Originally Posted by: snojones

If you don't want to play chords.... Perhaps Rap and/or Poetry/ or Accounting would be a better fit. Western Music, without chords, is like landscape painting without solvents or canvas. But I suspect that if you finished 4 years of music school, you must know this.

I have been playing guitar on and off since I was 12 years old. I worked on jazz chords, rock chords, folk chords for years, until I thought I understood chords. It was not until decades down the road that I decided I wanted to play lead guitar. To my surprise it took me right back to learning about chords, ALL OVER AGAIN!!

Western music is built on a highly evolved use of Harmony. How can you develop your sence of melody without activly working on chord theory??

You can learn it through lessons (which can come quickly).... or you can learn it through the crash test dummy approach (witch is MUCH slower). That, and the woodshed, in fact, is how I learned most of my skills. But when I learned, there were no interwebz, or guitar tricks. Just me and records and a lot of time to practice. I learned that way... but it was slow progress getting there.

I think you are saying that you get bored with the fundementals lessons. That is not a uncomon result when people with prior experience start GT. If so you could try going past those lessons. But, if you don't already have a frim grasp of the material, you will have to learn those lessons the hard way, by bashing into them with blind enthusiasum... Again and Again.

When I started GT I skipped the fundementals. But I finally went through them to brush up on details. I was surprised to find that I did pick up useful info, even after playing the instrutment for DECADES! It didn't make me an overnight sensation, but it helps to be on the same page as the instructors. I also had absolutly no intrest in learning all the "Mary Had a Little La La".... songs... So I didn't do that part of the program. I did pick up useful info that clarified the directions that I am now studying.

Now I study the lesson topics that interest me. What I am trying to say is that there are many ways to go through learning on GT. But I will be currious as to how you fare in playing music without a deep understanding of chords and chord theory.

Hi snojones! nice to meet you, thanks for sharing your thoughts. I actually do have knowledge about music theory up to an advanced level(Berklee book of Jazz Harmony was what my university used), however, going through EVERYTHING about fundamentals when I'm uninterested or can't see how it will help me in what I wanna learn(fingerstyle) will slowly have my interest for fingerstyle fade away. I had been through this path for learning things and this is not my path. If it works for you, good, but not for me.

I’m wondering if you mean you have to start all over again means you didn’t learn it the right way, or you did? If you’re learning things without seeing how it would help you it will most likely not stay with you.

I didn’t really get bored, I am uninterested at chords at the moment. If I can see how learning all of these can help me, I would learn em. At this moment it’s like: I know and I am sure I would be a musician, so why give a damn about biology, chemistry and physics in highschool? But if I know that getting good results in highschool can help with scholarship for enrolling into music universities, I would make sure to get flying colours for those science subjects though those have nothing to do with I want to become.

What I’m saying is that I can’t see how all these chords can help me in finger style. Sure they do, but ALL of them? I have to learn ALL of them to be 'qualified' to learn fingerrstlye? I am really interested in fingerstyle atm and I understand that learning all the things in fundamentals 1 and 2 would DEFINITELY be useful when learning fingerstyle. I would prefer to go learn finger style, then if I get stuck with a certain chord or voicing, I go back to fundamentals 1 or 2 and learn that. If I learn with a clearer goal it would be much easier for me to absorb what I learn, and in this case clearer goal means that learning a certain chord or voicing that is present in the fingerstyle arrangement that I am currently learning.

At this point I'm learning all the chord-related stuff but I honestly can't see how it will help me(yet) so I can't really absorb what I learn as efficiently. If I can see how it would help me in learning fingerstyle, what I learned would stay with me(or at least for a long time), if I can't see how it will help me, it won't stay long with me.

Do you remember all the science stuff about plants you learn in school? most likely not.

I'm going with @davem_or's suggestion with a twist: go for fingerstyle straight away and see how it goes.