Stage 15 milestone
Milestone: The World Tour
Review, practical challenge and self-assessment to close the stage with everything you learned.
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Stage 15 milestone
Review, practical challenge and self-assessment to close the stage with everything you learned.
Stop for a moment and look back. Fifteen stages ago you held a guitar for the first time, with no idea which string was the first one or why a number on a line meant a fret. Then came the first chords, the pulse, the blues, the first solo, the physics of sound, the barre, harmony, expression, groove, the whole neck, the modes, harmonic colour, technique and, finally, a tour of styles, sound, composition and the art of practising. This is the last milestone on the map. Here you will bring it all together in one piece, check how far you have come and look ahead.
| Stage | What you learned | The skill you take with you |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Base Camp | The guitar, posture, tuning, reading tab and chord boxes | Playing without tension and reading the guitarist's two maps |
| 2. The Forest of First Chords | Open major and minor chords, changes, first strums | Accompanying a simple song |
| 3. The River of Rhythm | Pulse, note values, eighths, time signatures, syncopation, capo | Playing in time and reading rhythm |
| 4. The Blues Highway | Power chords, palm muting, riffs, 12-bar blues, shuffle, sevenths | Playing a whole blues with its groove |
| 5. The Lead Hills | Minor pentatonic, alternate picking, legato, call and response | Improvising your first phrases |
| 6. The Valley of Sound | Frequency, timbre, notes, octaves, major scale, keys, the staff | Knowing which note you play and why it sounds that way |
| 7. The Barre Pass | The F chord, E and A shapes, transposing | Playing any chord in any key |
| 8. Harmony City | Intervals, triads, diatonic chords, functions and cadences, the five boxes | Understanding why a progression works |
| 9. The Peaks of Expression | In-tune bends, vibrato, major pentatonic, blues scale, target notes | Making the guitar sing |
| 10. The Groove Garden | Fingerpicking, Travis picking, colour chords, sixteenth-note funk, syncopation | Feeling the pocket and playing with your fingers |
| 11. The Fretboard Labyrinth | CAGED, the major scale across the neck, seventh chords, voicings, arpeggios | Moving around the whole neck without getting lost |
| 12. The Modes Archipelago | The seven modes, modal vamps, harmonic and melodic minor, ii–V–I | Choosing the colour of each scale |
| 13. The Harmony Observatory | Secondary dominants, modal interchange, tensions, substitutions, modulation | Reharmonising and travelling between keys |
| 14. The Technique Forge | Economy and sweep picking, legato, tapping, hybrid picking, speed, odd meters | Playing what you imagine with control and without injury |
| 15. The World Tour | Rock, funk, jazz, bossa, flamenco, classical and folk; sound and gear; composing; lifelong practice | Being a complete, independent musician |
Horizon is an original sixteen-bar piece in E minor, at about 84 BPM, written for this milestone. It has two sections:
The challenge has three levels. You do not need to master them all today: level 1 is the foundation, level 2 is the voice and level 3 is the summit.
Play the whole form with these voicings and the strumming pattern below. Notice the : between Em7, Cmaj7 and Am7, several notes stay put.
Goal: Play all sixteen bars twice in a row over the backing at 84 BPM, with no gaps at the changes and section B louder than A.
Now the lead voice. This melody for section A uses almost everything from The Peaks of Expression: slides, vibrato, a bend with release and on the strong beats. Bars 5–8 repeat the idea an octave higher and develop it.
Almost every beat 1 and 3 carries a chord tone: G and D over Em7, E and B over Cmaj7, A over Am7. In bar 4 the bend takes A up to B, the root of B7; the release returns to A (its seventh) and the phrase lands on D♯, the leading note that wants to go back to E. Bar 6 is a variation: F♯ appears as a passing note. The whole of bar 8 outlines the B7 arpeggio.
Goal: Play the eight bars of melody over the backing at 84 BPM with every bend in tune (checked against the fretted note) and vibrato on every long note.
The summit combines the technique of The Forge, the harmony of The Observatory and the freedom to improvise. Choose one of the three challenges or, if you dare, all three.
Replace bars 3 and 4 of the melody with these three-string Am7 and B7 arpeggios, using and a hammer-on/pull-off on the first string.
In bar 14, replace D7 with its , A♭7: they share the tritone (F♯–C, spelled G♭–C in A♭7) and the bass slides down a half step into Gmaj7. Hear the difference and play over it:
Before repeating the form, play this original interlude in an . Group the eighth notes 2+2+3 and count "1-2, 1-2, 1-2-3".
Goal: Play the whole piece (A with melody, reharmonised B with improvisation, the 7/8 interlude and a final A) and record it in a single take without stopping.
Over the next two weeks, practise Horizon with this plan. Use spaced practice (a little every day) and interleaving (alternate the blocks within each session).
| Days | Warm-up | Main block | Ear | Creativity |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1–3 | Chromatics and chord changes (5 min) | Full level 1 | Recognise i, iv and V in section A | Vary the strumming |
| 4–7 | In-tune bends (5 min) | Level 2: melody in two halves | Sing the melody before playing it | Improvise over section B |
| 8–11 | Slow sweeps (5 min) | Level 3: one challenge a day | Tell D7 and A♭7 apart by ear | Compose your own interlude |
| 12–14 | Free | The whole piece, recorded | Transcribe 4 bars of your own recording | Your version: change the tempo, style or sound |
5 minutes of warm-up, 15 on the main block, 5 of ear work and 5 of creativity. At the end, two lines in the journal: the tempo you reached and what you will work on next.
Goal: Complete the 14 days in the table (or at least 10), writing the clean tempo of each block in your journal.
Twelve questions spanning the whole journey, from Base Camp to the tour. Some are by ear: listen before answering.
You have reached the end of the map. Not the end of the guitar: there is no such thing. From here, you draw the road yourself. Come back to any stage whenever you like, the way you return to a place you love with new eyes; every time you will find something you could not see the first time.
The map ends here. The journey doesn't.
Optional reinforcement in the portalYour practice routines for after the journey(opens in a new tab) Optional reinforcement in the portalStart your next song in the sketchpad(opens in a new tab) Optional reinforcement in the portalGo back to the map and revisit any stage(opens in a new tab)Practice blocks ticked: 0 · Self-assessments taken: 0