Beginner lesson help please

Ok so I have embarked on a mission to master the guitar, I am very musically inclined being able to play drums, trombone, and the viola but this particular instrument is giving me all kinds of trouble, I am not sure if it is due to the fact that I have large hands or what but I am having some issues completing a few of the tight build cords like A for instance, there just does not seem to be enough room for my 3 fingers in the fret no matter how I try it. The instrument I have mastered were all taught to me by a live teacher so learning on my own is a new concept for me but one I am determined to complete.

Now for my question, how much time should I spend on each lesson? The intro video stated that the course is meant to take a few weeks but I am wondering exactly how much time I should spend on them. Do I stay on 1 lesson until I have mastered it? By master I mean play it as good as Chris and the other instructors do? If not what would you suggest?

I am also wondering what I should be practicing daily to say increase my speed and ability to move between cords fluently. I have noticed that all of the instructors can play the scales very fast which leads me to believe they have practiced them for a great while am I thinking right here? Should cord drills be a part of my daily routine? Thanks in advance for everything and wish me luck!!

Hello davazn,

A good practice routine should have a good mix of theory, chords and scales.

In the beginning you'll be playing a lot of repetitive exercises to build muscle memory. These exercises can be dull so you also need to have some fun stuff.

I would suggest using the chord changes exercices and scales exercises you can find in the beginner's guide as a building block for you routine.

A simple practice session might look like this :
Theory - 10 minutes (or more if your are working on a long tutorial)
warmup - 5 minutes
Exercises - 20 minutes (chords changes, scales exercises)
Break - 5 minutes
Fun stuff - 20 minutes (learning a song that includes the chords you've learned)

I've used this format for a long time and it proved to be the most effective for me AND the one that gave me the most fun. Sometimes you may need to adjust it if you are working on a tutorial that requires more attention. But it is a good building block.

As far as how much time you spend on a perticular exercice? I would say until what you play feels comfortable (ie, you don't feel pain or fatigue once you're done), that your execution is good (ie, you can play the exercise cleanly) that you have reached a speed you like. Personnaly, good execution will always be more important than great speed. So if you can play something perfectly and lower speed, you can say you've mastered the exercise. Speed is an whole other beast. It comes with time.

Ok thanks for the tips, I will employ them and build my practice session using it, I tried to have some fun stuff in it using a few of your metal exercises but I am finding I am still not quite good enough to get them down and I need to scale back a ways.

Don't forget that there's more than one way to play certain chords too.
The open A for instance can be played using one finger to barre the 2nd, 3rd and 4th fingers instead of trying to squeeze 3 fingers in there.

thanks for the tip, is there an example of the barre method of the A cord I could see in a tutorial or anything? perhaps in a cord drill?

Kevin has a video lesson discussing the A chord explaining this one finger position.

http://guitartricks.com/lesson.php?input=9250&s_id=152

I'll try to dig up a drill for it but I don't recall seeing one.

sweet, I like the barre method, it does however make it tough to switch between cords, instead of moving my fingers subtley it reqiuires a total reset of position sometimes but I will get better with that in time... I hope :D

Thanks again guys for all your help and btw my name is John, wish I could have made a different name here, when i registered i figured my logon name would be different then my name used on the boards as that is how it usually is but oh well i will get used to it :)

Good Luck in your attempt.