Tomo Fujita Guitar Wisdom

Hello everyone!

It’s been a few weeks since we wrapped up the July Challenge, and I wanted to take a moment to reflect on the experience we shared as a community.

First off, congratulations to each of you who participated in this month-long challenge! Your dedication and passion provided us with so much inspiration. Huge shoutout to the 33 members who posted in the weekly threads—thank you for sharing your updates and motivating others to keep going. Your insights and encouragement will guide future Guitar Wisdom students who decide to take on this challenge later.

As many of you noticed, this challenge wasn’t just about triads. In true Guitar Wisdom fashion, the ideas we explored reached far beyond 3-note shapes on the fretboard. Many of you reconnected with music on a deeper level. You learned to listen (and sing!), not just play. You started to recognize pitch, not just positions on the fretboard. Most importantly, you learned how to approach practice. Through slow, mindful work, you transformed a "simple" exercise into a meaningful musical experience.

Linda captured it beautifully:
“I think, in the end, the July Challenge has been about internalizing these three triads, but also about us becoming a different kind of musician. Go back and look at y’alls comments…the talk is all about feeling, listening, hearing, touch…meaning and understanding. No discussion of tab, shapes, or of some YouTube ‘how-to-play-this-song’. Guitar Wisdom points the way.”

Please feel free to add any reflections or takeaways in this thread—we’d love to hear what the July Challenge meant to you.

MASTER LIST (as Tomo called it) of items/topics studied:
- “One string / One finger”
- "Moveable Do"
- “No looking”
- “No guessing”
- "Dancing thumb"
- "Floating butterfly hand"
- “Sing, then play”
- "Ear Training"
- "Visualization"

If you're wondering how to carry the energy of this challenge forward, here are some practical ideas to keep your momentum going!

Suggestions for Continued Progress:

1. Keep It Simple & Consistent
Practice daily. Even just 5–10 minutes with clear, focused goals. Don't go over your limit!

2. Rotate & Apply
Take exercises to different string sets or new keys. Apply interval and triad knowledge to simple songs, such as a Bb blues.

3. Ear Training
Make your own recording following this video:

4. Write It Down
Keep a practice notebook. Use the "One Page" approach to plan your session and track your reflections or insights.

5. Review
Repetition deepens understanding. Don’t rush to the next lesson; instead, revisit key videos (like the ET series). The fundamentals are key.

6. Lean Into Discomfort
Keep exploring the no-look approach in other areas of practice.
Set your amp for practice - it can teach you!

7. Balance Practice & Life
Don't worry if you can't practice with your guitar. Integrate music into your day. Sing on walks, visualize fingerings during breaks, and so on.

Last but certainly not least, here are some Guitar Wisdom gems shared by Tomo that are worth repeating:

Having experiences... no waste time at all!
If something is really not working then... you can tell and you have learned "Why?"
Best way is never "assume" Building your basics / foundation is opening your chance to improve more!

Imagine the sound
Sing pitches softly
Play them (no looking) One String...
Make some mistakes (learning)
Repeat without worry about.
How long? Each person has different pace. No need to know.
Keep working!

One topic, one subject for a long time to build something very special!

Review is so good! No memorization! Be familiar with things.

Sing like nobody is listening!

Hit the wrong notes! Mistakes are gold.

Always pick simple one, easy one. No need to make anything difficult. To play difficult thing is not practice difficult thing.
Practice before any difficult thing. Practice simple thing with slower tempo.

For me, it was really taking something that I was already familiar with and taking a deep dive. All of the comments and everyone's struggles and successes really helped me see how much I needed to take that deep dive.

The two things that I realized I needed to focus on were the no looking and sing then play. I'd been doing that a little bit with my one string scale/solfege study, but the triads took it to a whole new level. I find myself singing triads every morning while I'm walking my dog. I think that I'm starting to train my ear a little bit to be able to at least start to recognize the different inversions. It was kind of a lightbulb moment to realize that while CEG, EGC, and GCE are all C major triads, they sound different as far as the intervals between the notes. I'm not explaining that well, but hopefully y'all get the meaning.

In a thread that Jiayang had started about progress since the July Challenge, I'd said that I was going to progress through the remaining string sets with major triads, and I'm still doing that, just not necessarily with the same structure of the July Challenge. What I am doing with that same structure is staying on strings 123 and starting to incorporate minor triads in my daily practice so that I can start to get them in my ear. Then whenever that happens, I'll start to incorporate diminished traids.

And the whole not looking thing is next level. I never realized just how much I was staring at the fretboard! A total work in progress, but the minor success that I've had so far is really freeing with things like working on R37 on a jazz standard where I've not memorized the chord progression yet. Being able to keep my focus on the sheet of music rather than having my eyes bounce back and forth between the paper and the guitar is wonderful for being able to not lose my place in the song.

As for the Tomoisms, I sing like nobody is listening when I'm in the car with the windows up!! Although in my old band, I did sing a few of the songs we did. The first few times singing in front of my bandmates was hard, but holy cow, the first time singing in front of an audience was terrifying! But eventually it did get easier. And after one set, my son who was a young teenager at the time said to me "I didn't know you could sing!". Talk about getting all the feels!!!

But by far, my favorite came from a YouTube video that I wish I could find again (and this would be a great T-shirt *hint hint*) - Triads are good for you, like vegetables.

Liked this recap Sammi, very good to reel it all in after all the work and focus. I could reflect on each of your highlights Thank you. To me, this big picture is about practice discipline and journaling the journey in the little book. All of the messages really kept me on a path to get to the end of a commitment to myself. It was a way to do the deep focus on one thing 'triads' with many facets. All those different angles deepened the focus on this one topic. I have not done this before with Guitar foundation besides chromatics. These techniques on learning how to learn guitar are what will stick with me the most and how I want to improve. Speaking the guitar language by simply talking about guitar in the forum together really shined. I enjoyed reading everyone's messages, comments, and ideas. Tomo's insight is truly a guitar players gift, Thank you Tomo!! Thank you Sammi and guitar Wisdom crew!! . This is a July 2025 to remember. On to next, looking up! not down, yet all around, peeking at the fretboard board is over rated, feeling the fretboard is where it is at! MORE TRIADS!! - johno

Thank you Johno for sharing your July Challenge Take away!

I am so grateful that Sammi did an amazing recap here!

In general, practicing guitar could be a little casual. So this way, you need to have your commitment and your clear view on how to practice guitar with a good habit writing down on your little book. I use my little book everyday. This way I will make something really happening. Othetwise I am keep thinking and wishing with no actual real efforts so nothing wil go forward,

One Topic
Very slow process
Focus
In depths
More review
No expectation

Yes! I love this forum very much!
Read & take some notes.

I really thanks for all reading only members to many active members.
I love all of your comments very much!

You’re very welcome! Thank you so much!
My pleasure!

Tomo

I will say... I sat on this for far too long trying to figure out how to condense it all. Me and Jiayang are working on getting it done, not waiting for it to be perfect ;)

I hope that something in this thread will resonate and remind you that the path you are on is your own, but the peaks and valleys are always shared. Much love to you all!

Really appreciate everyone here and very grateful to be able to share on the guitar journey with you all.

Folks have already said so much about what made the July Challenge special. And this had been said before, but it bears repeating….the Guitar Wisdom Team is like no other. Many times, Tomo replied to posts to say “I am learning so much in this July Challenge”. What?? How can this be? Tomo is still learning? And from us? The humble and grateful forum members? But it’s true, it seems. The music journey is infinite, and there is no finish line. Tomo is both a great player and an advanced learner.

And Sammi? So many times I’ve scratched my head thinking…how is it that this woman doesn’t play guitar? She has such a deep understanding about music, guitars, and life-applications of Guitar Wisdom. Perhaps it’s from hanging out in the Tomo-sphere, or just keenly developed intuition. But with her knowledge of learning and teaching she seems to be our “karate teacher”.

And George takes amazing care of us forum family members. Communications with folks all across the globe, in different time zones and countries must be an immense task. But he keeps it all running like a Swiss watch. Thanks for all you do, George.

Amen Linda

Totally agree with all of the comments so far, and the kudos Linda gave to the GW team.
I wasn't a member for the November challenge, and didn't really go back into all of those posts after I joined (~Jan). So for me, one of the biggest takeaways for July was the "learning how to learn" part. I totally benefitted from everything on Sammi's master list, but the biggest thing for me was just getting a deeper understanding of the practice / learning process.
Second biggest thing was the forum as a resource. For me, prior to the challenge, it was a cool place to share guitar stories, share music, and get bonus insights from Tomo. But man - super cool how the community gelled around the challenge and helped each other out. I also feel like I kind of got to know some of you in a weird but not bad digital kind of way.
Thanks all - much gratitude!

Although my four week journey got paused for a couple of times because of life things, it was a nice thing to take part in, and I'm grateful for it. These types of endeavours are mostly about people in my view (+learning!), and the international school class aspect is great.

No worries Mija, these guitar challenges are VERY challenging and full or daily rewards. Life happens and detours occur sometimes when we least expect it. It is a path we go on with a commitment to ourselves, there is no finish line, we keep going!! Sammi's recap is the big picture. Great group of folks who play guitar, nice to hear all the good vibes and encouragement along the way. Triads, triads, triads building a solid foundation. - johno

What I took away from the July challenge is an inspired feeling of momentum to keep going.
When I started working on the next string set (strings 234), I couldn't believe how much I had absorbed about the C,D and G scales and triad inversions.
Other big takeaways:
I can have the discipline to stick with something for an entire month.
Slow down. Don't play if you don' hear it first.
Not Looking.
Not guessing.
Singing and knowing before playing.
Knowing everything :-)

Everyone who joined in this summer is a winner.

Thanks to Tomo for leading us and everyone for what they bring to GW!
Kurt