[atroutcatcher]

Hello Bryan.

In my opinion and from my experience, I would focus on the 30 day program and spend more than 10 minutes a day in your playing (aka practice) afterwards. Work on your technique and getting your brain to absorb the new chords and techniques. Work on some basic chord changes – as all songs are made of chord changes – and gain some proficiency there. Why? Again, in my opinion, you can easily look at TOO many things and become confused and frustrated – and distracted. Learning guitar has not been as easy for me personally as I envisioned – I was following the 10 minutes a day idea and it did not work for me. Spending 10 minutes a day was a great idea – but I found out that I don’t have hidden guitar skills after all – bummer. So the time expended was great but the skills retained were basic at best. Perhaps look at the 10 minutes per day as the amount of time you’ll listen to the instruction. Like I mentioned, your practice would be afterwards.

Watching the daily challenges is more like a bonus as a beginner. There are some complicated techniques in the daily challenges – so keep that in mind. It can be a source of real frustration if you expect yourself to do the things in the daily challenges with proficiency. Tony is a very skilled and talented player. His teaching is very enjoyable and his demeanor great. He makes it all look easy. And with enough time and focus – give yourself time – you’ll get there. Some say it takes 10,000 hours to be an expert in a skill. Hopefully that’s much less for you!

[atroutcatcher]

Hey Bryan. It’s an ongoing problem and support knows about it. Has been a problem for a while now – not just you.

I’ve been at it for a while and did get somewhat attached to the stats. When I saw them crash and break, it was very distracting for a while. Not proud of that but it happened.

I now got myself a notebook to jot down my playing time, what I worked onand my notes after – as in, what should I work on more before moving on to something new. Of late, I’m telling myself to slow down!

Sooner or later something will happen with the stats – correction or removal (just a thought if they are always wrong).

I would recommend not becoming attached to the system version of your progress – others have said they have broken on prior occasions. Track your progress yourself and take notes – there is also a journal available from TAC. I just found my $1.25 notebook easier for me.

Hang in there and enjoy.

[atroutcatcher]

For what it’s worth, I was in a lesson just now and it locked up and disconnected me. The screen in the attached pic show what I’ve seen many times on this site and it’s included only as a reference.

It is kind of you guys to be so easy going.

However, I can also empathize with those who get annoyed or frustrated with this type thing. It would help us to know what’s being done to improve the site load time or if it’s not going to be addressed. I can confirm that I use other private – login type – education sites where the slow load and performance issues NEVER happen. There is a reason or reasons for this loading issue and it’s a legitimate complaint point.

[atroutcatcher]

Look above the video area…do you see ‘Materials’?

May depend on your device too…I see different info on my phone versus my iPad.

There are also items below the video. Seems to vary…see attached…

• This reply was modified 2 years, 2 months ago by  atroutcatcher.

[atroutcatcher]

No worries…can be confusing.

Which course are you working on?

[atroutcatcher]

@Loraine – wow. Thank you for such a thoughtful and helpful response. All makes great sense and I’ll take your advice and put it to work!

I have been expecting to get the strumming skill mastered quickly and now know that is not the path to success. I’ll give myself a break and more time for this to come together. The pick thickness advise is great – wasn’t really sure.

I’m ready to practice now and look forward to taking the many steps necessary to get better.

Many thanks to you. Be well!

[atroutcatcher]

@dbws95gmail-com For what it’s worth, I too have slow response on the site – has been the same since day 1 for me.

I too love the instruction and the site is nice – just sluggish.

If you find a trick to improve user performance, please share.

Best regards for now.

• This reply was modified 2 years, 9 months ago by  atroutcatcher.

[atroutcatcher]

@Moose408 Good stuff. I’ve seen this called ‘the Tyranny of Expectations’. I was experiencing this tyranny since I was expecting that I could play quickly. This because, in my mind, I was a guitar genius waiting to emerge (aren’t we all). Not the case for me.

I had to also keep reminding myself that it’s not going to be easy and is, in fact, quite difficult. The fact that we are playing an instrument, where you are positioning your fingers on a plane / surface that you really can’t see, was something I had to accept. I was fighting with neck issues for a while as I was finding myself trying to see where to place my finger on the fretboard. So I have to remind myself to keep pushing and sooner or later the sound that’s in my head might emerge.

So my playing sucks again as I’m working to change chords without seeing but based on muscle memory – and after a year, my chords and changing weren’t that great to begin with. However, now I think I’m on the right path – keep at it and let the crappy sound just happen until it sounds better. Be easy on yourself rather than having such a high expectation – quit expecting that perfection shows up so easily. If that were the case, wouldn’t everyone be a star?

Thanks for sharing. Will have a closer look.

[atroutcatcher]

@RiverRooo

No babble at all. Very helpful and thank you. Thanks for sharing the trouble you’ve had. Me too. I spend too much energy on my sitting and visibility to the strings. Though playing without seeing the strings is frustrating – I’m hoping it’s just going to take a while…and I’ve been at it a year now. I’m hanging in and waiting for the skills to show up!

Again, thank you for sharing. Always good for the spirit to know you’re not the only one struggling with the journey. But mind you, I’m struggling but I’m enjoying it and have no plans to stop any time.

Be well and enjoy your playing.

[atroutcatcher]

@Loraine thank you. What type chair are you using?

[atroutcatcher]

Wow. That’s big time helpful. I really appreciate it.

You’re probably not a hugger, but if you were here, I’d try to give you one. 😁

[atroutcatcher]

Good stuff. Are you using any other guitar related apps you would recommend for success? Thanks for posting.