Question related to the beginners lessons. After lesson 5 you are introduced to bar chords. Lesson 5 has text that says you will need to work on bar chords for up to a year. There is no text with bar chords or the lessons after that. Are we to continue with lessons past bar chords while we are mastering them. Niel, a little introduction text on how to do the whole beginners lessons section would be good. For example: Complete lessons 1 - 5 and continue to work on them while playing additional songs from target. Start working on bar chords and stay with it until perfected. Continue on with following lessons while perfecting bar chords. or whatever.
Thanks,
Beginners Lessons - the process
JR- My advice is to begin playing barre chords as soon as you are comfortable with the basic open chord shapes. Barre chords can be learned quickly but take a long time to master. Some people never master them and learn to just play around them (very limiting).
Neil's beginner's course is outstanding but jump into some easy songs just as quickly as you can or boredom will set in fast. Most of us didn't pick up the guitar to learn theory and techniques but instead to play songs!
Learning the guitar is not a sequential process ie. learn this, then that next and then after that learn this. It should be viewed as a multi-task process. Learn chords while playing and learning songs. When your chord changes are easy, learn more chords and harder songs. And while you are learning these songs develop your strum at the same time learning to pick notes with your fingers.
And as you play, constantly ask yourself why does this note sound bad and this one good. Or if Neil's says hit the Bb on the third string go right to it without having to say to yourself "okay this string is G and if I count up two frets I get A, then one more I get Bb. As you play learn the notes on the fretboard. What is the root note of a C chord and is there only one root or are there more, for example?
You ask an excellent question and all I can say is jump into songs as soon as you can and just practice your tail off. We joke play 'til your fingers bleed (well, not quite!). And when you get really frustrated jump on the forum and tell us you're frustrated and we'll all get behind you and encourage you to get out of your rut; there are ways to do that!
Finally, welcome to the program! It's wonderful that as a beginning player you have found the TARGET program. I wish I had this when I was starting out. My final piece of advice is strive for accuracy over speed with everything you play. You will learn to play faster with experience but you can never improve your accuracy by playing faster. Start slow and very accurate and then increase speed.
Since you are new to the program could I ask you to go over to the Please Introduce Yourself thread, start a new thread and tell us a little about yourself? Where you live, how old you are, your musical tastes and maybe what you hope to gain from the program. We are a very tight knit community and really enjoy getting to know each other.
Good luck on your guitar journey and please let us know how we can help you out. Whatever you experience, we've all experienced it before!
Happy playin' :cheer:
Neil's beginner's course is outstanding but jump into some easy songs just as quickly as you can or boredom will set in fast. Most of us didn't pick up the guitar to learn theory and techniques but instead to play songs!
Learning the guitar is not a sequential process ie. learn this, then that next and then after that learn this. It should be viewed as a multi-task process. Learn chords while playing and learning songs. When your chord changes are easy, learn more chords and harder songs. And while you are learning these songs develop your strum at the same time learning to pick notes with your fingers.
And as you play, constantly ask yourself why does this note sound bad and this one good. Or if Neil's says hit the Bb on the third string go right to it without having to say to yourself "okay this string is G and if I count up two frets I get A, then one more I get Bb. As you play learn the notes on the fretboard. What is the root note of a C chord and is there only one root or are there more, for example?
You ask an excellent question and all I can say is jump into songs as soon as you can and just practice your tail off. We joke play 'til your fingers bleed (well, not quite!). And when you get really frustrated jump on the forum and tell us you're frustrated and we'll all get behind you and encourage you to get out of your rut; there are ways to do that!
Finally, welcome to the program! It's wonderful that as a beginning player you have found the TARGET program. I wish I had this when I was starting out. My final piece of advice is strive for accuracy over speed with everything you play. You will learn to play faster with experience but you can never improve your accuracy by playing faster. Start slow and very accurate and then increase speed.
Since you are new to the program could I ask you to go over to the Please Introduce Yourself thread, start a new thread and tell us a little about yourself? Where you live, how old you are, your musical tastes and maybe what you hope to gain from the program. We are a very tight knit community and really enjoy getting to know each other.
Good luck on your guitar journey and please let us know how we can help you out. Whatever you experience, we've all experienced it before!
Happy playin' :cheer:
Start working on your barre chords as soon as possible. They take a while to get right. While you are doing that, work on other songs and things as Bear suggested. By the time you get 5 or 6 songs down pretty well, your barres should be coming along well enough to start using them. They will not be perfect, but you can start making changes with them.