petelanger
Forum Replies Created
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Good points, @Coreena !
It’s useful to learn playing with a pick, and it has it’s place. Beginners especially can benefit in a lot of ways and for advanced players it’s also great for strumming.
On the other hand, many great players find the pick very limiting in their style of playing. It’s kind of obvious that fingerstyle has a great advantage. Numerically it’s 5 to 1!
But more notes isn’t always better. Some of best parts of music lives in the spaces! What a wonderful dichotomy music and especially guitar playing is!
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@profnordman50gmail-com when I joined 1 1/2 years ago I had the same experience. I had been “playing” guitar for 4 months, getting taught by a couple of other online teachers. 2 weeks into TAC and I was playing riffs I didn’t think possible at that stage in my journey.
My progress in the Tony’s program ebbs and flows, it tends to come in spurts after what feels like stagnation. That’s because all the while you are struggling and thinking you’ll never get to be any better, your brain is learning. All of sudden you’ll wake up, pick up your guitar, start playing and think God gave you new hands!
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Great job @outdoorgator
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@efstreetgmail-com
Oh and I forgot to welcome you to TAC! You have found a great place of learning, enjoy!
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You should take a look in the skills tab. Lots of great stuff in there. This link will take you to the warm up/stretching within the skills tab.
https://tonypolecastro.com/courses/guitar-players-daily-stretch-guide/
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Thanks for the update Tony, it means a lot to hear you give us assurance! I sure appreciate TAC, it’s the best learning site I have even known and when I say that I am not just talking about music coaching sites, I mean all learning sites that I have ever been a part of (the list is long, believe me!)
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Many of us have lifetime, unfortunately it is no longer being offered. It made a lot of sense if you planned to be learning guitar with TAC for lets say the next 5 years, that drops the annual cost down to $125.
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I haven’t seen anything like you are describing and I’m this site every day for several hours.
5 Day Challenges shouldn’t be “popping up” unless it’s a Blues Challenge, the Basewalk Challenge or a Barre Chord Challenge and those are on the calendar. They would run the same as other weekly challenges Mon – Fri and not just pop up in the middle of a week. You would receive and email Monday morning announcing the current challenge. The 5 Day Bass Walk Challenge is coming up next month, should be the first week.
If you are getting some sort of unexpected 5 day thing pop up, this could be due to the issues we are going through with the TAC site, but I would want to see other people with the same issue before taking it to the support team.
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Don’t worry, this is perfectly normal! You are approaching things the right way, the 3 string version is perfectly fine (you want to try and not play the High E string if you aren’t able to turn it into an F.
It probably took me about 14 months to get to where I am now which is about 75%. To explain what that means: if I have a second to set it up and can play the F mini clearly. Depending on where I’m transitioning in from I’ll hit it clean some of the time. Other times the B or E string might be partially muted, not a clear ring.
I’ve written plenty here in the forums about this chord. I’ll search for some of guidance I’ve given in the past and post it below. Maybe something in there is helpful.
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In this thread a lot of people give their take on the F-mini. I want to give some updates on my comments in there:
I talk about “pulling my elbow tight in tight towards my rib cage” and a whole lot of hand rotation and what not. This was 9 months ago and now I can say that most of it is not necessary for me to play this chord today. However, it is quite possibly the journey I had to take to get there. I don’t think going through a lot gyrations in pursuit of playing a clean F-mini is harmful, it most likely helps in the end.
– You have to “feel it” and in order to do so you must feel all the ways it doesn’t work. The F mini is all about getting the optimal position. All chords benefit from good hand position but the F-mini just needs so much more than other chords do.
– AVOID PRESSING TOO HARD! New players (as I was and still am but I’m starting to lose that moniker, tend to push down on the strings with brutal force in an attempt to stop muting and buzzing. It takes a while until you learn that you don’t have to press that darn hard! With a gentler touch this chord is easier to do. Find out how hard you need to press to fret the 2 bottom strings with your index. Keep easing off until they buzz, then increase a little bit. Notice this is probably less than half as hard as you’ve been pressing until now. Then position your hand in such a way that you can fret the other 2 strings. It might help you to raise the guitar neck to improve positioning
https://tonypolecastro.com/family-forums/topic/challenge-with-f-chord/#post-2153829
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Good question. I always interpreted that as meaning: “remember the fretted positions” since he goes string by string and gives you the fret number as he moves from top to bottom or bottom to top.
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Don’t know any shortcuts but I too was a very clumsy strummer, it simply takes a lot of time to work out the motions until they are more natural. I’m much better timing-wise than I was in the beginning, working on consistency, that is hitting the strings with the same touch (not too hard or too soft) and hitting the strings that are supposed to be hit. Generally we hit the entire chord going down (4 – 6 strings, depending) but coming up you will only need to (even should only hit) 2 – 3 maybe 4 strings)
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So funny! After I responded I realized that the guitar I play the most has an off-centered hole, it’s a good inch above the strings. So if the pick slipped while playing it wouldn’t likely fall in the hole. I don’t drop them often during play but I still lose them regularly. I keep plenty on hand just in case!
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Sorry, that’s never happened to me!
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You’re welcome, @Coreena
And welcome to TAC!
I read your bio, thanks for taking the time to give your story. You’ve come to the best place to learn guitar, Tony’s method is very solid!