2022-09-10 – Following your template (April 2021)

1.)   How many days per week do you play? I play 7 days a week. Monday through Friday, after I have done my start of day routines, which includes general email and TXT messaging, I log into TAC and review the day’s challenge. That review includes, first printing the TAB, second working out the TAB (my best guess as to how it will play out), third review the days Learn video, fourth complete the days Play assignment (at least 10 minutes of play time). I target 1.5X speed as a goal, it’s usually what feels like a most natural tempo. Although I automatically mark them as “Favorite”, I almost never mark Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday complete on the same day. On the other hand, I almost always mark Thursday and Friday same day complete. On Saturday and Sunday, I play through the weeks challenges until I am comfortable at 1.5X for each lesson, marking them complete as I go. ROUTINE WEEKLY COMMITMENT SATISFIED, but I’m not done. After completing my morning yard and garden stuff, I review forums and, if it’s Tuesday, AT. I leave my Dreadnaught and 7/8 scale Classical (a Cordoba Dolce) out all day. I’ll pick them up periodically to practice scales and/or skills (at times in supplemental TAC skills courses), or I sound out new songs. And sometimes I log in to the internet and look for interesting Tablature for future additional “new song” opportunities.

2.)   What time of day do you play? I play the routine between 5:30 and 6:30 am, the non-

routine happens when the spirits move me.

3.)   Where do you play? I play my TAC Routine stuff in my home office, because that’s where the computer is. Generally, anytime I’m using the Dreadnaught, that’s where I play. About half the time when I’m using the Dolce, I’ll get comfortable in the living room.  

4.)   What was your guitar life like before having a guitar routine & how has implementing a consistent guitar routine helped you? (if possible name 3 ways). I’ll be frank, between 1970 and 2005 or so, I didn’t even own a guitar. After we moved to the Big Island, though, I bought the Dreadnaught with the idea of learning to play a little Hawaiian slack key. I didn’t have a routine and with a lot bigger concerns, just owning an instrument wasn’t motivating me. My wife passed away about two years ago, and after about 6 months, knowing I needed to get some structure in my life, I took the guitar into the only shop I knew to be still open on the west side of the island (COVID by then) to have it looked at and cleaned up (new strings, etc). And I decide to look for lessons online. Having been told I have a voice for instrumentals (it’s like having a face for radio), I was looking for something to teach me a kind of finger picking, contemporary, in a classical motif, style. I found this blue-grass, ice hockey guitar geeky guy, instead. But he had structure! So, big consistency routine, small incremental time commitment, lots of technique, with a little theory thrown in – I can do this. And I did … sort of. Mostly I was hit or miss on most of the program, but I found myself learning stuff and improving, in spite of that. So, in May 2022, for my TACaversary, I took stock. No challenges for a week. I wanted to see what had I learned. I decided, since teaching myself Summertime was a goal that I had, lets see what I could do. First, I sounded out the melody in a range (key) that matched what I heard in head. Then I scoped out the chord progression. Then, hey here’s an idea, I’d go scope out other people’s recorded versions. Here’s where I was really surprised. You know, Summertime is essential a lullaby, but it’s a blues song. So that got me thinking about a different attitude towards the blues. I remembered listening to a track where Rhiannon (sp) Giddens was telling a story about a song she wrote and she impressed on me the idea that sometimes the blues are about being so weary you don’t have the energy to care about the things you know are going matter to you when you rebound. Now, that thought not withstanding I found Billy Strings and Marcus King had a version that was really very lively, and boy those guys can pick, but it wasn’t where I needed to go. And then I found a duet where Ella Fitzgerald sang a sweet lullaby (also not what I was thinking) but Louis Armstrong played his heart out creating the feeling he was using all of what little energy his spirit could muster. I found my inspiration. I’ve crafted a very simple single pass through the verse and chorus that said what I wanted to say and left unsaid, but communicated, the feeling I wanted to covey. WHERE DID THAT COME FROM? After THAT surprise revelation I committed myself to the program.

TAC, and its component parts – 1. showed me the manner that music speaks to me, and presumably others, 2. gave me knowledge and technical skills to construct my own renditions of what “I hear in my mind” and 3. encouraged me to act.

2021-05-02 – I expect to play 5 times a week on structured “lessons” after morning gardening is done . . . and do, what I call pick up playing when the guitar “calls my name” I leave it on a stand in the living room.

For computer connectivity for the lessons, I’ll need to play in my home office.