[Loraine]

@chris.w Welcome to the TAC family, and thank you for posting. I love reading the stories of others and what brought them to guitar and TAC. It’s amazing when we c an see our progress, and it excites us to keep playing. Many blessings for a long and happy guitar journey!!

[Loraine]

@MMMURRAY TAC is nit about perfection. It is about progress and moving forward. My suggestion is mark the lessons as complete and move on. You can always revisit the lessons, but you’ve definitely completed the course. The chords will improve over time. If you haven’t done so already, mark the 30 days to Play complete, then do the Next 6 chords, and begin on the daily challenges, if you haven’t already. Look through the Skills courses, and if something is of interest take the course. Again, your focus should be on Progress, not perfection. As soon as you’ve completed a lesson, mark it complete and move on. You will improve as you move along.

Learning guitar is a journey, and it gets better and better as time goes by and you continue to practice and move forward in your learning. The guitar can not be mastered in perfection, but you will be able to look like you can eventually. It’s a process, a journey, many ups and downs, but the positives and the fun outweigh all that. Have some fun with it. 😁

[Loraine]

@albert_d Very cool that you were able to meet and hang with Tony and the other TAC members that were there. Very nice photo – a keeper 🙂

[Loraine]

Hi @campfire I haven’t taken Fretboard Wizard in Long time, and I haven’t visited the updated one since it came out. But I’m curious as to what you’re referring to, so if nothing else comes out of your post, please know that you may have prodded me along into action. From reading the comments on the lesson, it sounds like several people were confused with the change up and what was being taught. I hope it becomes more clear for you or that someone else can help you out with the concept.

[Loraine]

@Guitargeezer-Jack What a beautiful post. I love your selflessness and pure enjoyment you find in what your doing and how it touches the souls of others. Too often, the aging population is put in the back and forgotten or trodden over. They have such beautiful, childlike souls that are just looking for something to rejoice in.

I hope I have enough nerve to play for others at nursing homes or outdoors sometime. I tried to play for a friend in Chicago about a month ago, and I crawled into a hole and couldn’t do it.

This is the 2nd post this week that has really touched me and urged me to take some action to help others in some way.

[Loraine]

Nicely done @marisa!

[Loraine]

Welcome back to TAC, and I’m glad you made it through Carpal Tunnel surgery and recovery. You say some great things Russell, and most of all is that you can only start and be where you are in your journey, and it is a great reminder that we’re not in a race or in competition with anyone else. We can put in as much or as little as we want, and it is all good.

I absolutely love that you’re in a position that you can help others out in their music endeavors. I have quite a few guitars, and I’ve been wanting to thin them out. None are considered high end, and I’m sure I could part with some for little or no money at all. In fact, there is a young lady who is 12 years old back in my old romping grounds in Chicagoland that I know cannot afford to have a guitar purchased for her. You’ve motivated me to send her one of my smaller guitars. I already mentor her and supply her with sketch pads and pencils, so it won’t take any more effort to work with her on guitar too. I introduced her to the acoustic when I was out there a month or so ago, and she was already wanting to play electric, and now she knows she can play both.

[Loraine]

@MMMURRAY I started using a metronome about a year or more ago, and it definitely is a great tool. It really helped me with chord transitions and timing. I could see where it could be useful with Tony’s lessons, because he typically tells you the ideal speed and timing (quarter notes, eighth notes, etc.). I agree with @HowardM that it forces you to slow down and pay attention to transitions and the count. You then work on building up speed once you’ve mastered a slower speed.

P.S., don’t mind @Fletch – He’s anti a lot of discipline in general, but he’s an extremely talented lyricist and writer of original songs. He must have had a bad experience with a metronome somewhere in his past, and he’s never been able to break past it. 🤣🙃😛

[Loraine]

Really nice post @N-lightMike . Thank you for your kind words and encouragement.

[Loraine]

@drew.sudell Great insight into the boom chick pattern. I often thought that the second note was what what I’ve heard referred to as the perfect fifth, but I never knew for sure. Thank you for helping me understand that better. You’re right that we should understand the notes we’re playing and why they all fit together. That’s once nice thing about Fretboard Wizard and other courses that teach the fretboard, and it helps to understand the relative notes of the many different scales and how they interact with each other.

[Loraine]

😊

[Loraine]

Thank you Terry – That means so much to me. You’re someone I look up to, and you’re a great role model and very talented. I’m hoping be a fraction as talented as you in the future. Your observations are very kind and appreciated. I am having fun, and that helps keep it fresh and moving forward.

[Loraine]

Really appreciate that @paul21

[Loraine]

Thanks for the kind words @charlie_d ! I was happy with it, especially because it was a weird strum pattern for the majority of it. I liked the chorus part too. I’m slowly getting better.

[Loraine]

@rgunder Thanks so much! It took me a long, long time to figure out how to sing and play at the same time. My suggestion is learn the chords and tune really well, and only then start adding vocals. Start easy with songs like Happy birthday, twinkle twinkle little star, etc. break it out to small sections at a time. Know when the music starts versus when vocals start. You can usually tell this from chord sheets. The chords are planted above where the words go. Keep working at it. It will get better and easier. Guitars difficult, but not impossible. I put myself out to the group a long time ago. I know I’m not that great at playing and I’ve struggled with vocals, but I said I wasn’t going to care. Good and bad would be posted. I think it’s helped me improve in the long run.