I am a complete newbie here. I started following Nate's lessons a little over 2 months ago. Considering I had never even picked up a guitar before, I felt like I was making great progress. (This was after getting lost in the rabbit hole of too much information, too many instructors with competing information and finally getting myself refocused).

I know about 7 open chords (still working on the standard C chord, and haven't even attempted an F or any B's), work daily on getting clean sounds, changing chords, and strumming & timing (with a bit of music theory tossed in when my fingers are too sore). It all fell apart last week when I tried actually playing a song! I missed the chord changes, missed strumming on the beats, and chords I thought I knew sounded horrible. I was so frustrated. Told myself I was too old, started too late in life, had inflexible hands and fingers, blah blah blah. After crying, and then picking myself back up, I remembered what Nate always says... Slow it down.

So, I took the song I was working on (3 chords... A, D & E at around 78bpm) and slowed the tempo down by about half. First, I went thru it 4 times just strumming on the beat, no chords at all. While it doesn't sound very exciting, I'm getting great practice on my timing. Then I added in the chords and changes while strumming only on beat 1. The whole time, I counted 1-2-3-4 out loud while tapping my foot. This gave me plenty of time to make the chord change during the other 3 beats. I no longer felt rushed or panicky. The chords sounded clean, and each one was in place when I strummed on beat 1. (Well, ok, almost all the time!) I did this until my fingers couldn't take it anymore. Then I started strumming only on beats 1 & 2. Still counting out loud. I repeated it that way until I was happy with my progress. Then, you guessed it... I strummed on beats 1, 2 & 3 doing the chord change on beat 4. I lost count of how many times I did it this way, ha ha.

Once I can get thru it strumming 3 times and feel I'm doing it well most of the time, I'll move on to strumming all 4 beats. Then I'll start increasing the tempo, going back to strumming only on beat 1 if necessary. I'm confident that by doing it this way, I'll significantly improve my chord changes, really improve my timing and build up some confidence. The fun part can start after that... playing around with strumming patterns other than just all downs.

I'm sure most of you are much farther along than this. But maybe it will encourage some other total newbie to stay with it. And when Nate says slow it down, break it into manageable chunks, he is so right! It really does work. And for those of you farther along in your journey, maybe it will bring a smile to your face remembering what those early days were like. And make you grateful you're no longer there!

The point of this long-winded post... I finally feel there is hope that one day I'll actually be able to play a song. Sing along with it? Now that's a whole different story!