Another series of daily challenges awaits you this week,
and I think you'll find that what we're working on will
sound rather familiar.
By the end of the week,
you'll be playing something like this Probably sounds familiar because it
is Grateful Dead's friend of the devil.
Now stop right now just for a second.
You probably heard that and thought,
okay, he just told me I was in the right spot.
I'm not.
That seems intimidating,
that seems scary.
That seems,
I've never done that before.
I don't even know if I can do that.
Don't worry.
We're not gonna take it on all at once.
We're gonna break it down into the five essential skills that
are found in every single song.
The more fluent you are in these five essential skills,
the quicker you'll be able to learn songs.
So what are these five essential skills?
We have technique.
We have guitar licks,
improvisation or guitar solos,
rhythm guitar and chord transitions.
Those five things make up every single song.
The more fluent you are in those five things,
the quicker you'll be able to learn songs and you're gonna
see it play out this entire week.
Each day we'll focus on one of those five essential skills,
and by the end,
we're gonna put things together and you will be able to
play that.
But not just that.
See, the greater implication here is the more fluent you are
in those five skills,
you'll start to notice that,
oh my gosh,
I learned those skills in that one song.
But they also play out in that song as well.
And in that song,
and in that song,
pretty soon you're gonna make these connections and think,
holy cow,
if I just target my energy,
if I just become fluent in these five skills,
technique, guitarsenal,
improvisation, rhythm guitar,
and chord transitions,
all of a sudden songs just start falling under your fingers.
I've heard it from TAC Member after tac member that after
playing through these five essential skills week in and week out,
they're learning songs faster.
Their fluency in these five skills is giving them the ability
to simply learn songs and have the songs fall under their
fingers each day.
We're gonna target one of those five essential skills,
technique, guitar licks,
improvisation, rhythm guitar and chord transitions,
and all of those things add up to what you saw
me play in the beginning.
So today we're gonna be focusing on the technique challenge.
I'm gonna play a little snippet of it for you right
now so you can hear what you're getting into and then
I'll go over it with you note for note,
here's how today's challenge sounds.
So this challenge really drives home the technique of alternate picking,
going down on the downbeat and up on the offbeat,
and you're doing that across two strings.
This is an invaluable technique that you will use time and
time again from song to song to song.
And this technique challenge actually appears in quite a few songs.
Ironically, if you've ever heard any bluegrass song,
you kick it off with part of this technique challenge,
right? They call it meat and potatoes in the bluegrass world.
But if bluegrass isn't your thing,
this actually happens in popular songs as well,
namely footloose.
But instead of a hammer on it's a bend,
check this out,
Right? It's the same idea.
Alternate picking across two strings.
So let's dig into this technique challenge.
Now you're gonna look at the tab and you're thinking to
yourself, there's quite a lot here.
Don't worry.
Once you learn this,
once you learn the physical execution of this across two strings,
all you're going to do is move it.
Okay? So if it looks intimidating,
don't worry.
There's actually not a lot there.
So we're gonna start on that low estring.
On the fourth fret,
you're gonna fret that with your middle finger.
You're gonna do a downstroke there,
and then hammer onto the fifth fret with your ring finger,
like so.
Okay? Just go ahead and do that with me right now
to get that hammer on.
Nice and dialed.
The count is one and one,
and okay,
once you land on that fifth fret of the low e
stringing, you're gonna do another downstroke on that low E,
and then an up on the open a stringing.
Okay, that's the two and beat.
So, so far we have this one and two,
and I'm gonna repeat that a couple of times so you
can get it under your fingers.
One and two and one and two and one and two.
And good news is you're almost there.
We're not gonna do anything new.
Okay? Once you're there on that fifth fret and you've hit
that open a string,
you are gonna do another downstroke on the low E.
That's a quarter note,
right? So that's the three beat of the measure,
and then you're gonna come back to that low E,
do another downstroke,
and then an upstroke on the A string.
Okay? It's a lot of the same note.
Okay? And then actually this,
it's funny,
this technique challenge is a play on tuning your guitar.
And you'll see that here in a moment.
So let me go ahead and run through that first measure
with you.
I'm gonna do it slowly and count along.
Okay, I'll do it.
I'll count along in two different ways.
The first couple times I'll do the numbered beats,
one and two and three,
and so on and so forth.
And then the next time through,
I'll do a pick direction.
So if you'd like to follow that,
you can follow along with me.
Okay, here's how it sounds.
One and two and three,
four and one,
and two and three,
four and one,
and two,
and three,
four, and down,
down, up,
down, down,
up, down,
down, up,
down, down,
up. Okay.
And if you follow that,
pick direction,
it really kind of outlines the golden rule of flat picking
down on the downbeat,
up on the,
and beat down on the numbers and up on the ands.
So you've now learned the entire challenge,
believe it or not,
because what we're gonna do is do the same exact thing
we did between the E and the A string.
We're gonna do it between the A and the D stringing.
So you'll be going down on that A stringing with the
hammer on down again,
up on the D,
down on the A string,
and then a down up or a down on the A
and an up on the D.
So that's one,
and two,
and three,
four, and down,
down, up,
down, down,
up, right?
You've likely heard that pick direction before,
down, down,
up, down,
down, up,
right? You use it in rhythm a lot,
down, down,
up, down,
down, up.
Little sneak peek at what lies ahead this week.
So we've done the E and A,
the A and the D,
now we're gonna do the D and the G.
Same exact thing,
same fingers,
same timing.
Now, between the G and the B,
this is the only time that things get different,
but you don't have to move your fretting hand at all.
We're still in that same position.
You're gonna go on the third fret of the G-string downstroke,
hammer onto the fourth fret of the G with your middle
finger, and then play that against the BT string,
right? So it's gonna sound like this,
right? Same exact pick mechanics.
We've just slightly adjusted that fretting position.
So we can get that nice unison on the B string
playing the same note against one another.
And then we're gonna finish it off on the B and
the high E.
Same exact pick mechanics,
et cetera.
This is a i'll,
I'll say it's a simple technique challenge,
but that doesn't mean it's easy.
You could run into some trouble with this.
You might be muting that open string or the string that
should be open.
So it might sound something like this,
That thunk,
you might be thinking,
man, this is,
this is a hell of a lot harder than it seems.
All you have to do,
if that's the issue,
is increase the arch of your fretting finger.
And the way you can do that,
you can actually do it in two ways.
Number one,
first and foremost,
make sure you're using proper fretting technique,
right? You want to be on that fingertip close to the
fret, so you can have that arch in your fretting finger.
Now, if that doesn't do the trick,
notice where your palm is in location or in reference to
the bottom of the neck of the guitar,
right? If it's far away,
you could see immediately I lose that arch in my fretting
finger. So if you move that palm a little bit closer
to the neck,
all of a sudden you,
you can actually see the arch come back into my finger.
So just pay attention to that in case you're having troubles,
muting notes and things like that.
So take this slow,
as I mentioned,
click on that play word right beneath this video.
That'll take you to the play video.
I'm gonna loop this.
It's looped at 60 beats per minute.
And again,
you can slow that down or speed it up by hitting
that one x icon in the bottom corner of the video.
Now, just for a second,
I wanna welcome new Tony's acoustic challenge members to the fan.
So if you're brand new welcome,
let me know in the comments below,
let your fellow tech family members know.
In the comments below,
make sure to say hi.
Let us know where you're tuning in from,
where you're playing guitar from,
and tack alum.
If you see somebody that's close by,
make sure to make sure to say hi in the comments
as well.
And, and while you're at it,
I'm just kind of curious as to,
well, think about where you're at on your guitar journey right
now. Do you feel like I'm just starting,
I'm a,
I'm a rank beginner?
Do you feel like you're a lifelong beginner?
Do you feel like you're coming back to guitar after a
long pause?
And maybe you have some skills and you,
and you're looking to build upon those skills?
Whatever the case may be,
let me know in the comments below.
I'd love to see where you're at.
And of course,
again, welcome new tack family members.
Now, little bonus nugget here.
What you're doing in today's technique challenge will tie directly into
the guitar L that we're working on tomorrow.
So go through this diligently,
spend a good chunk of time on really getting it under
your fingers,
and it'll pay off big time tomorrow.