Here’s an overview of your 12-month guitar plan:
- Months 1-3: Developing your lead guitar skills (scales, riffs etc).
- Months 4-7: Understanding simple music theory for guitarists.
- Months 8-10: Chord changes and chord technique.
- Months 11-12: Strumming with rhythm, energy and flow (& creating variety).
Your most-useful video training workshops
Our free lead guitar training workshops are a must-watch for you. These free workshops will move your lead guitar skills on to the next level:
Lead guitar workshop 1: The 4 Simple Fundamentals For Playing Amazing Lead Guitar
Lead guitar workshop 2: The 5 Essential Lead Guitar Secrets Every Guitarist Should Know”
Your ideal courses
Your perfect National Guitar Academy starting course is LeadMaster. That is where you should focus most of your time during the next 3 months.
Remember, our courses LeadMaster and TheoryMaster are designed to work together so after 2-3 months of the LeadMaster course you should also begin the TheoryMaster course.
Nothing is more empowering for a lead guitar player, than an understanding of music theory.
So watch the above workshop videos to get your fundamentals up to speed quickly and then you’ll be primed for the full courses.
Timescales
Be careful not to bite off more than you can chew…
- You can zoom through the courses within a few weeks, but a more sensible timescale is around 3-4 months per course.
- This will give you the time to internalize the things you learn and incorporate them into your own playing. This can take time.
- We need to hear things many times (and appreciate them from many different angles) before we truly learn and ‘embody’ them.
And the beauty of this journey is, there is no rush.
Your guitar is a lifelong friend. It will be there for you in good times and bad. Every stage of learning guitar holds its own charm! So don’t rush to reach the destination, enjoy the journey.
Your Strengths and Weaknesses
Guitarists like you are in the minority. Your love of music is most keenly felt through melody and this manifests itself through scales, riffs, licks, solos and other aspects of lead guitar.
You play guitar for the thrill of getting it right and you don’t care who knows it! You appreciate the electricity of feeling like a Guitar Hero.
About your strengths
You don’t mind getting your hands dirty and working things out, note by note.
You’re happy to practice with a tab and truly master a musical piece.
You appreciate the finer details and want to get things right. (Only one in 10 guitar learners can do what you do, so this is a big asset for you.)
Check out our free mega-guide: How To Play Lead Guitar
About your Weaknesses
Be careful not to let your love of melody and lead guitar blind you from the fact that CHORDS are the critical building block of the guitar’s fretboard.
Chords = Harmony; this is the other side of the musical coin.
Many guitarists of your type have poor chord knowledge and this can make them one-dimensional guitarists who never understand how things fit together.
Check out our chord training workshops to improve your chord skills quickly:
Chords workshop 1: Click here to watch workshop 1
Chords workshop 2: Click here to watch workshop 2
Beginner chords bootcamp!
- Download my e-book ‘Guitar Chords For Beginners‘ here. It’s over 100 pages of GOLDMINE information for guitar beginners. I hope you enjoy it.
- Check out our free guide 14 Easy Chord Shapes For Beginners to master the basics quickly. Use our Easy Chords section here on the site for extra support.
Intermediate level support – Check out our free guide: How To Play Barre Chords
Building on your strengths
Recommendation 1: You probably already know the Minor Pentatonic scale (which is where all lead player should begin) so next you should learn all 5 box patterns of the Minor Pentatonic scale and then progress to the Blues Scale.
It’s ok to spend YEARS with just these two scales.
Recommendation 2: When you feel ready, the next step is to learn the full Major and Minor Scales in all 5 boxes.
- Again it’s totally ok if this takes you many years. Your guitar is a friend that will be with you for your entire life. There is no destination here, it’s all about the journey.
- Why do you want to reach the end? Enjoy each moment right now! From there you can progress to Harmonic Minor and move on to modes.
Remember: There is no rush, this roadmap is a whole lifetime of guitar fun.
IMPORTANT NOTE: It’s much better to pick one scale and play around with it for a year or more learning all it has to offer than it is to simply memorise all the scales and not know how to truly use any of them.
Don’t become a robot, reciting scales. Become a MUSICIAN, who creates music.
You are someone who can voice the beauty of every note in even the simplest scale.
Read our free guide: Learn Guitar Scales In 8 Easy Steps
Recommendation 3: Understanding the CAGED framework will revolutionize your understanding of the fretboard.
- Focus on your open chords, E-shaped barre chords and A-shaped barre chords. (For many guitarists, this takes years and is all the chords they ever need to know.)
- If you want to get more advanced then progress to learning D-shaped barre chords (very useful for lead guitarists!) and G-shaped barre chords. Lastly, learn your C-shaped barre chords.
Recommendation 4: Our free music theory for guitarists training workshops are a must-watch for you because nothing is more empowering for a lead guitar player than learning some theory.
Workshop 1: An introduction to music theory for guitarists
Workshop 2: How to USE music theory to sound amazing on your guitar
A re-cap of your 12-month guitar plan:
This week: Watch the lead guitar training workshops:
Lead guitar workshop 1: The 4 Simple Fundamentals For Playing Amazing Lead Guitar
Lead guitar workshop 2: The 5 Essential Lead Guitar Secrets Every Guitarist Should Know”
Months 1-3: Developing your lead guitar skills (scales, riffs etc). Take our LeadMaster course.
Months 4-7: Understanding simple music theory for guitarists. Take our TheoryMaster course.
Months 8-10: Chord changes and chord technique. Begin the ChordMaster course.
Months 11-12: Strumming with rhythm, energy and flow (& creating variety). Start the RhythmMaster course.
You are beginning something wonderful and it’s our great pleasure to help you along your musical journey!
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