Thanks Wim. I have the main course and have perused it, but felt that I have been playing long enough, and am familiar enough with the material taught in that course, to dive right into the fingerstyle course. If I find that there is an area I need to review, I can go into the main course and study that.
I have played fingerstyle for quite some time, have played professionally in a trio that played supper clubs, Holiday Inns, and that sort of thing back in the late 1970s. I can read music as well as figure it out by ear off recordings, and know enough music theory to understand and communicate with other musicians. For most situations I find myself in, basic diatonic theory is plenty.
Before starting the fingerstyle course, I looked through it, watched parts of several DVDs, and decided that there was nothing in it that would baffle me. What I am looking for is to fill in those areas that I need work on. When self-teaching, we tend to rush through, or give little notice to, certain areas, while focusing on those areas specific to what we need to know to do some specific thing right now.
As an example, I am spending time with DVD 3 on intervals of 3rds, 6ths, and 10ths even though I have played these many times in one context or another. Steve provides a couple of his own creations as example tunes to learn. He presents these intervals, approaching them in ways I never considered. These are easy enough to play, but they open up a whole world of experimentation for creating my own tunes. To me, it is worth not rushing on to the next DVD so as to create some of my own music similar to what Steve did.
The more we know before going into a course such as the fingerstyle course, the more we will get out of it. If I had just finished the main course, I would probably spend my time struggling with getting my fingers to play the material in the fingerstyle course and with understanding what Steve is talking about (in a sense, pretty much treading water). Since my fingers can play this material with a bit of practice, and the subjects Steve talks about are familiar, I have the "bandwidth" to really dig in and experiment with the material, making it my own. That can take just as long or even longer, than going through it as a relative beginner. I think this course is worth going through more than once.
Tony