Thoughts or ideas about improvements or modifications to this website.

I have the day off from work thanks to Hurricane Michael, so get ready for a long-assed post…

Last November, I decided to pick up the guitar again after not touching it for nearly a decade.  I never was all that good.  Like a lot of folks, I knew how to strum a few chords and that’s about it.  But, I’ve always loved music and got my son started with guitar when he was about 5-years old, and he picked it up and ran with it.  He’s 21 now and plays banjo as well. So anyways, late last year I got inspired to try and get into playing again in order to, at the very least, be able to play a little music with my kid.

I started poking around on-line and looking at YouTube videos, and was blown away by the amount of good, solid instructional videos that are out there.  And for the first couple of months, I did the same thing I used to do in the past – I’d learn a little riff or song progression here and there, but it all felt very disconnected and I had no idea how to put it all together.  For example, I could learn a chord progression, but I didn’t have a clue on how to improvise over it.  At some point, I came across Devin’s lessons and started realizing that this was exactly what I was looking for.  In addition to loving a good country riff, it was logical, well thought out, and very thorough.  CGO doesn’t just fly through the stuff, it actually breaks it down to the fingering and up and down strokes.  I felt like I could learn an actual system of doing things on here.  And best of all… with a strong focus on the GCD chord progression, I figured I could actually learn how everything comes together.  I’ve really enjoyed the journey so far.

All this is to say… that the CGO Website is great as it is.  So, this idea for website suggestions is basically just to toss out a few ideas on how to possibly make the best guitar instruction website even better.  Maybe some of the other folks on this forum have ideas of their own, and if Devin wants to use some of them it may help him continue to make his great site even better.

Here are a few of my thoughts…

1)      A Fast Scroll Function on the Community Forum Topics – I think that some of these forum topics are going to be pretty busy.  So maybe there could be a button we could press that would take us to the latest post, so we don’t have to scroll through all the previous comments that we’ve seen already.

2)      Play All the Lessons Out Completely at Full Speed  -- Once I’ve learned or memorized a lesson, I enjoy playing along with Devin, if he’s got a full Play-Along With Devin Version available (and he usually does).  But, occasionally – particularly in some of his older lessons, he doesn’t.  So, I thought I’d just pass along, that it is pretty great when he does – which gives us all a goal to strive for.  Maybe call it Full-Speed Version, or whatever.  So, we’d know the speed that Devin would play the particular song or lesson at, if he wasn’t slowing it down to instruct us (adding the metronome time would be a bonus!).  Here’s an example of where I would have liked to have heard the whole thing at regular speed…  1) Bill Cheatham… I’m working on this song now.  Devin almost plays the whole thing out a full speed in the overview (but fades out at the end).  He also has a full “Playthrough with Tablature,” but it is at a very slow speed (even when you double the video speed).

3)      Add the Key Name to the Chord Progressions – On this link… https://countryguitaronline.com/bluegrass-song-chord-progression-downloads

… it would be cool if the Key of the song was written out to the side of the song’s name on this resource page.  That way, I could quickly look for other songs in the Key of G, if say, I’ve gone through the first few lessons in the Fill Riffs course and want to learn more before going to the key of D.  And I could focus more on the Key of D when I get to the point in the course as well.  Basically, just a quick reference guide.

4)      Follow the Key – I’m not sure if I can express this well, but I’ll try…  I love the way Devin has the Bluesgrass Licks Library laid out.  You can learn as many licks in the keys of G, C, D, E, A and F as your heart desires.  For example, as I said earlier, I’m basically not just trying to learn how to play, but I’m also trying to figure out how music works.  One of the ways I’m doing this, and a big part of how Devin teaches is by focusing on the GCD chord progression.  So, my goal is to absorb everything I can in the key of G and move on from there (probably to D next, and then E – basically following along with the Fill Riffs and Lead Guitar lessons).  But the website is so addictive, I stray and occasionally jump around to other lessons to pick up tips on fingerpicking, or to learn full songs and such.

Looking towards the future.  I think it would be cool if at some point, the option was available to follow songs and courses grouped together in their key.  For example, there could be a KEY OF G page that would have links to the Bluegrass Licks in the Key of G.  Full songs in the Key of G.  And the various courses in the Key of G.  And the same for other keys.

As it is now, we can still do this by poking around.  But, as more lessons are added, it would be a convenient way of finding the lessons quickly.  That way, there would be a G-Track for learning, a D-Track, etc.

Thank you for suffering through all this!