- Tony's Acoustic Challenge

Loraine

Member
July 9, 2025 at 6:10 pm

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.

So, the moral of this long long story, don’t quit before the miracle happens. 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 cords atrophied over a 4 year period from not having human contact and using my vocal cords in speech or singing. I truly don’t care about it. I enjoy playing and singing. 

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. 

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.

TAC Family Forums

Loraine