Where to go and what to do

[Bryan E]

Hey everyone, I’m new to AM and am struggling with keeping up with the lessons. There are so many concepts to delve into, it feels like I’m drinking from the fire hose and losing some sense of direction. I have a couple of questions for you more experienced folks.

How long do you spend on a lesson?
Do you try and master the song material? Or use it enough to learn the concept and move on?
Do you have any advice on what to be practicing or how to practice?

There is so much material, I struggle with where to go and what to do. I’ve done the “Start here” lessons through the caged system and pentatonic scales, but it takes forever to get my fingers to follow along even some of the slowest lessons.

For reference, I’ve been working on lesson 315 for months and have the song down fairly well, but still make mistakes. I am also watching other lessons and jumping around somewhat.

I don’t really know if what I’m saying makes sense, any advice is appreciated. Thanks everyone!

-Bryan

[Laurel C]

Welcome Bryan, What you are saying is a normal occurrence for new members. It is overwhelming with a progressive smorgasbord of 600 plus lessons to choose from, other members will have advice on their approach to this. Everyone has different pathways at AM and with time you will too. At the start of my journey I watched every video (there were about half then) but I didn’t play them, except one (one lesson was enough to deal with) but I documented theory takeaways from the lessons which I enjoyed. The first year was the hardest for actually trying to play a whole lesson on the guitar… then something just clicked. Give yourself time and you will settle into your own path as any progress you make will reward you. Brian has some advice on the fire hose dilemma in the meantime that may help.

[Bryan E]

I am cracking up right now that there a video titled with this phrase! This is hilarious. Thanks for the encouragement, I really appreciate it. I’m just about at my first year and I am working hard to get over these hurdles and level up my playing.

Everything seems so important and sounds so cool its hard to know what to stop and stay on and what to file into the “Ill come back to this” category. I will watch this video very thoughtfully.

Thanks so much for taking the time to reply.

-Bryan

[Jean-Michel G]

Hi Bryan,
Your question comes up very regularly! I think it is by far the most frequent question, in fact.
As Laurel said, there are many ways to use the material on this site, and a great deal depends on your current technical level. What you should learn next obviously depends on what you already know – and beginners don’t know what they don’t know! They also don’t always evaluate correctly if something is within their league or not.

Based on your example (EP315), I would suggest you have a look at EP501 and/or EP511. These lessons provide another angle at acoustic blues guitars, and reinforce the concepts of EP315.
But I don’t know your current technical level, so it’s hard to be affirmative…
Hope this helps.

[Michael L]

Bryan E wrote:

How long do you spend on a lesson?
Do you try and master the song material? Or use it enough to learn the concept and move on?
Do you have any advice on what to be practicing or how to practice?

How long? Master a lesson? It depends. There is no right answer. Some lessons are good for grabbing concepts or licks. Others are great for including in one’s personal repertoire. What are your guitar goals and how will a lesson move you closer to where you want to be? If you see the lesson as a performance piece, you might spend a lot of time on it. For others, spend as much time as feels right, grab the ideas that make sense for you, and move on. The underlying principles of the guitar are present in each lesson and Brian explains these as he goes, revisiting the concepts again and again. Eventually, if one practices regularly, deeper understanding of the instrument and it’s musical organization begin to take shape in your mind. At the same time, your fingers become more nimble and more capable of doing what you want them to do. The important thing is to have fun with it, and not feel you have to learn it all. Pick the lessons that appeal to you, give them due effort (don’t jump around too much), and move on as you feel motivated. Don’t get into overwhelm-mindset. You’re not missing anything by taking the time you need. Hope this helps. Ask more questions as they come to mind… it helps us all.

[Bryan E]

All of these replies have been super helpful for me. Thank you for yours, I really appreciate it.

My ultimate goal is to have a deep understand of the guitar and how to connect the notes being played to chords, scales, arpeggios, triads, you name it. To be able to hear a tune and creatively work out how to play and harmonize with others and have it sound good. To be able to learn songs and understand the theory and mechanics to utilize them creatively on my own.

When I was figuring where to spend my money, the fact that Brian doesn’t teach other peoples songs and focuses on the “why” utilizing original compositions really spoke to me. There are a few songs I love and want to learn, but mostly I want to be able to understand and play is nearly any musical situation. I also hope to one day be good enough to teach after I retire. I’m 42 now and have until whenever that is to get there.

Thanks again.

-Bryan

[Bill B]

I also had to laugh at the ‘Firehose’ video.

To answer the what to practice question:
My brother, who has been playing for almost 60 years, gave me this advice when I told him I take all these lessons, but still can’t play anything (improvise). Play surf music, like the Ventures. It’s easy, it fun, and you are actually playing a known piece of music. Hal Leonard has several books on it with backing tracks. I play then often, they are easy, but still challenging enough. All the techniques are there for you to work on while you’re playing something someone else will recognize. It’s almost all simple pentatonic stuff. Of course if you don’t like surf music…

[Bill]

Hey Bryan, I feel your pain. So much to choose from and so many rabbit holes to go through…do I want to learn Blues, Jazz stuff, R&B, Slide, Country…there is a smorgasbord and Brian continued to amaze me with his grasp of concepts and styles.
In my own personal journey I’ve found a love for older jazz/swing style music and there is a great tradition of “standards” in this type of music. So a group of musicians who don’t know each other can get together and jam on “All of Me” or “Starfust”…a common denominator chord progression. To play over. All that is to say, learning songs is a great way to learn music in any style. It could be learning a BB King blues or “Kashmere”.
Brian’s lessons for me augment the songs by covering certain concepts that I can then apply to playing in that style.
Some lessons I learn completely to the point of recording my own version to mark my progress. Others I’ve taken a lick or two from. There is no race and it takes us all a certain amount of time. The only secret to playing is to play more 🙂
Also I would recommend trying the monthly challenge. It’s done loads for improving my playing whole setting a realistic goal to work towards each month.

[Barry W]

Hi Bryan,
This thread is 4 months old, but I just got back.
I was a member of this site for over a year, left for a few years, and rejoined today.
The reason I left is because I had no plan on where to start and how to progress. Trying to learn 600 lessons without a plan is ridiculous.
The reason I am back is because I think I figured where to start and how to progress to get the most out of this site in the fastest time.
Actually, I have already begun with the free YouTube material.
I could probably progress fine with just that, but this site is so cheap, the provided backing tracks and other premium features are time savers. That’s kind of important when you’re 67 years old.
What Brian and many other YouTube teachers have said is that triads are the keys to guitar mastery.
Practicing triads simplifies chords and the fretboard, enabling you to see chords, licks, riffs and scales in context.
In the past 30 years I learned lots of advanced songs and riffs. I practiced my 5 caged pentatonic scales in major and minor for countless hours. But I struggled to see ‘the context’, meaning, I found it difficult to know which note was the root, 3rd and 5th. Yes, it’s important.
If you’re playing ANY song, ANY lesson on this site, ANY scale or ANY chord on your guitar and you don’t know which note is the root, 3rd, and 5th, you are not seeing context, and you will have trouble visualizing the fretboard patterns that advanced players see.
The triad lessons simplify EVERY chord to just 3 notes on 3 adjacent strings. You have to know which of the 3 notes is the root to know where to play the chord. You then learn which note is the 3rd by changing the triad from major to minor. By default, you will know that the remaining note is the 5th. There are MANY benefits to knowing this, a primary one being that you will easily see where the nearest root of the next chord is when it comes time to change.
If you don’t understand music theory, you may question why this is important, but you don’t have to understand why it’s important in order to get huge benefits.
I have been playing these simple little dumb triads regularly for a month and it’s amazing what I am seeing in my old familiar riffs, licks, pentatonic scales and leads that I wasn’t seeing before.
I suggest you play the triad exercises over the backing tracks until the progressions become relatively easy. It doesn’t take long. Then work on the extensions and embellishments.
The natural tendency I had on this site when I first joined was to listen to lessons until I found one that sounded ‘cool’, and then learn it. Playing basic major and minor triad shapes without embellishments doesn’t sound very cool at all unless you have a really good right hand, so I didn’t study those lessons. That was a mistake I intend to correct.
Here is my recommended list of triad lessons in no particular order: EP485, ML068, EP399, EP446, ML103, EP362, EP514, EP466, EP471. Now you’ve reduced the site to 9 lessons. I am convinced that if I learn these 9 lessons well, all the others will be much easier and will build on these rock-solid fundamentals. After learning this triad material, when you go to learn a song and see that the first chord is a G, you will know how to play 6 G triads, with the option of substituting that chord with: 6- G6 chords, 6- G9 chords, 6 -G7 chords (that’s 24 possibilities for those keeping score) along with options to harmonize 3rds or 6ths etc. You will also see the corresponding major and minor pentatonic scale that lies in that area of the fretboard and recognize the chord tones in those 5 note scales.
That’s my two cents.

[Mr. Larry P]

Bryan E,
I’m new to this site as well and it can be overwhelming. If you can say more about your current guitar and theory skills I / we may be able to help. For example, do you play minor pentatonic scales in all 5 positions? Can you play a scale all on one string? Have you learned any triads, etc.?

I have a fair amount of material that I have produced along the way to simplify what seems complex. Just as any training you take in life there are FEW great instructors, especially when it comes to the basics. This site is not really for learning the basics.

For me, in guitar playing you must learn the basics, such as the pentatonics, before this site will be really useful to you. For example, I know all the pentatonics but I’m slow. So I’m using this site to learn how to play the pentatonics in a melodic way instead of just up and down the fretboard. I’m also working on increasing my speed.

Let me know if I can assist. I’d be happy to help and share.

Mr. Larry

[Yehuda A]

If Ian want to play ‘‘em chord on the Gm pentatonic scale ,could I have dm chord played on the Gm pentatonic scale (1) and if so don’t understand how the position of the fingers-third string 4 fret,or2 string 5 fret,thank you Yehuda Avital(a beginner)

[Barry W]

Hi Yehuda,
I think you are playing third string 4th fret, 2nd string 5th fret (and 1rst string 3rd fret?) because you are playing an Em chord in the Dm shape.
This concept is discussed in lessons about the CAGED system. Your Dm triad is 1rst string fret 1, 3rd string fret 2, and 2nd string fret 3. If you slide those three notes up 2 frets, you have now changed that Dm triad to an Em triad.
We still refer to it as the Dm shape though. We call it Em triad in the Dm shape.
Sometimes, we only play 2 of the 3 notes (a dyad) instead of all 3 notes.
In the caged system, every chord is related to one of 5 chord shapes C-A-G-E-D.
If this is confusing to you, you will hear it explained over and over in these lessons.
Brian has lessons dedicated to explaining the CAGED system to beginners like yourself to help you understand these concepts.
Hope this helps.

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