Moose408
Forum Replies Created
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Most TABs don’t contain pick direction. If they do it is indicated by a “Vl for up and a “[“ rotated 90 degrees (so it looks like a roof or hat) for downstrokes.
The real way to tell is to look at the musical staff that Tony has above the tab. Whole and half notes are downstrokes, if there are 8th notes, the note on the beat is a downstroke and the off-beat is an upstroke.
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The idea of TAC is progress over perfection. The idea is if you tried the first two weeks to just move on. You are not expected to perfect anything in the 30 days to play. So no need to go back and review. Overtime the repeated exposure and repetition will cause you to improve on the techniques being taught.
The 10 mins is just a minimum, the idea being that if you said you said you were going to practice 45 mins each day you might find it hard to schedule, but everybody can find 10 mins. Once you get started you can continue playing until your fingers get sore then come back again tomorrow. I tended to do around 12-18 mins each session for my first couple of weeks. Once the calluses built up I would often be surprised that I had been practicing for much longer.
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Welcome back. Getting restarted is often the hardest part, so you are over that hurdle.
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I’ve struggled with this as well. Here are my thoughts.
– Buy a travel guitar. Donner Hush is reasonably priced
– visit a pawn shop at your destination and buy a used guitar, donate it or sell it back in 3 weeks.
– do Fretboard Wizard, a lot of it can be done without a guitar
– learn music theory.
– Tenauto is a good app to practice ear training, learning notes on the fretboard, and reading notes
– enjoy your vacation and start back up refreshed when you return
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That’s great! I attend a weekly jam and I learn so much at every session.
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Everyone struggles with the C chord. It will get better and over time your finger span will increase as your fingers loosen up. Daily stretching helps. Also you are only 2 weeks in. It took me 3 months before I could consistently do the C chord. So don’t fret about it too much (see what I did there, I crack me up 🙂 )
Here’s what I do when struggling to learn a new chord shape.
It takes time. Basically you want to move the finger positioning routine from your conscious to your subconscious mind or what some people call muscle memory.
There are practice steps you can do to accelerate the process. The brain creates these routines based upon the amount of the attention you apply when learning and the how often you repeat the process.
The secret for me is to do dedicated, isolated practice for 10 mins every day, for a little over a month.
My steps are
– position my fingers and pick each string, if I have a muted string then slightly reposition the offending finger and repeat the above until every string rings out clearly.
– keeping my hand positioned I will then press down hard on the strings and then release the pressure, but keep contact with the string. Repeat this 20 times
– I then lift the fingers off the strings about 1/4” and repeat step 1.
– once I am consistent with that I will place one finger at a time, starting with my index finger, then middle, then ring. Do that 10 times, then start with the middle finger, then index, then ring. The start with ring finger, middle, index. I go through all permutations of first and 2nd and 3rd finger down. Then I move to trying to place 2 fingers at once and then adding the 3rd. Go through all of those permutations. Then go for all fingers at once.
You should notice slight improvement each week and then one day suddenly all your fingers will go to the right position. It takes me a month of this daily practice to get where the chord is automatic.
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It takes time for your fingers to know where to go. My technique is to place my fingers on the strings and play each string. If a string is muted I make small adjustments until it is not. I will then press really hard for a second and then slowly lift my fingers and place them again. Rinse repeat.
It typically takes me doing this for 5 mins a day for 6-10 days to get it so I’m not muting strings when I place the chord.
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I was a complete beginner when I joined TAC last June. I am now comfortable playing hundreds of songs (only about 10 from memory), know 20+ chords, and can make decent sounding music. It was around 80 hours of practice that I started feeling like I could actually play guitar (approximately Oct). Learning to play the guitar is hard, it’s like a kid learning to walk. My mindset going in was I’m going to suck, I’m going to suck for a long time, and it’s ok to suck. I have that hanging on my wall above where I practice and when I get frustrated I use it to remind myself that it takes a lot of time to train your hands to do the right thing. Learning to play the C chord consistently took a month.
I just looked at my log and I spent 7 days on each week of the 30 days to play, and also 7 days on the 5 day challenge and then jumped into the Daily Challenges. I averaged 15 mins a day for the 30 day challenge as my fingers would get sore if I did too much. These days I average 45 to 60 minutes a day.
It’s easy to get frustrated but you just have to keep reminding yourself that it is hard and it takes a lot of time to train your muscles what to do. If you were learning to fly a plane would you expect to be able to be a pilot after 10 mins a day for 30 days? Learning guitar is harder than flying a plane.
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If you want to make music come from your guitar, search for Horse With No Name tutorial on YouTube. It’s a common first song, it only has two chords and can be played with a simple strumming pattern. I tried it when I was 4 weeks in and my wife could recognize what I was playing so I considered that a success.
It wasn’t until the 8 month mark that I got the proper strumming pattern down for it, but it sounds good even with just strumming once per measure.
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It’s been a while since I did that lesson but the idea is to listen to the backing track and play the notes along the low E string until you find a note that sounds pleasing with all of the chords in the backing track. A dissonant note would indicate a note that does not work. The note that works with all of the chords is the key.
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As a counterpoint to the two previous posts I was playing songs, at least a resemblance of a song, at 3 months. I’m now 9 months in and can play a dozen or so songs and feel like I at least know what I’m doing with the guitar. Everyone is different and everyone learns at there own pace. But it does take time.
I tried guitar 18 months ago and quit after 6 weeks because my ability did not meet my expectations. I restarted last June with the realization that I’m going to suck at guitar, and I’m going to suck for a long time. That lowering of expectations as served me well, although I still have to remind myself periodically that I’m still a long way away from being a decent guitar player and that I’m OK with that.
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There are many famous guitar players who can’t read musical notation. So I guess the answer to your question is technically none. 🙂
Learning the durations of notes and various things like rests, ties, accents, etc is probably more beneficial than know what each actual note is, but again it’s a bonus and not necessary
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Ear training is just like learning anything else it takes dedicated practice to get good at it. Two good apps for practice are Tenuto and Ear Master
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I would recommend not going back to the 30 days to play course but instead jump into the daily challenges. The philosophy of Tony’s teaching method is that you often will be unable able to play what he is teaching initially but through repeated exposure and repetition you will eventually learn it. You’ll often see people here refer to progress over perfection. The 30 Days to Play was just your first exposure to the various skills and techniques that will be repeated over and over again in the daily challenges. Each time you are exposed to them you get a little bit better.
Some challenges will seem impossible, just try them for 10 mins, mark them as complete and move on to the next challenge. The next time that challenge comes around you’ll find it a little easier, and eventually you will be able to replicate what Tony is teaching.
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Just an FYI. I save all of the month’s lessons at the beginning of the month so I don’t miss any if I get busy at the end of the month.
If you just tried to click on future lessons it will tell you that they aren’t available, however if you right-click on the lesson there is an option copy the link. So copy the link and then paste it into my spreadsheet.
I just did this for the entire month of April, so I’m set if I get busy and forget to do it.