Welcome back, the intermediate mindset

Congratulations on finishing the Beginner track. You can play open chords, strum in time, solo over a 12-bar blues, and bend strings. That is more than most people who own a guitar can do.

Intermediate is not "harder beginner." It is a different kind of work.

What changes

• Beginner: learn discrete skills (a chord, a strum, a riff).
• Intermediate: connect what you already know. The chords live in five places on the neck. The pentatonic has five shapes. Every scale has modes. Every chord has 7th and extended variants.

The skills you already have do not get bigger. They get more connected. By the end of this track, you will see the neck as one map instead of five disconnected boxes.

How to practice from here

The 80/20 rule of intermediate playing:

1. Spend 80% of practice time on what you already nearly know. Barre chords feel impossible for the first month. Pentatonic shape 3 feels lost the first week. Stay with it. The 100th repetition is when it clicks.
2. Spend 20% on something brand new. A mode, a song, a technique. Just enough to keep things fresh.

If you reverse that ratio, nothing locks in.

What we will cover

Three threads run through the 14 lessons:

• Chords (lessons 2-6): barre chords across the neck, the CAGED system, 7th-chord vocabulary.
• Technique (lessons 7-8): hammer-ons, pull-offs, slides.
• Scales and modes (lessons 9-12): pentatonic shapes 2-5, then Mixolydian and Dorian.

Lesson 13 puts it together in a real intermediate song. Lesson 14 maps where to go next.

Take it one lesson at a time. Mark complete when you can do the drill at the suggested BPM cleanly. No pressure to rush.

Next: the F barre chord. The rite of passage every intermediate guitarist crosses.