Setting a Goal. What's yours?

[Music Junkie]

Hey Tony, another good question......Thanks

I had a main goal in mind when I picked up the guitar for the first time in my life, about 3.5yrs ago. I wanted to be able to strum through a song and sing to it as well (singing not as important, since I know my voice is lacking in tonal quality).

I had made some progress before finding TG, but it was very slow..... Once joining TG, there was this tremendous, dare I say OVERWHELMING, amount of info at my disposal. I found myself looking at things that would NEVER have entered my mind before. Shortly after, I noticed I had been trying to play songs that were far too difficult for me (mostly because my dear friends here at TG had motivated me to do so..... )

Recently, I have taken a step back and have been trying to get back to improving my transcribing, strumming and singing skills. Although there are many good songs here, I will be MUCH happier if I can figure out the songs that are important to me when I want to do it. So, if I had to make a list of goals, they would look something like this:

Short Term:
1. Improve right hand position (left-hand for most of you).
2. Improve my grasp of proper finger placement for fingerpicking.
3. Continue to improve upon my meager transcribing skills.

Medium Range:
1. Continue to improve upon my meager transcribing skills (yes again).
2. Continue to learn more songs.

Long Range:
1. Obtain enough skill to attack a song such as From the Beginning or Still You Turn Me On
2. Continue to improve upon my meager transcribing skills (very important to me, can you tell).
3. Gain enough confidence to hit an open mic night at some time and sing a song to my wife in from of complete strangers..... B)

It is all within my grasp, but I must remain patient (that is a huge undertaking for me).

Jason

[sws626]

Great question, as usual, Tony.

As I think I mentioned in a similar thread, my only real goals for this first year back with the guitar have been to play every day, get better, and enjoy myself. With the occasional work-related lapse, this is pretty much on track.

TG has been a great help in this and has also led to the development of further goals. My learning is still mostly song-based. But I worked through the Acoustic Genius series, which was a terrific refresher. However, my practice time is still devoted more to building a repertoire rather than improving any specific skills. That said, I try to choose new songs that pose a challenge in an area I have yet to master.

Recently, however, I've developed two new goals.

One is to master the blues. It's a good goal because I know it will take at least a few lifetimes. But I have a terrific teacher for this.

The other is to play in a band. I was a serious introvert as a teenager. So when my siblings were out playing Rush and Scorpions covers for their drug-crazed friends, I was sitting in my bedroom trying to figure out why my version of "Meet me in the morning" didn't sound anything like Dylan's.

This week I answered an ad from a local band that had lost one of its two guitarists and now I'm in a band. The cool and also frightening thing about it is that they actually have gigs and play in public. The less cool thing is that the sort of music they play wouldn't score very high on the "choose songs that improve your skills" test. Everything from the pub crawl playlist is just the basic I-IV-V power chords with a few little riffs to keep you awake and a guitar solo to distract you from the lyrics. I'm actually okay with that. But most of these songs are indistinguishable from "Brown Sugar." Actually, it would be a great improvement if they would add "Brown Sugar" to the list, but I'm going to hold off on making any suggestions that would reveal my age. The biggest challenge is trying to remember how to tell any of these songs apart from the others. But turning what has so far been a completely personal pursuit into something social is definitely going to be an interesting adventure.

Wish me luck.

-Stuart

[tovo]

sws626 wrote:

This week I answered an ad from a local band that had lost one of its two guitarists and now I'm in a band.

Wish me luck.

-Stuart

Hey Stuart that's great mate. Although as you have described the band has a limited playlist, you will gain great confidence from playing in public and perhaps as you said, when you have settled in you can suggest some cool additions.

Good luck.

[johnrfeeney]

i picked up the guitar again last year around June and haven't stopped.

By December I set up my goals and have stuck with them

- know the fretboard

- learn all the scales (know them rote - not just positions but the names of the notes in each scale)

- learn the pentatonic positions with the blues flattered 5th

- the scales are not that easy : i am learning to play then by alternating the notes

i.e. 123, 234, 345 etc
1234, 2345, 3456, etc
13, 24, 35, etc
14, 25, 36, etc

now the scales i started around Feb 14th - so six months solid, and at least 17 hrs a week
stark raving boring
but it is paying off

many times watching a movie i figure out what key the song is in and can fool around with lead

i figure it'll take another six months

i have to say i wish i started this even a few years ago but that's always the way it is
if i didn't knuckle down and do this i know i would get to frustrated just trying to learn songs and i'd give it up eventually

[johnrfeeney]

i picked up the guitar again last year around June and haven't stopped.

By December I set up my goals and have stuck with them

- know the fretboard

- learn all the scales (know them rote - not just positions but the names of the notes in each scale)

- learn the pentatonic positions with the blues flattered 5th

- the scales are not that easy : i am learning to play then by alternating the notes

i.e. 123, 234, 345 etc
1234, 2345, 3456, etc
13, 24, 35, etc
14, 25, 36, etc

now the scales i started around Feb 14th - so six months solid, and at least 17 hrs a week
stark raving boring
but it is paying off

many times watching a movie i figure out what scale the song is in and can fool around with lead

i figure it'll take another six months

i have to say i wish i started this even a few years ago but that's always the way it is
if i didn't knuckle down and do this i know i would get to frustrated just trying to learn songs and i'd give it up eventually

[AndyT]

I just want to add some comments about goals in general.

I did quite a bit of reading on this and here are some things I've found out.

Time;
Short term goals should be short. Anywhere from 2 weeks to a month. The purpose of a goal this short is to give you something you know you can achieve in that time frame. It helps to give you confidence and motivation over longer terms.

Medium range goals run anywhere from 2 to 6 months and long term are 6 months to a year. Anything that takes longer than that is considered a 'project'.

[wadestar]

Oh I thought you said Selling a Goat lol

[juanlla]

Tony,
Thanks for posting this.
I was actually myself thinking how can I get organized !!.
I've been having a lot of fun at TG and been trying to learn a few songs I always loved, but eventually found that I've explored a couple dozens but didn`t finalize well any of them.

I ended up puting a list with a priority and my short term goal would be to finalize those ones I've selected.

Sort term: finalize and upload a few songs 5 or 6.

Medium Term I have not dared thinking but this posting has provided quite good ideas I'll follow up. (Thanks !!)

Long term ? Utopy ? => be able to sing a song I can play decently.



Juan

[mark]

Another good thread

I have lots of goals, long and short.
Unfortunately they aren't properly organised or defined.

Among my goals are
to continue to improve my left hand position
to get more rhythmn/groove into my playing
to get back to using a pick rather than playing everything fingerstyle

[buddy]

Tony, Good topic.

It is funny, but guitar playing is one of the few areas in my life that I have not set any goals. I am by my nature a very goal oriented person so I use the guitar as stress release and so I just do what ever I want with it. This might be slowing my progress a little but it does help me to keep my blood pressure down from the normal stresses of life. I am literally just playing any song that I hear that I like and just trying to have fun with it.

Not very structured but it is a kick in the pants.

Bud