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Turning Lessons into Full Songs
Hi There,
I’ve been doing the main TAC challenge for about 3 weeks. It’s been going very good and I am pleased with the progress I am making. The lessons are a bit longer than 10 minutes but they are still very informative and managaable.
Still I was wondering how do you turn all of the various lessons into a single song that can be played from start to finish. I’m looking for some help that would go like
1. Play the intro riff twice.
2. Then move to lesson x for the main verse and lesson y for the chorus then,
3. End on this section and wait for the applause(LOL).
I’d like to get to a point that I could plug into a Youtube video of a studied song and play along.
Any advice would be appreciated.
Thanks
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6 Replies
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@Stuck interesting username you got there. We all get a little stuck sometimes! lol!
There’s no one way to play a song, most artists interpret them and “arrange” them the way they want to perform them.
If you would like to mimic your chosen recording artist, you would have to map out the Verse – chorus – verse – bridge – verse – chorus from the YT video. Most of Tony’s lessons would give you all the parts you needed. Keep in mind he doesn’t always use the same chords as your favorite artist does. He might use a different rhythm as well.
If you want the How to exactly I would recommend looking at buying a subscription to Ultimate Guitar. I was able to pick this up for ~$25 per year. Sale is offered regularly.
You could also try Lauren Bateman, JustinGuitar or Guitar Tricks. Lauren especially has a lot of free content and I find it’s very good.
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Hi @Stuck, I completely agree with you. I’ve been doing the TAC program for 7 weeks now and have certainly learnt a lot already. I’m a similar demographic to many people here, just retired and looking to resurrect my long lost guitar skills!
I like the way the songs are broken down to their elements so that those skills can be applied elsewhere, but wouldn’t it be great if at the end of the week we could be left with all the chords, tab and words of that song so that we could practice it in full. That would round off the week so nicely.
I’m sure this must have come up before in the TAC community. Is there any reason why this doesn’t / can’t happen?
Thanks
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My understanding is Tony does it this way on purpose. He is trying to make us into guitar players, not some kind of replicators. He wants you to put some of your own creativity into what your playing. When you start in TAC, most don’t have enough skill to do more than just copy what’s being shown in each video. But as you grow you can begin to combine elements from different sessions and create a new way to play a particular song. Even just combining the individual lessons from the week into one song and figuring out how to sing to it will require some thought and will help you more than if he just spoon fed you the entire song.
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Nate,
Very good suggestions. I went back over Angel From Montgomery and figured out that I had glazed over Not so Old Rodeo lesson. After re watching that one (and practicing) it a bit, I realized all of the song components are in the lessons. Sounds dumb but that it my win for the week.
For me I look at itas the Monday through Friday sessions are for learning parts and the the weekend is for putting them together in a way that turns it into a song.
So for me, Turning lessons into songs goes like this,
1. Print of the daily Tabs from Tony.
2. Really Really REALLY listen to the lesson. I suggest once just paying deep attention to what Tony says, once to to take physical notes on the Tabs and once again with a guitar in your hand. Then do the play through.
3. After all of the lessons are completed for the week. Go listen to the original recording on Youtube and do through it several times to get it ‘in your mind’.
4. Then down load the tabs and from the sources as suggested by Nate. Take note of any differences in Keys and try to stick to the key suggested in TAC. Overlay the TAC lessons with the new tabs and make notes in the body close to the lyrics (strum patterns, notes for licks, Rests etc.)
5. Then practice practice and practice again. Find the rough spots and work though just those slowly until they are second nature.
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Opps Sorry I got your name wrong . Pete
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@Stuck just had another thought about this. On Monday’s Tony’s Daily Challenge usually starts off with him playing through the featured song of the week. He’s not going to play all the verses but he’ll do a verse, chorus and bridge sans vocals so that’s about the closest you’re going to get to a whole song.
He really wants you to put all the parts together because there’s valuable learning in accomplishing that yourself. If you want to learn how to sing along, the 5* Hotel week has a good lesson on that. Go to the 6:00 mark of this video:
https://tonypolecastro.com/lessons/lovely-place-2-2/
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