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Can’t keep up and frustrated!
I’ve been taking the daily challenges and have been trying hard to follow Tony as he demonstrates the techniques. I’m on the February Wind and Rain learning the Arpeggios for the different cords. No matter how slow I make his recording go, I can’t keep up. I’m constantly having to hit the back up and watch it again and again in slow-motion! This, in addition to my not feeling like I have gotten the previous daily challenge down, is causing me a great deal of frustration!! I almost feel like I’m being forced to move on to the next daily challenge when I’m not ready and haven’t gotten the previous day’s challenge down. Am I missing something here??!!
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19 Replies
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I don’t know which challenge you are working in. We’re doing Lightnin’ Hopkins. I don’t recall any Wind and Rain challenge.
I cannot count the number of days I didn’t have the previous days challenge “down”. Even now, 19 months since I started TAC, it happens. I don’t worry about it, the same skill will repeat very soon. Tony’s program isn’t supposed to cause you stress or anxiety. Just do the best you can each day for ten minutes. Mark complete and if you desire to continue, do it! Otherwise come back tomorrow for a new challenge!
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Thanks, Pete, I appreciate your response and take heart from your experience!
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And @DZRShodan it’s amazing! When you are hitting a wall and just not getting it, in those moments the greatest learning is happening. Down the line when you’re not expecting it, you’ll suddenly be able to do it! TAC is not a linear program that you need to worry about keeping up with it. It always circles back, and I don’t just mean that the same challenges come back, but the content in the challenges keep coming back around in different settings.
That’s why @Loraine says, stick around and wait for the magic to happen!
Oh and that pause, rewind, repeat business? Eventually that fades away. You’ll do that a lot in the beginning and then less and less over time.
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Thanks, Pete! I really appreciate your insights and will try to remember them when I get frustrated again! Not linier–important to remember!
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Just like Pete said, don’t worry about not being able to keep up. It’s your journey, if you feel like you’d rather spend more time, do it. I have been with the course for 14 months, there have been a few weeks when I just felt like sticking with the previous week or something that I wanted to improve, so that’s what I did. I can promise if you spend some time, you will improve. It will not happen overnight.
Tony’s suggestion of recording yourself will pay off. If you’re like most it’s difficult to make the first few, it seems like as soon as you hit the record button you forget everything you knew and your fingers will not cooperate. But it does get easier, and when you look back at recordings from months ago compared to recent ones it is very satisfying.
Hang in there, the journey isn’t easy, but it becomes addicting.
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JT,
I haven’t even considered recording myself yet. I HATE the thought of putting myself on “tape” and watching myself fumble along looking brainless. Perhaps at some time in the future, I’ll have the courage to do it, but not yet. Thanks for the support and encouragement, it is appreciated! I’ll “hang in there”
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As Tony continually mentions, you do whatever you can do, and that is the win.
I would say that a majority of people on here don’t “finish” or “complete” or “master” the daily challenges. The idea is to do whatever you can and push yourself a little. You will learn what you learn and the technique will come around again and you will continue to learn.
These lessons will slowly and continually build your skills little by little.
You aren’t supposed to be as good as Tony in the videos 🙂
Enjoy the process!
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Matt,
I appreciate your reassurance and will forge on. I need to realize that I just need to learn what I can and be satisfied with that. The truth is that I want to make music NOW and not fumble along like I have been for so many years. I also know nothing good comes without paying the price. Time to open my wallet!
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I had many of the sentiments you are feeling right now. You are in the perfect place. Ignorance is not stupidity. You have many years experience. You had the wrong teacher for all those years. Have faith in the system you choose whether it be TAC or somewhere else. The fantastic thing about TAC is that it teaches how to play guitar and not just the finger choreography of a song. (It took me a good while to figure out that these two things are not the same.) Any expectation you have is where your fun goes to die. Jetison your expectation. Own your past experience for better or worse. My best mindset for this was: The way I learned on my own did not make me the player I wanted to be. There is no wrong way, only ways that are slower or faster. Effort and Good Direction will be the new generators of progress. Frustration is the enemy and it will stifle progress. Nothing put my guitar into a closet faster than frustration. Fun or frustration, both were available, I had to choose which I was going to experience. I learned “fun” was the way to improvement and success.
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Jeff,
You’re right! I need to jettison my expectations. It’s true, expectations are were fun goes to die. I will try to remember this as well. Thanks for taking the time to teach this old dog some new tricks!
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Hi, I am feeling just the same.
Can‘t keep up with the speed, don‘t know how to read the sheet…yes I know there is an extra conversation about that. But my life doesn‘t exist only of guitar playing. 10 minutes a day? What a laugh. It takes at least 30 min to be able to follow the instructions. Then I practice what I thought I understood.
Feeling uncomfortable writing this because everytime I read the support sites there seem to come a wave of comments that are supposed to assure me but do not allow any doubt. And they do not assure or comfort me nor encourrage me.
Perhaps that‘s an European <> American thing?
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I’m really trying to empty my glass in order to learn a new system here. I hope we can both work on giving TAC a chance to work in us. I know I’m going to give it a fair shake before I toss in the towel.
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A horse will only move forward if the carrot is out in front of him. If he catches up to the carrot, he stops, as there is no need to go forward.
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^^This^^
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Is that like, “No one can move a parked car.” You need to put it in gear for it to move. The initial action must come from you.
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Kind of, but not exactly. Yours is a good way of looking at it too, as it does require that we put forward effort and not just stay parked in our comfort zones.
“A horse will only move forward if the carrot is out in front of him. If he catches up to the carrot, he stops, as there is no need to go forward.” – @the-old-coach
My interpretation: the challenge can’t be something you already have in the bag, it has to be a desirable thing you are trying to gain. And if it’s so close I can get it in an instant then my momentum stops before it really gets going.
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Yup, that.
Why do golfers pay the most money to play the courses that are the most challenging….. it’s simply because of the “inner” satisfaction gained. What special thing have you accomplished if the task was easy? Nobody brags to their friends that they have, say, climbed a small mountain.
There’s a reason TAC’s daily lessons are called challenges.
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I think one of the very big concepts that we get here is the idea that you don’t have to master every exercise before moving on. I used to think I had to master what I was learning before I went on to new exercises, techniques, songs, riffs, etc. What that did was keep adding to my practice until I was working on a dozen things at the same time… if I got close to or achieved mastery on the first thing I started working on, I figured I had to keep hitting it night after night to keep that mastery. This turned out to be a big trap leading to frustration and failure as my practice routing got so long and convoluted, it just wasn’t realistic any more. I like to stay with about 3 things a session and I don’t need to master before I move on. The weird thing is sometimes, when I haven’t hit an exercise for a few day but rather, worked on something else, I go back to the exercise and I’m a ton better at it. Having “played at” guitar for a few decades, starting and stopping serious study several times but playing well enough to do a few songs around the campfire, I feel I’m making real progress into the intermediate stage with AC. Good luck!
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I can confirm: this also happens with me. I will work on something that Is driving me nuts because I am so close but not close enough and when I come back the groove that evaded me locks in and like riding a bike, once felt, I don’t need to relearn.
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