I'm burning through Christopher Schlegel's "Guitar Fundamentals I" classes and so far I'm having a ball. Yesterday I mostly did things like alternating between simple C and G, simple C and A, and simple A and E. My finger tips were a little sore by the end of the evening, and I'm still amazed that the smaller E string doesn't just slice the finger right open, but it felt like I accomplished something and that was good for the first day. Today was even better, because I just got done plucking my way through a simple Jingle Bells melody and a "Riff on the G & D strings." Nothing fancy, but dang if hearing that Jingle Bells tune coming from my fingers didn't bring a little smile to my face. :)
I'm curious about one thing. I can do fairly well with these simple melodies if I just read the guitar tabs, but I always feel guilty about it...like I should be trying to read from the notes on the staff instead. I'm not at the point where I can look at a staff, see a G (for example) and then think, "Oh, that's this finger on this fret." I mean, as I'm sitting here typing this, I'm thinking, "Well, that G would be 1st string, 3rd fret," but while I'm playing my brain doesn't process it quite so quickly because I'm also thinking about getting the fingers down in the right spot and plucking the right string.
So, I guess my question would be: Should I worry about working on sight reading from the staff right now, or should I save that for awhile and just read from the tabs.
I'm just glad that acoustic guitar uses the treble clef, because I'm better at reading those notes. :p