Moose408
Forum Replies Created
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If you alter the fingering for a chord it is basically learning a new chord. You will have to spend the time to train the brain for that new fingering. If you learn the chord one way it is often then a little quicker when you change it but not by much.
It does take a lot of time and focused practice to get a chord shape into “muscle memory”.
There is great book on how the brain learns The Laws of Brainjo. Worth a read if you are interested in that sort of thing. It really helped me in my guitar journey.
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That’s the correct attitude. Just take from the challenges what you can and move on. I’ve been here a year and I found this past week’s challenge difficult. But even though I was able to do the whole thing I got a few little pieces from it. I should do even better next time it comes around.
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Tony includes a link in his monthly email. Here is the link for July.
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I’m a year into my guitar journey and I still have trouble always picking the correct string. So first off, go easy on yourself and realize it’s going to take time.
Whenever you are struggling with something on the guitar the steps to do are to simplify, isolate, and slow it down. Your brain can’t learn two things at once, so if you are fretting and picking, the brain is going to learn whichever you are focusing on the the most and if you are bouncing back and forth between the two it will probably learn neither very fast.
For picking don’t worry about your fretting hand and just practice the picking. Whatever that pattern may be. Start slow and speed up over time. Use a metronome. The rule of thumb is that if you can play an exercise 3 times in a row perfectly then speed up. If you make mistakes 3 times in a row slow down. You need to practice a skill consistently (at least 3 times a week), to really commit it to your subconscious.
Another tip for flatpicking is to put your little finger on the pickguard. This gives your hand a reference point. Over time your brain will learn how much to move your pick to hit each string.
I spend 5+ mins everyday doing dedicated picking practice with a metronome. Some patterns I can learn in a week. The one I’m currently trying to learn I’ve been working on for 4 weeks. Started at 50bpm and now up to 85bpm (the goal is 100bpm for this song). It’s a process but it works.
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It’s more about a minimum of 10 mins a day. It’s more about being consistent and practicing every day if you can. I think the 10 mins is because everybody can find 10 mins in a day, but if it said just 30 mins or an hour a day, you would put off practicing because you think you don’t have that amount of time.
When you move to daily challenges there will be some where the lesson is shorter and can be completed in 10 mins, there are a lot that are going to be hard and you won’t be able to do and for these the 10 min rule is more applicable. Do your best, spend 10 mins and then move on. Maybe just learn the first measure, maybe just work on the timing, etc. just do what you can and don’t try to perfect it.
Another suggestion based on you mentioning having to stop the video to figure out what Tony is doing. If it’s technique that’s great, if it’s fretting hand placement, you just be using the accompanying TAB to figure out where your fingers go. I always open the TAB at the same time as the video and mainly use the video to learn the timing and picking hand portion.
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I struggled with learning the c chord. Some things to try.
– Make sure your knuckles are parallel to the fretboard. This is typically done by moving your elbow closer to your body.
– slide your thumb lower on the back of the neck so your fingers rotate more around the fretboard. Makes it easier to have just the tips of your fingers on the strings.
– slow down. Fret your C chord and then play each string individually. Make small finger adjustments until no stings are muted. Do a final strum then take your fingers off and repeat. Do this for 5 mins every day for a month or more (it took me 7 weeks of this daily practice to really get the C chord)
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The monthly and even quarterly meetups are no more. They ended last September. There were a couple of ad-hoc meetups this past spring (only one of which involving Tony), but they have also faded away.
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My frustration almost always comes from one of 2 things. Either my progress is not meeting my expectations, or I’m practicing only skills and not having any enjoyment.
I have solved the first one by just continuously telling myself that I suck at guitar, I’m going to suck for a long time, and that is OK.
I solved the 2nd by adding dedicated practice time to learn songs and riffs so I feel like I’m actually playing guitar. I also supplement my learning with other guitar courses so when I’m really struggling with a specific week of TAC and I have place to go and feel like I’m making progress.
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@jumpinjeff was explaining barre chords which are described on Day 1 of Week 3.
What you were asking about was the patterns described in Week 1 Day 1. Those patterns are not about chords but how to located notes on the fretboard. Once you have 1 note, you can use the patterns to find the same note at other locations on the fretboard.
Chords comes later I believe in Week 2
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That’s a great example, the normal G chord has moved into your subconscious while the new one has not so you have to think about it and struggle with it.
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I actually think looks are just as important as feel and sound. You have to want to play it.
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I’m buying strings in Amazon from now on.
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I use an IOS app called Andante for tracking my progress, it also gives some interesting statistics.
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I actually have thought about purposely breaking the streak at 365. I’m trying to figure out if it matters if the streak is the goal. There are some days where I don’t feel like picking up the guitar but do anyway because of the streak. Is that a bad thing? It got me practicing when I might not have otherwise.