TIPS FOR TODAY
Don’t worry about perfecting each of these transitions. Just pick one you like and throw it in occasionally to add spice to some of your transitions.
Here’s what matters most: you showed up five times. Your hands know more now than they did a week ago. If this is what five days of showing up looks like, imagine five weeks. Five months.
Smoother changes. Quieter self-doubt. Songs that once felt impossible slowly falling under your fingers because the skills you’re getting consistent exposure to keep stacking in the background.
So if today’s pattern never feels “perfect” in one sitting, don’t use that as proof you’re not cut out for this. Use it as proof you’re working on the real stuff.
You’ve already done the hardest part — you kept coming back.
Keep trusting that process. It’s already working. And keep going!
YOUR SAMPLE WEEK OF TONY'S ACOUSTIC CHALLENGE
5-Day "Stop Dabbling, Start Playing Guitar" Challenge
- FRI: Transitions
FREE WHEN YOU JOIN TODAY
30 DAY JUMPSTART
All new members start with our 30-day jumpstart to learn the basics. It comes free with your membership when you join today.
3-Steps to Stop Dabbling and Start Playing
Try the Free 5-Day Challenge
Get a feel for the TAC method and see what 10 minutes a day can do.
Join TAC and Build Your Foundation
Start the 30-Day Jumpstart Challenge (included when you join) to lock in the basics and build a daily habit.
Keep Going with Daily Challenges
After the 30-Day Jumpstart, keep improving—one fun, daily guitar session at a time.
Many years ago I took guitar lessons with a teacher and only learned Mary Had a Little Lamb (Not the Buddy Guy version) on one string. I got discouraged and bought myself a book to Teach yourself Blues guitar and learned more with that in one day than I with a whole year of in person lessons. I jammed with friends and learned from playing with records and eventually life caught up.
No I am retired and enjoyed the laid back day challenge. I believe I am ready to commit at least 15 minutes daily (usually ends up being a 1/2 hour to an hour.
I have done a lot of in person lessons and TAC feels so much better I am at home and no pressure … I appreciate the encouragement, the motivation, the multi tech options…. ie: tab, screen in screen, speed options ( I can’t often see the chord shape easily so TAB is the way to go…I really appreciate offering the TAB, Thank you Tony. I signed p for a year !!!
I definitely improved. I spent an hour each day as I am very new and slow. I picked up some of the notes and made it thru parts of the song. I think I would need the 30 day beginner as a starting point. Need to learn the strings and notes a bit better as whenever you say fret on the d string for example I need to stop and think which is the d string. The tabular made me think of the notes more which is good as I can read music for piano. Just need a lot of work!
Love this course. Unfortunately will not be able to enroll right now. I will be watching for other times to join……. Very, very worth it.
Also, you should be able to go back to any lesson whenever you want for as long as you want as a paying subscriber.
Frank
Tony,
Is it possible to stay on a challenge before moving on to the next or do the challenges automatically advance ever day?
Frank
Tony,
I want to join, but I’m concerned that I won’t be able to keep up each day. I know the challenges are small, but I sometimes need 2 or 3 three days for each challenge to feel some sense of progress. It is better to spend 10 minutes over the course of a few days, then more time in one day. How could that be dealt with considering challenges are weekly, Monday to Friday?
Frank
Absolutely fantastic!
Thanks for the lessons I am going to pass on the course – proving to be too difficult and time consuming for me.
Its a decent little 5 day course, my tip would be when you do your play throughs – please count yourself in so we can play with you if we want to (in the lesson tab)
Great set of lessons! I am signed up and excited about learning more.
I want to thank you Tony for giving me this Free opportunity to learn about your program, so thank you again. I feel I understand better now on the ways you like to teach and I do find it fun and challenging. I am coming from a program where I learned some chords and had to workout strumming patterns to learn song. it hit home I needed more and your program is it. I will be signed up tomorrow morning 100%.
Loved this 5 course lesson, Easy to follow. Every time I didn’t think I could play what you taught us, I actually learned it.
It was fun and I enjoyed it. Can’t wait to play it smoother so I can sing the song along to it!
Well,well,well,got me thinking. I go back to the Mel bay books. I took lessons for 6 months, that thought me what I like (not reading). These where the 70s I’ve just done my own thing since then. You have inspired me to tighten my playing skills (cleanup my sloopy just get by playing) and yes I have joined up for the ride.
I still haven’t been able to do the first bay
Question: what happens in the thirty day challenge, or the yearly one if you miss a day, or are traveling and miss two weeks?
I have really enjoyed the week and to be playing cool bass line transitions in five days (albeit with sausage fingers and some imperfections) is so much fun. I also have enjoyed getting into a daily habit so I’ll be signing up for the annual membership
It felt fast compared to what I’ve been doing on YouTube and the self paced books. I’m glad I went through the Bob Harris fingerpicking for beginners series and Guitar for Dummies because I would have been lost trying to find the chords along with everything else. I think the 30-Day Jumpstart would be much needed for me. I’m excited about learning this song. Amazingly, maybe, I was just working on walking bass lines in the Guitar for Dummies guide. This was so much more in depth and introduced me to the song that I was wanting to learn next. I need more than ten minutes per day, by far, but the benchmark kept me going. I’m looking forward to the weekend when I can focus on those (many) rough spots. I’m also looking forward to sharing my playing with my family. Maybe I can join in on some picking sessions soon.
Tony! Great stuff! Bite-size and consumable. Good solid structure underneath. I’ve played and explored more in the last week than I have in years. I have hope that my guitar-playing can do more than just support my vocals. I’ve dabbled for over 50 years and have already made progress. I was initially put off by the internet pitch and some glitches with each page timing out before it opened but things have settled down and access is easy. I’ve signed up, played at least 80% of the five day challenge successfully, done a few challenges (mostly successfully knowing that I can always do better next time), reviewed the basics in the 30 day challenge, and actually had some success with muting (a previously mysterious technique). Thanks!
Ten minutes turns into an hour! This is great, I’m actually playing this tune, and enjoying it, though still rough. I can’t play any more today. My ring finger and pinky are tortured. More tomorrow!
Is there a life time offer?
I never got day 4 but enjoyed what I’ve done so far
Really enjoyed this week. Do I learn a new song each week? Do all lessons stay available for the length of my subscription?
Playing on a library borrowed guitar (Yamaha F-310)
Good challenge, found day 2 really trough and day 5 super hard, but working on it…hope the email link stays live so I can keep practicing this stuff.
Thanks Tony! This 5 days have been awesome. Best lessons I’ve had so far. Only the daily week pase for me is not possible at the moment due to work. One’s the winter season ends I’ll revisit the idea of signing up. Thanks again…!
Long story short, I agree with Wayne & Wing. 5th day going great and once you moved up the frets I couldn’t keep up. If some how you could include simple fret with dots so I knew exactly what notes you were on. The more I started getting behind the faster your pace became. I’ll try ain today to see if I can get it but it isn’t very intuitive
Too fast for me. Appreciate you just the same. You inspired me to spend time again with my Murphy Henry videos.
I really like the format. This week was much too “beginner” for me though. Plus, I don’t have any money anyway. I did get more comfortable with alternate picking though, so that was my main take away, thank you!
I’ve never had lessons really, mostly self-taught. I have been through a good bit of Justin’s Guitar though. I really like his too but I’d say your way of knowing what to practice each day is simpler. Justin’s requires more work/planning on the student end.
So you asked about how this stacks up against other online courses. Here we go.
Vs TRUEFIRE. Truefire has a much broader lesson list. Might be good in the long term but it is easy,as you mentioned, to get lost within. Also their song selection is pretty weak. Most are too easy and many are just ‘ a song like’ so and so to avoid copyright issues.
BLITZGUITAR. Theory is about the same. 5 small Lessons leading to a song like exercise. Probably more geared to classical and finger style.
GIBSON’S app. Way ahead of Gibson. Which operates like a video game,
FENDER Way ahead as well.
Classical Guitar Corner. Strictly geared to classical music and a formal training program for classical.
RIGHT NOW I’mtrying to decide is I was to practice popular songs which would lead me to your program or go back to classical which is The Guitar Corners Ho e field.
I’ve struggled with walking bass lines for a long time–could never get to Elizabeth Cotton level of playing! But the fifth day challenge really helped spell it out and help me identify problem areas (switch from F# to open D easily gets muddy) to work on. Thanks. I might sign up if you’ve got more walking bass line lessons.
Great introductory session but a little too fast for me (having never played before). Should be a five week challenge instead of a five day challenge (for me).
I really appreciated having this introductory five-day session. I can say this course is not for me, but that’s OK. We don’t all learn the same way. I did well following along until today, but that second way of doing the G step-down lost me completely. I went back on that section a dozen times and I just can’t process what is going on fast enough.
Struggled through days 1-4 in five days. Tried day 5 on Saturday and had no idea what was going on. Sorry, it would take me 15 days to successfully complete the 5 day challenge. Frustrated.
This is the best program I’ve tried by far! Love the idea of having lessons already planned for me ahead of time. I am looking forward to joining and learning! Loved being challenged this past week, and looked forward to the next lesson every day.
Good morning,
Do you have any tips(pardon the pun) for expediting the hardening of finger tips? Or is it just practice, practice, practice?
Thank you,
Hay, Tony how often do you have this free 5 day challenge? I’ve been playing guitar for over 50 years. One for my daughter’s started learning guitar for a couple of months. She is the only one that has ever shown any interest in learning to play a instrument. I would teach but she lives in another town. I’ve given her some tips over the phone. She said that she has learned G, C, &D cords. So I thought I would take a look at your 5 day challenge before telling her to check out. I like the way you teach and build upon the last lessons. I will have her take a look at Tony’s Acoustic Challenge. Thanks
The last time I took lessons I was a teen. I’m now 61. I’ve been trying to teach myself ever since by playing chords from a song book or app. This 5 day challenge was the furthest I’ve gotten on one song is 5 days. I learned a lot and for me was a great way to learn. Thank you TONY!
Tony, I’m playing an Alvarez D20 N, been dabbling for years, tried an in person teacher many years ago, I learned very little, and all he wanted to do was show me how good he was. I learned a bunch in the fee 5 day challenge and will be signing up for the full course.
The five day challenge was until day 5. The video freezes. So I gave up just worked off the pdf. Sorry for the complaint.
I thoroughly enjoyed this challenge. It is EXACTLY what I’ve been looking for. I have been taking in person lessons recently after numerous breaks in guitar playing to include basically a 25yr break while I was in the military. Guitars for Vets was recommended to me for music therapy but it was a long drive so I took lessons from my kid’s piano teacher. The challenge is that musically we’re generations apart (I’m in my 50s), and I spend my half hour usually talking about theory (which I enjoy and had no use for as a kid) but when it came to actual playing, we work on a particular part of a song and then I go home and practice but when I’m ready to move on to the next part it’s another week before I get back in. Finally, I like structure. I want what I’m doing today to link to something tomorrow and that there’s a goal and I loved logging on an having a clear plan for the day. Don’t get me wrong, I think my teacher is a great resource but I love this format.
I’m ready to move out but I do have some questions that I’ll hit your support folks up with.
Tony, l’m a 75yo “dabbler” and jumped in and out of playing the guitar for years. Tried several online videos but never maintained them. I found your challenges an interesting reintroduction, which also showed me how l needed to get my finger tips hardened as the first week has certainly hurt them, which slowed down my practice. I will get to the end of the 5 days – probably in 7! Then will decide what happens next. Looking positive so far. Thanks for this opportunity to get back to the guitar. Cheers
I’ve tried in person lessons and went to community college with guitar as my major. I was intimidated by my jazz guitarist teacher. I knew more theory than ability to play. I hated it. But it forced me to understand the fretboard. And shapes of chords including diminished and augmented. I liked that stuff a lot but lost touch with that. I learned hybrid picking with my fingers and pick. It was recommended to practice like 6 hours a day.
With the FOTD walkdown, I went to Angela Petrilli’s lesson on how to play Willin’ which is somewhat more difficult but not much. It’s in G and she teaches the intro to the song up on the 10th fret of the A string and 12th fret of the B string for the G chord, Her riff rundowns are cool.
The tempo of this lesson of FOTD is like how the Dead played it after they went through the bluegrass phase with it. I wish they would have kept it up tempo. But it’s still a classic for sure!
Thanks Tony for your inspiration!
Today totally brought my expectations into check and made the light illuminate in my mind.
I’m still not sure what I was able to take from the soloing and riffing lessons, but outside of that I’m starting to understand what I’ve been doing wrong. You cant expect to learn Eruption until you’ve mastered Dueling Banjos and Beethoven’s 5th.
I’m sure I’m going to annoy my family practicing this lesson all weekend, and eagerly await the next challenge!
I’ve got a compulsive ADD issue that keeps my focus very limited Even over long term I don’t stay focused. This week seems to have worked out well so I’ll probably sign up. . .
This is by far the best method I have tried in learning guitar. I started out strumming and singing which was fun. But to flat pick seemed beyond my grasp. This course is a great path to doing what seemed impossible…and having fun doing it. Thanks for your hard work in creating this program. It is truly a blessing.
IDK man. That voice in my head keeps telling me I’m not cut out for this. I love this instrument. Ima keep trying, but I think it’s just not going to happen for me.
Good stuff…on with my learning over the weekend and learn the song too
Thanks for a great week of learning.
I’m in Tony. Love the program.
Enjoying learning new things to help me improve