Here’s an overview of your 12-month guitar plan:
- Months 1-3: Strumming with rhythm, energy and flow (& creating variety).
- Months 4-7: Chord changes and chord technique.
- Months 8-10: Beginning to develop your lead guitar skills (scales, riffs etc).
- Months 11-12: Understanding simple music theory for guitarists.
Your most-useful video training workshops
Our free ‘Strumming Fundamentals’ videos are a must-watch for you. These free workshops will move your strumming on to the next level:
Video 1: Strumming Workshop 1
Video 2: Strumming Workshop 2
Chords go hand-in-hand with strumming. Watch these chord training workshops to open up the next level for your chord technique and knowledge:
Chords workshop 1: Click here to watch workshop 1
Chords workshop 2: Click here to watch workshop 2
Open chords & barre chords
For open chords, remember to use ‘stepping stone chords’ to quickly develop your finger dexterity and accuracy.
Here are some useful resources that will save you hundreds of hours of frustration:
- 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.
- Read one of the most popular guides on our site: ‘14 Easy Chords For Beginners‘
- Visit the ‘Easy Chords’ section of our site which will help you a lot.
For barre chords, check out these free resources which will help you a lot:
Watch this barre chords training video: 3 Tips That Get Results Quickly
Check out our mega-guide: How To Play Barre Chords
Your ideal courses
Your perfect National Guitar Academy starting course is RhythmMaster. That is where you should focus most of your time during the next 4 months.
Remember, our courses ChordMaster and RhythmMaster are designed to work together so after 2-3 months of the RhythmMaster course you should also begin the ChordMaster course.
Why? Because ChordMaster focuses on your ‘chord hand’ and RhythmMaster focuses on your ‘strumming hand’.
RhythmMaster will complement your progress with chords perfectly.
So watch the above workshop videos and 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 internalise 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
You may not know this but you are actually a rare type of guitarist. When you listen to music you can feel it flowing through you and you probably play guitar for the joy of getting ‘lost in the music’.
Strengths: Because you have a strong sense of musicality you are very focussed on your strumming and rhythmic ability. This is a big asset for you. (And something you probably take for granted.)
Read our free guide How To Correctly Strum A Guitar to make sure you have perfect technique:
Weaknesses: The danger for you is you may not learn much about lead guitar and this can make you an unbalanced guitarist.
As a minimum, make sure you learn the Minor Pentatonic scale (and when/how to use it!) otherwise you can get stuck in a silo where guitar becomes ALL about rhythm and chords (when in reality, it is much broader than that).
Lead guitar & scales are important, don’t forget about melody!
Read our free guide: How To Play Lead Guitar
Recommendation 1: You will benefit from having good chord knowledge because this will make you a more articulate guitarist; someone who can create a powerful and convincing mood when they strum.
- Spend time mastering open chords, then move on to E-shaped 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 go deeper and truly understand the fretboard you need to explore D, G and C barre chord shapes too. (We call this the ‘CAGED system’ as it spells out the 5 types of moveable chord shapes: C, A, G, E and D.)
- If you’re a beginner don’t worry about any of this! Just learn some easy stepping stone chords and enjoy playing songs that you love.
Check out our ‘easy chords’ section for lots of free guides that will help in this area: https://nationalguitaracademy.com/lessons-category/chords/
When you feel you are hitting a plateau, that’s when it’s time to move to the next level and learn some barre chords. Don’t worry if this takes many years. Learning guitar is a lifelong journey and you should enjoy each moment. There is no rush!
Recommendation 2: You would enjoy learning new rhythmic styles. For example, fingerpicking, string-slapping and percussive strumming techniques. You would love the extra variety this brings to your guitar playing. Being able to play new and interesting rhythms is something that would give you a lot of joy.
A re-cap of your 12-month guitar plan:
This week: Watch the strumming workshops:
- Video: Strumming Workshop 1
- Video: Strumming Workshop 2
Months 1-3: Strumming with rhythm, energy and flow (& creating variety). Take the RhythmMaster course.
Months 4-7: Chord changes and chord technique. Take the ChordMaster course.
Months 8-10: Beginning to develop your lead guitar skills (scales, riffs etc). Begin the LeadMaster course.
Months 11-12: Understanding simple music theory for guitarists. Begin the TheoryMaster course.
You are beginning something wonderful and it’s our great pleasure to help you along your musical journey!
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