I’m wondering what level of expertise should be enough to claim knowledge of a song and move along when using the app in Grade 1. Like, if I can play the song at 100% speed and play 4 down strums on Beats 1-4, have I got it? Or should I really be trying to play a more complicated strumming pattern that matches the original better before moving along? I see that all the strums in the grade 1 songs in the app just show 4 downbeats, so is that what everyone is playing? Sorry if this is a dopey question—just want to be sure I’m picking up the skills I should be focusing on and moving along at a reasonable pace.
Welcome to the community Brian It’s a very good question, if you ask me, because it’s rather difficult to define what is ever enough.
Being able to play a Grade 1 at 100 % speed with four downstrums is a great achievement. For me that’s easily good enough for passing.
If you in addition continue you working on a more complicated strumming pattern you like (e.g. Old Faithful), you will at some point notice that you are all of a sudden able to apply the strumming pattern to a song, you used to play before with four downstrums. However, being able to do that is not required for moving along.
Perhaps you @DavidP or a different moderator can move this to the correct category?
I also think that’s enough at grade 1. If you’re hitting your chord changes (mostly) cleanly without breaking rhythm then that’s good enough. I’d say that’s the aim of grade 1.
Obviously you can continue to work on those songs, particularly if there’s any you really like, gradually making the strumming more interesting. For example, adding an upstrum on beat 3 as a next step just breaks the pattern a little
Welcome to the forum Brian. Grade 1 is mostly about learning chords and how to change them on time. Grade 2 is mostly about strumming and rhythm. So your on par if you can make the changes on time with 4 down strums.
to claim knowledge of a song, I would add that you should be able to play the chord changes from memory. Justin recommends playing 5 songs with simple chord progressions comfortably from memory when consolidating Grade 1.
It’s a very good question, if you ask me, because it’s rather difficult to define what is ever enough.