• Join the A7X Discord!

    We're updating the community and moving all social content from the community to the Discord. All lessons related conversations will still take place here though! Join the Discord below and view the full announcement for more details

    JOIN THE DISCORD VIEW THREAD

Any Beginners Care To Share Their Story?

SGSIGTeam

Free Bird Player
Jan 10, 2021
36
175
Hey there students!

The IG team is building content and we're looking for a few beginners to share their stories of overcoming fears of posting and interacting on the school. We know that feeling "not shreddy enough" has made some students feel low. But amazingly, somehow, you've overcame them.

Would any beginner care to share their stories of the school and how they finally took the first jump??

Much love team. Keep rockin'

-The IG Team
 

iridecently

Hot Topic Tourer
  • Jun 5, 2020
    179
    1
    719
    Groningen
    1
    (This is going to be a long one, sorry )

    I signed up for the school in June, made my introduction post and then pretty much just stuck to lurking because I felt that I wasn't cool/good/talented/whatever enough. This feeling didn't come from the school, but was very much something I had talked myself into. So what I would do is just do the lessons and that's it. With that I also fell into kind of a slump in my guitar playing. Because of everything that's going on it was basically just me, in my room, fumbling away and to be honest that didn't feel super satisfying. So instead of a daily thing, playing guitar just became more of a weekly or even monthly thing. Before I knew it it was December and I hadn't really been doing much for the last months.

    So I started this year with the 'resolution' to become more active on the school, because while I was working my way through the lessons I realized that I was missing out on a huge chunk of the school by not utilizing the forums and checking out videos people had made and posting stuff of my own. This is a school, everybody is here to learn something and wants to help other learn things. Of course you don't have to go absolutely nuts like me and start an Instagram page where you upload daily videos of yourself playing. Once a week or month is fine as well. But I have discovered that this daily video thing is not only a way to 'force' myself to play daily, but also to document my progress as a guitarist. And what's cooler to look back in a week/month/year to see how far you've come?

    So find something you are comfortable with talking about or showing off. It doesn't have to be something highly technical or deep. I think my first post was in the "What are you working on?"-topic, a great example of a question anybody has their own answer to and where there is no right or wrong. Same goes for videos: find a lesson you have completed, feel comfortable with and just film yourself playing along. It doesn't matter if it's Lesson 1 or if your video is only 30 seconds long and most of all it doesn't have to be perfect. Perfect videos are great, but showing your mistakes gives people the opportunity to give you advice and help you along. A perfect video (or one edited to look perfect) doesn't leave much room to comment anything but "sounds great", but a mistake gives people a concrete point to guide you and give you pointers.

    Basically what I am saying comes down to: Start small with something you feel good about and start interacting with others on topics you feel comfortable with. You'll find people are super supportive and helpful and eventually you'll feel comfortable enough posting something that maybe you aren't so sure about. And this is where the good stuff starts happening
     

    SGSIGTeam

    Free Bird Player
    Jan 10, 2021
    36
    175
    Thank you so much for responding! We love this! Would you mind making a video no longer than a minute talking about this? Were trying to comprise everything into a video. Rock on systah!
    Just DM it to the school IG page
     
    Reactions: iridecently

    Aightball

    Garage band Groupie
  • Nov 11, 2019
    133
    337
    Iowa
    aightball.wordpress.com
    0
    Don't know if this exactly counts, but I'll tell my story.

    Signed up at the beginning of the school (2018?) and grabbed my SOs 1/2 size acoustic. Got it restrung...and started learning. I only practice when my SO isn't home because I'm super shy about my playing. I was doing pretty good learning but didn't want to post. I can't shred, hell, I can barely pluck out a scale at this point. But I took the plunge and posted...got some really good feedback!

    Then, I tuned things wrong and snapped a string and put the guitar away until a few weeks ago. I started over and thought 'better not post...I sound awful.' Then, I posted anyway and while I haven't gotten any feedback per se, I have gotten a couple of encouraging comments. For me, I had to look past what I can't do and focus on what I can do...and remember that everyone on this school started from where I am at some point. If I can post my attempts at stuff and not be afraid to have someone say 'it's rough but here's some advice', I hope that can encourage other beginners to do so as well.

    My biggest thing is I plan to enter the riff contest. Not because I'll win and not because I can shred, but because I want to encourage other beginners to branch out. And if me taking a method from lesson one and plucking out a beginner tune helps them feel more encouraged to post, then I've done my job =)
     

    Ed Seith

    Supreme Galactic Overlord
    Staff member
    Legend+
  • Nov 11, 2019
    3,882
    15
    6,603
    54
    Marana, AZ USA
    soundcloud.com
    35
    They let ME talk. You're DEFINITELY "cool/good/talented/whatever enough."