sws together with bgu

[denisfrombelgium]

Hello, I 'm considering buying the sws course.

I've been playing for a while but just played rhythm guitar while singing ( mostly pop, rock). Not really following a course but just "randomly" playing songs I liked ( lessons from justinguitar etc.)

I decided I wanted to improve my level in a more structured way of playing and I'm now working through the BGU course ( lesson 8) and having fun with it. For me the course - until now - is great and not too challenging ( this is meant as a compliment : I am learning from it in a steady pace without having problems I cannot overcome )

However I would like to be able to improvise over (blues) chord progressions. Does sws teach this ?
And do you think I can use it alongside my bgu journey ?
Or do I have to wait until I start the lead guitar lessons of BGU ?

If I start sws now will it still be useful after I completed bgu ?

Greetings,

Denis

 

[misterbiscuit]

I took BGU first. There are multiple lessons from that course I am still working on. Believe me, it gets more challenging. SWS is more of a fun course. I believe its aim is to facilitate improvisation by limiting your options. Instead of trying to think of all the modes, start with four-note patterns and see how much you can do with them.

 

[MikeS]

The general suggestion is that once you reach solo 3 in BGU, it's a fine time to add SWS. That's what I did and it really worked out well for me.

 

[denisfrombelgium]

Ok , thanks. I'll wait until solo 3 at least. Thanks for your clear answer.

 

[Larry H.]

I have many of the courses; I started with BGU 2.0 and hit the wall of Solo 3. I keep bangin my head against it and getting frustrated reverting to rhythm and vocals. Lol. I think I may have some attention problems because I dont stick with a lesson long. Generally, how long do solo challenged players here stick with a lesson to get it. I know I will get Solo 3, I just dont know if I’ll survive the process.

 

[Randy S]

I have many of the courses; I started with BGU 2.0 and hit the wall of Solo 3. I keep bangin my head against it and getting frustrated reverting to rhythm and vocals. Lol. I think I may have some attention problems because I dont stick with a lesson long. Generally, how long do solo challenged players here stick with a lesson to get it. I know I will get Solo 3, I just dont know if I’ll survive the process.

How do you eat an elephant- one bite at a time. How do you learn a solo- one lick at a time. Take the first lick and play it until you think you have it memorized- then put it aside and do something else. Later come back and see if you can play it. Once you can play it from memory move to the next lick and repeat. Once you have that lick do the two together. Continue the process until you work though the first twelve bars. Then play it to the backing track- it will be lousy and you won't finish at the right place but don't panic. Keep working at it paying attention to where you start and stop each lick in relation to the chord progression. It will come. Then do the next 12 bars. Then add the two together and you have it.

Solo 3 is reasonably challenging but if you take it one lick at a time you can learn in it 2-3 weeks. A lot depends on how often you can play. If I recall correctly that is about what it took me.