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DIscouraged
I have been trying to play the weekly challenges for over a month. I have not been able to play one song. I struggle with every song that gets posted. I try for a few lessons then it just gets too challenging and I give up. I had more fun with the guitar before I signed up for TAC. I’m really discouraged at this point. Is there anyone out there that has felt the same or is it just me?
Thanks,
Greg
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10 Replies
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I think a lot of people including myself have had the same issues when first joining. I quit after the first 9 months or so due to the same issues you are having. I then took some personal lessons for a year or so. During those lessons, I could see little pieces of TAC coming through. It was probably then when I realized the value TAC provides. My teacher also thought the lessons were well thought out.
I also want to point something else out. TAC doesn’t really teach songs per se, it teaches elements of songs designed to actually learn how to play guitar, not just how to play a song. It provides the foundation to have the ability to play any song. There are thousands of youtube videos on how to play songs. TAC is different. Also, the skills developed with the TAC system will also leap frog your ability to learn songs.
Use TAC as a tool. Find some fun easy two or three chord strumming songs and just have fun. Don’t try to perfect anything. Just do your best for 10 minutes and move on. Do your best the next day for 10 minutes. Rinse and repeat. You WILL get better if you keep showing up.
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Thanks. I think Tony does a good job with his lessons. It just doesn’t seem to be working for me.
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Greg, I have been there. I started early this year after picking up the guitar for a week or so every now and then for years and never making any progress. This year I said, this is the year I learn guitar. I was disappointed at first because I was having a hard time with the lessons and after a month I hadn’t learned to play a single song which is what I want to be able to do. But, I figured, Tony knew better than I how to teach guitar, so I stuck with it. Today is my 100th session, and my second time going through the Hotel California benchmark week. And wouldn’t you know it, I have been pleasantly surprised at how much I’ve improved since playing this challenge back in March. I had great difficulty with it then, and was very happy when the challenge ended and I could move on to something I might actually be able to play. This time around it is literally like night and day. This week has actually been easy which to be honest, has shocked the heck out of me, and has motivated me even more to keep going.
This is what I would suggest. I get on here everyday (at least most days I do) and go through the daily challenge. Some I really like, and some I don’t care much for. But I do them anyway. The ones I really like, I spend a little more time with, the ones I don’t, I honestly do just the minimum needed to complete the days lesson. In addition to this course, I go on Youtube and search for somebody teaching the songs I like to listen to, in the skill level I am currently at. (Marty Music is a good one) There are a ton of songs that have easy versions. This also keeps me motivated because I am actually learning songs, even if its the easy versions. I also sometimes just sit in front of the TV with my guitar and just play around with forming cords and playing scales with no real agenda. Doing those three things, I’ve found that I have made a great deal of progress over the last six months. There are times when I don’t feel like I’ve gotten better, but weeks like this one confirm that I actually have. And it’s because I’m committed and willing to spend the time practicing.
In the end, it sounds cliche, but to get better at guitar, you have to play it. There no magic bullet to learning a skill. Tony says ten minutes a day, but really you should spend more time if your schedule permits.
Hope this helps, and don’t give up. If you really want to learn guitar, and you put in the effort, it will happen.
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Thanks for your response. I appreciate it. I have been playing for about 6 years. I know how to play a lot of songs (not from memory). I was hoping to learn more about chords and chord transitioning not so much of pentatonic stuff or finger chords that I will never remember. I don’t want to be a lead guitarist. I just want to play a bit better around the campfire. I think I’ve had the wrong expectations for TAC. I walk away from every lesson frustrated and I don’t want to practice what he is teaching. Thanks for the encouragement.
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Hey Rainbird
First welcome to the TAC community. You receive some great information from @Skyman911 and @DennyG .
I had never played guitar before I joined. I experienced the exact same frustrations at the beginning, just as you have and sky man and Denny and so many others who came before you.
Guitar is a difficult instrument to learn, but it’s not impossible. I can guarantee that if you do the minimum 10 minutes a day you will progress and get better most people put in a little bit more than the 10 minutes a day but you don’t wanna put in too much time either. It’s counterproductive when that happens. You can actually get worse.
The name of the game is progress, not perfection. Most people have difficulty with the lessons at the beginning, but I can guarantee that when those same song lessons roll around again, because they do and other lessons, you’ll be able to see your progression and how far you’ve come.
I was a very slow learner and I struggled and I found it very frustrating that I could not play songs at the beginning. But one does not become the best pitcher or running back or virtuoso guitarist overnight. All these take a lot of practice mindset change and then actually talking with other people finding common ground. Telling yourself and others that you are a guitarist. Own it. You can look for people in your area by going up to your profile and in the drop down look for search members or location or something like that. Suggestion, search by state, not city or something too restrictive.
I think I was here about a year when I did take some private lessons to supplement Tony’s teachings. The guitar teacher was shocked at how advanced I was compared to his other students. He never interfered or critiqued or criticized my relationship with TAC. We actually worked on some of the TAC lessons. He is very supportive and never threatened by me taking lessons at TAC. All that is a testament to how this does work.
Down the road if you haven’t purchased it, you might want to consider the fretboard wizard course. It’s a great way to learn some of the fretboard, some theory, and to understand what makes a guitar work so well.
I’ll try to end this soon. Ha ha because I write too much. I almost quit playing guitar around two years in. I saw others that had begun around the same time with me Advance at a much faster rate than me. That is dangerous to compare yourself to others I have to look at what was going on in my life at the time it was a hell of a lot. was frustrated because I was such a slow learner I thought I was never gonna get it and I was meeting up with some people in Florida and I knew they were more advanced. So I got a list of the songs and I just tried my best to play them over and over you know for a good month or two I wasn’t great at a lot but I actually could hear songs I was able to sing because I knew some of the songs. That is a key to singing, especially at the beginning things didn’t go well at the meet up I left early.
When I got home, I started playing the same songs, and all of a sudden everything just clicked into place. I was able to play songs I had never been able to play before my chord transitions were becoming smoother and smoother I was able to sing most of the time. And trust me, you don’t wanna hear me sing ha ha ha?
My first year I decided that I was gonna post and share the good the bad the ugly of my Journey. People may have thought what is this crazy person doing, but it gave me an outlet to my stress, depression and even anger I was going through at the time. I truly believe that by dng so, I got better.
<font face=”inherit”>So, the moral of this long long story, </font><b style=”font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit;”>don’t quit before the miracle happens. <font face=”inherit”> Most ays, I love playing my guitar and play as much as I can. I have a guitar I. Just about every room. I have the worst vocals still, but I’m working on them. My vocal </font>cords<font face=”inherit”> atrophied over a 4 year period from not having human contact and using my vocal </font>cords<font face=”inherit”> in speech or singing. I truly don’t care about it. I enjoy playing and singing. </font>
<font face=”inherit”>Remind yourself every day why you wanted to learn the guitar make a sign. Put it where you can see it. Say it out loud. Participate in the quarterly check ins that Tony does. Take them seriously. I hope to see you around, and good luck with it. </font>
<font face=”inherit”>I really do apologize for the length of this post because I tend to just ramble and if there’s mistakes or things you don’t understand, it’s because I dictate everything it does not like my accent feel free to reach out if you have questions or need assistance with anything.</font>
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Thank you for the encouragement. I appreciate it.
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Welcome! I would urge you to have faith in the process and stick with it. I felt like I was getting very little out of anything but the chord progression on thursdays. I think you will soon realize that tuesdays and mondays start coming out when you least expect them, you will find yourself playing Monday techniques and Tuesday riffs in your warmups, then you find yourself trying out your Friday transitions on other songs. Wednesdays clicked last for me, but it all keeps clicking! This isn’t about what you can play today, or even tomorrow, it’s about what you can play in 3 weeks, 3 months, a year! Hang in there!
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Thanks for the encouragement. I appreciate it.
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Can’t add much, @rainbirds3-gsgmail-com all the important points have been addressed. All I can say is that I have had quite the opposite experience with TAC since joining a year ago. All the other online programs failed to do what Tony did immediately: Make learning fun! During the intro sessions I was playing blues licks and power chords and having the time of my life. The other courses were teaching Strum Patterns 101. I loved the freedom to go right into playing classic licks.
But you have to put perfectionism to bed immediately. Give it a good try and mark it complete! Have fun, that is all!
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Thanks.
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