petelanger
Forum Replies Created
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Welcome back! Holler if you need anything!
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I don’t have FW so I’m kind of in the dark. I am assuming we are talking about the
C-A-G-E-D patterns? These are the shapes that you make with fingers 3-5 so you can barre with the 1. These are super useful to learn, even if you can’t produce much sound, knowing the shape is a fundamental part of learning the fretboard.But maybe you are referring to patterns for finding where notes repeat on fretboard, either same or higher octave.
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Sometimes we just spiral ourselves into the doldrums. That’s what’s led me to expand my horizon outside of TAC a bit. It’s great here, Tony has created an excellent platform, but it’s not unusual to want to spice it up a bit.
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I have a super cheap thin bodied guitar and I love it! Carbon fiber soundboard and the rest is mahogany. Donner G1 Rising, Everything’s only about 9 or 10% smaller but it makes a huge difference
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@jumpinjeff this post got by me, I’ve had some distractions at home with my mother, but congrats on your 11 years in TAC! What you described is my goal too, just be able to play anything I want to… I also wish I had started about 50 years ago but we start when we start, God knows when we’ll stop playing.
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Happy Sunday @martyepp
It’s pretty common to be dissatisfied with our rate of progress and to be on the search for that panacea that’s going to project us forward. Nothing can steal our joy of playing the guitar more than the man behind the strings!
Wish you more perseverance this time. The only thing that guarantees progress is consistently playing and TAC is a good vehicle for that. Come to forum whenever you need encouragement or help with anything!
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When you are performing a hammer on, what happens is you are changing the note that a ringing string is producing by shortening the anchor points. If you touch a string that is ringing you stop the vibration which deadens the sound. However, you can short circuit this muting effect with quickness.
Hammer ons are just that: hammers. Your fingers must move like a hammer does. If you hit a nail with a hammer that isn’t moving fast – not much happens, the nail will probably fall over but it won’t penetrate the wood.
The 2 keys to hammers:
1. speed
2. hit close to the fret
The second key helps shorten the distance before the string gets pinned. If the action on the guitar is too high, you may also struggle with hammering for the same reason, so check that.
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I am also grateful to Victoria! Thank you so much girl for getting this corrected!
It seems like no big deal, just a number, but I couldn’t unsee that big number that had become a miniscule number. It’s weird how the brain works!
This is a thing that can easily happen and it will happen to other people. I should think that TAC admins should be able to fix this without pulling in IT.
Peter
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Okay yeah, so those patterns are supposed to help you find notes quickly but in the beginning these formulas don’t help you much. I think it’s more useful to remember a group of notes:
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@ChuckS you aren’t expected to master any of it.
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@Moose408 is bang on as usual! You will see the stuff in the 30 Day and the following 5 Day programs over and over and over. Don’t worry too much if you struggle there. You could veer off into the skill courses for a day here and there.
I disagree, however, about extending the 30 days to 60 or 90. I would try to keep it closer to 30. You want to feel like you are progressing and as long as you’re in the intro programs you’re kind of spinning your wheels or just warming up. It gets a bit more challenging in the Daily Challenges but as many have emphasized, you shouldn’t expect to complete them. Do your best and mark complete!
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This is good @jumpinjeff! “A Clockwork Orange” is a great classic reference too. We have our eyes open but we can’t see improvement, you can play for hours and seem to go in reverse. It comes over longer stretches of time. Over night often can produce changes but it’s not going to happen every night. Checking back months later we can see real growth. I’m going through a phase now where my fretting hand feels mildly paralyzed – it just won’t move fast enough. But I realize that I’m working on upping my transitions speed on a daily basis and the hand just can’t keep up yet, making me feel like the fingers are frozen and won’t go where my brain is telling them to go! This will all come in time, I just have to be patient with myself and enjoy where I’ve come from (HUGE strides) and not worry about the baby steps I’m taking right now.
Playing many short sessions (around 15 – 25 minutes) with breaks seems to work best, I try to get in at least a couple every day but I won’t beat myself up if I can’t some days.
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I also have definitely had a few down periods when I felt I wasn’t going to get where I wanted to be. But TAC has kept me coming every day and advance a little. I have to just celebrate every small win during the journey, I am where I am and that’s a heck of lot better than 2 years ago.
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I can’t afford 1 on 1 instruction. But I have invested in other learning programs:
Program A (of which I am a lifetime member) is very heavy on music theory but also teaches a great deal of applied guitar geekdom via live webinars and video libraries. Questions are encouraged and you can send in video of yourself and get responses (usually same day) from the highly qualified instructor and other students.
Program B (annual membership, quite affordable especially at the rate I bought in) is the opposite. No theory at all, strictly practical how to learn to play songs. I just got into this one and it’s a blast.
Program C (not a learning program, this is my free jam group in my neighborhood) we get together for nearly 3 hours twice a month and just play whatever we want. We pull up Ultimate Guitar and take turns around the room, everybody joins in playing the same songs.
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Thank-you for your service! That’s great that you have learned to play the national anthem, I’ve never even attempted that one, good job!