[petelanger]

@blitzbud I forgot to mention that I do a stretching routine every morning. I subscribed to this App called “Bend” and it’s really great. It reminds me to stretch daily and it times the stretches for me. My flexibility has increased a lot in the 5 months I’ve been doing it, and almost no more pains in my joints. I’m 66 years old.

[petelanger]

@DZRShodan
It’s absolutely okay to move on before you “feel ready”! And when you do you will most likely hit a wall. Don’t worry, crawl up to wall and soak in all you can in front of it! After a few new challenges that wall will start to move and you’ll be advancing. Then as you begin repeating benchmarks (every 4 months) and are able to directly measure your growth you will see how cyclical TAC is. There is no need to worry about what you can’t do, that will be there next week or month (or whenever), be excited what you learned this week!

[petelanger]

@kpbowstkyahoo-com

If this is about the Guitar (Enjoyment) Journal, that’s a downloadable file that you can fill out on your computer but then you must save it to your computer as well. It’s in pdf format

I don’t know what to say about: “the journal didn’t save my first week’s end of week progress post. Instead, my second week’s end of week progress report comment replaced my first week’s comment”. I didn’t use this document in electronic form, I printed mine out and filled it out with a pencil. Since the first print, I haven’t gone back to it often. I have found it’s easier for me log things with the TAB sheets in my OneNote file. But I did a test and it will save whatever you type in there once it has been saved locally.

• This reply was modified 9 months, 2 weeks ago by  petelanger.

[petelanger]

The 30 Days to Play are designed to be consumed as quickly or slowly as the member desires. Some take 30 days, others more and some have gone through it in an afternoon. It will depend on your experience and your approach. If you have the time and desire for more, take a look at the skill courses, perhaps there is something there that interests you? It’s a treasure trove!

When I started on the 3rd of July, I completed the 30 Days in about 20, then moved on to the 5 Day Routine. I entered the Daily Challenges on the 29th of the same month. That worked out well for me as a novice, but not completely brand new player. It was a big jump though, the Daily Challenges are on a different level than those 2 intro packages. But that’s fine, we don’t have to do everything that Tony shows us. He puts in a lot of stuff for more advanced players. Everybody in TAC does the same Daily Challenge, beginner to expert! That’s the beauty of it, we all get to share the same lesson but our approach will depend on what we bring to it!

Welcome and enjoy! It’s a great program!

Peter

[petelanger]

@wcp2020outlook-com it’s a little tricky to access videos from a previous day, especially since the responsiveness of the site is hampered.

Just hover over the day and then the title of the challenge appears, now hover over that and click. The challenge won’t appear immediately, it will take a a little bit (anywhere from 2 – 15 seconds depending on the current utilization). It appears that there are thousands of new members on the site and it’s overloaded at times. This delay makes navigation like this more difficult, but it is working I just tested it a moment ago and brought Tuesday’s challenge up. Try it and let me know, I can send you a link if all else fails!

[petelanger]

So tell us your story @Tsuyako Sandy Dunn ! You said you were here before but you were trying to perfect, got frustrated and stopped!

When were you here the last time, how long (how many sessions) did you play?

[petelanger]

You could always give @jorgemac ‘s suggestion a try: tuning your guitar down 3 half steps.

quoting jorgemac:

“I like the tone of heavier strings but don’t like the fact that the strings take more finger tip pressure to produce that fuller tone of heavier strings.

I started with 10 gauge strings and now usually play .013/56. I found as i increased the string gauge I could put less tension on the strings if I tuned the strings down a half of a note to 1 1/2 notes per string. Much less string tension meant no sore fingers as my tips got used to the heavier gauges.

One of my early rock guitar hero’s was Lonnie Mack, A Memphis picker who was a huge influence on Stevie Ray. i noticed in his song books that he tuned his guitar’s Strings down up to a tone and a half when recording. While trying to learn his songs I began tuning my guitar down to try and emulate his sound. Never did actually copy his tone but i did learn how to tune down my guitar and found I liked the bassier tone this created.

I am currently playing .013 strings and am tuned down 3 half steps, treble to bass C#,G#, E, B, F#, C#. as I like the tone. It is easy to tune your string down if you have a headstock tuner on your guitar. This is an easy way to avoid sore finger tips when to increase the string size on your guitar. Just tune it down for a week as your finger tips will have less tension when holding down the fretted notes. Then you can tune it up a half step a week until you reach normal tuning. I can just capo up if playing with friends and they like the different tone my guitar has to their guitar tone. A nice blend of different guitar sounds.

It is hard to tune lighter strings down more than a half step, as they do not adjust to the less string tension as well as .012’s or .013’s do.”

[petelanger]

@dwalter16hotmail-com sounds like you have momentum! So important to get on a roll and stay on it. You’ll run into road blocks as a player, but Tony structures things so there’s always something you can focus on besides the obstacle. In the meantime your brain figures out how to navigate the road block while you are not even aware of it! This has happened to me umpteen times, suddenly I’m able to do the thing I absolutely couldn’t before, when I haven’t even attempted it for quite a while! That’s what makes Tony’s approach so magical.

[petelanger]

Oh and I just wanted to reply to not achieving a clean C chord in 13 days:

Getting clean chords is a tough get and the time it takes is going to vary from person to person. Children will learn much faster
but adults like me for example:

C 6 months

D 3 months

D- 3 months

E 4 months

E- 1 months

F mini 15 months

F barre 12 months

G 5 months

B7 5 months

These are approximations and I am not talking about spending 3 seconds to form the chord and then strum, that’s not how we play guitar. This represents the (concurrent=learning simultaneously and not in succession) time when I could transition into the chord within half a second and get a clear sound (no thud) at least 75% of the time. I still miss today, nearly 2 years in from when I started playing, but less and less nowadays.

I left out the A chord it took me quite a while to do the 3 finger A chord, about 2 months. I usually barre it now.

The A- is very close to the E chord, but I got it down quicker. The E seemed good, didn’t even realize that I was muting the D string.

• This reply was modified 9 months, 2 weeks ago by  petelanger.

[petelanger]

@martyepp that’s up to you if you want to hold yourself back for 30 days. I’ll tell you my C, D, E-, F, G and B chords were not clean when I started the challenges. The first challenge I went into was Landslide (Stevie Nicks) and Travis picking based on C and G chords. It challenged me, but I grasped the finger picking and my chords got a little better. 2 Weeks later it was Old Man – now that was so over my head when we hit Thursday. But I did the best I could, when the chords were not doable I went back to Mondays and Tuesdays lessons and replayed those on Thursday and Friday. You struggle, you learn a bit.
Then 4 months later Old Man comes back around and you know what, the chord changes are still tough but I’m doing one here and one there.

These challenges are structured so that no matter where you are at skill wise, you can learn a lot. You learn so much not even realizing that you’re learning it!

It’s fine to hold yourself back, but if you make a habit out of not challenging yourself you’re going to advance slower than if you had just dove in head first.

[petelanger]

You’re welcome @wcp2020outlook-com if you ever have a problem accessing any challenge video, there is always a way, don’t hesitate to ask!

With the site navigation tools you can only go back weeks, so it’s advisable to add them to your favorites

[petelanger]

@Mave It’s OK to struggle! In fact, it’s good to struggle! (explanation below)

It’s completely normal to be overwhelmed by these types of challenges. Especially if you are looking at the entire TAB. Divide and conquer. The challenges are almost always easier in the beginning so can usually do a few measures at the front, maybe just one! Similarly there is a trend throughout each week from simpler to the more complex. When I started in TAC I found myself on many Thursdays and Fridays just repeating the Monday and Tuesday challenges, maybe dabble a bit on the late week stuff.

I’m here for the 5th time and it’s clicking now. First 2 times I was lost, 3rd time started getting some major parts, began to include barre chords. 4th time I was able to play all the parts but couldn’t string it all together. 5th time I can play through.

THE MOST LEARNING HAPPENS WHEN YOU STRUGGLE! I know it doesn’t make sense at first, but there has to be resistance if there is going to be growth. Just think about it: how much would you have learned if you could do this right away?

[petelanger]

@gmcoates101 the normal progression after 30 Days is to move to the 5 Day Routine. It’s not mandatory though, sounds like you transitioned well into the Daily Challenge. If you were able to do anything at all with Thursday’s lesson then you are clearly ready for the daily challenges and you’ll do well here! Congrats!

[petelanger]

It’s still the best learning site, if they could just get a few basic things fixed…

no other site can do what TAC can, I tried a bunch and I’m still checking out other guitar sites.

[petelanger]

Thanks for your input @DiscostewLA !

I’ll check out your suggestions. Unfortunately I am not an Apple guy. Windows laptop and Android phone, I’ve never been a fan of proprietary platforms.