Week 1 Progress Report

The guitar arrived on Tuesday 26th January 2021 and the following day the stand, strap, cable, plectrums, spare strings and most importantly the Korg tuner arrived.

So this is what I bought from Andertons Music Co.

I did a bunch of research with friends and ended wanting some form of humbucker pickup, so this is a great compromise to my mind.

Here is the full spec (courtesy of Andertons).

Squier Affinity Strat HSS in Montego Black Metallic Specifications

BRIDGE TYPE:	Classic Tremolo
HARDWARE COLOUR:	Chrome
FRETBOARD WOOD:	Laurel
NUMBER OF STRINGS:	6 String Guitars
NECK WOOD:	Maple
BODY WOOD:	Alder
BRAND:	Squier
SCALE LENGTH:	25.5″
BODY SHAPE:	S Style
PICKUP CONFIG:	H/S/S

I love this guitar and ALL the advice that I looked at online had one thing in common. If it’s your first ever guitar, buy something you like the look of more than anything else. It will make you want to pick it up and play it.

That advice is not wrong and I’ve wanted to pick this guitar up every day and play it.

So after 1 week, how far have I got?

I’m using the iPad app from Justin Guitar and using that to learn from. Justin has a great teaching style and method. It’s almost like sitting there with a friend that is teaching you guitar.

The first stage (named stage zero) teaches you how the hold the guitar, tune it and what everything is called. Very useful if you’ve never touched a guitar before.

The next stage (one) get’s you playing and creating the open major chords A, D & E.

To make sure you can change chords without looking like a complete noob from day 1, Justin gets you to play a game of 1 minute chord changes, to see how many times you can change from A to D or D to E and finally E to A. Seeing my progress in this area has been inspiring and something that I will keep using throughout this series.

I can get to around 60 changes a minute for each of these three chords now and only after 1 week. I’m quite impressed with myself and the simple songs are fun to play along with. They also force you to try and change chords quicker than you would normally.