Hi Colder,
I’m also finding the Fingerstyle Course fun, challenging, excellent for practicing patience and persistence, and learning some very beautiful music.
I used two classical beginners methods during five years of lessons as a kid - so have a nice classical background, though very elementary.
The nylon strings and wider neck certainly make some chords and bars easier to play. I switch off between my steel string and classical while practice L&M Fingerstyle. (The steel string is new, and the classical is from the 1970s.)
I spend maybe two months on each lesson. Maybe 50 half hour practice sessions before I move on. There have been plateaus and times where I’ve had to switch to easier pieces to play for a while, and then return again. The methods used as kid were Christopher Parkening’s and Aaron Shearer’s. Now I’m working with Frederick Noad’s.
I really love the practice structure Steve gave us in the general L&M course of 30 minutes - 5 min warm up, 10 technique, 10 pieces, 5 free play, and tend to stick to that all the time, no matter what I’m practicing. Logical, and useful.
When I feel frustrated with the difficulty level of Fingerstyle, or my own limitations, I move back to earlier lessons, and easier pieces, and come back later.
These lessons are not easy, but they offer so much. This music is truly beautiful. Have you noticed that many of the later pieces are composed by Steve? And how he teaches us to understand how to arrange songs we all know, like Happy Birthday? Great stuff!!