[gmhendersonme-com]

You may need a smaller guitar, or just keep working at your manual dexterity. Also, note where you place your thumb on the back of the guitar… it can help you reach up a bit higher on the fretboard by moving it lower on the back of the guitar. Good luck !

[gmhendersonme-com]

I’m probably 30 minutes a day, with some days more. I’ll also incorporate some other lessons from YouTube that I find interesting ….maybe 10 minutes of that. I’m also trying to learn the notes on the fretboard, but often that is without the guitar.

• This reply was modified 1 month, 2 weeks ago by  gmhendersonme-com.
• This reply was modified 1 month, 2 weeks ago by  gmhendersonme-com.

[gmhendersonme-com]

On Monday morning, start the challenge that comes up on your home page. Almost everything repeats at some point ( so I’m told ).

[gmhendersonme-com]

Seems you and I are in the same boat …played a little way back when and then decided I wanted to improve upon what I could do and learn a few more things along the way. The F chord has always been my nemesis, but in a weird way. I find the barre chord easier than the “easy F”, and through many tries, I find I have to rotate my first finger to even get close to a good barre on the first fret. For some reason, I have trouble getting the B string to ring out…all other strings sound great ! When that happens, I try to just slightly alter my finger to get there. Hopefully one day it’ll happen right after a transition, but I’m not there yet. Best tip I’ve heard recently that I hadn’t heard before… use your right forearm ( strumming hand ) to put pressure on the guitar body into your body, thereby causing the neck to pivot away from you. The result is that you don’t have to press as hard on the barre chord with your fingers ( and thumb on the back of the neck ), since the neck is now providing some of the pressure. Oh…and play around with your thumb position on the back of the neck too !

[gmhendersonme-com]

Everybody will progress at their own pace, of course. The idea is to put 10 minutes a day into your daily routine. Of course no one is really going to become a great guitar player playing 10 minutes a day, especially if they’re brand new to guitar. The 30 days is great because it gives you all the basic concepts, while also giving you some time to toughen up your fingers. Move on to the next section and try that, but then keep going back to what you previously learned. If you want to become proficient , you need to put in the time ( yup….more than 10 minutes a day !). I know some people may be obsessed with perfecting a skill before they move on, but, personally, I’d find it boring practicing one thing over and over. There are still things I don’t do perfectly on the guitar, but I’m picking up new things all the time. The dexterity I learn from the new things I try seem to help with improving the things I haven’t perfected yet. You will find things you learn quickly, and things you struggle with. But your brain is learning patterns and each time, the pattern will come to you more quickly. Just have fun with it !

[gmhendersonme-com]

What particular issues are you having ? Can you just not find things ?

[gmhendersonme-com]

If possible, stop in at a music store and pretend you’re looking at the guitars and you’d like to try out a few. Maybe at least get your 10 minutes in !!

[gmhendersonme-com]

Welcome to TAC !

I just did the 30 day challenge and essentially went back over the lessons when there wasn’t a new one. Depending on your skill level and how well you feel you are progressing, you can also go on to the next week’s lesson. I finished the 30 Day Challenge in about 18 days, since I had played guitar before. I probably could have gone faster except for waiting until my fingers toughened up a bit !

[gmhendersonme-com]

Hey… mark it complete once you’ve spent at least 10 minutes on it ! You don’t need to perfect it. I do the challenge in the morning and spend enough time on it to go through the whole challenge…usually 10-20 minutes. I mark it complete and then pick up the guitar a couple of times a day later on. It gets better with each time, but there’s no way I’m perfecting the skills first time through … it’ll probably take a few months, I figure. But I do try to incorporate the things I’ve learned into some songs that I know. It’s usually a butcher job at first, but I don’t mind. In my mind, it’s progress.

[gmhendersonme-com]

Some of the things I learned in the 30 days to play, I’ve already forgotten. When that happened ( I started about 6 weeks ago), I’d often go over the lessons again from the week before. Depending on how long you’ve been away from the program, I’d repeat the 10 days you have already done. You need to get your fingers toughened up to be able to play some of the stuff in the daily challenges once you’ve completed the 30 days and then the 5 Day intro to the daily challenges. Unless you can find an online coach who does live sessions, it would be tough to get direct advice through one of these courses. So the forum was the best place to find answers to music / guitar questions. Finding out WHY you got off track would help us direct you in your pursuit to get back on track. Good luck !

[gmhendersonme-com]

Are you doing the 30 Day Challenge right now ?

[gmhendersonme-com]

I think you’ll accomplish something if you play every day. The way the site is set up is that the lessons will come around again and again, and there are benchmark lessons / weeks. Those are meant to allow you to compare your first time through the lesson to the 2nd or 3rd time through so that you can rate your progress. The 30 day challenge gives the basics of guitar….everything you need to basically play something. Some people will take all 30 days, and some people will take longer than 30 days until they are comfortable moving on to daily “lessons”. Even the daily lessons seem to give you something fairly easy to play, something a little more challenging, and something that may take a few times through to get under your fingers. Plus, you get the weekends off to practice everything you’ve learned !

[gmhendersonme-com]

This is essentially how I try to do it, although it’s not as clean as yours. I think the D-G-B-E strings work well since they are closer to the fret board than the E and A strings if you have a proper setup. I spent most of my day adjusting the action on my guitar to get this as close as possible without fret buzz. Even had to file down one of my frets !

[gmhendersonme-com]

These are great suggestions. Since starting TAC in December, I’ve had to “re-learn” how to finger the strings, since I used to press more with the pads of my fingers. Even after almost a month, the tips of my fingers are calloused, but still sore, since that’s not where I’m used to putting my fingers. ( the slides with the middle finger from this week’s challenge were particularly hard !) Every week gets better, and I keep an emory board close to my guitar to keep those fingernails short.

[gmhendersonme-com]

Thanks for the info. I know the streaks aren’t really going to be maintainable since I’l probably be going away for vacation and won’t bring the guitar.