[Timbothirroul]

One way is to look at it like a smorgasbord. There will be a main course (the daily challenge or 30 days to play) and a smattering of other delights for you to browse through. If you don’t like it move to something else.

Tony has said that you don’t need to have the daily challenge down to complete it. When you have spent 10mins on it you have earned the right to click that “completed” button.

Pick and choose what appeals to you. If you get overwhelmed spend 10 mins on the daily challenge or 30 days to play, and feel good that you have achieved that.

[Timbothirroul]

My 2 cents worth would be to find a very simple song you enjoy and play it. Or play along with a recording. Nothing taxing, just have fun with it. I am lucky I have grandchildren to play with so I get to play and sing some simple songs (and some unexpectedly hard ones too!)

[Timbothirroul]

Is it flooding down in Texas?

Are all the phone lines down?

Are dark clouds rollin’ in?

[Timbothirroul]

There is a warm up in the daily challenge every Tuesday

[Timbothirroul]

Hi,

I was in a similar situation to you. I was going over the same two finger-style pieces making the same mistakes for years.

What I have discovered is that I need to do easier things. To build confidence to work on harder things, but not so hard that i am discouraged.

The two finger-style skill courses are a good place to start. I still use some of those lessons to improve my technique.

I find Tony breaks down finger style into manageable chunks.

In answer to your question: very much so.

[Timbothirroul]

Hi l am in the same boat regarding arthritis

I find the finger stretching course a great help

[Timbothirroul]

Yes, I play that song for my grandchildren with my wife on uke.

It has some challenging changes in it.

I say it there are two songs “Over the Rainbow” and “What a Wonderful World”

[Timbothirroul]

Thank you @Cadgirl and @Loraine for your comments.

I first heard about it on Acoustic Tuesday 174 around the 6 minute mark.

It is a challenge and after mucking around on it for a while I will move the strings from my main workhorse to a spare guitar that someone lent me.

They are the high strings from a 12 string set. There is a nice vid on AT 174 of a cool performance with the tuning.

[Timbothirroul]

Thank you Cadgirl, Johnny and David for your contributions.

What I have also learned from this is that the pieces I was attempting before I joined TAC were too advanced for my current ability even though I had played them quite well back in the day.

What I am enjoying is being able to play pieces that Tony presents and then have them gradually become harder. I don’t get frustrated.

This is fun!

[Timbothirroul]

I was thinking about this last night.. There could be another aspect to that response: One of the reasons I joined TAC was because I was overwhelmed by the plethora of online guitar instruction sites. To the point of petrification.

There could be a positive to being in a place away from that for a while. I am not saying that that is the reason, perhaps it is a business issue.

Anywho…

[Timbothirroul]

It is 50 years old. A friend of mine had just got into guitar making. He was a bit of a genius. He was making all kinds of guitars, including pedal steel guitars. Unfortunately he let me in on the design process. I wanted a guitar like Django Reinhardt played with a stratocaster neck! My family financed it for me as a 21st birthday present. They didn’t know about luthier time. I was 22 when I got it. One good thing I did was to pick up the shells from the beach to make the fretboard inlays.

A few years ago I got it set up properly and had a few repairs made. Over the years it has acquired a unique tone. It varies from day to day. Currently it is in open tuning and I am playing St Anne’s Reel on it.

The best thing I did was to buy a stand for it so it is always available to play, rather than hidden away in a case.

Thank you for your interest Cadgirl. I felt good writing about it.

Tim

[Timbothirroul]

Thanks Albert. I am thinking about doing exactly that (breaking my streak on purpose).

[Timbothirroul]

Thank you for your reply Loraine. No, nothing as deep as that. For example, my barre left me the other day after months of goodness. Just little things like that. During one of the 3month parties a member was getting up really early to practice and had children to look after, and a job and a bunch of other things. It blew me away.

Tim

[Timbothirroul]

Thanks Bill, I am honoured to be part of your special guitar journey.

[Timbothirroul]

Our festivus pole got damaged during the “Feats of Strength”