Stage 2 milestone
Milestone: The Forest of First Chords
Review, practical challenge and self-assessment to close the stage with everything you learned.
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Stage 2 milestone
Review, practical challenge and self-assessment to close the stage with everything you learned.
You entered the forest able to play single notes and you leave it with six chords in your hands. Along the way you learned that a chord is a stack of notes, that major and minor are one fret apart, that rhythm rules over fingers and that a song is a map of sections. This milestone brings it all together in a final challenge, a routine to lock it in and a self-assessment to check you're ready for the river of rhythm.
| Stop | What you learned | What you can now do |
|---|---|---|
| What is a chord? | , root, major and minor by ear | Play a clean Em and check it string by string |
| A, D and E | Major , , fingerings | Know which string to strum each chord from |
| Changing without stopping | , , , | Link chords without breaking the rhythm |
| Minor chords | Am, Em, Dm; the note that changes | Go from major to minor by moving one note |
| First strums | , 4/4, metronome, the pendulum | Strum in time with a pattern |
| Your first song | , , , chord chart | Play a whole song without stopping |
Shape → change → rhythm → song: each step stands on the one before.
Your final challenge is an original piece in two parts. Part A walks through the shade with minor chords and ends on E; part B steps into the light with the major ones. The form is A – B – A – B and a final chord.
| Part | Bar 1 | Bar 2 | Bar 3 | Bar 4 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A | Em | Am | Em | Am |
| Dm | Am | E | E | |
| B | A | D | A | D |
| E | D | A | A | |
| Ending | A (let it ring) |
Listen to the whole piece:
Watch out for the new changes: Em ↔ Am (fingers 2 and 3 shift together one string; finger 1 comes in for Am), Am → E (the same shape, one string towards the low strings) and D → E (air change, bass first).
One strum on 1 and the chord ringing for four beats. The goal is not to get lost on the map.
One strum on every beat, without stopping, at 70 BPM or more.
Part A with the long, short, short pattern; part B with four quarter notes plus the final up-strum. And one new detail: in bar 6 of part B, change halfway through the bar, two beats of E and two of D.
To make all this stick, follow this routine for 20 minutes a day over two weeks. Practising 20 minutes on six days beats two hours on a single day: your brain consolidates what you learned between sessions (that's ). Each day, mix the exercises rather than repeating one for a long time.
| Block | Minutes | Week 1 | Week 2 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Warm-up | 3 | Build each chord and check it string by string | Same, with your eyes closed |
| One-minute changes | 5 | A–D, E–A, Am–Em | Dm–E, Am–E, D–E |
| Rhythm with metronome | 5 | Patterns 1 and 2, 60–70 BPM | Patterns 2 and 3, 70–80 BPM |
| Repertoire | 7 | "Leaf Trail", levels 1–2 | "Out of the Forest", levels 2–3 |
Place each chord, play it string by string and strum it once: Em, E, Am, A, Dm, D. Remember which string each one starts from.
Goal: Build all six chords once each, every string clean, in under 3 minutes.
Pick the week's three pairs. One minute each, one strum per chord. Write the numbers down with the date.
Goal: Do three 60-second rounds and beat at least one of yesterday's numbers.
Count out loud and keep the pendulum. Change chords every bar:
Goal: Play two straight minutes of each of the week's patterns without rushing the click, going up 5 BPM on each day it's clean.
Play over the backing. If a change always fails in the same spot, pull it out and do a minute of changes on that pair before going back to the piece.
Goal: Play the week's piece all the way through, twice, without stopping the strum.
Practice blocks ticked: 0 · Self-assessments taken: 0