Stage 1 milestone
Milestone: Base Camp
Review, practical challenge and self-assessment to close the stage with everything you learned.
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Stage 1 milestone
Review, practical challenge and self-assessment to close the stage with everything you learned.
Look back for a moment. Not long ago the guitar was a stranger; now you know what every piece is called, how its sound is born, how to hold it without tension, how to tune it, how to read its two maps and how to draw clean, orderly, in-time notes from it. You've set up base camp. This milestone is your last night here: a piece that brings everything together, a routine to make it stick and a self-assessment so you head for the forest with a well-packed backpack.
Every stop at the camp gave you a piece of gear. Here's how they fit together:
| Stop | What you take with you | Where you use it in the challenge |
|---|---|---|
| Before you set out | Deliberate practice, the metronome, short spaced sessions | In the routine and when raising the tempo 5 BPM at a time |
| Meet your guitar | Parts, strings E A D G B E, frets and semitones | Knowing which string and fret you're playing |
| Posture, hands and pick | Tension-free posture, fingers 1–4, pick grip, wrist motion | All the time: scan for tension |
| Tuning your guitar | Standard tuning, tuner, the 5th-fret method | Before playing, always |
| Reading tab and chord boxes | Tab, chord diagrams, Em | Reading the piece and its final chord |
| First notes | Clean notes, one finger per fret, the spider, alternate picking, the riff | They're the substance of the piece |
Prepare the ground the way a mountain guide would, in this order:
First Light is an original eight-bar piece written for this milestone. It has three levels: pick yours, and once you've mastered it, move up to the next. All three sound good over the same Em backing.
One note per beat, all downstrokes. Open strings and frets 2 and 3, one finger per fret (fret 2 = finger 2, fret 3 = finger 3).
The Base Camp riff grows into a four-bar phrase that climbs to the 5th and 4th strings. Eighth notes down-up; quarter and half notes down.
The four bars of level 2 plus an answer on the high strings: a climb up the 3rd and 2nd strings, a short chromatic walk on the 1st (frets 0-1-2-3, one finger per fret) and an ending on the Em chord you read at the chord-diagram stop.
Now with the backing. Eight bars of Em: two loops of levels 1 and 2, or one full run of level 3.
Follow this routine every day for one or two weeks. It's about 25 minutes in short blocks. Each block switches task: this mixing (interleaved practice) feels a little harder than repeating one thing, but what you learn sticks better.
| Block | Minutes | Content | Progression |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tune | 2 | Tuner; one day in three, the 5th-fret method | Faster and more accurate each day |
| Warm-up | 4 | Chromatic spider up and down | +5 BPM every time it's clean three times |
| Reading | 4 | A tab from any stop, at sight | Without looking at your hands more than you need |
| Challenge | 10 | First Light at your level, with metronome then backing | From 60 to 80 BPM; then the next level |
| Play for fun | 5 | Your riff, inventing variations, repeating what you like most | Always finish with a smile |
Tune, then play the spider from the Before the challenge scene. Write in your diary the tempo at which it came out clean.
Goal: Guitar within ±5 cents and a clean chromatic spider, up and down, at yesterday's tempo +5 BPM.
A new tab, at sight. Read it before playing: which strings does it use? Which fingers? Where are the eighth notes?
Goal: Read and play this tab from start to finish without stopping at 60 BPM by the third attempt.
Goal: Play your level of First Light twice in a row over the backing at 70 BPM without stopping.
Use the 6th string and frets 0, 2 and 3. Change the order of the notes, repeat one, stretch another. If you like what comes out, write it down as tab in your diary: it's your first composition.
Goal: Invent your own variation of the Base Camp riff by changing the order of frets 0, 2 and 3 or the rhythm.
Practice blocks ticked: 0 · Self-assessments taken: 0