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I can not tell you the story you want to hear, @BrandonK , because I was not a total beginner when I joined TAC. However…
I had picked up the guitar 20 years earlier as a middle aged adult and only learned from a book. Most of those 20 years, the guitar sat in a corner. I like to say I played off and on, mostly off.
So I cannot claim to have been a total beginner. But basically, I was still at a beginner level with most of my skills. And like you, I felt like I was doing TAC incorrectly.
Before I expose how our thinking is/was wrong, let me say one more thing about beginners. In my time at TAC, I saw numerous people join who were a complete beginner before TAC. I always envied them because their progress was like a rocket ship taking off compared to mine. Now, don’t get me wrong, learning guitar is difficult and slow for everyone. Their advancement was fast compared to mine. It still felt slow and tedious to them.
Ok, so what’s wrong with our thinking? Simple, we’re adults. Adults have learned to be stupid. Kids learn faster than adults. Kids learn exactly like the TAC method, but their brain doesn’t get involved trying to tell them “how it should go”. One of our members, @jumpinjeff , came up with an expression that fits here. “Expectation is where fun goes to die”.
Get your brain out of the way and just have fun. Do the best you can and move on. That’s how a kid would have fun. They’d get bored if they stayed on one thing trying to perfect it. But they must have something right cause they learn faster. For a while, it seems like they are getting nowhere. Then suddenly, you look again and you’re surprised by how much they’ve improved.
Now, because we’re adults and we’ve learned to be stupid, you gotta “trick” your brain. You need to pay close attention to how well you can do each little skill and technique. Write it down or take a video. That way you can see that you have, in fact, improved. If you’ve been here 35 days and picked up your guitar every day, then you’ve improved more than you realize. Others could see it, but you’re not going to see it without special effort.
So the special effort needed is not anything different with learning guitar than you’ve already been doing. The special effort needed is to notice your improvement and give yourself pats on the back. Most of us suck at that.
MG