petelanger
Forum Replies Created
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Seems like we have a few people here dipping their toes in the TAC waters. I replied to another 60 day candidate earlier today. Everyone has their unique expectations when they join a program and mine were definitely very different from yours.
Here is what I think are the reasons why TAC is an excellent system for learning to play and improving your playing skills.
1. focus on playing daily. The challenges are designed for 10-15 min sessions and structured to cover all areas of guitar playing. Most courses are structured thematically and invariably you will get hung up on some topic that is overwhelming and end up quitting. Ask me how I know!
2. it teaches you how to add your own style (or flavor) to songs, how to make them sound more interesting, rather than giving you the recipe to play a popular song from beginning to end.
3. there are many players that are here every day, from beginners to very accomplished guitarists and even recording artists. Tony is actually a quite notorious recording artist.
4. the daily lessons are simple but layered is such a way that novice and expert will not only get something out of them but also easily understand what is expected of them
5. the community is very helpful and knowledgeable
6. TAC gives you excellent value if you look at the yearly or lifetime costs. For me it was a no-brainer. Even if I have to add other lessons to supplement my learning, I will get something out of the daily challenges, the skill courses and song archives for many years to come.
In my opinion the reasons for being here are not
-to learn how to play songs so you can sound like the recording
-because of the site’s excellent navigation features
-for it’s flawless interface full of flashy dashboards. Heck no! Even commenting below the challenges requires a work around
TAC isn’t perfect, it’s full of quirks and flaws. You can’t search here worth a darn. The site isn’t flashy and its Namesake is essentially absent, only rarely making appearances.
But it’s very good at getting novice players to return regularly to improve their playing. The progress actually sneaks up you when you aren’t expecting it.
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I am sorry about your hearing issues. That can be a very difficult hurdle to navigate. I will say though, that it’s often not necessary to stay on the learn video to get what you need for playing. I find that I can switch to the play video and go on a slow speed to pick up a lot of things I might have missed in the learn video.
TAC gives you the best value of any the programs I have seen and I’ve tried quite a few of them. I knew within 60 days that I would become a lifetime member and I did convert my membership to life time later in the first year. If you were to switch to lifetime, then there would be no time pressure for you. You can do that any time during the first year and get full credit for your initial investment.
I can’t speak to issue of: do I want to learn to play guitar? I know that it was something I wanted very much. But I do believe that the small hands are not an insurmountable issue. Many players have small hands and managed to overcome that.
Do you have a smaller guitar or full-size?
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Here’s an exercise that helped me a lot in the beginning: https://youtu.be/2onjflSqHNo
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Every beginner goes through this. When I started learning chords about 20 months ago, I couldn’t do any of these chords without muting strings: C, G, D, E, B7. About 6 months later most of these were resolved but by then I was learning barre chords and the struggle started over again. It took me about 15 months to finally play an mini barre F chord with fair consistency.
Some things that might help:
Remember to fret with the tips of your fingers, right under the finger nails, and not the pads. Keep your finger nails on the left hand as short as possible! By playing as much as you are now, you should develop callouses soon and this will help!You wan to place your fingers close to the fret wires whenever possible. Certain fretting shapes will go counter to this, but this is a principle.
Hand positioning is very important, raise the neck closer to your eyes, this might produce a more comfortable position. Be sure to push your hand under the neck and curl the knuckles so that the last segment of the fingers are coming at the strings perpendicularly (or as much as possible). The more angled they are, the more likely they are to touch and adjacent string.
Is your guitar set up well? When the action is too high, it makes playing way more difficult so that’s something to consider.
New players will tend to play with the wrong amount of pressure(too much). Practice doing each note one at a time and feel how much pressure you need to play it clean; you may find that you don’t have to press nearly as hard as you thought you had to!
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@jeffswan51gmail-com that’s perfectly normal in the beginning. Your control will improve over time as your fingers eventually catch up to your brain. These movements are very new and you actually have to develop a repertoire of these specialized muscle movements, that are unlike anything you have done for all the years before picking up a guitar.
What you are doing is good, keep your sessions short (10-20 minutes) and repeat as often as it’s still fun. I was a lot like you, semi retired and then almost completely retired so with a lot of time. Now, after nearly 17 months in the TAC program, I am able to do much more than i could in the beginning but there is still a long journey ahead.
Don’t let your struggles discourage you! In those moments is where most of the magic (learning) occurs. When it’s easy, you aren’t really learning much. At some point, possibly sooner than you think, you suddenly will be blown away by what you are able to do! Keep on rockin’, Jeff! Happy Thanksgiving!
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Less Is More:
It’s normal! Not necessarily nailing it perfectly after a break but multiple shorter sessions are more beneficial than one long session. This is why the ten minutes is emphasized so much.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3351401/
pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
The time course and outcome of perceptual learning can be affected by the length and distribution of practice, but the training regimen parameters that govern these effects have received little systematic study in the auditory domain. We asked ...
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Right with you there, hoping to achieve the same. I have this on my 90 day goal list but alas, my Wednesday’s always seem to be busier than normal and the effort tends to be a bit lacking.
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Yes, the next step is to go into the daily challenges. Don’t worry if you can’t play through the whole thing. These are designed for players at all levels so when you come in as a newbie it’s natural to be overwhelmed. That’s okay, just do what small part of it you can do in about 10 minutes and MARK IT COMPLETE! That doesn’t mean you finished, it just means you tried your hardest for at least 10 minutes. If you don’t get far, that’s okay, thousands of others, myself included, could not get through many of the challenges at first.
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Too funny! You’ve even responded to people posting in the TACiversary forum, but just didn’t know it! But it all get’s blended into one.
From time to time I’ll click into the various forums, this can take you way back!
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Appreciate all the suggestions! “Armageddon It” slowly!
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I just started singing with the church choir, we’re preparing for a 5 minute long Christmas special song that is really challenging my singing chops. I have a recording of the tenor track, that I will be singing and another of the combined performance. Singing along with the single track is going ok, but I am having to stretch to reach some of those upper notes.
All the parts are unique though, so when I’m singing with the full track it’s a bear to stay with my role and not let the sopranos and altos take me off track. I’m really enjoying this and it is certainly helping me to learn how to breath and become a better singer.
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Nice! Would like to get something regular with a group set up too.
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When click into the forums, all posts appear in chronological order from newest to oldest It all goes into the general area without classifications. But if you click on one of the themes then it filters the conversations into topical categories:
Small Wins………….. Play for Us……..Community Support…….TACiversary and so on
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@CasperC & @pulpfrau58yahoo-com
This still doesn’t matter, you pick a small portion of the challenge that you can manage and give it your best, mark complete and move on! This concept is contrary to our entire life’s teachings – I know. But it’s best for you to reframe your brain this way. I have to do it all the time, because I too would like to do it better and then still even better because what I’m doing is flawed.
Don’t worry, the same skill will be required in just a few days or weeks, you can improve then. For now, just try to have fun trying! It’s always about keeping it fun! Perfecting is too much like work!
Remember to just do 10 or 15 minutes and mark complete, even if it’s only 5% of the lesson. You can continue if you want at your leisure but the button should really say “I played for 10 minutes” and not “COMPLETED!”
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And Paul Rodgers! Oh My Goodness, I was today years old when I learned he’s a Canadian! I love Paul Rodgers, so many great memories from my youth.
Edit: I see that he married a Canadian beauty queen in ’97 and later became one himself, glad that I wasn’t completely crazy thinking he’s british!https://vancouversun.com/entertainment/bc-singer-only-canadian-inducted-2025-rock-roll-hall-of-fame
vancouversun.com
B.C. singer the only Canadian inducted into the 2025 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame
Singer Paul Rodgers of Free and Bad Company fame is the only Canadian citizen to be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2025