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Study With Adam

Private Video Guitar Lessons Online with Adam Rafferty

Your Feedback and Solutions – September 2017

By 32 Comments

Recently I asked for feedback and many of you emailed me back with great ideas.

I heard you!!!

Here is a short video where I address 10 issues that YOU made me aware of and I give some possible solutions.

Please be sure to comment at the End of this post if you have any other ideas or suggestions! Thank you.

Summary – so you can hop to the right issue for you:

0:38 – 1. The arrangements are too Tricky!
2:15 – 2. Can you have a Better Difficulty Filter?
2:47 – 3. Lack of Tabs
4:47 – 4. Long Wait on Replies
5:49 – 5. Long Wait on New Lessons
8:36 – 6. Some Material I Paid For is FREE?
9:44 – 7. List of Tunes on Site?
10:41 – 8. Not Enough Practice Time, Wanting to Cancel Membership Because of this…
11:20 – 9. Can you have a monthly Plan or Restrict Access, Make More Expensive for VIP, etc.
12:28 – 10. Make little easy bite sized lessons (like other websites)!

Solution Overview

For in depth explanations of these “Solutions” refer to the video above. You can cut right to the issue by referring to the time stamp in the summary list.

Quick answers:

1. Arrangements are too Tricky!
Solution: Make easier versions of tunes already on site.

2. Can you have a Better Difficulty Filter?
Solution: The easier versions will help this.

3. Lack of Tabs:
Solution: Make a walkthrough of the V 1.0 vids with tabs.

4. Long Wait on Replies:
Solution: Week 4 of each month will be reply week. If I am on tour, it will be week 3.

5. Long Wait on New Lessons:
Solution: I messed up. Realistically I can do 6 per year. Please take advantage of the feedback, not just my material.

Also – I am turning down gigs as we speak to better divide my year. This will free up resources starting in 2018.

6. Some Material I Paid For is FREE?
Solution: I create free material to lure in email subscribers, and with a few items like Vitamin E blues, I reserve the right to do that.

Also so many of you were asking about the jazz improv, it made sense to give you the Jazz DVD.

7. List of Tunes on Site?
Solution: Email me, or sign up for the free trial. I may put a list out there but I am cautious as the videos are not licensed.

8. Not Enough Practice Time.
Solution I understand! If life gets busy, you can always ask me for a pause.

9. Can you have a monthly Plan or Restrict Access, Make More Expensive for VIP, etc.
Solution: TBA.

10. Make little easy lessons (like other websites)!
Solution: There are other sites for that stuff. That’s hop around channel surfing.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Martha Marr says

    Hi Adam
    thank you for posting the video to all of us. Everything you say sounds thoughtful and plausible to me. I like your solutions, esp. solution 4 (and 10) 🙂 I also like your statement on the way you want your website to work as a teaching webside that gets people to develope and get better at what they do. The goal setting is a great tool and it helps to stick to the plan and overcome obstacles. Your video tells us a lot more than just the solutions for the issues. It again shows us your priorities as a teacher. Thank’s for posting!
    Martha

  2. IanWickes says

    Hi Adam
    Just a thought for the future.
    It would be really useful if it was possible for the student to “bookmark and add description” to specific sections of a lesson.
    e.g. Time: 1:15 – 2:30 “Start Of Bridge to ????”
    Then when re-capping past sections we have needed to work on, we could go to a specific section.
    It’s a bit difficult sometimes to remember just which lesson chapter a specific passage or lick was on.
    Just a thought!
    Regards
    Ian

      • IanWickes says

        Hi Adam. Yes, the “notepad” idea is fine. One of my queries was going to be about which lesson (as listed under “Lessons” tab) contains what, but I see this is covered in the corresponding “Help” pdf. Would be helpful if a “Help” file was available for all lessons for this info alone. e.g. “Killing Me Softly”. etc.
        The looping feature works well on Chrome. If it was possible somehow for the student to do multiple loops in a specific lesson and those loops be indexed on the “user notepad” with a link button giving access to them, a student could go straight to them when re-visiting the lessons.
        PS. The small tab screen inserts on specific passages is great as it also shows the duration of bass notes etc.
        Adam, these are just thoughts. Present site is great!.
        Ian

        • Adam Rafferty says

          Ian

          I’ll look onto a notepad, just want not to “break” anything technically on the site by adding this feature – will check.

          yes, help files for the v 1.0 lessons are needed!!!

          Not sure if you can save URLs to activate loops, but I’ll check.

          AR

  3. Raoul Lambert says

    Thank you Adam for being so open to us and finding suitable solutions.
    And I fully agree with your opinion how you think this website should work for us students and for you as our teacher.
    Keep up the good work!

    Raoul

  4. leplessis says

    Hi Adam, Thanks for your concern,

    Since I am playing the guitar I always find it hard to find good solo guitar arrangement, I join Study with Adam especially to be able to learn your tricky part, there is so many versions of a song, but not all guitarist give you the opportunety to play their version. So please continue giving the lessons as you play them. It does’nt mean we will be able to play them as well but at least we have the material to try.
    Thank’s
    Eugenio Capodicasa (Châteauguay, Québec, Canada)

  5. Nottyboy says

    Hi Adam,
    I am a relatively new subscriber having first discovered your music on Spotify. I may have missed your email requesting feedback or perhaps it was before I joined so I am now giving some feedback on the feedback!
    As far as I am concerned I was attracted to SWA because I wanted to learn some of your arrangements. You have a fabulous style and the arrangements are great – that’s the attraction. If some of them are ‘tricky’ then so be it, they are what they are and that’s why they sound so good! I want to play them as they are and I aspire to get my technique good enough to do them justice. If people find them too hard then they either need to
    a. practice them slowly until they can do it or
    b. recognise that it’s beyond their current level and work on some simpler stuff (be that some of your material or elsewhere) and perhaps come back to them when they have progressed sufficiently.

    This is not a site for beginners. There are thousands of other resources out there that cater for beginners and early intermediate players but not so many for more advanced players or those that strive to be. I would not want you to change too much. I would far rather you spend your precious time adding more of your arrangements to the site than creating simplified versions of what is already there.

    Regarding the difficulty filter – I wouldn’t worry too much about that. If people watch the performance video then they can easily gauge how hard or otherwise it may be.

    Keep up the good work – I love your groove!

    Graham

  6. lil.buckaroo says

    Hi Adam,

    I hope no one gets offended by this but let me address the peoples complaints point by point.

    1. Too tricky!
    Of course they’re tricky. If they weren’t, they wouldn’t be very interesting to play.
    Finger style is tricky by nature but it sure sounds cool.

    2. Better difficulty filter?
    Where’s your sense of adventure? How do you expect to get better?

    3. Lack of tabs?
    Adam has explained the copy-write thing before.
    I’m finding that I’m learning the tunes better by filing in the work sheets.

    8. Not enough practice time?
    That’s my problem too. It just takes longer to learn things.
    To have the help of a pro is a very valuable thing to me. (but don’t raise my fee. It’s just fine where it’s at)
    Most YouTube videos aren’t that great and well prepared as these lessons are.

    This is all that I have an opinion on.

    Still trying to groove,
    Gary

  7. Christophe JEANDIDIER says

    Hi Adam,

    Learning tricky arrangements is precisely why I suscribed to SWA, for more than 2 years now. We can’t find this kind of stuff anywhere else, with this clarity in the explanations. And we pay the price required, which is honnest, to have what we can’t have elsewhere. Whatever will be the solution you’ll bring to those of us who would like to have easier ones, please keep learning us hard ones too;-)!

    Thanks again adam for SWA, I’m a big fan of it!

  8. PickerDad says

    Hi Adam,
    I am completely in agreement with your answers. As you say, there are hundreds of snack-style lessons sites already and many of them are excellent. I chose to Study With Adam specifically because you offer a higher level of learning. Your primary differentiator is that you’re a world-class working professional finger-style guitarist, in many people’s top-10 list. Obviously there can only be 9 other artists on that list, and some of them have passed on. I know you’d love to be all things to all people but you can’t. Diluting your offering only makes you more like the rest, and less like the best. There is a continuum of guitar skills from beginner to highly skilled amateur, and other teachers and schools for every skill level. But it is a quantum jump from skilled amateur to performing professional guitarist. I am just starting to understand the differences. I am ambitious. My “Big Hairy Monster goal” is to be able to call myself a professional guitarist, and have a body of performances to prove it. Even if I’m too old to actually do it. There are precious few who could get me to my BHg, Adam, and that’s why I’m at SWA. Please don’t lose that.

    From time to time, I have been a member of 2 or even 3 teaching sites, SWA plus sites that can teach me a large number of songs in my chosen genre. It a sensible approach if the cost is manageable. The other sites provide a broad repertoire, and SWA teaches me how to give them a professional treatment. What would you think about this idea? You could partner with a teacher you respect who can train guitarists to a skilled amateur level, and help them learn a broad repertoire. By partnering, you could offer a one reasonably-priced school that runs the gamut. You could think of your partner as offering the undergraduate program, while you lead the graduate school. You could focus on the really promising students without spending too much time developing simple versions of your songs. Hopefully the pricing for the joint school will be more than either school alone on it’s own, but less than the total of the two schools combined. And you would have another skilled guitarist and teacher to work with. Obviously you would continue with all students currently enrolled in SWA, and by opting for the joint school would have access to the variety of simpler arrangements that many of your students are requesting.

    Just an idea of course. Keep up the great work.

    • Adam Rafferty says

      David thank you and cool idea. I’d love to partner…of course the hurlde is when one teacher says to the other “hey I’ve been working harder than you, why are you getting 50%?” 🙂 So it would have to be properly structured….

      Excellent and thank you. Email me anytime.

      AR

      • PickerDad says

        First, you’re entirely welcome; I’m glad you like the idea. For you, ideas are always free. I’m glad to help any way I can, And you’re absolutely right about the pitfall. Choosing a partner in anything demands extreme care and caution. I didn’t say it was easy, did I ? 🙂 But you found your life partner, and it sounds like that is going well.

        Seriously, sure the process is more like a journey than a task. But it’s 100% certain you won’t find the person unless you’re looking. (“You don’t score on 100% of the shots you don’t take.” -Wayne Gretzky) Adam, you meet teachers all the time. Just start asking yourself if they could be a partner. Ask what they think about the idea. Even if that person is not “the one”, they might know someone who could be, or have an idea how to find one. Word gets around.

        In other words: Network !

        Good luck with it.

  9. Robert Deutsch says

    I largely agree with the above comments and urge you to keep up the great quality that you have been putting out. One thing that would be really helpful to me and perhaps others would be to lay out the chord structures of the songs if it doesn’t infringe on copyrights. It just kinda gives me a deeper understanding of “the song” if I have a good knowledge of the chords I’m playing over.

  10. mikechin says

    Hi Adam,

    I really appreciate the time and craft you’ve put into your video lessons, I’ve learned so much. And your feedback has me always thinking “what does this sound like”, instead of “got the right notes, on to the next bar”.

    There’s enough material in SWA to keep me busy for a very long time. I admit I’m kind of a slow learner, I’ve spent quite a few weeks
    on 16 bars of Girl From Ipanema. But the more I practice, the more I enjoy and appreciate your arrangement in all its trickery! And
    part of the fun is to figure out how to modify/simplify things so it’s easier for me to play while still having the Adam Rafferty sound.

    Mike

  11. PickerDad says

    Re: #10, small lessons.
    I agree with Adam. Don’t spend time on something that others already do.

    One thing that might help we Raffertarians help each other, is a place we could post good instruction videos we find on the Internet, or hints and tips, or learning material that we author ourselves. The current forum is great for one to one exchanges, or one to a few. What about another forum that is more like a bulleting board? With a topic search ability.

  12. Alvaro Castro says

    Hi Adam,
    Thank you for taking the time to ask some feedback on the future development of SwA. I pretty much agree with others about tricky arrangements as being one of the key aspects that differentiates this site from the usual offering in the web. The sole idea of learning how to play following the style of one of my favorite guitar players is very exciting. When personal instruction and guidance is added at current prices it really makes it a superb formula. Please, please, do not change this. I recognize that I have not posted many videos but I will soon. In any case, I can say that with a harder learning process I learn me more than just songs. It is a nice test about effort, perseverance, and many other values, too.
    I have a couple of inquiries and a suggestion. Question num 1. The survey about new lessons contains a limited list of songs. Is it possible to ask a song that is not in this list but for which you have already posted a video on youtube? Question num 2: is any future VIP service within SwA going to limit the experience of current subscribers? Suggestion: I understand the interest that some people may have in easier versions of your arrangements. However, I am afraid that creating complex and easier versions each time will increase your workload and adversely affect the production of new material. A possible alternative could be a continuation to your “how to arrange for solo fingerstyle guitar” lesson by teaching how to identify the fundamental parts of some arrangements so students can develop the ability of doing this by themselves. I guess this alternative may encourage these students to learn and apply theory, and create and post easier arrangements by themselves. Just an idea.
    Thank you very much for all your work and dedication to SwA! Alvaro

  13. Sam Whitehouse says

    Adam,
    Thanks for all of your hard work and obvious consideration in trying to make this site a great experience for all of us.

    I probably agree with the sentiments of most of the people who commented. I wouldn’t want to see you make new videos of simple versions for the existing songs. But you have evolved in how you map out arrangements. There are more videos going over structure etc. in the recent additions to your library. Perhaps in coming arrangements – you use these early videos to show a simple way to play the song that illustrates some of the structure groove stuff you’re reviewing and serves two purposes. There is another FS site where the teacher does this and it seems to be pretty successful for him.

    I have two other ideas that are not fully thought through, but they may be useful to you:

    1) I don’t know about the technology – but have you ever thought about hosting a monthly or quarterly group video call? Immediate feedback, greater connections with the students, a lot of help for the “fly on the wall”. Maybe you set the topics beforehand. You’d need some technical help managing everything during the call, but it could be cool if a few brave students could share their camera and you could coach, advise, suggest. Even if it were a private lesson you set up – it could be very instructive to record it and share to the rest of the community if it were the right content.

    2) One of the insightful things you coach is the goal setting process. I think with so many people mentioning that time is a limiting factor, the decisions we make about what we do with the time we have is important. Being mindful about what it is we are trying to accomplish should help direct these decisions. But at least for me, I struggle striking a balance between playing/reviewing songs, learning new songs, working on a specific technique, arranging, sight reading, banging a drum, etc., etc. etc. This is one reason I rarely commit to a weekly goal – its usually just more of the same. I’m not sure how you could help – other than if we share the long term goals and the practice plan we have. Maybe we input our goal and how we typically divide our guitar time as part of our profile on SWA. You could look at it when we submit a video. Based on how we are growing or what you perceive as our strengths/ weaknesses – maybe you suggest one thing or another.

    Like I said – not completely thought thu -but I wanted to be helpful if possible. Really, the site is awesome as it is. The effort you put into each reply is obvious. That is the most important thing. No ego – just helpful intent and real insight.

    Keep up the good work – I’m a member since just after launch and I’m not going anywhere.
    s

    • Adam Rafferty says

      Sam

      I am sooo late in seeing this. Do’h just realized I have to approve comments – I though I had a plugin that would send them to me via email.

      I will chew on this older post of yours, thank you and I hope you- your music and family are well. Drop me an email when you have a minute!

      AR

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