, no calluses built up yet, and it’s not hurting like fire. My first few weeks I couldn’t go more than 15-20 minutes at a time before it hurt too bad to continue.

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I’m really not, I’ve been practicing strumming and cord changes for most of my time, when i was practicing playing i would try to only press down when i was playing. When I played i think i was going for 15 minutes to 30 minutes at most, then i would ice my fingers and would do something else like strumming or cord changes till i ended up playing again.
I haven’t been able to really play for like 3 hours because of family sleeping so i put sock on the guitar and like very lightly tried to strum while doing cord changes without pressing down

Sorry, but sceptical also, If you’re not pressing down for chord changes how do you know that they are sounding correct and clear. Moving your fingers at…

and not pressing , isn’t the aim nor does it count as OMC if you don’t actualy play the chord.

IF, you can press , play and change at 30+ per min and they are all clear , then fine. That is the aim of A-D changes. Otherwise you really should keep practicing, and remove the sock. :slight_smile:

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Its all good mate.
Enjoy the excitement and the novelty.
You’ll slow down a bit and find your own pace soon enough.

And a big welcome to the community. Join in, and reach out anytime…

Cheers, Shane

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Welcome, and congrats on getting started with this fantastic instrument! :slight_smile:

A course such as this is very long, and to have any hope of finishing it I think it’s important to (to a certain degree) favor progress and momentum over perfection. So, if you have the motivation and curiosity to put in a lot of hours in the beginning, then I don’t think there is anything wrong with you trying out the next couple of modules. In reality, no harm can come from it - right? :slight_smile:

The main piece of advice I’ll offer is this - do not think of this course as some sort of video games, where your goal is to complete a module and then move on to the next “level”!

It doesn’t work like that. It is extremely likely that even if you technically hit 53 on the one minute chord changes - there is probably a lot of room for improvement to the actual sounds coming out :slight_smile: On the one hand, don’t let that hold you back… but just know and accept that as you learn more about guitar technique and has been playing for a bit longer, you might want to revisit previous modules to reassess your actual ability and polish your form. Eventually, of course, you will indeed have “mastered” some modules to the point where it can be considered done and dusted, but for a long time… keep looping back to the previous lessons and exercises… even when you allow momentum to carry you forward.

A teacher once said it like this - think of all these things as trees that you plant. If you want a forest, it’s very inefficient to plant just one and then water it and nurture it until it’s a perfect full grown tree… and then move on to the next one. Instead, you’ll want to plant a lot of small trees… and then come back over each one to take care that they are growing well. You’ll want to do the same with learning guitar… let progress allow you to pick up a large(ish) set of chords, then be prepared to spend time on them all for a long time…

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Welcome to the community Mason. You could probably make an introduce yourself topic about yourself.