[N-lightMike]

Hello @OhWowMan ;

Well, it’s late and I wanted to get to some song writing before bedtime. But then I saw all the “community support” topics. My first thought was, I’ll take a look at them tomorrow. But I read down the list. Yours caught my attention. Why? Well, because we all face the same thing, feeling stuck, or whatever you wanna call it.

You see, learning guitar is difficult. And even after we learn how to play guitar, we wonder if we “really” know how to play guitar, because there’s so much to it. Ok, Tommy Emmanuel knows how to play guitar. Does anyone else?

Then, throw in a little bit of doubt about why we do it in the first place, and we feel “stuck”. What do it do?

So, let’s start with the obvious. All those beginners… wait a minute, what beginners. That’s ridiculous. A beginner is someone with little to no knowledge, skill and experience. All those instructors who call us beginners are full of shit and just trying to get students so they can pay their rent. You don’t have to be Tommy Emmanuel to be a guitar player. We are guitar players. And we are not beginners. We aren’t the best. We aren’t the worst. We aren’t the newest. We simple are guitar players. Period.

Ok, now, why?, why do we play guitar? Because we love the guitar. Yeah, but do we love it enough to put up with how hard it is to learn and how much we STILL don’t know and can’t do after all this time?

Well, now, that is the question, actually. That’s it right there. @Fletch said it straight away: what gives you joy with your guitar? Pursue that and cultivate it. Don’t ever forget that you will get better so you will need to find ways to keep challenging yourself and improving.

But it’s a long journey. And the key is to have fun and do it for the love of it. But sometimes we just get “stuck”. So what do we do? We look at the “community support” questions and when we find one that asks for help with their guitar journey, we answer it even though it’s late. Why?

Because we all get stuck and this is what gets us unstuck: to tell someone else how to have joy and purpose in their guitar journey. Or we can just write a song about how we love our guitar. It’s already been done a number of times. “This Old Guitar” by John Denver for example. Or write it down in a journal.

So, now, you tell me why you play guitar and put up with this frustration and doubt. What is your purpose? Because when you get clear on that, you’ll be fired up again.

My purpose? To write songs. And specifically, write songs to help me process my emotions. I’ve written the first dozen and I’m working on the second dozen. So I gotta go.

MG 😀

[N-lightMike]

Hello @johndingmansricloud-com :

I believe you have found the best site on the web. Welcome.

Tony’s method is different. He doesn’t teach us songs, which is one really common way. And he doesn’t do too much with teaching specific skills, though he does have some skills courses.

But when you reach the Daily Challenge, you may well ask the same question many of us have: “I can’t do this lesson. I can’t even come close, so how is this helping me?”

I can tell you that by giving us something to work on everyday, even if it’s way beyond us at the time, it’s the best and fastest way for us to advance. First, we are becoming regular and consistent in picking up our guitar. Second, every time you try something you can’t do, you are training your fingers and mind to do more. By the time you get back to a lesson you thought you couldn’t ever do, usually less than a year, you will find you can come much closer to doing the lesson and you will realize you have gotten better even though you never worked on that particular lesson again. It’s sometimes seems like magic.

Like I said, I think this is the best site out there. Tony gives us some little thing to work on everyday that challenges us and is fun. That’s all it takes. That’s how a kid would learn.

MG 😀

[N-lightMike]

Hello @MamaGotBabyT ;

Tony used to have a maintenance video which I couldn’t find. I’m pretty sure he’s covered restringing in an Acoustic Tuesday episode also, so I searched there and still couldn’t find anything.

But here’s the truth, if you go to YouTube, you will find more videos on how to restring an acoustic guitar than you will ever watch.

So I was going to give you one that I have watched, and I found Tony’s video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fPrnwS9qi4&t=566s

And here’s Martin Guitars video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LS6cDJ4dsIo

It’s not that tough. Just take a deep breath, watch the videos several times, play the video as you do it. And make sure you have the tools assembled before you start. The first bunch of times restring you will have to rewatch these videos. Eventually, you will do it enough that you won’t even have to watch the video.

Have fun.

MG 😀

[N-lightMike]

As far as the electric goes, @the-old-coach , I have owned several electric guitars, 5 if I remember correctly. I have sold all but one. I just didn’t hardly ever play them. I don’t want to plug in a guitar. I want to pick it up and play. That’s all. Also, I don’t like the sound of electrified guitar as much as acoustic guitar.

However, notice that I have owned a number of them. Also notice that I still own one. Oh yeah, and I still own 4 amps. Why? Why not. I can if I want to. Someday, maybe I’ll play more with electric sound. It’s all guitar. In the meantime, I have quite a bit of electronic equipment that I don’t use. But I keep it because as long as I own it, I could play music with these electronic gadgets. But if I sell them, then I can’t use them without rebuying them. That’s part of the reason I refuse to part with the last electric. Besides, it’s a jazz guitar, so it’s half acoustic anyway. It’s an Epiphone Joe Pass Emperor II and I’m sure that I will play it more cause it’s so cool.

Then, you have the guitar geeks that actually play electric more often, or as often, as acoustic. They may not tell us because they might think we’d think less of them. Heck no. Let me say it again: guitar is guitar. I happen to like acoustics better. Others happen to like electrics better. Who cares.

Here’s the final thought: what do you like? Guess what, you’ll never know if you don’t buy an electric. Get the Strat, plug it in, and rock out. Then let us know what you thought. We can always listen to your confession later and absolve you of all your overdrive sins. 🤣

MG 😀

[N-lightMike]

Hey @GerryB56 ;

I gonna answer your question the best I can in spite of the fact that I have zero experience with a looper. Well, I guess that can’t be true by definition, so let me say: zero experience using the amazing looper I have.

The best looper, not the most expensive and not the one with the most functions, is what I bought. I have the Singular Sound Aeros Loop Station. Check it out. It’s amazing. I also have the Midi Maestro and the Beat Buddy. You don’t need all 3, but together, they are hands down the best looper. But even just the Aeros Loop Station by itself, I think, is the best designed for doing loops. You can take it as far as you want.

The problem is, I have never gotten into using it. Not because it’s not as simple as the simple ones, but because I just don’t bother with more “stuff” than I need when I want to pick up my guitar and mess around. I spend my time doing lessons with Tony, or finding a cool rhythm and chord progression for a new song, or learning to play my original songs.

One day, I may go farther into other areas, like recording using my DAW, or doing videos using my Video Editor, or using my bass and jembe drum to do tracks, or using my TC Helicon Play Acoustic to experiment with adding effects to my songs, and of course, there is my looper and drum machine. The best looper and the best drum machine on the market. That’s why I haven’t sold them even though I’ve had them for 2 years and never did more than figure out how to hook them up and get them working. Then I just quit.

I have considered selling them several times, but if I do, I will never replace them. I’m just not sure that I will ever choose to do more than use an unaltered acoustic guitar and my unaltered voice.

I don’t know if this is helpful at all. But that’s my experience with a looper. Now, you use electric guitars, and I sold all my electric guitars. So, we don’t approach our respective guitar journeys in the same way.

My advice, if you are really gonna do looping, is get an inexpensive, simple looper. Like the most basic Ditto looper. It’s amazing what you can do with that. Some of the most proficient player that use loopers just use a really simple one. Get started with that. Learn to use it. I know it seems like it would make more sense to buy a better one out of the gate, but I tend to believe the advice to start small.

Anyway, good luck. Let us know how your “looper” journey goes.

MG 😀

[N-lightMike]

Excellent job, @Marisa . I wouldn’t be too hard on myself. That’s a tough song to sing and to play. The pros (that is Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham) don’t sing and play at the same time. One sings and one plays. So what you are doing is harder.

And I’m sure you will nail the solo next time.

MG 😀

[N-lightMike]

Hey @Marty69 ;

Thanks for posting your TACiversary. It’s always inspiring to hear how TAC has made guitar journeys grow and flourish. I used to think: “Well, it happened for them, I know it’ll happen for me”. But now I get to say: “Cool, another person who has (past tense) been given an amazing acoustic life, compliments of TAC”.

I love that I have come so far. I love to see others come so far. And what’s cool is how we all have our own unique guitar journey.

I’m sure you will make your goals. Yes, OBS can make split screen recordings. However, they are live. You can use it to stream a previous recording along with a current performance and then record that. But that’s a bit tedious. You might want to download another free program called Shotcut. It’s a very simple, but quite capable, video editor. That way you can make the pieces and then put them together. You’ll find it easirer to make a split screen recording with a video editor than streaming software.

And I have seen you on the VOMs. You are always a welcome addition. The pieces you play are always well prepared and quite entertaining. I hope to see you more.

MG 😀

[N-lightMike]

Oh, @Cadgirl , you answered the unasked question. Cool. Yes, that’s why copying and pasting didn’t work very well, it was saved as an Open Office document, and not as a txt file. Thanks. I will do the txt file from now on. Very cool. I really appreciate your reminding me about that little trick.

MG 😀

[N-lightMike]

👍🙏😊

[N-lightMike]

Well, it’s cool that you quoted those 2 lines, Mark @the-old-coach , because now they are gone. I got the red screen of death last nite when I first tried to post my comment.

So, like I have advised you, I just copied and pasted my reply to my word processor. When I pasted it in this morning, it was full of the style code which makes it so hard to read. So, I edited it and deleted my comment and started to retype it.

But, I decided I didn’t want to retype the whole thing and just typed in a new comment. But, you must have read the original comment before I posted the edit because neither of those lines are in there. Oh, and I not only deleted the word processor file, I already emptied the Recycle Bin so it’s gone completely. Oh well.

This site is so damn buggy that it’s really discouraging sometimes. Oh well, we still have the best learning site on the web. And we still get to share with each other on the forum. We have something special while the world around us is truly falling apart. It shouldn’t be long now before Jesus shows up and saves us from the encroaching darkness.

MG 😀

[N-lightMike]

I gave you a reply at the bottom to the overall topic also, Mark @the-old-coach . It’s real easy to miss things on this forum platform. I love TAC, and I love how much better the teaching end of this platform is, but the forum leaves much to be desired. 😏

MG 😀

[N-lightMike]

First, @the-old-coach ; don’t ever make a long reply and then edit it. In my experience, that’s when it messes up. Post a second comment and explain the edits.

Second, when you make a long reply, before you hit that post button, copy the whole thing and paste it into a word processor. Now, if anything happens, you have a copy and can just post it.

MG 😀

[N-lightMike]

🙏😊

[N-lightMike]

👍😊

[N-lightMike]

👍😊