Yousician $180 a year
Fender Play free for 3 months then $44 a year
SongNotes $3 a month Patreon
Ultimate Guitar ( I think it was $120 a year ordered by mistake)
Marty Music $10 a month Patreon
Lauren Bateman $10 a month patron
Justin Guitar I think i paid a one time patron
Acoustic Guitar Magazine free YouTube
True Fire free with Taylor purchase for 3 months
Stitch Method YouTube
Guitar Zoom (more rock and electric driven)
Guitar Joy (I finished that in a week and complained about how could I finish a course in a week) they refunded my money)
insane huh? Probably others but just you tube videos. Keith Urban has a series of lessons too but I gave up on him
and
CGO
I forgot. I watch Tom Strahle everyday at 11 PT. He has a daily guitar lesson. He is a musician. Has done a lot of video game, movie and studio.
Wow! Thanks for the info. I had signed up for Ultimate Guitar with their $9.95 for the first year and then something over $100 when it renewed, thinking I'd cancel before they charged my card for the second year. Of course I forgot, but it renewed for $24.99 which I thought was reasonable enough.
There's one I'd really like to do but he's a bit too expensive at $250 a year or $25 a month, and that's Banjo Ben Clark. He does guitar but also mandolin and banjo, and I was mainly interested in the mandolin lessons since he had some good ones on YouTube. Right now I have my hands full with CGO and Active Melody so I won't be doing Banjo Ben any time soon, but maybe he'll come down in price. We'll see.
Don't forget that the short-lived pleasure of achievement is very short indeed. Then you feel like you're back to square one again😣
I posted a while back describing it as a Sisyphean pursuit. Sisyphus being the poor fellow from Greek Mythology who is tasked with rolling a ball up a hill for eternity, only to watch it roll down again. He eventually finds happiness through resigning himself to his fate! 😀
The thing is, you are making progress, and you are getting better, but your horizons are constantly changing. I have been very focused on learning the Wheel Hoss Bill Monroe lesson of Devin's. I have put in some serious hours over many weeks and feel like i've hit a plateau. However, I know that if i watched myself back then, as i'm playing it now, I would be delighted with the progress.
I do think that for me it is important to choose the songs carefully. I knew i wanted to learn Wheel Hoss and that i would see it through, and i shall continue to do so. Most tunes, i know straight away that i'm not going to maintain the momentum, because i don't love them, or they don't interest me enough.
One last point. If you're getting fed up with lack of guitar playing improvement, write a song of your own.
I struggle with the same Susan. I am new to flat picking, and the newness makes it feel like I am making progress, but I am quickly hitting plateaus- and sometimes I find myself being disappointed...but I have to remind myself to have fun, this is a hobby...I love music and enjoy the challenges and looking back to where I started.
Good advice from all of you. I think one of the things that bugs me is that I will make progress and I am better than I was, but there are some days where it seems like I've lost the progress and I'm all fumble fingers again. It's a challenge for sure. But I wouldn't continue if I didn't enjoy it, and I do. It's just a process and I'm not going to give up.
We'd probably all benefit from taking the plunge into the "showcase your playing" section, where we can get feedback from others, and see ourselves play. I have been meaning to post a couple of videos for a while, but i need to record myself first and sync up the zoom recorder with my camera. It's likely that we've spent so much time in our own heads playing this stuff we've lost sight of our goals and are "stewing in our own juices". At least i think that's true of myself.
For the last six weeks or so I've had a wretched shoulder problem that makes playing more than 5 minutes at a time painful, so i barely get warmed up.
Talking of warming up. I posted the link below in another thread on warm ups, but here it is again.
I have followed Brandon Acker's routine every day for several months now and have found it most beneficial. And yes there are still days when like Susan " it seems like I've lost the progress and I'm all fumble fingers again" but that is pretty much how everything else in life is too. We are constantly going through cycles and we are not going to be at our best all the time. I do think the warm up routine - which only takes five minutes once you get going - is a good way to set yourself up for playing.
@shysue. I feel the same Sue. Some days I pick up that guitar and I think I’ve had a stroke! My pick (bad pick) can’t tell the difference between the 3rd and 4th string, I’m always a 1/4 inch below the fret I wanted or on the 4th fret not the 3rd etc.... then I think ( to myself) maybe I should try doing warm up exercises. How come I can’t just pick er up and strum like Gordon Lightfoot?
Go hang out on the shores of Lake Superior in January— you’ll be strumming in no time. 🥶
(Edmund Fitzgerald reference. Since I’m so obtuse, figure I should explain my lack of wit)
@dom That's a great video - thanks, Dom! One of these days I'll be brave enough to put up a video. Hope your shoulder problem heals soon. Was it an injury or, like me, just an aging body? 🙂
@jerseychicadee I figure after about 3,000 hours of practice I may become pretty good and my pick will know just where to go, or maybe not. 😉 Some days are better than others.
@k2kwiatgmail-com I will have to look up that reference since I'm not familiar with it.
Well the first exercise in the video above is to reorient yourself with string spacing and can be done in less than a minute. If a classically trained concert guitarist recommends it as a good place to start the day i'm inclined to listen to him. And remember, every exercise involves up down pick strokes which is another great muscle memory routine to build on.
Of course i'm also still hitting the wrong string all the time anyway!😏
Well I actually got out my camera today and shot some clips of myself, using the onboard camera audio. I'm not having much fun getting the zoom synched up.
I have to say it was a sobering experience. I felt i'd made even less progress than previously thought, although to be fair the process of clicking record on a camera makes you all self-conscious and less relaxed, which doesn't help. I need to record half an hour and pick out the best bits via a video editing program. Unfortunately i recently deleted all my Adobe Creative Suite software due to being harassed by Adobe for running cracked software bought in Thailand! I need to download a free video editing app and get the Zoom recording into the mix.
Re my shoulder. Yes, I fear it's related to being on the other side of 50, but i can trace it to crawling under the bed to get our puppy and feeling something nasty happening halfway up my back which slowly moved to my shoulder and has been hanging around for many weeks now. I've made two trips to my excellent osteopath and had my neck, spine and ribs manipulated, but he fears I may have the dreaded Frozen Shoulder which typically lasts 18 months and has no cure. I think I need to get back in the pool, but the pool i'm a member of has been closed for months due to the Corona Madness that's swept the country. I had two wonderful swims in a local river last week which was refreshing.
