Thanks so much everyone for all the suggestions! After having read the replies i am more proud of myself and less frustrated. I am a very determined person, and actually love the process of working on something difficult. And yes, seriously i do practice that much and hopefully i misunderstand your reply that i should be killing it, i interpret that as being not struggling. I can play many songs quite beautifully and smoothly, so i will stop my whining. i only felt is this normal to still struggle at times., but the song i'm currently learning is Let it Be and yes there is a chord change from G-Am-F-C, so that is a new chord change progression for me, going from Am-F-C, i actually find the closer the chord the more difficult, as aposed to chords further from each other with no common string or note. Yes, i had my guitar set up and feel good about the instrument itself thanks for remembering. And with regards my start up date, not sure if you did the Guitar Fundamentals !, but you don't begin the major chords until chapter 4-5 so regardless of my start date, i took my time with each lesson and chapter and devoting the time i did to get it right, not speed along, so yes, i began in Spring this year with learning the 5 power pack chords and changes and just recently in the end of chapter 5 is when GT teaches the rest of the chords,E, A, F, B, Bm, Dm. So this is fairly recent in my Fundamental 1 So lisa teaches to do each possible chord transition one at a time, which i agree with learning that way. So having said that it is new for me just learning the F chord and now transitioning to the C, all in the context of a song, but i a came to the realization this past week in my life which applies to learning this beautiful instrument to not be hard on myself, but to apply gentleness with enough mental strength. i find as you manXcat that i feel elation to stick with a difficult thing and to triumph over it and this will be over and over again throughout the years. Ijust recently decided to apply my fingerpicking learning to a song out of GT You are My Sunhine and Jasmine Thompson's rendition with a Capo on the 5th fret, just by watching her and listening carefully i picked it up in a few days and am now playing it for my grandaughter. So going to focus on what my body and brain and work and effort has accomplished.
"Literal perfection or mastery are two words and objectives I wouldn't apply to the learning process. That will only come in time with reinforcement and repetition. Watch some Tommy Emmanual videos on YT to see what's entailed in "mastery". Kudos. WOW! An acceptable demonstrated standard of the lesson obective is the immediate short term goal"
love this and this will really help! Thank you. You mentioned doing 80bpm in a chord transition being easy., that's my problem, i am still at 60 if i go through chord transitions. in songs, i can do a faster tempo than 80 if i've been working on the song for awhile., so i'll continue to 'grind it out' as my hubby says and keep being positive.
Interesting you mention Stand by Me, that is a song i do play and with an RnB strumming pattern, percussive sound. Proud of that one. I have learned the riff i guess it's called at the beginning of Tennessee Whiskey and play that song, and Perfect by Ed Sheeran and so on, so i am progressing but found it odd that i still struggle with chord changes. i've since read that its natural for my fingers to be dependant on one another bc of the muscle grouping so i've printed a sheet of exercises to do when watching tv, so i'll get back to you on that one. Thanks for the feedback, encouragement, nudge if you will to keep it positive! Can always count on GT forum of guitar heros to help!
