[Moose408]

I relate to the twerk of the mindset. I started trying to learn guitar 18 months ago and quit after 30 days because of frustration. I restarted 6 months ago with the mindset that I’m going to suck for a long time and it’s ok to suck. That simple mind shift has eliminated all frustration and allows me to celebrate the small winds.

I also suck less every day. 😄

[Moose408]

There isn’t a mechanism for downloading the videos, however you can download the tabs and backing tracks, and then pre watch the videos.

Note, this only works for the lessons in this month. Go to the list of daily challenges, pick one of the future challenges from the list for the day you will be gone snd right click on it. Select open in a new window and it will open and you can then download the tab/backing track and watch the video. Repeat for each for the days you are gone.

[Moose408]

There are certainly skills you get by doing the improv challenge each week. For me it’s learning the fretboard, improving my sense of timing, and pick accuracy. These skills will translate to being a better guitar player even if I never solo.

You can certainly skip any lesson you want, but I would encourage you to try it each week as it will help with your overall journey in the end.

[Moose408]

Pretty sure everyone has been there. For me I just go back to the basics of learning the chord shapes. My goal with every chord is to be able to have my hand on my knee and then raise it up to the fretboard and have all of the fingers go down at the same time into the chord shape. The idea is to have it be muscle memory with no conscious thought.

The steps I do

– place my fingers into the proper chord shape and then press down and release and repeat for one minute.

– I then practice placing a single finger down first, then the other fingers. I do that 10 times, the. I switch and use my 2nd finger first, then do my 3rd finger first. I then will try to put 2 fingers down at a time then add the others. Then finally all 3 fingers. So for a 3 finger chord I do the following patterns, 123, 213, 312, 132, 231, 321, etc.

– I then put my hand on my knee and bring it up to the fretboard and in slow motion try to place all fingers down at once. I will do that for a minute. Then I will try doing it at full speed.

I do this everyday for any chords I am having problems with. It took me 14 days to get the D chord and 26 days to get the C chord. I still have to go back and practice them on a regular basis.

For a song I do a slow motion change for each chord progression. Then add strumming, once per beat, then adding the actual strumming. If I make mistakes I slow it down, as I get comfortable I speed it back up until I start making mistakes and then slow it back down.

It takes time and I’m not where I want to be. Whenever I’m struggling it always comes back to trying to do too many things at once, so I go back to the basics and try to commit the movements to muscle memory, or a simplify it, or a slow it down.

[Moose408]

Some days everything just falls into to place and then the next day it seems like I have 5 thumbs. When that happens I normally pivot and try something completely different on the guitar. But I never skip practice. The picking up the guitar everyday has been vary beneficial.

[Moose408]

Nicely done

[Moose408]

I watch the videos on my iPad. I need to first make the video full screen to make the pop-out icon appear in the upper-left corner.

[Moose408]

The fact that you are saying that clicking on a day does nothing makes me think that you are on the wrong page. Here is a thread with a walkthrough that shows how to look at all of the lessons for the month.

https://tonypolecastro.com/family-forums/topic/replay-daily-challenge/

Note that these all reset this weekend.

[Moose408]

That’s great. I started using a metronome about 5 weeks ago and while it was a struggle to get used to I’m seeing tremendous progress as a result. Stick with it.

[Moose408]

I use different picks depending on whether I’m strumming or picking out individual strings.

I would recommend getting a Dunlap Sample Pack and try them all and see what feels good to you.

[Moose408]

Sept 18 Blues Jitter Bass

Sept 19 Triple Threat

Sept 20 Kodachromatic

Sept 21 Shape Shifter

Sept 22 Funkified Blues

• This reply was modified 3 years, 1 month ago by  Moose408.

[Moose408]

I completely understand the eureka moment. I was a member here for 3 months before I discovered the pop-out feature and it was game changing. Prior to that I would print out the tabs so I could follow along with the video.

[Moose408]

You can find it here under Skill Courses
https://tonypolecastro.com/skills/

[Moose408]

Yes, the foot goes down on the beat and is going up for the ‘ands’

I actually spend a portion of every practice session just tapping my foot to the metronome. I will then add counting as well. This helped me a lot when I started because I would often mid song think about my foot tapping instead of what I should be playing.

Still not 100% there but getting better every day.

[Moose408]

You can get to it by clicking the “Skill Courses” link on the left-hand menu

tonypolecastro.com

Skills & Techniques – Tony's Acoustic Challenge

Skills & Techniques – Tony's Acoustic Challenge