Songs

[N-lightMike]

Hello @Francie ;

There are different ways to learn guitar or any musical instrument. The most common are to work on scales and other boring stuff to gain proficiency on the instrument. Then, there is just jumping forward to learning songs because that’s more fun. Both of those ways leave much to be desired.

Tony has come up with the best of both worlds. You gain proficiency on the instrument while playing pieces of music. That way, you’re actually getting better on guitar but these pieces of music can actually be fun and sound cool.

When do you actually learn a song? Not here on TAC. But, Tony has adapted his method to accommodate the many people who think learning songs is the way to learn the guitar. (By the way, it’s not uncommon to see someone who can rip off Stairway to Heaven, but can “play” the guitar. They play only what they’ve spent hours learning to copy. So, that has long since been proven to fail at teaching someone how to play guitar.)

So getting back to the question of learning a song. Tony now teaches his 5 elements of guitar skill (Monday – Friday) based on a song. When the week is done, you can pull up the tab to the song and you’ll find that you have all the skill to play that song. But Tony doesn’t play the song or guide you through the song. If he did, he’d just be the 100,000th guitar instructor guiding people through songs. YouTube is full of them.

Here on TAC, you will learn to play guitar. You go learn songs elsewhere. You can even write your own songs with the skills Tony teaches. That’s what I do. I learn the song elements Tony teaches so I can incorporate them into my own songs, not so I can learn someone else’s song.

But hey, most people want to play songs that are popular. It’s ok. But again, TAC teaches guitar skills, not songs. And this method has already proven to be the most efficient, and steadiest way to progress on guitar.

You’ll get others explaining things in their own way. Basically, everyone will give you a version of “trust the process”. Over the course of a few months, you’ll realize your getting better. In a couple of years, you’ll be better than you ever thought you could be. That’s the experience of many, many TAC members.

MG 😀

[Francie]

Ok thanks but I still want to learn songs. Wish it was built into the course since I also spend a lot of time playing classical guitar and have for years.

[Joyfinder]

I like what N-light Mike said. Francie You can learn songs from YouTube there are thousands and I also have an Ultimate Guitar Tabs subscription but there are also free ones. Finding songs to play and learn is very easy. I have been only learning simple strumming songs for the last 2 years. It is fun I love playing them, but I have never learned how to play with other people or other instruments and I’m pretty sure if my timing was strictly watched there would be times I’m off. I always say I played it my way. haha. When I first started guitar I was content to learn a few campfire tunes but now that’s not enough and I want the real skills to be able to play what I want and not have it be just plain strumming. In the webinar, Tony hooked me with these words. “If you continue doing what you’re doing where will you be in a year? I knew I’d be only slightly better than I am right now. Since going through the 30 days to play, the 5-day challenge, and now starting TAC. I’m realizing how much I do NOT know and cannot do at this time. It’s frustrating, discouraging, wonderful, and exciting all at the same time. I know I’m going to see wicked improvement in a year because I’m doing the hard stuff even when I can’t do the hard stuff. haha, It will come. The same as the dreaded F cord came. I can’t even get through the entire daily challenge. Today I was like an hour just trying to master the G scale. but I will now have that. All that being said of course you want to play songs, that’s why you picked it up in the first place. So definitely do this, but also throw in a fun simple song you can quickly learn and play. You have to have fun. I’m looking forward to this journey with you.