Hi and welcome,

I am going to be a bit of a contrarian with Joe, which is odd, but I know he won’t mind.

I have never finished Fundamentals. I just couldn’t do it. Here is what I have focused on in the year of learning:

1) Songs – I got right into learning songs.

2) Chords – but only the chords I needed. I decided this by looking at the songs I wanted to learn. There really aren’t that many that I need. If I need more in the future I will learn them.

3) Chord transition. This is really important. If I can’t keep up to the tempo I can’t play the song. I will often practice these while this watching tv.

4) Scales – there are a lot of scales and a lot of positions. I focus on what I need for what I am working on. The others can come as needed. So here, I think you do need a direction. For instance when I started messing about with the Blues I looked at the Blues scale in A, its positions and extentions. But if you don't have a direction, you won't have a focus. The direction should be whatever catches your fancy, then dive in.

5) Theory – this came on late for me, about 4 mos ago I guess. The reason I wanted to learn some theory is so that I would have a better idea of how to solo over a given track (jam track) and improvise. In this effort, I have begun writing my own licks. This is great fun. For me the writing of licks is a great exercise in helping me understand why a certain note should be played at a certain time. And then, what should I do with that note: should I play it flat, should I embellish it a tad – perhaps a bend, a vibrato etc. Great fun!

There is a spider exercise I do taught by Andrew Wassen. I used to do it everyday, now I do it maybe a couple of times per month. I play every day so I don’t really feel my hands tightening up that much. His exercise definately helped in finger dexterity. Especially my ring and pinky fingers.

Good luck.

Spider