N-lightMike
Forum Replies Created
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Wow, that’s about as huge a win as I can imagine. That guitar is beautiful and sounds awesome. That’s so much better than a Martin. You made it! I really love your style in this little ditty. And I love the low bass you’re getting out of Barri, just wonderful. Thanks for posting @Paul A.
MG 😀
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Hi @Mark
Here’s the scoops. First, as @VictoriaTACTeam has pointed out, when you favorite a lesson, you will still have the ability to open and/or download the tab. But second, you will be able to favorite the last week’s lessons when you get back on the 3rd. The lessons always are grouped in five day units. Since the five day cycle is never broken, each month is exactly 20 lessons or 25 lessons rather than strictly following the calendar. So July’s lessons won’t start until Monday the 5th. That means you will be able to access June’s lessons until midnight on Sunday the 4th.
MG 😀
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Yes, @Marion S , the song vault is found at tacsongs.com.
Several things to note about this new location for the song vault.
First, your browser may tell you the site is not secure. That is true. However, it is also true that is doesn’t need to be secure since you are not inputting any information, personal, sensitive or otherwise. Consequently, you’ll want to click on the little link toward the bottom of the page you get that says “Advanced”. Then you’ll get an option to “proceed to the site anyway”, or something like that.
Second, after you get in, you’ll get an option for Fingerpicking or Flatpicking. Once you click on the one you want, you’ll find a list of the songs. Each song has a title with a little orange circle arrow at the end of it. If you go in that way, you will have the option to open and/or download the tab. Below the title and arrow are thumbnails of the sections of the song, starting with the introduction. If you click on one of those, you will be able to go to the next one without coming back out, however, you will not have an option to open or download the tab.
So, there you have it. Oh, by the way, you should go into your profile and change your “nickname”. The system doesn’t recognize spaces, so when someone tries to tag you with the “@” symbol, they may get someone else. What you need to do is remove the space altogether like I have done with my name or replace the space with an underscore or hyphen.
Hope this helps.
MG 😀
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Hi @JanHo
All the VOMs are listed on individual blogs. But each blog has the other VOM blogs linked to their site. So you only need one VOM blog.
Here is the Sunday VWA blog: sundayvwa.blogspot.com
The other VOM blogs are as follows:
fnlvom.blogspot.com
snlvom.blogspot.com
ukscones.blogspot.com
kitchsessionsdg.blogspot.com
All the information you need for each VOM is on their respective blog. I just have one blog saved and then I go from there to the one I want at the time.
MG 😀
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Yes, @TroyR , I have noticed this anomaly. I haven’t let it bother me too much. I do use the speed function sometimes, but mostly I use a metronome on my phone.
MG 😀
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Hey Ben,
It looks like you put in your email address for your unique “nickname”. The system can’t use any symbols but underscore and hyphen as far as I know. It was supposed to recognize the period symbol, but it didn’t work at the beginning. I don’t know if they ever fixed that. But you could do Ben_R if that is available, or BenR or Benroh or whatever seems like a good handle that’s both short and unique.
MG 😀
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Welcome @Ben R. This is a great place, in fact the best place, to get a solid foundation on the guitar, that is, anything with six strings and tuned EADGBE. 🤣 Well, or you could tune it DADGAD, or open G or open C, ok, forget it. 😅 Obviously, electrics qualify.
I just wanted to mention your unique handle, or “nickname”. The system doesn’t recognize the space, so you are not getting notified by the @Ben but someone else does. You should remove the space or put in an underscore or a hyphen. That way you will get notifications when we type the @ symbol followed by your “nickname”.
The most important advice I can give you is Have Fun!
MG 😀
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Great job @Alfred . You’ve really picked up this strumming stuff quickly. That’s great rhythm and control of your contact with the strings. Thanks for posting.
MG 😀
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Hey @Ddtediejm ,
Whether is was the intent or not, causing us all to use a metronome more is a great thing. And, since the separate speed videos jumped by 20 bpm and Tony tells us to go up by 5 bpm or less when trying to increase speed, It wouldn’t surprise me if that was exactly his intent.
Either way, I don’t see any advantage to the different speed videos. But I do think there is a clear advantage to the current arrangement.
MG 😀
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Hey @Alisa ,
You’re in luck, because we can play the video faster than we used to. The most common speeds were 80, 100, and 120 bpm. So the fast speed was only 1.5 times faster than the slow speed. The top speed in the warm up speed challenges was 160, 180, and 200 bpm. So that was only an increase of 1.25 times the slow speed. And we always had .75 and .50 times the videos, which would make sense using the slow speed.
As far as why, it might have been load speeds. The old TAC was always a slow site compared to the norm on the internet. This site is doing very well now for the type of site it is.
Anyway, even with the 3 different speed videos, it really didn’t help much. First, we all need to learn to use a metronome. Second, to increase speed, we want to increase by 5 bpm at the most. So the speed jumps were too great unless you could already play at that speed.
As far as Tony’s technique changing in the different speed videos, that just wasn’t the case. Occasionally, he would use different fingers to pick the strings as his speed increased. But that was about the extent of any differences.
I hope this helps.
MG 😀
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@SteveinCT said: “I want to add on and be a decent player using a percussive fingerstyle in alternate tunings….and a somewhat decent slide player, also using open tunings….am I in the right place in your view?”
My first answer would be: Yes, I believe you are in the right place for that. However, I would point you toward the Skills Courses that cover these aspects of guitar technique. Since you mention that “these are just introductory in approach”, I would have to assume you have already looked at the Skills Courses that are available and found them lacking.
That leads me to my second answer: Tony does not take the skills he teaches us and apply them to a song. He leaves that up to us to do for ourselves. If you want someone to show you step by step how to put these techniques into a song, then the answer is: No, this is not the right site, you will have to find another site.
In my opinion, “introductory” is all that is necessary. Let me explain.
I have used some free YouTube channels to learn specific songs. However, I’ve come to realize I could have figured these things out for myself and I would have gained understanding that I could apply to any song and not just one song.
That’s where I’m at currently. I’m no longer looking for song tutorials, but putting in the effort to work up my own songs. I have held back from putting the skills Tony teaches into songs that I play out of fear or self doubt or whatever is the correct psycho-analytical explanation. But after learning a number of songs the way a specific person arranged it on guitar, I have come to realize there is no reason I couldn’t do that. These “instructors” teach me nothing that Tony hasn’t already taught me. The only difference between these instructors and me is they had the courage to experiment on their own till they could work up a song and I haven’t put in that effort… yet.
Doing my own song work ups, or arrangements is just another part of my guitar journey that no one can take for me. If I never do this I will never learn to do it and I will always be dependent on someone else to figure out how to use a guitar to imitate all the different parts of a song that was originally performed by a band.
One of the things I have heard from a number of different instructors is that I don’t have to hit the exact same strings they are hitting. In other words, there’s no “right answer”. I just needed to go forth and start experimenting putting the techniques I have learned to use in a specific song. The arrangement that I come up with will be my own original arrangement, and not someone else’s.
The skills and understanding I gain from arranging covers of other people’s songs will help me to write my own songs. I have already written some songs but I have put that effort on hold as I can’t “finish” them or make them sound “polished”. What do I mean? Exactly what we are talking about. If I can’t take a song that already exists and work up an arrangement on my guitar that sounds “complete” and “polished” how am I supposed to make my own original song sound “complete” and “polished”?
So, my advice to you is to jump into the deep end of the pool. But I admit that I didn’t do that. I first found some alternate sites. At least I saved my money and used what was available for free. Otherwise, I’d have felt foolish after figuring out I was not actually learning anything new that wasn’t available right here on TAC.
I know this is long, but I hope that sharing the experiences of my journey can help you.
MG 😀
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Nicely said @jumpinjeff 😎