N-lightMike
Forum Replies Created
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It great that you are using you guitars, @mcarlson_sb . And it’s good that you recognize that your less expensive guitars are good guitars. You can pay more, and it will get you something, but “good” isn’t one of those things. You can pay $5000 for guitar that you hate. You can pay $500 for a guitar that you love. I’m really glad you’re learning. The price of the guitar makes no difference; your enjoyment makes all the difference. That’s what’s important, that you make noise with your guitar and you love your own sound. That’s all.
MG 😀
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This is awesome @xiao-bai , what a great adventure. TAC has turned out a few people who pulled off a music career. You can do it. I hope you keep us informed.
MG 😀
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See @Marty69 , now you are entering my guitar world. This is an under $500 guitar, but it’s a very good guitar. And you have the Martin CEO7 to compare it to. I’ll be interested in what you think about your “cheap” guitar.
Oh, and then there’s the whole short neck thing. I love my 12 fret guitars. They are simply more comfortable. At least to me. One of them is a full body and is therefore limiting when I try to play barre chords up the neck or play solos up the neck, but the other one is a cutaway and is my go to guitar. I try not to make it my favorite, but it is the one I pick up most of the time.
Let us know what you think. Post a video. I look forward to seeing/hearing you play it and your review.
MG 😀
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Hey Gary @garyrc4aol-com ;
I love that you really understand how Tony’s approach works. This helps explain it a lot because you experienced the “truth” about the 10 minimum rule for yourself. But then you said you study psych in college so that certainly helps. But here’s the line I love:
“I get chores, projects and workouts out of the way, and guitar time is my reward.”
I have gotten in workout, guitar and regular chores, but I am having trouble getting the projects and intermittent chores into my schedule.
Anyway, this is an inspiring post. Thanks so much for sharing.
MG 😀
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Hey Gary @garyrc4aol-com ;
It is a pleasure to run into someone with a Bachelors in psychology who can understand the magic of Tony’s method. That’s usually what I find myself trying to explain to newcomers.
2 string strumming is rather advanced. I wouldn’t worry too much about it. That’s the whole thing about Tony’s method. Have fun trying and don’t try to master.
So first, whether you do it with the flat pick or your thumb, use one or more of the Monday technique lessons to drill your ability to hit each string by choice, even when skipping one or 2 strings. Here are 3 I’ve found that will teach you to hit the string you want. Once you have that skill, hitting a section of the 6 string area becomes much easier.
https://tonypolecastro.com/exercise/wu25-string-locater-flp/
https://tonypolecastro.com/exercise/wu14-travelling-pairs/
https://tonypolecastro.com/exercise/wu21-index-reference-flp/
These are not in any particular order, and it doesn’t really matter which one you use, just pick one and do it every day for a few minutes over at least a couple weeks, or even several months if you have the discipline.
Once you can reliably hit a certain area of the strings, using the method @Bill_Brown mentioned, string muting, and you’ll be able to make it sound like you’re hitting just the 2 strings. But again, work on the skills and have fun, because this skill will take months or even years to really get down. And not all chord shapes are useful for muting certain strings. All of this you will learn as your guitar journey unfolds.
Have fun and trust the process, Gary.
MG 😀
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Hello @Cadgirl ;
I can’t believe you’ve already been here 2 years. Wow, how time flies when we’re having fun. I’m so glad you came over to JMG, that will soften the blow and keep you active with fellow guitar geeks.
But the teaching aspect of TAC is truly special. It blows my mind how many people don’t see it. Well, I guess there’s nothing to see, is there? When you “look”, your mind is involved and you want to see song tutorials and skills courses. But in the first lesson I ever took with my face to face instructor, I learned things that I couldn’t do a year later, so what’s the point?
The “point” is to learn like a kid does, and that’s what TAC does for us. So no one can “see” it, they have to “experience” it. And even then, they have to do it long enough for the magic to happen. But we’re still not done, because then we have to realize what has happened.
But here’s the point for you Denise, you have experienced the magic. You now know how to enjoy your guitar journey and continually improve. So, you’ll be ok. There are many resources you can use to help you explore new areas of the guitar.
I’ll see you on JMG.
MG 😀
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I enjoy all of Tony’s lessons, but how do you know what to keep as favorites? The technique section is filled with items I need to improve on. I could spend two hours a day just on one new technique, but raley have time to back to them because a new one appears each week, not to mention the new lessons tue – Fri.
I feel like I am getting exposed to really good material, but don’t have time to really get good at it.
How do some of you handle this difficult issue. Would love to hear some ideas.
Hey @Kerby ;
I feel that everyone answered your explicit question, but I don’t feel anyone really addressed the implied question.
So, let me state the implied question: “How do I organize my time to deal with this overwhelming flood of guitar lessons?”
If I could answer that question, then I believe the first question would become pretty obvious, especially with the advice already given in the previous comments.
Tony’s method has to be examined to answer the question. Tony is not trying to give us a series of technique lessons or song lessons, as is the common approach. That approach feels satisfying to someone wanting to learn guitar, but unfortunately, it has been shown to be quite ineffective.
What research shows about learning anything involving muscle memory, is 2 main things: repetition and making mistakes. Oh, and one more very important thing: having fun.
Let’s see how Tony method covers those bases. Every week, the lessons cover 5 basic guitar skills. Monday’s lessons could be said to be the most important as they build the actual fretting and picking skills to play guitar. Yes, they can be “boring”, but we are only talking about doing them for a few minutes. If you do them for a few minutes a day, in a relatively short period of time, your skill improves remarkably. So if we start our practice session throughout the week with Monday’s lesson, by the end of the week we would actually see that particular skill improved.
Tuesday and Thursday are pretty easy to see how they fit into our improvement as musicians and guitarists. But Friday seems to get misunderstood. We already have a “chord progression” day on Thursday. Friday is “chord transitions”. We only want to focus on 2 chords at a time. And we want to go from one to the other very slowly and build our ability to make that particular transition in time at increasing speed using a metronome after we have the basic chord change down. As an example, going from D major to B minor is NOT the same as going from G major to B minor. You may think once you learn B minor it doesn’t matter where you’re coming from, but you’d be very wrong.
Wednesday, we learn scales, which are important to understanding the music theory, but more importantly, it gives us a chance to practice coming up with our own licks instead of learning licks by rote like on Tuesday. We want to play scales “musically”.
Now all of these lessons are challenging so that we will make mistakes. And since we have the “same” lesson every Monday in that it always works on technique but it is a different exercise week to week we get the repetition. And because they are “handed to us on a silver plater”, we don’t have to figure out what to play. These lessons are fun when we spend only a few minutes AND DON’T TRY TO MASTER THEM, ANY OF THEM! That is actually part of the process, DON’T TRY TO MASTER THEM.
These lessons are also fun because they sound musical. Now everyone one of us who “trusted the process” and stopped worrying about how to “keep up” with this overwhelming amount of instruction, found that we improved steadily over time. Yes, learning guitar takes time, but this proved to be the FASTEST way to learn.
It has already been mentioned that the lessons will come around again. If you really like a lesson and want to put in extra work on it other than the 10 minutes the day it was presented, then favorite it. But when you DON’T FAVORITE a lesson, you’ll be blown away when it comes around 8 to 11 months later how much better you can do the lesson without ever having worked on it again. And that’s when you start realizing this works even though it’s counter-intuitive.
Some people stick with the standard skills or song lessons and don’t realize the slow but steady progress over time. And it doesn’t end. We just keep getting better and better. TAC has turned a few of it’s members into professional quality performers. I’m not there yet, but I’m bearing down on it.
I hope this answers your implied question, Kerby.
MG 😀
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See, now that is a concrete plan, Denise @Cadgirl , and I know you have the discipline to line up material to practice for yourself. That’s one of the big things about TAC for people like me who don’t have that discipline. It’s like working out at a club or at home. You can do it fine at home, but will you? I belong to a club. I belong to TAC. So I both workout and play guitar.
We’ll talk on JMG. You’ll be ok. If you ever go back to TAC, just save up your money and do it once. Buy the lifetime.
MG 😀
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I think you should hold off on selling the Taylor GS Mini Gerry @GerryB56 , and I’ll tell you why. I finger pick and almost all of my guitars have the 1 5/8ths inch nut. It has nothing to do with your fingers, either. It’s just practice. You’re a long way from having enough skill and experience to say you can’t finger pick on the neck width. It’s way more versatile than the wide, classical neck. I have a nylon string guitar with a narrower neck. They are hard to find, but they are better for those of us who play a wider range of music genres. Chord structures are hard on the wider neck and you are pretty much forced to hold the guitar in the classical position. There’s no strap, or standing up or holding the guitar in a more horizontal position. But, it’s your guitar journey. I’ve seen people who play all sorts of stuff on a classical. Though that’s more rare than seeing people play classical stuff on an electric with a very thin neck.
Anyway, it’s your call. I just know that I have let go of guitars that I didn’t need to let go.
MG 😀
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Hey Mark @the-old-coach , you said:
“Thank you for mentioning JMGs to me– and I may just do it, but I worry I’m a– LOT– too wordy on the Forum HERE- (so there’s that), and don’t want to be that way in that place too. I have a bad trait of overexplaining everything.”
I’m sure glad I don’t have that problem… I mean, caring what anyone thinks simply because I talk too much and have unusual opinions. My problem, if you call it a problem, is that some people like me and some people don’t, and I really don’t care. 😎
You’d be welcome on JMG, I’m pretty sure. I know I can’t speak for everyone, but that’s what I think.
MG 😀
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Hey Neil @Moontan ;
The best way to learn is like a kid, to just explore and try and have fun. We adults tend to sabotage that simple, natural method. So Tony gives us a way to learn like kids if we will just follow the process and not question it. What do I mean? The daily challenges. They give us something to work on everyday. Each week covers the 5 main areas of guitar skill. Put in your 10 minutes a day minimum on the lesson, don’t worry about how well you did or didn’t do the lesson, and then spend the rest of your playing/practicing time doing whatever floats your boat. You will notice remarkable progress in a few weeks or months. The better you get the longer it takes to recognize progress, but you will make steady progress continually with the TAC method.
The skills courses will help you get a jumpstart in the specific direction you want to go, but be aware that you can get more instruction in a half hour than you can get under your fingers in a year. So, get the whole skills courses or song tutorials out of your head. Don’t take them? No, that’s not what I mean. They are a valuable way to move in the direction you want to go. But don’t ever lose sight of what’s actually making you a better guitar player over time. Many people learn songs or licks by rote and can play a bunch of them. But they can’t play the guitar in a general way, where they can arrange a new song on their own or write their own songs or come up with new licks on the fly while playing with other musicians.
Anyway, it sounds like you have a great routine going. It won’t be long and your progress will slow down and you’ll run out of skills courses. Don’t forget that the daily challenges are like magic, you don’t see it or feel it, it just works.
MG 😀
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Absolutely, @maryd . Don’t forget the most important ingredient: HAVE FUN! That’s it. Let your guitar journey take you where ever you heart desires. Any kind of music or sound that you can make on the guitar that you love is the goal.
Now in spite of the fact that this is the fastest way to gain guitar “chops”, or skills, it will feel terribly slow. So make sure to keep track of all your “small wins”. Anything you did today that you struggled with yesterday, no matter how small, take note of it. Otherwise, you will be a year down the road thinking you haven’t gotten any better. Others notice, though, so it’s a good idea to play with others from the start. If you don’t have anyone to play with, you can always join in on the Virtual Open Mics by going to justmusicgeeks.com and requesting membership. It’s free and it’s the community that was built by TAC members. The calendar lists all the Virtual Open Mics, VOMs, that happen throughout the week.
I hope this helps.
MG 😀
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I am so happy to help others see this marvelous method that Tony has laid out before us. So many miss it. I thought it was great and yet didn’t fully recognize the power and simplicity of it. I am still gaining more insight into this method of learning a skill that involves muscle memory. But I have spent a lot of time trying to understand it and explain it since I first joined TAC. However the question is worded, it’s always the same: “what do I do…?” There are many details to the question, like “after I finish the 30 day course” which may be the most common. Then there is “when do I start the dailies”.
It goes on and on, but basically, the answer is: “stop thinking about it and just do the deal, which is do the daily lesson for at least 10 minutes… that’s it”. It’s too simple and doesn’t seem like we are really “learning” because we are adults and we “think” we should do this or do that. We don’t learn like kids. But muscle memory, and especially music, needs to be approached like kids do.
That’s what I try to say in every comment with newcomers.
Anyway, thanks again, Mark @the-old-coach .
MG 😀
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You bet, @Kerby . Part of the wonder of TAC and music in general is we get to both receive and provide help. It’s a beautiful thing.
MG 😀