Too much new info…

[stevie-d]

I totally understand. I’ve been in TAC just since February. I did 30 days twice before I found the five day challenge. I completed that last week, but most lessons are still shaky. I try to have fun each time I pick up the guitar, and some things are getting easier. My fingers don’t hurt as much as they did. How long have you been at it?

[jmwood59gmail-com]

Thanks to everyone for your encouragement. I’ll definitely try each challenge and favorite ones for future practice.

[Kona_Bruce]

@jmwood59gmail-com Aloha Jeff – Don’t feel all alone, I, like many newbies, felt overwhelmed early in my TAC journey – there’s LOTS to do and LOTS to learn, … and it keeps coming at you.

But then I realized I’m not here to live up to random challenges, I’m here to have fun playing my guitar. I dialed back my commitment to daily challenges, the paddling of the canoe so to speak, and learned to relax, take my time and float. So I “opened up to sampling what’s offered”, picking things that interested me to explore, and let the learning come at a pace I could deal with.

For me, since I was a fairly respectable self-taught player from the late 60’s, that meant delving into the skills courses for the playing side of things and doing a deep dives into the background of acoustic guitar. For instance, I watched EVERY Acoustic Tuesday episode and can now say, with a sense of confidence, I now know “what I don’t know” … and that makes me hungry to learn more general guitar/ music knowledge.

But I’m also now inspired to have a method to my “training” too. By training, it’s not just the head stuff, but making the transition to mastering the physical part of playing. BUT I STILL select what I work on, because I don’t have time to do it ALL.

So, as one example of “eating the elephant” (and this method works for me because I am retired), each weekday morning I open the Daily Challenge, mark as a favorite, print the tab and take a few minutes to figure the tab out. Then I review the “play” video (see how I did figuring out what was called for) and THEN watch the “learn” video (because they always have hidden gems). Now I’m ready to follow up on that particular challenge anytime I want to. Then I’ll look at the Forum posts, just to stay current … and call my morning done. Almost every day including weekends, in the afternoon I’ll select some tactical exercise for practice and dexterity, and some growth excise, like learning new songs to stay entertained.

Every long-term member at this site will have their own “Unique” story to tell about getting the program to work for them, and they all will stress doing the work (play at your own level — regularly) and ALWAYS have fun. That should be your commitment to yourself. There are tens of thousands of additional members in the TAC family who support that, for themselves and for YOU.

[jmwood59gmail-com]

Thanks.

[the-old-coach]

JM–

As you get- and go thru- the Daily Challenges (as they show up)– they can indeed seem like there is “just too much to take in”. Don’t sweat it! Some will come “easy” to you, some more difficult, and some you may just wonder– “why?—- what is this and why do I need it at all”.

I think Tony is just trying to give us a “broad-based” guitar-background, which, as time goes by, will pay big benefits, as we each, and all, “make our own path”.

Some of the Dailies will “just feel right”, some you won’t care about at all.

Save somehow any that you want to come back to- (“favoritize” them, or print them and keep them in a binder, whatever works best for you)- so you can come back to them whenever you want– and/because– the disappear upon the start of the “new month’s schedule of lessons”……

Above all– remember to have fun with it all!

Over time, YOUR OWN guitar-journey’s path will begin to become more clear to you. And I bet it will also change a few times as you become better and more knowledgeable in all the different skills and paths headed your way.

(IMHO— this is exactly WHY Tony’s “broad-based” program works sooooooo well!— he gives us lots of info on many different “directions”– including all the Skills Courses!– and we’ll choose our own “right path”).

theoldcoach

[jmwood59gmail-com]

Thanks for your kind response.

[Loraine]

@jmwood59gmail-com I remember feeling lost and overwhelmed at the beginning and not knowing how to structure my time accordingly. I also felt I needed to perfect a skill or practice it till I felt it was near perfect, but that isn’t the case. In fact, it’s the opposite. It is about building a good practice routine, building foundational skills and progress over perfection.

My suggestion is continue with the daily challenges for the minimum of 10 minutes per day and mark them complete. You can practice longer than10 minutes, but remember the object is to keep moving forward.

If you find a particular lesson that you really like or that you want to revisit, then click on the heart at the bottom right of the video, and it will be saved to your profile under Favorites. You can then revisit it. I wouldn’t necessarily go back and redo the lessons. Use the weekends to further practice, if you want. Skills are covered more than once throughout the year, and the videos rotate back around about every 8-9 months, so you’ll definitely cover the material again. It’s fun to see the progress we’ve made in our overall skills and how much faster we pick up on things the next time it rolls around.

Have fun with it.

[the-old-coach]

In my opinion—— EXACTLY!!!!!!😀 jmwood…… what Loraine says…… is IT. Proceed.

• This reply was modified 2 years, 9 months ago by  the-old-coach.

[jmwood59gmail-com]

Thanks Loraine. This is good advice. 👍