ChuckS
Forum Replies Created
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Sounds real nice there – great job!
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Nice job @bethL,and you look like you are really enjoying yourself as well 😀
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Glad you like the SC Strings – I find that they usually take a week or so to settle in and that is when you really notice the change in sound. They also seem to last longer. A bit pricey though.
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I use a lightweight, long sleeve T shirt in the summer when playing for that very reason. Works great.
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@JoeT – Hang in there as all the others have said. It will take time. When I first joined TAC in May of 2020, I had recently picked up the guitar after a 35 year lay off (I might add that back in the day I was never really any good to begin with). I did the 30-day thing and I remember thinking this should really be more like a 90- or 120-day event – I didn’t come close to getting most of those exercises right in 30 days (I still go back and visit some of them occasionally). I actually wish Tony would change the name as after 30 days I kind of felt like I failed because I really could not do a lot of the exercises with any kind of accuracy, when in reality I made progress.
Then I moved on to the first daily warmup exercise. It was the tried-and-true Finger picking WU-18 Ring Finger Staircase. I couldn’t even come close to doing it no matter how long I kept at it and then I was supposed to hit the complete button? I felt like I was deceiving myself. The rest of the week was a similar experience. Meanwhile I am reading all the comments for the daily exercises and there are all the happy go lucky TACers just chatting away about how much fun these were and great they sounded etc. I felt like I was on a different planet. I was filling out the journal at the end of the week and there was a question about “What went well with your guitar playing this week”? I wrote down Absolutely Nothing – that’s how frustrated I was.
But I soldiered on and eventually bought into Tony’s approach. I showed up every day and did the exercises, went back did some of the old ones that I thought might be good to know, worked on bits and pieces of songs, etc. I even transitioned from Annual Membership to Lifer. There are a lot of other on-line venues out there that teach guitar and some are really good, but none are using the approach Tony has developed and none have the same level of passion and positive coaching/encouragement that he offers.
Here I am 2+ years later and still at it every day anywhere from 30 minutes to 2.5 hours (in multiple sessions). Am I good? No. Am I better? For sure. Am I having fun? Yep. Do I enjoy it? Yep. Do I still get frustrated? Yep, sometimes. There are some licks I have practiced hundreds and hundreds (maybe over a thousand) of times and still don’t hit them accurately consistently – very frustrating. There is a site called the Acoustic Guitar Forum that is pretty good for overall general information. The old timers on there have a saying when some member express frustration about learning a song or whatever = “Nothing that 10 years won’t fix” 😁. They of course are exaggerating and I am not sure I have 10 years. 😅 But the message is the same – keep at it and hang in there. Nothing more satisfying then actually getting a run down that was out of reach earlier. When the frustration sets in, I just walk away for a while, or on rare occasions step away for day. If we are gone for a week or two, I now find that when we get back home, I can’t wait to pick up the guitar again.
I targeted that frustrating WU-18 and made it part of my daily warmup. It took a while, but I have conquered it! But I still hit it every day just as a reminder of how far I have come and also because it is a good warmup.
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Sounding very good there my friend. Nice playing!
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@attyTJ – 1 July is in the rear view mirror. Should that be Sunday 7/10?
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I am right with you @the-old-coach with regards to keeping is simple. Came across this video on YouTube from Chris McKee at Alamo music that is a straightforward, easy to understand explanation He runs through a few of the basics that go into the running direct, mic-ing up a guitar properly (with a dynamic or condenser microphone), gain staging, basic interfaces, and software/digital audio workstations (DAWs). He keeps it very simple with easy to understand explanations.
Here is the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiEmEVoi4Pc&t=97shttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiEmEVoi4Pc&t=97s
Hope this helps.
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@Mrfredsporty – Chris Martin actually stepped down last June (2021), so this is old news at this point. He was replaced by a Thomas Ripsam. Ripsam has a strong corporate strategy/business admin/finance background and so he looks like your typical corporate leader type, but he is also an avid guitar player. He even took a sabbatical in 2019 to work with a luthier to learn about the process of building acoustic guitars. In my opinion, this is a real good thing. Having a CEO who is not afraid to get his hand dirty and actually took the time to understand and experience the design, development and build process is a big plus and sure beats having some Ivory tower type who never stepped foot into the trenches. Let’s call this fact a Small Win and this topic now fits right into this category. 😀 The fact that he did this in 2019 kind of gives me the feeling that this move was in the planning stages for some time prior to Chris stepping down.
I live in NJ, about 2 hours away from the Martin factory. I went on the factory tour about 3 or 4 years ago, prior to getting back into guitar. It was really cool and interesting. I since picked up the guitar after a 35-year layoff (I was never any good to start with) about 2.25 years ago, joined TAC in May of 2020 and have been serious about learning to play for real now that I have the time. In the past 2 years I have learned a ton about playing and also the details of acoustic guitar specs, types, materials etc., and so now armed with this new knowledge base I am targeting another visit to Martin in the not-too-distant future. The tours were on hold for the last 2 years because of the pandemic, but they are back on now, however, you need to make a prior reservation, (no big deal) pay $5, and the group size is limited to 6 (good!).
I picked up a 2011 Martin HD-35 last August and love it. Looking to pick up another cheaper Martin at some point that I can play outside on the front porch, etc. (The HD-35 doesn’t leave the house).
If you ever get the chance to take the Martin tour, I highly recommend it – my wife even liked it and she has zero interest in guitars.
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Hum, seems kind of odd for them to go in that direction, especially given the price for these gems. Sounds like a packaging cost cutting measure to me with benefit to them vice the customer.
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☝
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Spot on @Kitman. Your post sums it all up very well.
Thanks
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@mrfredsporty – continuing this discussion, I recently picked up a 211 Martin D-16 as a backup (ok to leave the house with, bring out to the front porch, etc.) guitar and slapped on a set of Low Tension Santa Cruz Stings about a week or so ago and I have to be honest, I am just not feeling the love. They seem kind of dull on this guitar. So, while they sound great on my Guild, they don’t seem to come alive on the D-16.
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@jumpinjeffjumpinjeff .J2, great response and that 5 Gallon penny filling analogy is spot on. Good way to look at it. I certainly hit the frustration point many times throughout the year, and now when it happens I will just remember the 5 gallon jug!! Thanks much for that.
My wife and I went out to a winery last night (actually this was on the roundabout return leg of an 80 mile road trip to check out a 2008 Martin D-16GT, which I ended up coming home with😀) and they had a guy playing an Archtop Acoustic/Electric guitar as the evening entertainment – he was basically a jazz guitar player and used that skill to not only play jazz, but also to put his jazz spin on several more contemporary Beatles, Jim Croce, etc. songs. He was unbelievably good, super smooth, effortless with zero vocals – just guitar and amp (no pedal or any other electronic enhancements at all).
My wife asked why I don’t sound like that. Ha, Ha – because he was very talented and probably had about 50 years of playing under his belt. Needless to say, it doesn’t matter how much time I put in, I will just never be that good (I don’t have 50 years to work with anyhow😁) and you know what? I am totally OK with that. I will be as good as I will be and to someone else’s ears that may just be really bad. but I don’t care. I am making progress and getting better step by step, inch by inch or maybe centimeter by centimeter. Can’t see the bottom of that 5 gallon jug anymore, so watching the pennies fall is where I am at. Jug will never get full.
Sitting there listening to this guy just play with zero effort, I showed my wife how well I can now lift my ring finger independently after 2 years of TAC exercises. She puts her hand down and lifts her ring finger up about 2 inches compared to my 0.75 inches and has never, ever done a finger exercise! Told her maybe she should take up guitar! Some folks are just born with more flexible fingers and natural than the rest of us. Once again, I am focusing on what I can do and not worried about what others can do or what I can’t do. Otherwise you will go down a deep, dark hole.
Enjoy.
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Looks like a some sort of gremlin hijacked my response with lots of repeated stuff – interesting.
Typos however are on me (: