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SONGS?
So – I am new here – just finished the 30-day challenge, and the 5-day thing, and have started the daily challenge. My question is – do we ever learn to play songs? Technique is great, but not very interesting, long-term. Maybe I’m just not understanding the program well-enough?
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7 Replies
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Common question @evuljeanne .
Many Daily Challenges are in fact based on a song, For example next week is Benchmark week and we’ll be doing Ain’t No Sunshine. Benchmarks are done once a month and they are all based on songs and are repeated 3 times per year so you get lots of opportunity t rehearse those songs and evaluate your progress. The following week will be based on Van Morrison’s “Brown Eyed Girl”. But the focus isn’t on learning how to play to song beginning to end. That part will always be up to you.
I’m reposting my thoughts from a previous reply on this topic:
If you search the forum you will find many good explanations. Tony doesn’t teach you how to play a song from start to finish and there are good reasons:
1. There are dozens of ways to play any song
2. He teaches you the skills that are used in hundreds of songs, perhaps thousands.
3. When a lesson is focused on a song he gives you about 75% to 85%. You get the chord progression for verse and chorus. What may be lacking are the bridge and vocals
4. He doesn’t just teach one way to play the song, he will often give you different strumming or picking styles for whatever level you are comfortable with.
5. The challenges are designed to teach players from absolute beginner to advanced, those with 0 days to 10+ years of experience. If he focused on just how to play a song, 95% of members would tune out. Instead he has nuggets in each lesson for players at all levels.
6. The songs posted here are by individuals who may have learned a certain song from the challenges but then spent their own time rehearsing it. Some of them are literally an exact reproduction of one of the PLAY videos with or without vocals
Others who post songs here have learned those songs in a myriad of different ways.
7. If you trust the process and stick with TAC, you will eventually have learned the skills to play thousands of songs; not that you will know them completely but you can learn to play it very quickly. (Multiple times faster than a new player just working on a single song at a time)
8. In a nutshell, TAC teaches you to become a guitar player. It doesn’t teach you the process of playing song1, song2 ….song10 from start to finish. If it did that, you would only be able to play those 10 songs at the end.
Also you would now focus on perfecting elements of the song in order to sound like the original artist. Tony frowns upon perfection because it leads to frustration and quitting. He wants members to have fun giving their best 10 minutes each day, marking complete and coming back tomorrow. Return consistently to your guitar and you will grow!
Final thought: there is a Song Vault on the site that is more tailored to teaching a few songs. I understand it’s from the earlier days of TAC, the new site no longer links to it, but it still exists. https://hub-lkx8655w8n.membership.io/
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Thanks @petelanger. That really helps. I am also learning classical guitar, and just find it useful to have one or two things I’m working on that are “musical”, but I can see where TAC fits into that now. Thanks again!
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ps – the song vault looks like just what I need! 🙂
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I read your bio, Jeanne and it always fascinates me to get people’s music stories. Quite a few musicians have come to TAC once they realized they wanted to begin learning guitar. For some reason your situation, finding tablature frustrating because you can read music, made me think of a fabulous musician who approached the guitar in a totally different way. Perhaps you would find him interesting to listen to, or get some inspiration from. Stanley Jordan is a Jazz guitarist who plays like nobody else.
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Wow Pete that was awesome Stanley is great! So cool…guys like that blow me away and almost make me want to throw my guitar in the lake…but i wont 🙂 thanks for sharing bro.
And welcome to TAC @evuljeanne . Youre in a good place. Once you learn the 1 4 5 chord progression in key of G ie G C D Em Am you can start playing hundreds of your favourite songs. Like Pete says TAC teaches the bones of songs but also skills and techniques which are invaluable to a guitarist. Youtube has a ton of good teachers who teach songs at all levels from beginner to more advanced. Personally I do both…Im a big fan of TAC and have learned a lot but I pick up just as much from learning songs. And at the end of the day youve got a song under your belt. Rock on sister and enjoy the ride!
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Holy cats! It’s like he’s playing the piano!!! That is my struggle, for sure – needing to use two hands to play one note confounds me at times. It IS getting better, but I have to think pretty hard about it. If I stop to consider that I am able to play piano with both hands, I realize that eventually I should be able to play the guitar, too. As we say in Spanish – poco a poco! But, having said all that, Stanley Jordan is amazing. Thanks for sharing his story.
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Thanks, Braden. I’m loving how supportive folks are here! <3
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