Skipping Lessons and When to Move to the Next Lesson

[RockportTele64]

How many of y'all skip one or more lessons?

The reason I ask is I was watching some of the lesson videos in advance (hurt my hand yesterday-like the day I started BGU DOH! and I wanted to see what the program looked like and what I was working towards even though I can't use my fretting hand right now). I watched the blues scale video in Lesson 15. I already know all the boxes of the blues scale cold and can play them in any key up and down the neck. I am not sure (other than watching the video) I need to spend a few days or a week drilling down on that lesson..

And along those lines, when are you moving on to the next lesson? I assume when you can comfortably and smoothly play at the same speed as the full speed example... but what are y'all doing?

Also, a bit of background on me- I've been an off and on acoustic guitar player since 1996. I always wanted to play electric guitar and got one about a year and a half ago, and really learning it (emphasis on lead guitar) has been my pandemic project. I've become addicted to the blues and want to learn as much as I can about playing this style of music.

 

[BraylonJennings]

When I started bgu2, I blazed through 7-8 lessons in an hour or so and was worried the course wouldn't challenge me enough. Now, I've spent the last 10 days learning the first 12 bars of solo 4, 24 bars to go. It'll get tough soon enough. I move to the next lesson when I've learned the previous one, but not mastered it. Everybody is different. I still run through the early rhtymn lessons periodically to keep them fresh, even though I've played many of them for years. I keep refreshing solos 1-3, because I won't retain them if I don't keep using them. So, after a bit more than a year, I'm still being challenged, after 30 years of playing.

 

[Elwood]

How many of y'all skip one or more lessons?

Me. The lessons are a means to an end. That's all.

 

[ChrisGSP]

I've played musical instruments and been reading music most of my life, and guitar since about 1963. I signed up for BGU2 in November last year. LIke @BraylonJennings I breezed through the first 6 or 7 lessons easily because of all that background that I have, then I started concentrating. Since about February I have been slowly working on the Slow Gospel Blues lesson and Solo 1. Meanwhile I have also looked ahead to Solos 2 and 3 and have mucked about with them. But all the time I keep going back and revising everything from Lesson 1, about once a week.
I use VLC Media Player and I have set up several Playlists containing the Play-along or Jam Tracks for Lessons 1-6, Lessons 7-9 etc. That makes the revision process easy.
So in response to your question, my method is to look ahead while proceeding one step at a time; and continuously revising what I've completed.

 

[BraylonJennings]

I use VLC Media Player and I have set up several Playlists containing the Play-along or Jam Tracks for Lessons 1-6, Lessons 7-9 etc. That makes the revision process easy.
.[/QUOTE]

I downloaded all the backing tracks for all lessons into a song file in Presonus Studio One, making reviewing the old lessons easy and giving me good audio quality to practice with.

 

[MikeS]

BGU was created in a specific order so that the skills in one lesson usually build into the next. Not everyone has the same gaps in guitar knowledge so there's no one size fits all answer.
As far as when to move on, Griff has always said that it doesn't need to be perfect. If you play it 80%-90% right at 80%-90% speed, it's fine to move on to the next lesson. Just don't forget to go back to the first lesson and keep it in your practice routine.

In fact it doesn't really have to be near perfect if you are getting bored or frustrated. You can move on at any time as long as you come back to it.
I wouldn't recommend just skipping lessons either. I thought I didn't like funk music so I skipped lesson 13 Funky Blues. A couple of years later Griff was playing something and I was really digging it, so I asked him about it and he said "BGU Lesson 13!".