Daily Challenge

[Mrfredsporty]

Great job of venting JoeT!What if I said you are absolutely right, but not quite. I was a dabbler for years and could never LEARN enough. Then I stumbled onto this site. At first,I tried the 30 days to do this etc.. How to get going etc,. I was getting discouraged. Btw im 78 so I could croak any day. But then slowly I started taking the pressure off myself. I established a regular daily practice time . I took the courses and am still working on them.Some are still way out of my league. Then I started trying the daily Challenges throwing up my hands many times.BUT…as time goes on I can do this one and almost do that one and have a goal of being able to do another one next year.For me one of the best sources of reenforcement is the small wins area followed by people of all abilities playing on the forum. If I could Id like to suggest just a couple of slight changes to your routine. I think You are trying too hard and playing too often. Back off a little. show up everyday but dont insist that you be able to do such and such. It will come and you wont even know it is happening. suddenly you can play that chord or almost do that lick etc etc. There is a great Jerry Butler song and the title says it all “take It Easy on Yourself”. Said with empathy and understanding

[HowardM]

I agree with your assessment completely, however, it took me about 6 months to a year to get on board with Tony’s program. I realize I am not a quick study and find knowledge in every aspect of the entire program. I am getting knowledge from areas I had not previously explored on this website, a case in point is the “Forums.” Previously to this program, I was taking private lessons and within the 6 months mentioned above, I learned more than I had from 2 years of private lessons. For me, learning guitar is an ongoing process and a mindset that needs time and space to develop. As an older player, I find this process perfect to while away the hours and learn at my own pace. I have many “small wins” and continue to develop. Good luck in your journey and also for JoeT.

[the-old-coach]

JoeT–

“Opinions are like ***holes- everybody’s got one”. Here’s mine.

Re-read YOUR post and also Fred’s. Then re-read them both…… again.

You have completed the ***very important first step*** of realizing that learning to play the guitar is NOT an easy thing to accomplish. When first starting-out here in TAC, the difficult-ness of some of these lessons may kind-of have the effect of removing any pre-conceived notion that you will become a great player in a short amount of time- (the “expectation” factor).

We’ve ALL been right where you are!!! May not seem like it right now- but you are on the right path. Have faith in the TAC program- your improvement will come over time- but almost automatically, and likely un-noticed- (make a video of your playing NOW– and another in, say, 1- or 2- or 3 months, playing the same thing—- you’ll SEE the difference!!!).

Finally—– Read Fred’s post AGAIN. (I know, I know…….). It’s gold.

Congrats- and welcome to TAC- (BTW- you made ANOTHER great move by coming to the Forum for answers)

the ola coach

[Bill_Brown]

Hi @JoeT , I hear what you’re saying, and you’re not the first one to say it. I agree with what @Mrfredsporty is telling you – “you’re being to hard on yourself” and I also think that too. However, I want to broach another point that you brought up, and that’s price.

Before COVID, my sister-in-law and I, together, were getting private – in person guitar lessons from an accomplished guitar player. We each paid $25 to get a 1 hour lesson, once a week. Then Covid came and we continued getting lessons via Zoom, still 1 hour per week, still $25 each. Then the instructor got Covid and the lessons stoped. At that point, I realized that for 6 months worth of lessons, I had shelled out $650 – for 26 hours of lessons. And all I learned was a few songs and a few new chords – that’s it!

So fast forward a couple of months, I’m surfing YT for free guitar lessons (and my sister-in-law had totally lost interest in guitar altogether), which worked for a while, because I’m retired and I could waste all day to try and find one site/one lesson that I could understand. Funny thing about YT is that when you’re in the middle of watching something, a stupid commercial interrupts everything. I kept seeing this long haired hippie type talk about guitar. Eventually I listened to the whole commercial. I wasn’t convinced at first, but eventually I bit the bullet on December 16th, 2020 and haven’t looked back since. If I remember correctly, I paid $360 for 1 year, and that included a 1 time payment for the Fretboard Wizard course also.

I’m in my 2nd year here at TAC and I feel and see the value of my decision every day. I can log on every day and do something useful with guitar – every day! I just wanted to tell you my story to try and give you some perspective about price.

Best of luck on your journey and try not to be so hard on your self🎸🎼😎

[Kristin1]

Hello @JoeT,

in case you haven´t done it yet: please read the TAC quick start guide and do the Skill Courses “30 Days to play” and “5 Day guitar routine Challenge”. There i a lot of valuable information how the TAC method works and how to adjust the Daily Challenges to your learning level.

And please don´t be so hard to yourself😉. In my opinion playing more hours doesn´t always automatically lead to more progress – sometimes it can even slow you down, if you get overwhelmed, frustrated or unconcentrated.

Lookout for your small daily wins and trust the process🌞.

[jumpinjeff]

Hang it there @JoeT . It gets better. Vent away. Then go back to playing. Let’s talk about that Bm7 chord eh?

[GerryB56]

I hear you, JoeT! Since I signed on with TAC 78 days ago (love that sessions counter feature!), I’ve wondered at times how a new beginner would fare in the program. Some of the challenges are tough – today’s was beyond me, even as an “advanced beginner”, and I bailed out quickly. Barre chords continue to be frustrating for me – but I’m stubbornly determined that I will conquer them eventually. I find there are some weeks where I struggle with some or all of the daily challenges – but I know my finger dexterity has improved noticeably along the way, for one thing. Bottom line, though, is that I will give a strong endorsement for Tony’s system – it’s easily the best training program I’ve found in 3+ years of “dabbling” with internet learning. Like Bill Brown, I also paid for many in-person lessons along the way, but find I’m getting far better value from TAC. I would encourage you to try a few of the skills courses, at your own pace. I am 100% convinced that TAC is making me a better guitarist, one day at a time. And as some of the others have said, you made a good move in coming here to the forums for advice and encouragement. That’s another great bonus with TAC family!

[Kristin1]

Hello @JoeT,

one more thing: don´t worry about Barre Chords as a beginner. They are very, very difficult chords. Just think of someone who just got his/her driving licence: that person would probably just drive around his/her hometown at not try to participate in the rallye Paris-Dakar😉 . Learn the other simpler basic chords first (skill course “30 Day Challenge”). That will train your finger flexibilitiy. Later on try Barre Chords including not all strings at first (skill course “Your next six chords”) and move on to more complex Barre Chords later on. It takes time and patience. The guitar is one of the most complicatest instruments to learn.

And if there is a Daily Challenge including Barre Chords and you feel overwhelmed just try a very small piece of the Challenge, for example today (KC7 Mixed Key of B) choose the E-Chord and practice it for 10 minutes. That is not cheating. It´s adjusting the Challenge to your learning level.

Good luck!

(Sorry for my English. I´m from Germany…)

[Cadgirl]

@JoeT , I really like all the responses that members jumped in to give. I think the lesson you speaking of is ‘Buckets of Butter’. Barre chords can be tough. Just play the chord on the top fret and forget about the barre for the moment. Deaden all the strings and just practice the progression. You’ll get it in time. There are always the skill challenges to look at that could help you out.

[ChuckS]

@JoeT – Hang in there as all the others have said. It will take time. When I first joined TAC in May of 2020, I had recently picked up the guitar after a 35 year lay off (I might add that back in the day I was never really any good to begin with). I did the 30-day thing and I remember thinking this should really be more like a 90- or 120-day event – I didn’t come close to getting most of those exercises right in 30 days (I still go back and visit some of them occasionally). I actually wish Tony would change the name as after 30 days I kind of felt like I failed because I really could not do a lot of the exercises with any kind of accuracy, when in reality I made progress.

Then I moved on to the first daily warmup exercise. It was the tried-and-true Finger picking WU-18 Ring Finger Staircase. I couldn’t even come close to doing it no matter how long I kept at it and then I was supposed to hit the complete button? I felt like I was deceiving myself. The rest of the week was a similar experience. Meanwhile I am reading all the comments for the daily exercises and there are all the happy go lucky TACers just chatting away about how much fun these were and great they sounded etc. I felt like I was on a different planet. I was filling out the journal at the end of the week and there was a question about “What went well with your guitar playing this week”? I wrote down Absolutely Nothing – that’s how frustrated I was.

But I soldiered on and eventually bought into Tony’s approach. I showed up every day and did the exercises, went back did some of the old ones that I thought might be good to know, worked on bits and pieces of songs, etc. I even transitioned from Annual Membership to Lifer. There are a lot of other on-line venues out there that teach guitar and some are really good, but none are using the approach Tony has developed and none have the same level of passion and positive coaching/encouragement that he offers.

Here I am 2+ years later and still at it every day anywhere from 30 minutes to 2.5 hours (in multiple sessions). Am I good? No. Am I better? For sure. Am I having fun? Yep. Do I enjoy it? Yep. Do I still get frustrated? Yep, sometimes. There are some licks I have practiced hundreds and hundreds (maybe over a thousand) of times and still don’t hit them accurately consistently – very frustrating. There is a site called the Acoustic Guitar Forum that is pretty good for overall general information. The old timers on there have a saying when some member express frustration about learning a song or whatever = “Nothing that 10 years won’t fix” 😁. They of course are exaggerating and I am not sure I have 10 years. 😅 But the message is the same – keep at it and hang in there. Nothing more satisfying then actually getting a run down that was out of reach earlier. When the frustration sets in, I just walk away for a while, or on rare occasions step away for day. If we are gone for a week or two, I now find that when we get back home, I can’t wait to pick up the guitar again.

I targeted that frustrating WU-18 and made it part of my daily warmup. It took a while, but I have conquered it! But I still hit it every day just as a reminder of how far I have come and also because it is a good warmup.

[Kristin1]

The more I think about it, the more I dislike the “complete“-button.

I´d like to have the buttons name changed into “practiced“.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 8 months ago by  Kristin1.

[JoeT]

Good morning, I’d like to reach out to all of you guys and gals that responded to my post, I’d like to give a sincere appreciation, and thanks to all of your concerns, and wisdom and insight to a successful and fun journey. I’m not giving up and do see progress, but like most of us it’s not coming fast enough lol, I guess that’s what makes it a journey. My main goal is to be able to change cords seamlessly up to tempo, while continuing to educate myself with theory, and above all having fun while doing it, thanks again and rock on!

[Kitman]

Hi @JoeT , thank you for taking the step to “dump your bucket” as it many of us TACers may feel the same frustration (I have) and hold it in to ourselves. By sharing you have prompted some great responses and encouragement for our colleagues! As a result we all learn and are encouraged! Thank you! Keep on playing and make sure you have fun (finish up your session with a song you love to play, a lick you have down pat, etc) – it makes the frustrating bits seem a lot less annoying ! After a while you will begin to find that those annoying bits begin to find their way into your “fun finish”! 😎🎸🎶