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Some tips? Help feeling discouraged
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Michelle’s advice was right on, but I would add one thing. Practice consistently, regardless of how awful it may sound. The skills you gain will snowball quickly. You will amaze yourself in a few months if you remain steady. Just know that this is very challenging mentally and physically and you will need to do a lot of talking to yourself to stay on the right road. Also, being musical every day is a cure for the blues. Play the simplest 2 or 3 cord songs just to get a taste of what’s to come. Hang in there.
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I agree– Michelle’s advice is right on!
I’m still struggling with tryin’ to figure out how to take those skills I’m learning in the Daily lessons and the Skills courses- (Barre and Jumpstart courses)- and begin to learn how to apply them to playing actual songs. When you- (and several others in this thread)- say, “play the simplest 2 or 3- chord songs”- (sorry- I’m still a relative beginner)- what do you mean by that?
Do you mean playing chords along with songs- (like tabbed-songs on, say, echords?). Or are you meaning learn to play songs like Freight Train where you are playing all the music– every note- just you and your guitar- that’s it.
There’s a big difference between those two. And if either of those is what you mean– great!
Again- can anyone offer advice on what’s the normal progression from going from skills, scales, and licks– to learning to play music?
A couple months back- (on the recommendation of one of our TAC Community’s most knowledgable)- I ordered Tom Heany’s book- “First- Learn to Practice” and it clearly defines the difference between practicing and playing. (great book by the way).
I am really sorry if this just sounds dumb- but I just wanna know how to start to build that bridge between the two.
Always searching– sorry to be a pain…….
Mark J
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My intention was to suggest that you start by playing open chords or cowboy chords that we all start with to keep it simple, a, d, g, c, e, etc. Basic 3 chord songs are available with tabs online. That just gives you some easy musical chord changes to practice until you’re comfortable. At that point you can begin to add barre chords, which is a bigger challenge. As far as other skills courses, you’ll have to take a look to see if you feel ready to attempt them, if not, save for later. Freight Train may be one of those. No need to rush. I would strongly suggest that you tackle Fretboard Navigation and possibly Fretboard Wizard as soon as you can to get some basic theory under your belt. It will be a great help with understanding scales. The big hole in TAC seems to be the lack of beginning courses for scales. Even though there are weekly scales tidbits offered, there is no basic skills course offered for beginners at this time. You may have to go to other sources to find some basic info on major, minor and pentatonic scales to get a better start on that so that you will understand the weekly challenges. I hope this helps. Be sure to check out the July live check-in to get help with planning your course structure and goals.
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M-P-
I’ve been playin’ chord-tab songs on e-chords, cowboylyrics, etc for a few years now, and actually think I got pretty good transitioning between chords- (barre chords included)- at music-speed. Probably have a “playlist” I like to go from, of about 40 songs. I certainly don’t have them memorized by any means, but I can play along off the tabs no problem on the great majority of them.
Maybe that is a logical path in the learning process. I know I need to learn about finding the key to a song and learning the chords- and scales- within that key.
I can’t wait till the next opportunity to enroll in the Fretboard Wizard course! I’ve been able to get some FANTASTIC advice here in our TAC community- and time & again I’ve heard that that course will open my eyes, open doors, and solve many of my mysteries about this Guitar-journey-stuff.
Thanks again…..
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Hi, CeeCubed,
Thank you for sharing your about your journey, and I’m very happy to hear you’re back with your guitar! I’m new to guitar too (since August 2020), and have been plugging away at it. Sometimes every note is pure joy and other times playing seems like a plateau without much improvement. When I’m feeling the plateau, I try to focus on “tiny wins” however small they can be. I love TAC!
Thank you Michelle-PSL for your wise encouragement. Yours and others’ advice for CeeCubed is helpful to me too!
Thank you, everyone!
You are all very kind and encouraging, much appreciated!
Happy playing,
🙂
Cherie
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