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Frustrated
I recently finished the 30 Day to Play thinking I had made some progress. Now I’m doing the 5 Day Routine Challenge and I’m so lost these last 2 days I don’t know what to do. I can do maybe the 1st part of the lesson but can come no where close to doing all of it… at any speed. I don’t know how to read music so I’m lost with the tabs. Tony is talking about it being fun. It’s not fun when you’re completely lost. All that can be said is I was there but didn’t enjoy it when I can’t do it. The 5 Day Routine is supposed to prepare you for the Daily Challenges, but how do I progress with the daily challenges if I can’t even do this?
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6 Replies
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@Kent_B , i’m sorry to hear that you are not having fun. First I want to Congratulate you on finishing the 30-day to Play. Then, I want to add, I think you made a good choice to take the ‘5 day routine challenge’. DO NOT THINK THIS HAVE TO BE DONE IN ANY TYPE OF TIMING! I’m looking at ‘Collect Ingredients’, (day 2). it’s in 2 sections. Just practice the first 1/2. Then you just have to worry about 2 strings. These challenges are more to explain what the daily challenges are. They can be tough at first, but it won’t be long and you’ll find it gets easier. You can do this, break the lessons down, and take your time.
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@Kent_B I’m sorry you’re having a difficult time and are frustrated with the lessons. @Cadgirl hit it on the head when she suggested breaking it down. You can literally focus on 2 bars at a time, and once you’ve accomplished that then move onto the next bar and so on. Break it down into bite size pieces. Spend 10-15 minutes practicing and then walk away for a while. Come back to it later that day or the next. This usually resets your mind frame. When frustrated, go back to a previous lesson from the 30 days to play that you enjoyed and play that instead. You don’t have to read music to use the tabs. The music is there just as a reference. The chords are usually written above the music, and the strings to be fretted and played are under the music. Those are what you focus on with tabs. It just takes getting used to learning them. Guitar is a difficult instrument to learn, but I guarantee that you will get better, and it will get easier as you move forward even with just the 10 minutes per day. There are going to be challenges, but there will be those golden nugget days where you overcome a difficulty, have a lightbulb moment, or find something once found difficult is now easier.
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@Kent_B , I missed the part where you said the tabs didn’t make sense (thanks @Loraine for catching that). I checked the ‘skill courses’ and I didn’t see any courses to show you how to use the tabs! Loraine do you know of any skill courses that explain it? Kent, I drew up a crude drawing of the first section of the “Collect Ingredients”. Maybe that will help explain. It actually isn’t hard and you’ll be up to speed on figuring out the tabs pretty fast.
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Hi, @Kent_B There is a video explanation of TABs at the beginning of the 30 Days to Play course: in the 30 Days Primer. It is called “Learn to Read Tablature”. If you have any specific questions about TAB, feel free to come back and ask.
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Thanks @YukonGuitarist , I thought I’d seen a explanation of the TABs somewhere. 🙂
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Kent-
First off- welcome to TAC!- (it was a great choice).
Cadgirl and Loraine have got it right. Re-read their posts. Then read them… again… each sentence…… They are fantastic advisors- find some of their other posts around here in the Forum- you’ll quickly recognize how helpful and caring they are.
Get “this part” right- even if it seems really difficult, confusing, and slow… for now.
Here’s a thought about the tabbed-music and chords. It can maybe be hard to “get” all the tabbed lessons if you have really NO idea what it’s supposed to SOUND like- because the “song” is not something you recognize.
That said- maybe try this- type into your computer the title of a simple song you KNOW- (any song- does not matter)- then add to that, the word “chords”. (Example- “wagon wheel chords”. Then just hit “enter” of course.
It will come up under several different websites. Pick the easiest one- that’ll take some “looking”. Poke around inside a couple of them. Go for the “easiest” one.
The whole goal here is to “see” how all this tab-stuff that you’re looking at– works and sounds IN A SONG THAT YOU KNOW- and how all that tab-symbol-stuff actually sounds.
All the tab symbolism looked like chicken-scratch to me when I first started out- but it became easier when I could HEAR what it meant, while SEE-ing on the page and following along thru the song.
Once you learn how all the symbolism SOUNDS- take your new, very general, knowledge and apply it back to your TAC Daily challenges. Things may look different! Keep monkeying with it Have fun soaking it all up!
Kinda hard for me to put into words- hope you can see what I mean…..
My two cents. And I certainly apologize if you already know all this.
the old coach
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