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The Collection
1.) How many days per week do you play?
Every day.
2.) What time of day do you play?
My routine is the morning, early, like still dark out in winter early these days, but summer I’m up at dawn and out on the back porch.
I also play whenever I don’t know what else to do or want to avoid chores. LOL. Evening watching the sunset in summer on the deck is always a special time to get my groove on too.
3.) Where do you play?
I have a dedicated guitar room for my guitars. I have a few. 40 I think. I have my little amp on a stand and various lap steels in different tunings setup on racks, around me in front of the amp and music stand, and a selection of electrics behind my seat.
I do my morning TAC practice downstairs in front of the wood stove right now in winter. I go out on my back deck in summer.
I keep a couple acoustics, a standard and a resonator in open D tuning downstairs for any time the urge strikes. I go to the guitar room usually to play the lap steels after breakfast and morning business on the computer in my home office, which is in the room next to the guitar room. I’m there now. hahaha.
In summer I’m out on the back porch at 5 a.m. You can see multiple videos of my practice out there with the creek babbling and birds singing LOUD backup on my YouTube Channel TheHappyHollowBoys
4.) What was your guitar life like before having a guitar routine & how has implementing a consistent guitar routine helped you? (if possible name 3 ways).
Scattered. Very ADHD. I have so many styles and instruments that I want to learn, that I kept bouncing around and find it hard to make progress on any of the various genres. I did manage to build a repertoire of about 50 songs, and some originals, that I try to run through over the week, so that also takes time from cracking a book or watching a lesson on one of the styles I want to learn more on. Still trying to figure that out. I’m hoping building the skill of keeping a routine and a plan in this course will motivate me to work out a plan for the other things.
I started this course to get that routine set in place as far as time (5 am slot) and focusing on progress (as opposed to rehearsal or jamming) and that is working so far, so that is one win. I also wanted to focus on fundamental skill building, especially keeping time, and listening to another player playing while playing along. That is wins 2 & 3 so far. Although the latter is mostly a fail, so far, but the small win is trying every day.
And bonus win, win, win, I’m learning new licks, chords, rhythms, bass lines, transitions and songs too, instead of play9ing the same old over and over.
5.) Bonus Question: What is one non-guitar item that is a must have in your guitar routine?
Coffee of course, but cell phone for my fave tuning app and recording myself for post practice critique.
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2 Replies
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Nice, Stan! You are making me jealous! You’ve got some really interesting instruments in that bunch and dozens that I can’t even distinguish because all I can see is their profile.
I think the one thing that maybe you don’t have, (and I’m not sure if you do because it’s a very specific item) is a foot pedal to control your TAB sheets in pdf form. I ordered this unit about a month ago:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01LIROF7W?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title&th=1
It works great with Tony’s TABs and it can also in TAC one you have them set to go and paused, start and stop the LEARN and PLAY videos. It’s a pretty highly rated unit, but I had bad luck with mine, it kept reporting that the batteries are dead when I had fresh (brand new) ones in there that I tested as having a full charge.
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Really nice collection. I am showing my wife a picture of your room the next time she says anything to me about my collection (I’m at 12). Maybe I can convince her to let me buy a few acoustics to put around the house in other rooms. I’ve been relegated to my home office. Thanks for sharing your story and practice routine. I’m the opposite, always at night when the kid is in bed. I’ve recently come back to TAC and incorporated it into my nightly routine which has been acoustic on TAC and electric elsewhere. It’s definitely helped provide a balance where I’ve been focused on electric for a while now.
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