Newbie facing the first wall !

Hi everyone. I am a 55-year old complete beginner, in this program since a couple of weeks. I really love it and practice approx. 2 hours per day (per night, actually). Many THANKS to GT team ! I find the Core Learning System strong, helpful and consistent.

I completely loved it... till Chapter 4 Lesson 5 (“Songs to Play with Your 5-Chord Power Pack”). Well, I still love it now, but I feel this very lesson is a kind of first wall I am hitting. Proposed songs are great but GT expecting that a complete beginner can play at a tempo of 120-125 bpm is a bit over-optimistic and makes my daily practice routine quite painful all of a sudden after days and days of excitement.

[br]Your comments and experience are welcome. Many thanks

—-Sal

Hi Sal,

Thanks for your feedback, and so sorry for the 'wall'. I know what a discouraging feeling that can be.

One thing to know about hitting walls while you are learning music is that it is a perfectly normal part of the process, and every single musician goes through it.

Everyone's 'walls' will be different - but still, there will always be times when the next challenge that is presented seems like too far a reach. But you will get there in time.

Meanwhile, I'd suggest not attempting to play along with the songs that feel too fast for you right now (understandably so!). Just let yourself practice one or two of those songs on your own, totally at your own pace, nice and slow to let the skills to begin to gel.

The 'up to speed' version is something to aspire to in time - but meanwhile, the main point is to hone the skills (besides the speed factor) that are embedded in the song. Chord clarity, chord changes, etc.

All best wishes, Lisa

Hi Lisa, Thank you for the advise ! I will try to start slow and speed up...

And you can adjust the speed of the video. In the lower right corner of the video screen there is a 'square' icon. Hover over it and you can adjust the speed to 3/4 speed or 1/2 speed.

Originally Posted by: SalvaX

Your comments and experience are welcome. Many thanks

—-Sal

Hi Sal

That's merely a pebble in the road, not a "wall'.

Transporting my memory back to when I had just a couple of weeks of hands on playing in, not so very long ago, here's my take on your "makes my daily practice routine quite painful all of a sudden after days and days of excitement" sentiment expressed in your post.

Not to dampen you excitment so much as offer it realistic expectation, as a "complete beginner, in this program since a couple of weeks" IMV you've hit a self-induced plateau.

I too find watching and assimilating the theoretical aspects of every lesson easy peasy. It's the doing that takes that 'little longer', and can require [u]persistent hands-on[/u] practice [u]over time[/u] until fluidly competent.

An important part of truly completing each lesson -before moving on, is the achieving any doing part assessed a required competency so you won't stumble later. Perhaps in your eagerness, you've skipped those previous doing parts of practising the chords until rote and changes from and to them until reasonably fluid. Why?

It sounds to me as if you're racing ahead to each next lesson hypothetical without doing that, because seriously,125-120BPM for a straightforward very easy e.g. C, G, Am or D, C, G three or G, C, D, Am four chord progression song shouldn't be presenting a particularly confronting challenge at F1 C2 L5.

If it is presenting a "wall' for you, your solution is tenacity, a recommended skill to acquire as you'll need plenty of it in future too. Keep at it (F1 C2 L5), albeit slowing down the tempo initially (use the GT speed tool) as necessary until fluid as suggested by JeffS65.

If you haven't nailed it within a few days practise, I find it helps if I can find a song on You Tube which I really like which uses the same chords or progression to use as a training aid.

I constantly bite off more than I can chew, and regard sheer wilful tenacity my personal most important learning skill. It consistently surprises me.

Thank you, everybody, for your support and sharing your views. This helped me quite a lot... as well as the metronome, starting at 100bpm, then +4, then +4, then +4... until 125bpm which now looks quite easy !

Don't feel bad. At two weeks into the course it's perfectly fine to feel you're having trouble with some progressions and keeping up with songs, etc. After two months I've found some things come easier than others, and you just have to feel yourself and see what type of practice works best for you.

I'v read that it's not so much the amount of time you put into it, but the quality of that time. I've found that if I do a quick practice of the stuff which comes easy to me (and it will vary for you), I can then focus more time on those darn chord changes that are still hard to come by (to me it's the darned G to C). Regardless of how much progress (or stepping back) you make in each session, don't feel bad at all. Everytime you pick your guitar up and practice with it you're making progress.

I've also found that just learning songs that I like has greatly helped. I take one or two days a week (out of a seven day practice schedule) to just try to learn songs that I like. I try to choose from the suggested songs at each level and just play along. Playing a song that you like should be a bit easier since you can already anticipate chord changes and are familiar with rythm and strumming.

We are all different, and what seems easy for one will be the hardest for another.

Keep at it. I know I've faced a wall or two during the past two months, but I really don't care. I'm in with this for the long run (and I'm 53).

Enjoy!

thumb up for all your help and suggestions !