[Loraine]

Hi Kathy, welcome to the family! Just as a further explanation, this site changed several years ago. The old site had Tony counting down in a practice video. I think when they transitioned to the new website they weren’t able to incorporate that aspect of the videos and the videos are still useful for teaching and going through the 30 days to play so it would’ve been too burden someone costly to redo the videos.

[Loraine]

Great job @moose408 ! Smooth and steady strumming. Nice to see you playing the riff. Very. Ice job!

That red light signal gets the best of us. You’re not alone there 🙂

[Loraine]

Hey @pulpfrau58yahoo-com Welcome to TAC! You’re in good hands with @petelanger ! I agree, there are no rules with TAC, per se. This is your journey. If you’ve given a good go of the lessons, then I agree, keep the flow going. Just give the lessons the minimum 10 minutes, mark complete, and keep practicing, if you like. Just don’t overdo it.

The lessons become more challenging, and you may need a little more time on each. Just have some fun with it all. Don’t shoot for perfection. You’ll progress as you continue forward.

[Loraine]

Hi Barbara, if you are new to guitar like never picked up a guitar before, I would suggest waiting a bit to begin taking Fret Board Wizard (FBW). I would suggest giving it a little bit of time for you to get settled in and understanding the guitar and terminology and at the beginning you’re so focused on trying to simply make chords and strumming, picking, etc. But that is just a suggestion. I did not know anything about guitars when I first started and I don’t think I could’ve understood some of what was being taught, or I understood it when I took it, but I didn’t know how it applied actually. I was more a book knowledge type thing. It took me quite a while for things to all of a sudden click and for me to have those aha moments and really understand the theory of the fretboard. I actually enjoy learning about the theory. What’s great about FBW is you own it for life, as @petelanger said. We can go through it as many times as you like in fact most people I won’t say many people go through it at least once a year you pick up something different each time..

That being said, FBW will open up a lot of doors in your playing as well as just understanding guitar theory. You’ll pick up quite a bit of information from it. I found that it took time for it to suddenly click in my head. I don’t remember if it was six months down the road or a year, but all of a sudden I started having these aha moments or what I call moments of clarity and things just fell into place with my understanding.

[Loraine]

Hi Barbara, welcome to the TAC family!

I’m in 100% agreement with @petelanger . You’ll soon learn that Tony teaches progress over perfection and as Pete pointed out if you give a lesson a good 10 minutes market complete and that does not mean that you can’t play longer, but don’t shoot for perfection. Just give it your best like Pete said. You’ll be amazed that you will learn and excel following this practice

Once you get into the mainstream lessons and the daily challenges, the same will apply. There are four benchmark weeks in the year during these you will set goals for the next three months and you will be able to reflect back on previous benchmark weeks. These are songs and lessons that you will see repeated. This allows you to see any improvement that you’ve made this goes along with other lessons throughout the year too, but it’s focused on more during these benchmark weeks. So basically at the end of three months you get to look back see if you’ve met your goals. What areas you excel in what you did well in what areas and were challenging to you that you’d like to work on more. That might be what you choose to focus on in the next 3 months, or you might have another goal in mind.

When you complete the challenge you’re currently taking, then do the next 6 chords, the 5 days skill challenge, and I highly suggest taking the stretching in the skills section. You can take Skills Lessons in any order you want. It’s your program, so be curious and look around.

Have fun with it!

[Loraine]

Ha ha yes I have responded to people, but I thought they were posting in the general area even though I don’t think there’s really a general posting area. I didn’t know there was an actual forum room for TACiversaries. Lol

[Loraine]

Thanks for the vote of confidence, Moose! You are correct. I was never gonna be a great guitarist or a great singer, and I did have to get over my fear and decided to post the good the bad and the ugly. I think that by doing so it actually made me a better player or singer. I know it brought me out of a severe depression that I had for quite a while and it helped me get over my shyness. I was so painfully afraid of people.

Most people would probably be quite shocked to learn that I actually sang quite beautifully when I was younger. I was a Soprano even. I think it was Soprano II. . Several things happened over many many years since I was a child. I smoked for many years, I have had chronic ear and sinus issues since I was young, and they’re still ongoing. The seem to be worsening by the year. I had sinus surgery where they had to rebuild the whole bridge in my nose Because the nostrils kept collapsing. The surgery caused a lot of change in my vocals. I have severe allergies which add to it. My hearing is not that great, Chronic ear infections and small ear canals that just seemed to shrink and get worse, have made it difficult not only can I not hear myself, but my allergies cause a lot of ear problems. . I have a very deadpan voice that holds no emotion and that’s just for years of dealing with some difficult people in my life and having to keep my voice very low and soft to get them to Quiet down and listen and to not rock the boat. So it was basically to try to keep everything status quo and it became habitual. It’s funny. I never talked much growing up at all, and that continued all the way through my adult life up until probably Covid. During Covid talking came to a screeching halt basically because I became locked in the house with a mother who had dementia and we could not hold conversations so my vocal chords atrophied. It is the same thing as if you don’t exercise you lose muscle mass and so I lost my vocal cords. They basically atrophied, and my voice dropped significantly, and it is very difficult to build up the muscle tone again, and to start using the vocal cords more and more I used to be able to carry a tune, and I cannot carry a tune for the life of me toda. My mom cracked me up when she had her wits about her because she would sing at the top of her lungs, and from a young age, I would beg her not to sing because she had the worst voice. Then she got Spasmodic Dysphonia, a form of Distonia, and had to get her vocal cords injected every three months so she could talk, but it was painful to hear her talk when she did not have the injections. People could not understand her because she had no control over her vocal cords.

So I found a vocal teacher, and I enjoyed my lessons initially. I actually could hit every pitch except for there were one note that I could not hit for the life of me. She said it was like I just had a brick wall when I got to that note but everything else above and blow it and I could do the scales perfectly, and I could sing the songs and they were much higher than what I’ve been singing because I sing at a comfort level And I felt like she was having me sing you know more soprano or even high alto, I guess, which she said I was a true alto. Unfortunately, I did not last long and the lessons,because of the cost, but also it felt like it was too much work and it wasn’t fun and all honesty when you had to follow it up with practice. It wasn’t like the guitar that brought me joy from the get go. It felt like it was gonna be a lot more labor intensive. But it really wasn’t it. It’s just something that Didn’t speak to my soul I guess at the time. She was a really good teacher, but I wish I had shopped around a little bit to find someone I really clicked with, and that would work with me on the types of songs I wanted to sing.

Anyway, mostly you know I can’t shut up now. Something got triggered in me. I think it really is because I finally stopped hiding behind my imperfections and put Tony’s lessons to work in my own life and stopped trying to work towards perfection and just try to work towards progress. It’s been a hell of a lot of fun.

[Loraine]

Hey, keep me in mind if you give away your Ernie Balls. I use them on several guitars.

[Loraine]

Appreciate it Braden! I’m so grateful to being able to still play .

[Loraine]

Hey @stevep Steve! It is so good to hear from you. How the heck are you doing? Im dropping into Scones every once in a while. If you ever get a chance, drop in and say hi.

I’m part of the BlackBerry Smoke cult – haha. I probably see them 2-3 times a year. I’ve had VIP passes and met them. I actually play quite a few of their songs. I really appreciate your compliment on my strumming to. Broke my wrist and hand over a year ago, and I’ve had 3 surgeries. Wasn’t sure I could keep playing. It’s definitely more difficult from nerve and arthritis pain. I still have a big issue, because the wrist and hand bones are displaced and pushed to the right from the force of the fall. There’s another surgery in the future, but it is more difficult and painful each time.

[Loraine]

Haha, I’m having fun finally playing some of the faster songs. Always appreciate you listening Braden.

[Loraine]

Thanks as always, Pete she did have a lot of great songs and what’s funny is I had never seen her in concert until this year. She was part of the outlaw music fest with Willie Nelson, which I go to every year and she played for two full hours. Bob Dylan played for two hours. Willie and his son played for two hours. I can’t remember who else was there, but it is my favorite festival every year. It starts at 4 PM and goes till like midnight.

[Loraine]

Thanks Pete it’s good to be seen and to be playing again. However I will say that I’m really struggling after this third surgery there’s so much scar tissue now that it’s very painful because it pulls and it’s hard for me to stretch to make chords and I still can’t put enough pressure on my barre chords.

You are correct Blackberry Smoke is a southern rock band out of Georgia. They’ve been around for a very long time. I think they’re all in their 50s at this point in their life. Charlie Carr is the lead singer and is the most famous from the band. He is on so many shows in a magazines and a very talented guitarist and lyricist. and He is well known throughout the industry for his guitar collection. The drummer Britt Turner passed away about a year ago I think from brain cancer it was very sad. The band has a whole has a cult like following.

[Loraine]

Really appreciate you listening , Phil. Thank you

[Loraine]

Blackberry Smoke has been around for a long time. You may have heard of Charlie Carr. He’s the lead singer and he’s a very well-known in the industry is a guitar collection like you wouldn’t believe you might be familiar with their song One Horse Town. That’s probably one of the most famous. I play that one too. I play a lot of their songs actually.