[tailsawaggin]

This is an ongoing struggle for me as well. I find that when I start to fall out of the groove, my natural response is to tighten up and try harder. This leads to going faster, which leads to tightening up and trying harder, and of course that’s all kind of self-defeating. I have to consciously relax and try to stay slow.

A couple other things that help me with this — stop looking at the fretboard, and mind my thumb. At some point I got in the bad habit of letting my thumb get flat along the neck, pointing at the headstock. My hand and arm are a lot happier if I can get it to hang out more perpendicular to the neck somewhere around the second fret. Figuring out all the geometry for my particular instrument and body seems to be a long-term project.

[tailsawaggin]

I once asked ten people about strings, and I got twelve opinions. 🤣 Anyway, I also prefer a warmer, more mellow sound, and I’ve found the Martin Monel Retros go really well with my guitars and my ears. Along with sounding nice (to me), it’s a nice bonus that they’re inexpensive and they last forever.

[tailsawaggin]

Love it! Mrs. Tails has taken up the ukulele and we enjoy playing together, or struggling together, depending on the day. 😉 It’s awesome!

[tailsawaggin]

Nice! Looks comfy.

[tailsawaggin]

Obligatory – pics or it didn’t happen. 😀

[tailsawaggin]

Hmm. I looked in the posting guide, and while I didn’t see a forum for posting music, I also didn’t see any specific prohibition against it. Maybe I just missed it? If that prohibition exists, though, that’s a real shame. New music is inspiring. New music can give you something to play if you’re stuck playing the same old things. New music can lead you toward new interests.

Maybe I’m wrong, but it seems to me that music shares, like the one that started this thread, are absolutely appropriate, and this seems like the right place to put them. The fact that this thread isn’t locked with an admin message kind of points that direction as well . . . and hopefully I didn’t just poke the bear.

My US$0.02. Adjust for inflation if needed. 😉

[tailsawaggin]

Hi JoAnn,

I am so very sorry for your loss. I can only relate to what you must be feeling through my own experience, and that is that grief moves at its own pace. When you’re ready, when there’s room in your life and in your heart for the guitar again, you can go to it, and it will be there for you. Until then, it can wait while you take care of you. It won’t mind a bit.

Much love,

tails

[tailsawaggin]

Also new. I find that if I don’t mark a challenge complete until I’m satisfied with my performance at a challenge, then I will never mark a challenge complete. What I do instead is put in the time until I get it “right,” for whatever right means for that challenge, or until I’ve done the best I can with it this time. The challenge, or something like it, will come back around again, so once I’ve made a genuine effort and shown myself some progress, I consider that “complete” for the purposes of the lesson.

The tempo is one of the video properties, and it’s not visible in all views. In Safari on the desktop, I can’t get to tempo in a picture-in-picture view, for example, but in the normal embedded or full screen views, it’s there. Mobile might have its own quirks.

Lastly, the tabs come up when you click the little gray music notes icon just under the video — again on desktop. Not sure about mobile.

[tailsawaggin]

Even logging in daily isn’t enough to keep the streak alive.

[tailsawaggin]

The site doesn’t seem to honor the user’s UTC offset, as here it is, 5:30 PM on Monday in sunny California, and I have credit for a Tuesday login.

I’m not a Brit, but apparently I play one here.

[tailsawaggin]

One cause is that it doesn’t respect time zones; if I log on after 9 pm pacific, I don’t get credit for that day.

Another cause is that I t’s just broken. Today I’ve got check marks for yesterday and the day before, an orange box for today, and a streak count of one.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 10 months ago by  tailsawaggin.

[tailsawaggin]

If larger manufacturers are also in your zone of interest, Southern California has Taylor and Cordoba Music Group, and then up in Oregon there is Breedlove.

[tailsawaggin]

It now seems to be using UTC, since it’s 5:30 on Monday evening at my house but it’s Tuesday at TAC.