Sound outs…my daily small wins

[AttyTJ]

Well thought out and done, @brian2051. Great Idea!!

[Kitman]

Great win and a great connection to the scales @Brian2501 . Thanks for sharing!

[Cadgirl]

@Brian2501 , I just started noting out the melody line to a song myself. It is helping me a lot with singing. Now, I know where that note should be (not that I can always hit it). But, I just wanted to thank you for the post. This is a really good ‘small win’. Hope you are still at it.

[N-lightMike]

Hey @Brian2501 ,

Thanks for posting this. I started doing this a very long time ago so I could learn to sing the “proper” melody to songs. Because I started doing it so long ago, I never thought about sharing it. But I’m really glad you did.

Not only will it help us to sing a melody, which is why I did it. It will also help us with scales, which you noticed. But also it helps with a number of other things. You have to translate notes to the guitar, which helped my get better at reading standard music notation and helped me to memorize the notes on the guitar, or at least the open position notes (I have since learned the entire fretboard).

Finally, it will help you understand melody in general so you can create your own or come up with great solos. This will help you if you do ever start writing your own songs.

That’s a lot of small wins in one little practice idea.

MG 😀

[Cadgirl]

@MikeGaurnier , it really is a big help all the way around. If I can get the first couple of notes I can figure out the rest. It’s higher or lower, easy peasy. I just figured out Dream a Little Dream of Me. I want to play and record the song with chords then add a track of the melody notes. Just for fun.

[N-lightMike]

Yes, @Cadgirl , that would be fun. I always wanted to do that and I finally did a recording of chords and played a solo against it. It was cool, but for some reason I only did it that once. And I never did it with an actual song doing tracks so you can make it more polished.

But playing the melody against the chords would be a really cool thing to do. I should give that a go. Man, there is so much to do on my guitar journey. I’ve gotten into writing songs, which is way cool. But that brought with it something I didn’t anticipate, and that’s learning my own song. Turns out, this is normal. You can’t listen to it on the radio and sing along on a trip, or listen to it on the stereo while you work, etc. Anyway, that would be a reason to try the little experiment you have suggested.

MG 😀

[Brian2501]

Hi Mike

Hope all is well with you…I appreciate your past comments(I felt they were honest and well considered)…and I was wondering if you could share some thoughts with me. As you may recall I have been sounding out and noting a song a night. My tentative plan was actually after 2 years to move on from TAC after my Nov 10 expiration and concentrate more on learning songs, playing songs by ear and complimenting my single notes with chords. The fretboard wizard blitz has thrown me a bit for a loop. If I sign up today I will be able to finish the course in time…but just once. I am not that “interested” in theory and jamming but would be thrilled if it helped me “round out my sound outs”. So my question to you is…have you tried the new course? Do you think it would help me considerably in my goal.

Does it require a lot of barre chords? (I am not a huge fan and don;t seem to be progressing very well in that dept).

Your thoughts will be highly appreciated.

Thank you

[N-lightMike]

Now for this reply, @Brian2501 .

Perhaps it was for the best that @Cadgirl and I missed your reply back on August 22nd. If we had replied and you became more engaged in the forum this decision would have been even harder.

So, yeah, I’m gonna get right into the hard decision. It’s a tough one for me. Before my 90 day money back guarantee ran out, I traded up my annual subscription for a lifetime membership. And I bought Fretboard Wizard when I originally signed up, so I really got the best possible deal. I have had to share my thoughts with others who were facing the annual renewal and the associated cost. I really feel for you. To me, it’s a lot of money. It was a stretch that 1st year, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to handle the cost for long as I was right at retirement. That was part of my reasoning.

Ok, so that’s the 1st thing you need to factor in. Just how much of a hardship would it be to pay for one more year and the Fret Wiz course? That would be my suggestion for 2 reasons. That 3rd year seems to be the big payoff. That’s when Tony’s method seems to really sink in and gives us what we need to “leave the nest”. And Fret Wiz is the best guitar centered “theory” course any of us have run across. It’s pretty light on theory, and all of the theory is directly applied to the guitar, so it’s really tough to even use the word. It doesn’t apply very well. The term practical does apply very well.

Fret Wiz gives you the understanding you need to carry on your guitar journey in any direction you want. You can start writing songs. You can get into making multi-track recordings. You can delve deeper into music theory. You can learn the entire fretboard and play whatever style you want so much better. You won’t need a course on capo’s as you can now figure it out on your own. You can throw away your chord book, as you can find chords on the fretboard on your own.

Is Fret Wiz worth the money? Yeah, big time. But would it be worth paying for if you could only take it once? That’s tougher, but yeah I think it still would, but you wouldn’t get the benefit you could/should. You used to be able to buy a membership by the month. If that’s still an option and you can’t come up with the bucks to go for Fret Wiz and another year, I’d go for that option.

How about what happens if you are really tight and the best thing for your finances is to just bow out. Will you really be missing out? Will it cripple your progress and barricade your guitar journey? Is there no other option?

No, it won’t be the end of your progress. Yes, there are other options. If you can afford it, the best way forward would be Fret Wiz and TAC, I do believe that. However, if you can’t afford it, you can gain the same theory for free from YouTube. It’s not the easiest thing to do and it will be pretty hit and miss. And you’ll end up learning more about theory than just the “practical theory” that Tony teaches. But there is nothing unique in any piece of the Fret Wiz course. The magic is you get it all in one place at one time. It’s like a gourmet meal. There is no food or spice in the meal you have had before or could get else where. But, oh, the flavor of that chefs magic recipe! Tony’s Fret Wiz “recipe” is amazing, but your guitar journey will not be crippled if you can’t afford it.

One more time, I’m gonna say something about buying Fret Wiz for only the time left. Bad idea, but yeah, I guess I’d have to say it’s still worth it. I hate to even say that, but I have to. It would be like paying the price for a gourmet meal and then rushing through the meal, gulping down the food, and leaving in a rush with it half finished. Yeah, you got your doggie bag (the pdf file), but man, it just doesn’t sit right. I would not call it money well spent even if I must say “it’s worth it”. But I believe if you can’t come up with a way to let the information digest and take some or all of it over again, then find another way.

Here’s my suggestion: send me a pm and we’ll talk more if you can’t afford Fret Wiz and a few more months membership.

Fret Wiz is the best guitar course available in my opinion. But there are options, of that I’m certain.

You can tell how tough a question this has been for me to field cause I just can’t seem to end this. I want to amend this statement or that. But I can’t. These are my opinions and sugar coating sh** doesn’t help. It’s still sh**.

MG 😀

[Brian2501]

Thanks Mike for all your thoughts on this. Somehow I did not get your messages until today….but was a bit distracted with Ian prep. Did not get hit hard here in CLT but I know there were power outages your way….hope all is well.

Yes I signed up before i was able to see your comment…there is just way too much praise to ignore it. It was more about time priority than financial commitment.

My email is [email protected] and would enjoy conversing with you privately.

Best regards!

[N-lightMike]

You are so right, @Brian2501 , FW has a very high review. I has been a game changer for so many people in their guitar journey.

MG 😀

[Brian2501]

Hi Mike and Cadgirl

Back from a vacation…

I actually felt giving it a rest for a week turned out to be a good thing for me. I felt like I played better than normal tonight.

Thanks for your comments and yes a great idea to record the chords to a melody and fill in with the notes or vice versa.

Cadgirl, that is interesting that you find it helpful for singing.. I only recently realized that it’s one note per syllable so that really makes sense.

That will require some more effort…and since I am basically lazy I am going to have to really step up my game. But it is a worthy goal.

Since some nights I have to rack my brain to think of a tune I am pleased that I listened to Joan Baez channel on Spotify…while I was mowing the lawn yesterday (She has hundreds of songs listed, and I know a lot of them…so I have a good list to work on to get me to November…at which point I will modify my routine and perhaps work more on quality vs quantity.) What a voice…we are lucky to have access to such beauty in our lives.

If you are wondering who in their right mind would listen to music while mowing I have a pair of racetrack earmuffs and the airpods sound pretty good. Game changer!

[N-lightMike]

Hello @Brian2501 ;

Yes, I have read your most recent comment, and I will respond to that also, but 1st I wanted to respond to this one as I obviously missed it. I would have responded had I seen it.

Yes, taking a little time off can really help. And yes, our routine does change some as time goes on.

I’m not sure what kind of magic goes on when we take a break and come back better. But, I have experienced it as have others. I’ve never figured out a proper schedule of down time or heard anyone talk about it. I suppose just allowing life it’s little up and downs and all arounds is good enough.

But I totally understand our routine changes. We progress and need to alter our practice sessions accordingly. It is slow and we might be on a particular phase for quite awhile. But if we are diligent, it won’t be years, but only months before we need to make adjustments. And those adjustments are the proof that we are indeed making progress just in case we didn’t do a good job of keeping track of our small wins.

As far as listening to music while you mow the lawn, I do that also, though I don’t have the sound deadening head phones. I just use my hearing aids, which would be like you using your ear pods without the ear muffs.

Anyway, I’m glad you are doing well and making progress in your guitar journey.

MG 😀

[Brian2501]

Yup I have the hearing aids too!. The earmuffs are a game changer…I actually enjoy mowing now.

Since my hearing has deteriorated I absolutely hate background noise so they are a big help.

[N-lightMike]

I’ll have to look into getting a pair of ear muffs. It is nice to cut out background noise. Thanks for the tip, @Brian2501