Stage 3 milestone
Milestone: The River of Rhythm
Review, practical challenge and self-assessment to close the stage with everything you learned.
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Stage 3 milestone
Review, practical challenge and self-assessment to close the stage with everything you learned.
Look back from the riverbank. You reached the river with chords and downstrokes; now you feel the pulse, read note values and rests, your strumming hand swings like a pendulum, you play G and C, you know how to use a capo, you can tell a waltz from a march and 6/8 from 3/4, and you dare to syncopate. This milestone brings it all together in an original piece, a two-week practice plan and a final self-assessment. Once you pass it, the river will leave you on the blues highway.
| Stop | The essentials | In the challenge you'll use it to… |
|---|---|---|
| Pulse, tempo and the metronome | Steady pulse, BPM, counting out loud, not rushing | Play everything with the click and the tempo ladder |
| Note values and rests | Whole, half, quarter, eighth; rests, dots, ties | Read the intro and the written ending |
| Eighth notes and up-strums | The pendulum, ghost strums, ↓ · ↓↑ · ↑↓↑ | The level 2 strum |
| G, C and the capo | 3-2-4 fingering, block changes, transposing with a capo | The progression and the capo version |
| Time signatures | 2/4, 3/4, 4/4, 6/8, accents and dynamics | The waltz interlude and the p-to-f changes |
| Syncopation and sixteenths | Ties, off-beats, sixteenths, triplets | The level 3 strum and the final anticipation |
"Downstream" is an original piece in G major in three parts: an arpeggiated intro, a 16-bar song in 4/4 and a 3/4 interlude. Choose your level and move up when the previous one comes out clean twice in a row.
Four bars, one per chord: the bass on beat 1 and the chord's notes in eighths and quarters. Read the rhythm from the notation and the string from the tab. Keep the whole chord fretted while you play its notes.
The progression lasts 16 bars, one chord per bar. Play the first half at mp and the second at f.
Level 1: the pulse
Quarter-note downstrokes, with ghost strums on the "&"s. Goal: 70 BPM without stopping.
Level 2: the pendulum
The star pattern. Goal: 80 BPM with changes on time.
Level 3: the current. A syncopated pattern in bars 1 to 14 and, in the last two, a written ending with an anticipation: the G chord arrives on the "&" of 4 in bar 15 and is tied over the final bar.
Before repeating the song, change meter: eight bars of bass – chord – chord waltz. Count "1 2 3" and feel the turn. Play this line first, then repeat it over the backing:
Two weeks, 20–25 minutes a day. Each day combines four blocks: rhythm warm-up, changes, reading and the piece. Change the order now and then and mix up the material: interleaved practice locks in learning better than repeating a single exercise for a long time.
| Days | Warm-up (5 min) | Changes (5 min) | Reading (5 min) | Piece (10 min) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1–3 | Eighth-note pendulum, 60–70 BPM | G ↔ C, one minute | Note values and rests | Intro + level 1 |
| 4–7 | Off-beats, 70 BPM | Em ↔ G, D ↔ G | Ties | Level 2 + interlude |
| 8–10 | Sixteenths, 56–64 BPM | Full progression | 3/4 and 6/8 | Level 2 at 80 BPM, with dynamics |
| 11–14 | Accents on 2 and 4 | With capo at 2 | Free review | Level 3 and the full piece |
On Em or with the strings muted by your fretting hand, keep the hand moving for the whole block. Minute 1: every eighth. Minute 2: only the "&"s. Minute 3: sixteenths at half tempo. Minute 4: ↓ · ↓↑ · ↑↓↑. Minute 5: the level 3 syncopated pattern.
Goal: Five minutes of pendulum without stopping your hand, switching every minute: eighths, off-beats, sixteenths.
One minute per pair: G ↔ C, Em ↔ G, D ↔ G, C ↔ D. Write down the numbers.
Goal: Beat your G ↔ C one-minute record every week (final goal: 40).
Strum this line on D; the next day, invent another by combining the note values you know and write it on paper before playing it.
Goal: Read and strum a new four-bar line at first sight, counting out loud.
Chain the three parts. First at 60 BPM, then go up in steps of 4. Record yourself once a week and listen: do you rush at the changes? Can you hear the difference between mp and f?
Goal: Play intro, song, interlude and song without stopping, at your level, with the backing.
Practice blocks ticked: 0 · Self-assessments taken: 0