[Moose408]

Don’t beat yourself up. It took me months to be able to not look at my hands and I still occasionally mess up.

It’s ok if you can’t do it, just keep moving forward. Progress over perfection. It will come.

[Moose408]

He plays the chords, at the same time you play the single notes on the E string until you find a note that sounds good with all of the chords he is playing. That note is the key for the song (chords) he is playing.

[Moose408]

Tempo is independent of the notes in a measure.

For example if you have 4 quarter notes in a measure and the tempo is 60bpm there will be 4 beats in the measure and you will play a note each second. If you take that same measure and increase the tempo to 120bpm you will play two notes every second (using downstrokes). It gives the same result as playing 8 eighth notes at 60bpm but it is a completely different piece of music.

[Moose408]

Your understanding of picking down on the downbeat and up on the upbeat is correct. Upbeats typically implies eighth notes, if you are just playing quarter notes then there is just a downbeat.

Another way of saying it that a measure in 4/4 time you would count it

1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and

The numbers are the downbeat and the “and” is the upbeat. If there is no note being played on the upbeat, then you would just strum with all down strums.

[Moose408]

It is amazing to me that in 2024 that any website is slow like this one. Just shows a lack of caring on Tony’s part.

It does discourage me from using the site, I will come to the forums and maybe look at one or 2 topics as opposed to all of them. It is frustrating.

[Moose408]

I was here for 7 months without a Monday email and they suddenly started arriving last week. So I don’t have an answer for that.

A benchmark song is one of the songs each month hat comes around again every four (?) months. The idea is that you record where you are this week so that you can observe your improvement the next time it comes around.

The 4 benchmark songs are

Ain’t No Sunshine

Wagon Wheel

Hotel California

Old Man

[Moose408]

Play shorter sessions and space them out throughout the day (10-15mins).

I would recommend not playing through the pain to point of injury. There should not be blisters.

[Moose408]

Forward progress over perfection is Tony’s theme.

It is ok to move on. All of the techniques will come back around through the Daily Challenges once you get there.

[Moose408]

For me the main benefit of a new guitar is it makes me more excited to play it, so gives me a little extra motivation. That being said I’m already very motivated.

It is also beneficial to play on a guitar that is properly setup. You could take your current guitar to a luthier and make sure it is setup properly.

Finally if you want a new guitar and have the means, then get it.

[Moose408]

I don’t know the definitive answer as I don’t recall that lesson but I’m pretty sure there are no other recordings. In recent daily challenges Tony has mentioned changing the video speed the speed control attached to the video.

[Moose408]

I’ve been playing for 7 months and I still have to look at the fretboard when learning something new.

I some people practice in front of a mirror, you might want to give that a try.

Also perhaps break you sessions into multiple smaller sessions, so instead of practicing for 30 mins straight, do 15 mins take a break and come back, relax your neck and come back for another 15 mins

[Moose408]

I have always had issue with the counter on TAC and started just tracking it myself months ago.

[Moose408]

I just tried it and did not have any issues. I’m using the Chrome browser on Windows.

Perhaps try downloading the journal and open it in Acrobat.

[Moose408]

My point was if they cared about the slow site they would fix it. WordPress is notoriously slow if you don’t know what you are doing and don’t know how to optimize it. Tony could easily hire someone who knows how to optimize WordPress, there are literally thousands of consultants who could fix it in a few weeks. The correct answer but more involved is to move the site off of WordPress to a platform that is more responsive. That is of course more involved and would take some time and the desire to do so.

My point is that the website speed could easily be fixed if there was a desire to fix it, but it doesn’t seem to be a priority, therefore the statement about not caring.

I know that Tony is passionate about guitar and teaching, but it seems his enthusiasm has waned this past year. I don’t begrudge him wanting to spend more time with his family, but the reduced enthusiasm is also an example of not caring anymore. Just maintain the status quo and let the business coast.

[Moose408]

Friday is the play through with all the pieces.