nearing the end of my 1st year

[Loraine]

Oh no @Cadgirl – I look forward to your posts, but I truly understand if you need to venture elsewhere. You can always pop into justmusicgeeks.com & acousticafterparty.com. They’re free, and you’ll know a lot of people and get a lot of great info, support, and there are the virtual open mics throughout each week. Would love to stay connected. Rock on, and keep on plunking!

[Cadgirl]

@Loraine ,I would miss your posts too. I look forward to your comments. I just jotted down the 2 sites. The more I think about , i think i’ll give it another year. It does keep me on track. I checked my profile and i have till the 3rd weed of February to make a decision.

[Loraine]

@Cadgirl If we could somehow keep connected through one of the sites, that would be great. I like working with the newer people on TAC. I have a lifetime membership, so I’ll be here regardless. I still have so much to learn. I’m taking aFretboardq Fluency course and a Classical Conditioning course throu justmusicgeeks.com, and I’m taking a Rhythm Guitar course online, and I have my regular guitar lesson weekly. I may have bitten off more than I can chew. Feeling very stressed with work, working with a professional organizer on my house, all the classes and TAC. I just hope all this will help instead of hinder me. Haha

• This reply was modified 4 years, 2 months ago by  Loraine.

[Cadgirl]

WOW! You are a busy girl. The last few months i was just logging onto the TAC site and go to the forums and skip the daily challenges. As silly as some of those challenges are, they are good structure. I have learn so much about capo, metronomes, sound petals, etc from this site, besides playing the guitar from the forum. Also the “play for me” is a big help because it’s just everyday folks playing a song. I really have been putting a lot of thought into it and I think i’ll stay. The year cost isn’t all that much and I know I would miss it. I would love to learn Classical guitar, good for you.

[johnny67]

I also had to decide if I wanted to do another Year in January and decided to keep on. I’ve learned a lot, I pretty much just play for my own enjoyment but learning the bits and pieces along the way and the support from others has made playing more fun. keep on picking and having fun!

[Cadgirl]

I’m thinking along the same lines. I would never had gotten as far as I am right now without the program. So why stop it now. I really like reading the comments and listening to the ‘play for us’. thanks for your input.

[albert_d]

Happy you will be sticking around. I found after year one when certain lessons came back around I got familiar quickly and a lot of real improvement happened. It was like an old classmate had shown up and I remembered what a fun time we had together. I hope you will have a similar experience.

[Cadgirl]

Thanks, Since I have decided to stay, i am going to take advantage of Tony’s numerous classes. I just finished the strumming course and taking the fretboard wizard over again. I understand the fretboard wizard more every time i do it.

[the-old-coach]

I- (we all)- hope you’ll re-up.

With always a helpful and encouraging word- I consider you as being in a “pillars of the community” group here in our TAC Forum. In that group, you are in fine company indeed!

MJ

[Cadgirl]

Thanks @mkjohnsons , I like to help out as much as I can. Seems like all of us help out each other 🙂

[Cadgirl]

Thanks everyone for all the encouragement. I’m pretty sure I’ll be staying for another year. I know I would miss all the posts.

[N-lightMike]

This is a really tough decision, @Cadgirl . Back when the forum was connected to the lessons, it was much more difficult in my opinion. Now, the forum is over at JMG and I just welcomed you over there. I’m very glad you joined JMG.

As for the lessons, I think what Tony offers is different and more effective than anything available elsewhere.

When I was paying for private, face to face lessons, what bothered me, was that I was paying every month for weekly lessons that wouldn’t benefit me very much within that month. One weekly lesson could show me stuff it would take me weeks, months, or even years to work on. But in the meantime I’m still paying and still getting new stuff thrown at me when I haven’t digested what I learned in the first few lessons.

So then, I joined a pay by the month site, where numerous courses were taught by numerous instructors. Though that seemed like it would be what I needed, what I found was that it was simply more overwhelming than helpful. I still needed to direct myself in my training. I had to decide which courses to take. Did I take more than one concurrently? Did I finish one even if it wasn’t exactly what I wanted? How much better was I getting, after all, week to week and month to month?

Then I found Tony’s site. I signed up for lifetime because I very quickly became sold on his approach. I don’t have to master the daily lessons. I don’t even have to like them or remember them. Maybe they are not what I want to develop in my personal musical choices. So what? If I just did the daily lessons, I was working on guitar skills on a regular basis. In fact, on a range of guitar skills. The bottom line remains the same: “was I improving at guitar at least month to month if not week to week?”.

The answer was simple and profound. I was and am making regular progress, real improvement week to week. Within the first couple of months I had improved more than I had in 20 years of trying to learn on my own from books.

As long as the lessons challenge me, they will continue to lead to regular improvement. From there, if I ever reach that point, I will have to direct my own daily guitar practice. I will still need fellowship with other guitarists and musicians.

As far as the number of years it takes to start really getting to a “basic” level of competence with Tony’s lessons, I’d say that a minimum of 3 years is needed. At that point, one has paid as much as a lifetime membership. I was able to cough up that dough at the time. Now I couldn’t even cough up the yearly fee. I am very grateful for TAC and what they offer and for the option of being a lifetime member.

But I totally understand other people have different circumstances than me. I hope that your guitar journey continues moving forward, Cadgirl. And if TAC is helping with that, I hope you can afford it and I hope you make that choice.

MG 😀

[Cadgirl]

I was on the JMG site and I really think I’m going to like it. I’ll go on again today to look around. As for Tony’s site, it is still a benefit. He gives us little chunks and we can do what you want with them. We can use it as a challenge or use it as a little riff for a song. I think he wants us all to become our own guitar hero. Thanks for your input.

[ted_h]

I’m glad you’re sticking around, @Cadgirl! I just finished my first year, too, and decided to stick around for similar reasons. Although a lot of my practice time is spent on other lessons and pursuits, I find that the anchor of the daily TAC challenge is a huge motivator as it gives me something to start with each day. That way I don’t need to think about what to work on until my brain and fingers are warmed up a little. And there are a lot of nice folks here!

[Cadgirl]

Thanks @ted_h , I like the routine I have with TAC, but I too started using other sites for different areas of my learning experience. ha ha ha…. I also like not having to think about what to start my day out with in guitar. The daily challenges are still great.

[docteny]

Hi..this is my first year and I will renew. Can you tell me what “play for me” is and also how are you using music geeks

Are you finding you can use certain TAC licks for songs that you play?

I really do like the daily challenges but they are hard to remember, so I have chosen lots of favourites.

Hope things go well and you are enjoying playing

cheers, Docteny

[Cadgirl]

I have never used the ‘play for me’ . I have seen numerous videos of members on it thou. Start a post in the Community and I’m sure someone will put you on the straight and narrow. You don’t have to remember the challenges. It’s just to get your fingers into the motion. It will all come together in time.

[Bill_Brown]

Glad to hear that you’re “stickin'” @Cadgirl 👍👍, and happy 1st TACiversary🎂(in advance)🎉🎈🎉 My 1st was in December, and I also pondered prior to that, wether to stay or go🤔 I wasn’t happy about the format change back in March. I felt that things were not as “cohesive” in the Community as a result of the change. But at that point, I decided that I was going to make it more about my journey. I’ve seen vast improvement in my playing and music theory knowledge, and I knew that I could see more improvement if I stuck with the program, and so I did. That’s why I decided to stay on board for another go-around. Hope you find the same Cadgirl.

[Cadgirl]

I had a hissy fit with the format change in March. I think that was a burr in my side too. There are a lot of nice changes with the update and a lot of courses that he has that I haven’t taken advantage of. One big change that I like is Tony is incorporating one of the challenges into his Acoustic Tuesday show. It really opened my eyes to….. Oh gee…. I see what he’s doing, i can do that.

[Bill_Brown]

You always have that positive attitude @Cadgirl 👏👏👏 Just keep it goin’👍