[Carol-3M-Stillhand]

@KevinZ That was awesome!! I love John Denver and you did a great job on this song!! You have an amazing voice and solid guitarwork, nice percussion technique too!! I’d love to hear more JD songs!!!

[Carol-3M-Stillhand]

@stevieblues give this exercise a try:

Plant your fretting fingers where they need to be (chord formation or whatever notes you are wanting to play)

Place your picking fingers on the strings. Start with your thumb on D string, index on G string, middle on B string, and ring on high e string. If you have nails, make sure the nails are on the strings and ready to pluck.

Practice plucking all 4 strings at once till you get one good solid chord.

Now pretend your picking hand “wants to stay there” and you have to “peel it off” starting with the D string, then the G, then the B and then the e. So you’re not plucking all 4 strings at once, just peeling your hand off the strings in one rolling motion.

[Carol-3M-Stillhand]

Hi @Thomas M you will see a link to the Fretboard Wizard course right after the “30 days to play” link in the menu bar on the right side of the screen.

[Carol-3M-Stillhand]

Hi @OldDawg and welcome to TAC!! One of the very bestest online guitar learning sites around. Once you finish your 30 days, might I suggest you check out the menu of “Skill Courses” in the main menu. It’s like having 1:1 lessons with Tony, and I’m sure you will find something you’d like to focus on. My best advice is to be patient with yourself and stay consistent. Watch for your small wins because you will be making progress without noticing sometimes. Best luck in your guitar journey!!

To answer your question, I’ve been a TACer for 7 years, almost from the beginning days, and I started with very little skill. I was taking weekly lessons IRL at the time as well and I found the balance extremely helpful to my progress. I’ve been playing since 2013 and am very happy with my level of playing. And being a lifetime member of TAC helps me to stay on my habit of lifetime guitar learning.

[Carol-3M-Stillhand]

Hiya @Warren C Congratulations on taking on the 30 Day Challenge!! It sounds like you are making great progress already 🙂

Some good tips for sore fingers:

Keep your play/practice time down to several short sessions rather than one long session. Playing twice a day for 10 minutes each is easier on your fingers than playing once for 20 minutes. And it will help build your callouses quicker.

Avoid playing right after doing dishes, swimming or showering. Your hard won callouses get softened up by hot water and if you start playing before they are totally dried out, the callous will be worn away very quickly from playing. If you wait, your callouses will stay put and do their job.

When you practice, try playing on an electric guitar or a nylon string guitar as they are much easier on sore tender fingers. Also if you use a capo on your regular acoustic guitar, it will lower the action and make it easier for those finger tips to fret the notes.

When you are done with your practice session, ICE is your friend 🙂

Good luck, and don’t give up!!!! It’s so cool once you get to the point where your fingers aren’t sore anymore. Then you can start on your F-Chord, hehehe!!

[Carol-3M-Stillhand]

@Timo67 That was a really awesome story!! Thank you so much for sharing it here with your fellow geek buddies. And yanno, most of us share all or part of your same story. Honest!! So we know where you’re coming from.

And yanno what else? You get the BIG WIN AWARD of the year, for your persistence. You have not thrown in the towel and you are still practicing every day. That is huge. I applaud you. And I encourage you to play guitar for yourself first. Then for others if you decide to. Play because you love it and because it makes you happy.

And I think somewhere, someone is looking down from above, listening and smiling. Maybe even tapping his foot a little bit.

[Carol-3M-Stillhand]

@Daniel_Morin That was awesome, toe tapping “Daniel TV”, Celebrating your 4th TACiversary right there with you, although somewhat late!!! Congratulations Buddy!!

[Carol-3M-Stillhand]

@ErikBog Wow that was really beautiful!!! Both the piece, and the guitar. You play beautifully. Thanks for sharing with us here, and sorry to see you leaving TAC. Wherever your guitar geek journey leads you, enjoy and have fun!!!

[Carol-3M-Stillhand]

Hiya @JohnnyDarko I will add my comments as a die-hard fingerstyle player…

I’ve tried the fingerpicks that fit over your finger (ie, Alaska Picks) and my opinion of them is that I’ve never gotten used to playing with them. I tried using them for the times when I break a nail on my picking hand (which is very very frequently). They are different enough from my natural nails so that I lose any sense of string awareness and I need to “re-learn” every song from scratch. I have the same issue with just using a thumb pick. I also hate that wearing finger/thumb picks turn my fingertips numb as well.

I suppose if I truly kept at it and learned how to play with them on for long enough to obtain better string awareness, I might like them better. I am sure this is also the same reason why I became a “Hybrid Picking Course Drop-out”… Also I can’t stand “wasting” my index finger to hang on to the pick with my thumb. It’s like playing with only 4 fingers instead of 5. I do like the tone that people are able to elicit using fingerpicks (Sungha Jung for one), but I have gotten used to fingerstyle with shorter fingernails.

Best wishes with the hybrid picking- I may be picking your brain for tips, once you work thru the workshop😂

[Carol-3M-Stillhand]

@NSmith just a quick comment here but proper form and ergonomics go really far in your case. If you are taking lessons, have your teacher review those things with you, and if you’re a self-learner, I could suggest researching classical form. Maybe borrow a few of the posture/ergonmics from that style of play, it could help you.

Also, there’s a few ways around this… Have you tried playing slide, or dobro? Also open tunings could be your friend here as well. Open tunings usually involve alot less note fretting for the left hand. Many unreachable 4 note fretted chords suddenly become 1 fretted note chords (or zero) with open tunings. If you use Tabulature for standard tuning, there’s absolutely zero learning curve, as you just change your tuning and read the open tuning Tabs just the same as with standard.

Best wishes, and wow, a mahogany GS Mini!!! Happy NGD to you 🙂

[Carol-3M-Stillhand]

@Skyman I agree with @jumpinjeff Don’t even use your metronome if you are still in the learning phase of any piece. Get the music under your fingers first, let your brain be OK with your chord transitions and finger placements. If you don’t have those in place you will never be able to keep up with the metronome.

I’d say the metronome is great for learning to play the notes/chords in the correct rhythm. Slow it down really slow at first and count out loud. All the beats and the ands and the ahhh’s. One-Eeee-Annn-Ahhhh, Two-Eeeee-Annn-Ahhhh, or One-Trip-Let, Two-Trip-Let, etc etc… Stress the counts where you are playing a note, ONE-eee-ann-AHHH, TWO-eee-ann-AHHHH, THREE, etc etc. I did some beginner’s drumming stuff and it’s amazing how that helps you learn rhythms!!

Another really good use for a metronome is when you’re learning a piece and you’re thinking about giving up because you’ll never be able to play it at full speed (Like Tony P does it). So get out your metronome, set it at whatever. Pick something. 30 bpm. Try playing. If you can’t keep up, slow it down by 10 bpm. Try it at 20. Find the speed you CAN play it at. Once you can play it 5 times without a mistake, nudge the bpm’s up by 3 or 5. So go from 20 bpm to 25. Play it 5 times perfectly and nudge it up to 30. Before you know it, you are playing it at tempo.

And yes metronome is good for practicing scales. Nice and level and even… Scales are good for us, like vegetables.

My fav metronome is a free app called ProMetronome. You can make a different click for the first beat of a measure or make the same click for every beat. You can even make it silent. You can tap the screen (to a song you are hearing) and it will tell you what the tempo is in bpm. You can change to any time signature. Not bad for a free app.

Sorry this is so long. I’m procrastinating playing my scales, hahahaha!!

[Carol-3M-Stillhand]

@Ping one thing you could try is to place your capo on the 2nd, 3rd, or 4th fret when you are practicing your tone on your chord shapes. This will put your fretting fingers farther up the fretboard where the frets are closer together which makes it so much easier to get the muscle memory and technique perfected. Once you are happy at the fret you are working at, start moving the capo down the neck one fret and try everything there.

Using your capo helps lower the action, and helps by letting you work out your fingers without needing as much flexability. It’s a great practice tool, and you don’t have to go buy a smaller guitar 🙂

[Carol-3M-Stillhand]

@Loraine I rarely get notifications… what exactly has to match? Let me know if you got the notification for this message as I tagged you.

[Carol-3M-Stillhand]

@Dirk_R sorry to hear your rotator cuff is going to need a little more coaxing to go away…. I’ve had this issue in both shoulders (not all at one time) and I’d say if you have to have it, it’s better to have it in your picking/strumming arm… and I totally agree that once you are feeling like playing again, that a small parlor size or 1/2 size or 3/4 size guitar is your best bet until everything is fully healed… If that’s not an option, then if you play more of a classical style with your guitar on your left knee and the neck at a 45 degree angle, that makes the lower bout of the guitar alot “smaller” to your poor right shoulder and arm. Maybe now is a good time to polish up on your uke skills. Anywayz let us know when your surgery is, and how you’re doing!! Best wishes for a successful operation!!

[Carol-3M-Stillhand]

Happy NGD @Cadgirl Taylor makes a very fine guitar, may you have many years of enjoyment with your 812ce!!