Hi, so I just went through the Guitar Fundamentals 1 and 2 and through half of Blues level 1. I tried learning a few songs on the side but they take me a enormous amount of time.
For example, the 18 second intro to Johnny B Goode by chuck Berry took me about 10 hours to get it with minal mistakes and almost 80% of the original 170 bpm tempo. *last week). My fingernails started lifting off my skin at the end there, a lot of bend practicing.
The 1minute and 15 seconds intro to Wish you were here : 17 hours (learned it during guitar fundamentals 1 as a side project)
The first 25 seconds of Tears in Heaven by Clapton : 6 hours. (last week)
Are these learning times even normal ?
A lot of that time is dedicated to managing to switch rapidly between notes, learning them by heart, and being smooth overall. But I dont understand what I'm playing. I just learn a series of notes. It doesn't feel like I'm "learning" guitar, just looking at the tabs and putting my fingers where it asks me to. Anyone without any knowledge of chrod theory or scales or anything could do that as well.
So I'm wondering : should I carry on with theory here on guitar tricks and/or elswhere and when I better understand how are songs created and chords relate to each other, then I'll go back to try and learn songs to play because at that point I won't have to learn the notes one after the other, by heart, but they would instead seem like a natural succession of notes that the theory knowledge I'll have then acquired will make me see them clearly, as a "story" and not a succession of random notes (as I see them now) ?
Because even in Blues level 1, when it comes to theory, Anders Mouridsen will often say " this is an x,y,z chord/scale/concept, but you don't have to know that ". At what point do we have to know "that", instead of just playing the notes on the tabs ?
Also, at what point would I know that I have "enough" theory knowledge to freely practice songs without spending an inordinate amount of time to learn them ?
I am, and want to keep dedicating 3 hours per day for the guitar. I love this instrument, and my long term goal/hope, is to be able to play david gilmour's comfortably numb solo, the pulse version within the next 2 years.[br][br]So I guess I dont know what way to take from here. With guitar fundamentals 1 and 2 it was pretty clear, since it was the only way. It seems that now There are many roads I can go down, and I just wanna make sure I'm going down an efficient and productive one.
Thank you