TAC Family Forums

Brandon this is actually one of the best questions I’ve seen posted. I remember when I first started learning guitar during Covid, and I thought I’ll be playing the guitar and all the songs that I love within a few months. That obviously did not happen for me.

I’ve seen people come here and have picked up on it fairly quickly I could name names but I won’t add to any stigmas out there about them picking up so quickly. Players come from all different backgrounds? Many had played back when they were younger or still played and they wanted to move to the next level. There are many who had experience with Music in different aspects, different musical instruments and they wanted to then move onto the guitar. I see this a lot with people that played electric guitar for a long time and now they were transitioning to acoustic. FYI, electric relies more on power chords and rarely any barre chords or chords at all. The acoustic is much more difficult than learning the electric, in my opinion.There are some people that just have a natural ability, and they’re able to literally just pick up and take off you know in their playing. There are those that have vast experience but they’ve gotten older and they have arthritis or physical disabilities many other things and they’re learning new ways of being able to continue down the road they’ve always loved.

I don’t need to tell you that guitar is a difficult instrument to learn. There are many of us that don’t fit in the above buckets. I for one had played piano as a child but I had no natural ability and it showed it in my playing. It also didn’t help that I did not practice much except when I was angry that was my go to. I tried to play violin when I was in grade school. I spent more time facing the wall and counting the holes in the cement.

So I really didn’t have any experience and I didn’t even know anything about the guitar at all. I called the strings keys because I had only played piano for that short time. Because I have no natural ability, it takes me much longer to learn than other people I would say that after however, many years I’ve been here, I’m still not a great player. I’m not beginner I’m probably intermediate but at the lower end of the spectrum. But I absolutely love playing the guitar, and I think that’s all that really matters to me. It is an outlet for me. I love the sound of the acoustic. It is a go to of mine because I live alone so it’s companionship for me. I go to it when I’m sad, angry, happy. I have a new group of friends, and some are very special and dear to me and I am grateful that I’ve met them. I have great mentors since I’ve begun here and I talk to them about things.

I think it was beginning of my third year of playing I had almost quit at the end of my second year out of frustration. I was going to meet people in person and there was a list of songs and I wanted to be able to participate and have a good time and I spent a lot of time practicing those songs and something just clicked after I returned. I don’t know what it was but all of a sudden I was able to start playing a lot of songs, and it just took off. I literally was learning a few songs a week. My court transitions got much better, my strumming loosened up strumming loosened up.

Prior to that I was playing songs I was a guitar player I was probably still ahead of the curves of what a normal person would be at two years into their playing . I actually began lessons locally while I was still utilizing TAC. The guitar teacher was shocked at the level of playing, knowledge and skills that I had at that point. The daily challenges really did give me a lot of knowledge about different aspects of playing and prep board wizard taught me quite a bit about what chords are made of what notes the difference shapes under the caged system it taught me how to find the notes of a song so I could tell what key it was in, the notes in the different scales of a key, especially after taking fretboard wizard. He was extremely encouraging for me to continue with TAC, and he often would supplement the lessons at TAC and we would work on things together. He was never threatened by my being committed to TAC. I highly suggest something similar for anyone who is questioning whether they should be further along. 1. Find a jam club. Find other guitar players to play with. You will be amazed at how your Learning and playing just takeoff and it’s a lot of fun too. There’s a lot of different ways to find other people look at meet up.com or you could look at music shops a lot of times they have boards of people looking for the same thing you could look here under members and find some that are local to you and reach out to them

As usual, my post is too long but I just felt like this was such a good question Brandon I don’t know why you asked it, except maybe you’re feeling frustrated or questioning the program or your capabilities. Whatever it is, I always tell people don’t leave before the magic happens, and the magic does happen at some point, and then it just takes off and you’re trying to keep up with it and enjoying the journey completely.