petelanger
Forum Replies Created
-
You have to tell me about Switzerland someday, I lived there in 68/69 (Geneva) and 91-94 (Bern area). My 2 oldest daughters were born there.
-
I hear ya! This question comes up all the time. When and how to you pursue your desire to learn full songs. Everybody here will probably give you a different answer. Learning songs is a great goal, as long as it advances your pursuit of learning your instrument. Chasing after that sound that the recording artists have produced can definitely send you down a rabbit hole. But learning to play songs, doing them in your style and making them your own is both rewarding and beneficial.
I recommend Ultimate Guitar for the tabs, I’ve had a membership going on 3 years now. I also go to Lauren Bateman and Marty Schwartz for free tutorials, several others as well.
-
-
I’ve heard some have gone through it in an afternoon. I personally took 19 days, but I purposely held up after 2 lessons since I was a beginner player and didn’t want to overload my brain with too much. On the other hand members have taken 60 days and longer. It’s really up to you.
-
email support, they should be able to refund you. support@tonypolecastro.com
-
Thanks @jorgemac for suggesting I could help, unfortunately I don’t have any kind of pull. I get replies from support@tonypolecastro.com, if you aren’t then I don’t know what else to do except use the help button on the right bottom and fight your way past the AI bot. It will take a few messages and if you persist, a human will join in.
This is unfortunate, when I joined and became a lifetime member, there was no bot and humans (Victoria) responded within 10 to 30 minutes. Sadly they have moved to annoying non-human interaction.
I would be very surprised, however, if your membership ended before the term you paid for. I strongly believe it continues despite the messaging. When the lifetime membership was discontinued I contacted support if my membership was affected and I was assured the “Lifers” would not be affected, just not “currently” selling lifetime memberships.
-
Yes it’s common. If guitar were easy to learn, everybody would be doing it. It takes many months to learn basic skills. Your fingers were designed to grasp things, so they tend to move in unison. You have to program your brain to do things they have never had to do. You’re rewiring your brain, the older you are the more you have to overcome. Kids can learn much more quickly, those neural connections aren’t deeply burned in like those of us older folk!
Here are few tips regarding string muting/buzz:
1. Position: you want to play in the best possible position for comfort and ease to place your fingers properly. This is something you can play around with, raising the neck up, adjusting the shoulder and elbow. Certain chords may require you to come at the fretboard differently.
2. Pressure: when we’re learning we have a tendency to press very hard, trying to eliminate the buzzing or thuds. Getting the finger closer to the fret wire means less pressure will still work. We need to find that sweet spot where it’s a clean note but minimum pressure. This is still something I focus on everyday, because I still press too hard when making certain chords, like the D major.
3. Light strings: make it easier by using lighter strings. This will change the tone, but there are lots of options and you might find you like the brighter sound. Also, every guitar has it’s “soul mate” when it comes to the marriage between the guitar+player and strings.
4. Tuning: some people tune their guitar down a 1/2 step or even more, makes it much easier to fret. Great for practicing and you can slaps on a capo to play along with the challenges.
5. Nails: always have the finger nails on your fretting hand trimmed as short as possible. This is essential for beginner players.
6. Being a new player, you may not have developed callouses on your finger tips. As you do, this will help with the issue of string muting.
7. Make sure you are fretting with the tips of your fingers, the strings should be making their indentation marks about 1/10 inch (2mm) from the finger nail. Much further than that and you’re fretting with the pads and that’s going to cause muting.
8. Be sure to curl your knuckles as much as possible, especially the last knuckle right at the tips of your fingers. They should be able to bend close to 90 degrees. I am exercising my ring and pinky fingers whenever I think about it to loosen up the joints more, I am not at 90 yet. By getting that optimum bend and pushing your hand forward under the neck you approach the strings more perpendicular avoiding mutes on strings below the fretted notes.
-
The new “Verify you’re human check” is annoying and another roadblock to accessing lessons and interacting with people. It’s a shame, good content here but the interface is a disaster. I’ve had to look elsewhere to get an engaging daily guitar fix.
You can’t engage below the challenges more than once unless you reload the page, another delay of 10 – 30 seconds. Pure frustration and I’ve brought it to Support’s attention numerous times, it’s not a problem to them!
-
I’m not sure why some members are not able to download the Old Man tabs. I have everything saved to my cloud drive so here is Thursday’s and Friday’s challenge tab:
-
I know!
-
I’ll be around. When I say stepping back it just means I won’t be here every day and posting less than I used to. It’s not my primary site anymore.
-
@Skyman911 you’re very flattering, far from accomplished. Thanks for your kind words! One day, I shall earn that title!
-
@the-old-coach I sent you a DM on the first part on the Major Scales
…….m……..p
i……m……..p
i………..r…..p
Hope it makes sense now.
-
Sorry coach, I saw this question the other day but I didn’t have time to address it properly so I put it aside and promptly forgot!
I am not sure what part you don’t understand. But maybe this video by Caitlin Caggiano will shed some light at least on the last thing I said: “Major pentatonic scales follow the CAGED shapes up the fretboard”.
-
From my very fragmented understanding, having learned only a pinch here and a dash there, I thought the simplest method to learn scales is primarily to follow a finger pattern:
Major scales:
i=index…. m=middle…. r=ring…. p=pinky drop=drop down 1 string
m…p – drop i…m…p – drop i…r…p
Major pentatonic scales follow the CAGED shapes up the fretboard