jumpinjeff
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very slowly at first! I was very confused at the gitgo. It did sort out but it took some time (longer than I would have thought but that is another topic). One measure at a time can be broken down to one chord change at a time. I learned without tab. I would listen and watch. I would go to tab as a last result when I couldn’t figure it out. It gets better the more you do it.
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Cool if you just need to vent @KnottyJim , I have been there and done exactly that here. I do have an exercise that may or may not be helpful. I could barely do it at first and that was its own “challenge”. lemme know, ….a good venting can be its own reward.
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I have a suggestion. Slow down. Slow down if you need as slow as 30 bpm. Next relax: there is no greater thing you can do to boost your pic speed and accuracy than to relax. Relax goes for the physical as well as the mental. One last thing….play as softly as you can, barely graze the string, as you do this, think of economy of movement. Lemme know if any of those works for you.
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Hang in there @Slatewear . Tony is a bad metric to draw comparisons as he has been playing 30 years. Good to appreciate bad to compare.The problem is it is near impossible to find other players with similar time in the saddle from which to compare. I had to jettisen comparisons all together. That is when the search for fun began and progress began sneaking up on me instead of me always trying to wrangle it. I found success itself was fun. I found a way to make the challenge opportunities successful (mostly, I could still get in my own way) even if I only got the count in correctly.
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Hi @J.T. , I thought I remembered on monday your suggestion was on display. Rather than Tony listing his songs he upped the interactivity asking for everyone to list the songs for which they were reminded, by the exercise.
There were some very difficult challenges in the lesson structure. Syncopation was one of those things that was so difficult at first I thought I would never get it. I did keep plugging away because it was a big hook in my mind. Fast forward a coupl’a years…I got it. It is one of those things that once I got it I wondered why it took me so long. : ) ….Syncopation was not the only challenge I found like this. It is what keeps me in TAC. There is always another level deeper I can go or I know I am on level one and there are 20ish levels below that 18 of which I cant comprehend until I get there….but it all sounds cool. I spent a good year frustrated most of the time and that is when I learned expectation is where fun goes to die. I kept expecting an unrealistic return on my effort instead of measuring actual progress or I was always expecting to be better than I was (also the result of not measuring actual progress. That is when I almost quit. Buncha people in the forums jumped in and helped me redirect and here we are!
Dislike and challenge. Two words to explain the same thing. Pick the word that leads to progress. It is hard so I dislike it, I can’t do it so I dislike it, I can’t do it like Tony so I dislike it….all those things went through my mind at one point but to get where I am 10years later my dislike became fun through challenge. Same lessons, same time, different results. I agree with you I would hate for challenging lessons to go away. It is why I am here!!!!!
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Hi @rdeputy : I remember not long ago being in a similar place as you describe. I was so deep in the forest I could not see the trees. The chord shape IS the basic building block of the pentatonic scale which becomes the building block for the octave scale. All of these are built on a single root tone. This is the time I started to idendify the individual names of the the three notes in the chord and figuring out how they relate to each other in order. After the academic exercise of thinking it through on paper take the time to feel it and hear it on the guitar as you play. The more this is practiced the less need there is for writing it out. My experience was they were interconnected: I could not do one without the other but as I felt and heard, paired with the understanding….CLARITY abounded. Chord degrees (triads)…that may be your next frontier?! If you have that down, we can figure out where your focus will yield the best progress.
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@dszmakgmail-com : I liked the question about making chord transitions faster. My solution is counter intuitive but I have had great success. To get faster you must slow down. Slowing down is the first step. Next, relax! Managing tension takes half my mental energy while I play. Start expererimenting with how lightly you can press the strings to get the sound you want. You can not chase speed but you can sneak up on it. When you get good and relaxed mentally and physically with your slow changes between two chords, add a third, then play the whole progression when three chords settles in, get out that metronome and play slow enough you think it is silly while focusing on removing all the tenision in mind and arm, then crank up the speed 3 beats a minute and repeat the process, then add another 3 bpms to the metronome and so on, etc. Lemme know if that tracks with you!
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I have a suggestion: It is a whopper but it will save your neck shoulders and back. Learn to play by feel not by sight. My posture problems (discs pushing on nerves in neck and back) went by the bye when is stopped looking at my fingers. This would allow you to move the guitar body (playing with a strap) under your right arm pit pushing the fret board and neck to the centerline of you body. Learning guitar is difficult. Finding the way to spend hours and hours in one position even tougher…take many breaks. Even standing and stretching is helpful 3,4 times and hour. The last suggestion I have is start working you finger flexibility. This includes wrist, elbow, and shoulder as they all relate to your hand. Your wrist break angle can be greatly reduced in that extended position you mentioned, by changing the break angle in your fingers. Ideally you would be able to touch the pads of your fretting fingers to that first joint between the finger and the hand. This will put you on the tips of your fingers, to be sure. There is a work around for everything. Keep us posted on what you find!
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I get it as well. Not every time but when I either log out or time out.
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One of the happiest of unexpected results of learning how to play guitar on TAC rather than learning how to play songs is, in time, the need to see the music for the songs others have written diminishes. For most things I don’t need to see a chord chart or a song sheet. This is a deliberate part of the TAC program, often missunderstood and overlooked. This did take time for me to grasp which I want to point out. It was not an overnight transition rather a multi-year effort of daily exposure to the challenges and FretBoard Wizard. I used Chordie because there are no sales pitches, no commercials, no interruptions, no membership fee. Now I go there to see words and how the words meet the chord changes, not always successfull as very few of the songwriting artists are contributors. One of the stand out contributors is James Taylor who was tired of seeing/hearing his music being played “Close but no cigar”.
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@SCGobbler , @petelanger ; I wanted to hit something again that Pete nailed beautifully, “You want to consistently show up every day and play, Don’t worry about completion/perfection!” This is key and huge! ……my two cents…engagement is the M.O., don’t sacrifice engagement for the sake of completion or perfection. What ever it takes to keep you coming back with that fire for learning, do that. If you can stop at a high point (this bears repeating) do the same lesson maybe for three days. In the end though this practice will become limiting thus the variations of the Daily challenges. Balanced building as it were. There is a physical reality most people overlook when starting up with guitar: your fingers are incapable, at the get go, of doing that which your brain is sure you should be able to do. You could do the same lesson 1000 times but you would not be able to do it until your body catches up with your mind. It is why enagament in the begining is darn near equialent in importance as the content until you have developed the neural pathways and kinestethic awareness in your back, chest, shoulders, elbows, wrists and fingers. I like moving along…I have experienced and seen the benefit over time as well as with others who did it moving on. When I let go and started doing it the way Tony was hammering home I was not sure. Now I know. I got better faster. And now I know why! : )
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Too many cooks in the kitchen spoiled my experience. Tony was the chef I paid and my direction of interest seemed to stall my progress, so I got out of the kitchen. It was almost too easy.
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@mezzok : check out the splash page Loraine is showing. At the top you will see the search bar function. I just searched “benchmark” and found many choices. I see it so regularly I almost forget the search bar is there.
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I wish we were neighbors Heidi and we could go hours and hours about how to get you all synched up mindwize. How are you with your CAGED practice? Nashville number system knowledge plus CAGED knowledge is when thinking about it takes a backseat to knowing it by feel. I wish I had a quick easy answer for you to take away and put into successful practice. Have you done FretWiz? I cant remember if you did.
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Love to you and Happy happy congratulations. It has been an epic journey and I am beyond grateful to shared the road with you. I am lucky.