Goals: short, medium and long-term
We might consider both “entertaining millions” and “knowing how to play any song I want to learn” to be “long-term” goals. We’ll met those some time in the future. Long-term goals are great because they define a possible endpoint of your path, and they’re far enough away that we can move toward them if they change, which they probably will. “Playing any song I want to” could easily morph into “playing finger-style guitar in the style of Django Reinhardt ” as you progress in your ability, understanding and appreciation of your instrument. Of course, it’s also a good idea to have medium and short-term goals too, so you can make sure you are on track to that farther-off goal (of entertaining millions, perhaps?).
One way to look at guitar-playing medium-term goals is to think ahead 6 months or so. Let’s say you found a pretty good guitar teacher and you’ve been studying together for the last 6 months. How does that look, guitar-wise? Do you know how to play maybe a half-dozen songs you couldn’t play before? Do you have a fairly good understanding of how the neck works and how chords are built?
Everybody’s goals are unique but simply having medium-term goals helps form an idea of what success might look like a few months down the road. So it’s important to think about your medium term goals too- that’ll help you stay focused.
For a solid and achievable short-term goal, I usually recommend a good understanding of how the neck of the guitar works. My teacher and friend John LaGreca says the guitar is “just a machine for making notes” and that is certainly a useful way of looking at it! Because as with any machine, knowing how to operate it properly is half the battle. Let’s first define some goals together and then get on with the job of understanding the neck a bit better. But first, here are a couple of reasons for playing guitar in the first place: