I'm an absolute beginner (63 years old) and going through the lesson plan for about a week, working on the "simple" chords. I've looked at some of the songs and wondered if it was a good idea or bad idea to also work on one of those concurrently -- the song of course uses "full" chords - should I wait before jumping ahead to work on songs? Will it hinder working throuigh the "basics"?
Thanks for any insight.
Joe
Hi Joe,
When I started 2 years ago I learned both at the same time. Things have worked out. I was 55 when I started.
Take your time, be patient with yourself and don't give up on regular practice.
Good luck.
This year the diet is definitely gonna stick!
[u]Short answer[/u]. If it's within your capability without deteriorating into frustration, but bolsters your interest and enthusiasm, play songs from the very beginning. However, don't skip over as in bypass completely or ignore and never do parts of Fundamentals' sequentially [u]structured[/u] syllabus you can't demonstrate competency with because you find either the lesson or repetition needed to accomplish the demonstrated skill or exercise "boring". If you follow those guidelines "jumping ahead to work on songs" won't hinder learning the basics IMV&E.
How I dealt with unappealing songs supplied I didn't enjoy playing within the Fundamentals lesson to develop the skills objectives, was to search out a song I was familiar with and did like which exercised the same or more chords, tempo etc and complete the exercise using it as a template instead. Worked well for me.
[u]Long answer[/u].
Approaching three years now since I started Fundamentals One (F1), but I'll try to answer combining my experience and recall of how I approached it and would still do it now.
I'll speak as if to the self-described absolute beginner, i.e. never picked up and attempted to play guitar ever before, vs the commonly at your age returned beginner, i.e. someone who some time ago, whether it be 5 years or 40 years, has covered in some way and been able to learn and play the basic open forms of common Major and Minor chords, possibly some barre chords and use them in song progressions, in which case IME recall of which will return quickly. I fell into the later category, although it had been over 40 years since I played. Although my motor skills had 'left the building' in the intervening years, all I needed was initial prompting to recall the forms of the common chords and common progressions. I still needed to work on getting them to happen though, and with old bones.
Possibly because of that past experience, when I kicked off with F1 I recognised the cut down easy versions of "simple" Cmaj, Gmaj, Emaj & Amin taught here early in F1 weren't the C, G, E and Am I knew but simplified forms catering to a user need to perceive fast progress accomplished easily without perseverence to minimise the "this isn't as easy as it looked/I thought it would be" shock resulting in an "it's too hard I'm quitting" mindset of the 90% who do with the first year as published Fender market research stats reveal. A lowest common denominator teaching style, [u]not for me[/u].
That would have put me off totally from the outset had it not been for the long ago prior experience as well as dynamic instructional experience which recognised both the forms for what they were and identified the purpose in why that knuckle dragging approach was taken. Out of thoroughness I did cover those actual lessons very quickly primarily to identify and extract the prerequisite objectives, but then adapted them using instead the traditional forms of those major and minor first form chords. I also used other sources I'd previously trialed prior to joining Guitar Tricks conjunctively where I thought a superior lesson on the topic or with worthwhile supplementary material or alternate technique was taught and useful. This approach piqued my interest and resulted in a satisfactorily rapid rate of progress for me.
[u]Basic guildeline[/u]. 1. Play songs from the beginning [u]if you can[/u]. 2. [u]Follow the syllabus[/u], being adaptive and concurrently mixing it with other parts and sources if you want, but [u]don't skip over parts of the Fundamentals structured syllabus material entirely[/u] either because you don't like it, "it's boring" or too hard unless you ascertain that you can already demonstrate the skill/s and have the knowledge objectives it contains.
