Need some guidance in my guitar journey

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This might be a bit dumb question, but I’m gonna ask away, my brain cells dwindling slowly but surely :smiley: I always dreamed about playing some instrument, since I was a kid. Unfortunately, due to various circumstances I never really gone further than buying synth/MIDI keyboard downloading some DAW, armed with dedication that this time I will make it, and ultimately giving up in week or so and ended selling same stuff I bought. I’m embarrassed to tell how often it happened. Anyway, thanks be to God (and Justin), finally 2 years ago, just before 32nd b-day I decided to get acoustic guitar and really start learning the instrument. Including music theory and all the stuff I dreamed about more 20 years ago. That’s a bit of background story, which is important so you know I wasn’t as lucky as Justin (and many other folks) to have started early in life.

So bearing that in mind and having to be realistic with my expectations. Now as adult I am blessed to have an hour a day to spend on guitar as many do not have even that amount. 3rd year and still learning, currently in intermediate grades on Justin’s course. What helped me immensely is highly structured approach Justin takes, especially in beginner grades. Now at intermediate grades I start to feel bit insecure since Justin emphasizes finding your own path. It’s really hard as I am highly logical and routine loving person and I feel lost.

My long term goal is to play finger style arrangements like this one Braveheart Medley, ambient pieces like this Ambient Acoustic Guitar Advent: Joy to the World (Taylor Baritone) and generally pop/folk acoustic guitar centered genres. Judging by my progress I will be well into 40es before I can easily play those two examples, more like 50. I’m still practicing this arrangement of Behind Blue Eyes since start of my guitar journey and I still haven’t nailed it.

So really TL:DR would be what should I focus on to reach those goals? I know Justin emphasizes finding your own path, experimenting, etc. etc. but I got so addicted to Justin’s structured learning that I have hard time finding what to practice on my own. For example, although blues and jazz were never and still aren’t something I like to listen to I wonder if there is merit to learning techniques and theory used in those styles? Justin mentioned you should learn minor pentatonic scale even if you are not into blues, but I do not seem to see the reason why. In fact in grade 4 I skipped all blues related lessons. I only learned minor pentatonic as part of grade 2 lessons I guess. Also, I enjoy PMT classes which I subscribed to and love learning about extended chords purely on intellectual level, but I can’t seem to find use of those chord and concepts in practice. Justin mentioned somewhere that techniques and concepts from other genres (even ones you do not like) can help you in your journey to play genres you like.

There, I wrote a lot and I am sorry, but I really need some help to decide what to learn and what to ditch. At this age, as one who is at beginning of the guitar journey I can’t dabble in everything as if I’m just 12. Thanks in advance for any and all advice! Much appreciated. If some of older folks have some nuggets of advice and how they did in similar situation I’d appreciate it greatly.

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Maybe worth having a recap of this lesson. You know your long term goal. Break it down into the steps you need to take to achieve that goal. This would give you medium goals. Then break them down into steps to achieve them. This would be your short term goals, what drives your practice routine. This would give you a sense of direction to achieving your long term goal.

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Hi @SkyBlue , I can only second the ideas put forward by @Socio. I found that getting your final goal in place and then working out what you need to get to that goal, gave me back the structure that I needed.

Take your time in deciding your goal and necessary steps, I found that I had to tweak them a couple of times as I found a necessary technique was missing a couple of times.

Good luck in finding your structured path.

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I empathize with your dilemma. The structure helps for a while but what next?

Keep in mind that Justin does emphasize improvisation and blues quite a bit after roughly grade 2.5 ( middle of grade 3).

This is great, but not for everyone, so he also emphasizes finding your own path.

Don’t feel pressured by the need to improvise, or even, as CT says, finding your own voice. Sometimes just learning to play pre-constructed pieces of music is a reasonable goal. Your voice will still have room to come out inside your presentation of those pieces.

Remember, lots of songs and most classical repertoire does not improvise the way a rock lead guitarist might.

If you aren’t clear on how to take the lessons forward, find lessons for songs/pieces that you are interested in but importantly aren’t too great a stretch for you. There are lots of such resources in and outside Justin’s course.

As you work in this music, you will find there are things you need to learn and practice in order to play them, so find exercises for those things too. That will help move your skills forward.

The only agenda is to work towards what gives you joy and accomplishment. Unless you plan to be a rock star or something.

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I think you have nothing to lose carrying on with JG but also you can’t go wrong learning music theory plus CAGED and associated major/minor scales etc.

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Yep, I’m afraid, as boring as it sounds, you’ll need to endure a few goal setting sessions. :nerd_face:.
You note a long term goal of being an accomplished acoustic fingerstyle player, focusing in the folk/ pop genre. Great.

Now, you need to ask yourself,

"What are the precise Knowledge and Skills I need to develop, in order to move in a direct path to this goal?"

Some items will be more general to guitar, eg. Finger independence.

Others will be more specfic to fingerstyle. Eg. Travis picking.

The outcome of your sessions will then form the basis of all your practice sessions.

Cheers, Shane

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Just a thought maybe @RadekSiechowicz and @Alexeyd can give you some advice on going down the fingerstyle path.

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I am probably a bad example. I don’t like a structured practice, going from step 1 to step 2, learning theory and history, etc.
I get excited by some piece or technique and work on it non-stop until it comes together…
I’m happy to answer any specific question, of course :blush:

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I think always the biggest deal to keep on keeping on is to set short term attainable goals and then just keep moving the chains.

You want to have a long term focus but you can also set a goal or learn a song etc that is always just a little bit oit of reach currently. Once you have that down to a reasonable level you can learn another new song that is just a bit challanging and so on. If you just pick the end goal without intermediary steps it can be a bit frustrating.

Enjoy the learning journey.

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I agree with the goal setting advice said already, and I won’t reiterate it.

I noticed about the pieces you linked as your long term goals - they’re both fingerpicking chord melody, and also strumming with picking mixed in. As is Behind Blues Eyes.

You seem quite focused on the grades and lessons, have you put the hours into learning songs that incorporate these techniques?

In Justin’s Grade 3 there are a couple of chord melody pieces to learn - Greensleeves & Yesterday. They would be gateways into more advanced chord melody. I’ve only learnt a handful of pieces and found that they each require many, many hours of practice.

Behind Blues Eyes - I’m very familiar with that song, I play it (the Limp Bizkit version). That needs picking individual strings, mixed with some strumming. Have you put the hours into the grade 3 lessons on picking strings while strumming? I found it took me a long time, and quite a few songs to get reasonably competent with picking patterns through chords. If you’re struggling with accuracy, you might need to look into picking technique. I know for me I had to put a lot of research and practice into fixing my picking technique before it worked.

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I agree with JK. There is nothing wrong in using songs to practice the skills you want to develop. Some targeted excercises might provide more efficiency, but they will not be more fun and motivate you more than songs. I got this advice from Justin’s teacher and it helped a lot! The key is to find a skill you want to practice and song that would challenge/train that skill. For that, you need some planning and structure in your learning. For example, I started with GnR - Knockin on heavens door to practice chord pick patterns. I added some other songs as well. There are still targeted excercises I use as well, but the accent is definitely in using songs.

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I’m following the same path suggested by @jkahn and others here. I’m in the process of learning Behind Blue Eyes (The Who original) and a couple of other songs with strumming and melody picking. Breaking it down to bite-size chunks to work on, putting the pieces together slowly, then working on accuracy and timing. Through that process, I discover techniques I know but haven’t really learned to use well, so go back to JG lessons to polish up those techniques. This is the fun part - building on all the technical lessons and rote practice with the dang metronome.

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Hello SkyBlue :wave: I suggest you check this Food for Thought from Justin if you haven’t yet.

Finding your own path means also that you have to take decisions on what to practice and to do that it’s crucial that you understand why you want to practice something. This lesson led me to a better understanding of what I was doing, whether it was correct or not, and also what I should aim to (short and long terms goals), I’m pretty sure it’ll help you as well :blush:

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Thanks for listing me @Socio :).

Hello SkyBlue,

Here’s the thing and you already noticed it, after some time, if you are into fingerstyle, the guided path on JG ends and you are on your own. I can tell what is working for me, and it could feel not very academic. What I want to play defines what I learn and I’m glad spending months working over some difficult pieces I always wanted to play. At the same time I’m practising easier pieces that could result in “immediate gratification” meaning I can play it more less accurately after just a few weeks. Long term, short term goals. Theory, technique learning, deeper studies - only if it is required. Certain things I’m leaving for later, like improvisation. My current goal is to play what I like and what makes me happy.

From the examples that you provided as a reference it looks like you are into acoustic covers in classical arrangements. This could lead you into learning classical music basics and some of the classical pieces. I could also recommend some of the Marco Cirillo fingerstyle courses. You have a good understanding that this style requires lots of time (thousands of hours) to reach a decent level. After four years of guitar learning and over two years of practising fingerstyle exclusively I can tell this would be a lifelong journey.

Good luck! I’ll be happy to answer any questions if you think it can help you.

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That takes ages to get even half way decent at !

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Thanks for advice! I had practiced picking strings whiled strumming, but I guess I moved on bit to fast on to next lesson. Both Greensleeves & Yesterday I managed to learn, even tho Yesterday is still not nice and fluid. I usually make break after few months of playing/practicing same song as it gets annoying. I still cannot believe how long I practiced Behind Blue eyes, 5 minutes every day except weekend for 2 years. And that one is not even that difficult song to learn. Yesterday, I hang out with my friends and couldn’t get proper most of the songs except the very basic ones, like Summer Wine. Crazy how much time one needs to invest to be good at instrument. Funny as kid how it seemed so easy to me… What? You put your fingers, strum a bit and sing… How hard it can be? Now that I know, made me more aware and sad when I see many ppl play on the street to earn living yet it’s a hard skill to acquire…

@SILVIA I do remember this video and I mainly try to incorporate that in my practice, but I sure will revisit a video as well as one @Socio mentined

@RadekSiechowicz sounds as good advice! Having songs that are easier to play and ones more difficult and learning more complicated stuff only when needed. Perhaps, much later down a line I would end into classical pieces, Braveheart theme on guitar is one of the songs which made me buy guitar and start learning. It’s “dreamer” goal as I recall Justin calls them. True, a lifelong journey, I hope I will learn it before arthritis or old age comes with it’s own problems :smiley:

I suppose gist of the answers and advice is something I definitely need to do more. Focus on playing songs in a genres you are interested in and putting techniques and stuff you learned into actually playing songs. Learning new techniques/theory only when/if you need it. Yep, I was guilty of doing “just one more lesson” and than I’ll put it into songs. Thanks for all the advice, it did clarify some of questions I had.

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If you are in the intermediate grades and your goal is to play fingerstyle, then I suggest you follow the structured lessons in this module:

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I share your sentiment. At a certain age learning instruments is a major challenge. It is due to decreasing brain flexibility as we age. It is much easier to pick at something if you have some prior experience as a teenager or young adult. Knowing this it is easier to set the expectations and goals. I have pieces I practise for over 2 years now. Very slowly they are getting better, although this is all at the glacier speed. I differentiate songs on long term and short term goals. And sometimes I drop something I have been working on for months but I don’t see any progress and make room for something else but I usually return but much later.

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Hi SkyBlue,
nice to hear from you!

(sorry, I wrote most of this a few days ago and possibly a part of it is now redundant with your latest reply - I hope it’s not too bad.)

I think I can understand you quite well, although I never stayed with one lesson/song for too long.
I started the guitar four years ago, and am now two years into fingerstyle.
Whenever I can’t improve in an “appropriate” pace, I just drop the lesson when I feel so, while knowing I’ll come back later - ok - only if I really feel I’d really like to master it one day.
I switch to the next motivating thing (song, style, technique,…) that I concentrate on, and every now and then, I get back to the things I let down in the past, but which are still intriguing me. Oftentimes, through learning other things, suddenly that thing I dropped now is a bit easier to play.

One thing that helped me is a practicing schedule, like the one you can have in your Justinguitar dashboard, under “practice”
But I like to flip a few items and not practice exactly the same things every day.

Like others mentioned writing down the things that you’d like to learn on a list so that you can refer to it whenever you struggle to decide what to do next.

I can only state that for myself - but at the same time, I really think it is generally a rather good concept, to travel a bit around in the things you practice.
And try to find some music you connect with and then lessons that seem doable in overlookable time frame.
Justin sometimes has songs in an easy version where he mentions advanced playing options.
Or search for lessons with an easy rendition of your song AND other more difficult ones that intrigue you, learn the easy first and then slowly learn things from the more advanced renditions.

List things that keep you motivated.
Like you, I am fascinated by fingerstyle guitar.
If you know the song “Mercy Street” by Peter Gabriel, please listen to this rendition:

My fingerstyle journey started 2 years ago, and after some time, like half a year (or maybe a year?), I could just sit down and noodle around for like forever and like what I hear - that’s an achievement that makes it much easier to stay on the guitar learning journey.

It’s best to find the songs and styles and techniques that you like by your own,
but I’ll roughly post my fingerpicking journey here:
Maybe there’s a bit in it that can be useful for you or someone else:

One day, I was looking at a list of successful from the 50s and stumbled over “freight train”
then I found
“Tommy Emmanuel Teaches Variations in “Freight Train” by Elizabeth Cotten”

with the hint to his fingerstyle introduction video below.

So I started my jopurney with that video of Tommy Emmanuel
“Tommy Emmanuel Teaches 4 Steps To Fingerstyle Guitar Technique”

because it went a bit fast and didn’t go into the details I went with this next:

“Easy Travis Picking Techniques - Guitar Lesson”

and then this:
“Help Your Finger Picking Be Rock Solid!”

working on various patterns and excercises (also self invented) to make thumb and the otehr fingers more independent.

and at times I went back to the frieght train lesson.
Now I can play the standard version, but the in the section with the G7, I still struggle to fret all the notes correctly while moving my pinky.

“Streets of London” was a great motivation for me to play too.

Or do you know that one - I liove it:
“Death Cab for Cutie - I Will Follow You into the Dark”

and it’s not so difficult - there’s evenb a tutorial from Justin.

Sorry for the long text, I hope there’s something in it that still makes sense!

Wishing you and everyone else in here motivation and lots of fun!
Best regards,
Dominique

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PS. You mentioned a keyboard and a DAW.
Exactly what I did many years ago… planning to learn the piano and then spending most time on the DAW, and then let it go.
But now, with the guitar, I have the plan of starting a community thing in here one day, like writing a song together or even if it’s only performing a song together, like several people and every one providing one track… should be fun.

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