[tbeltrans]

This is an interesting thread. So here are a couple of comments from my own practice...

My ideal music practice computer is the Microsoft Surface. At the time I purchased, the sweet spot in the lineup (i.e. bang for the buck due to whatever sale was going on) was the i5 with 256GB SSD. The Surface runs the full desktop Windows 10, so it is not scaled down in any way. You can run whatever you would run on a desktop Windows PC. The Surface also takes a microSD card, so you can add additional storage. The largest I have found locally is 256 GB, so I have plenty of storage for video and audio files.

I use Transcribe!, which can also slow down and loop videos as well as audio. I will also use Adobe Acrobat Touch for PDFs. I can easily run both at the same time, if necessary. Those are my two main tools. I also have Forte for notation and to play midi files.

As for learning tunes, the best approach for me, I learned from the David Sudnow piano method. Learn measure A until you can play it smoothly by memory. Then learn measure B in the same way. Then put measures A and B together until that is smooth and memorized. Then learn measure C in the same way as the individual measures A and B. Then put measures B and C together just as you did measures A and B. Then play from the beginning (measure A) through measure C until that is smooth and memorized. continue adding new measures in this manner. This approach mimics for sheet music what I do when learning by ear (my preferred method). However, being able to both read and use my ears is the best of both worlds.

The main thing is to always practice on time, perfectly, so we don't teach our hands and muscle memory anything but the correct way to play the music.

In today's world, with all the distractions, this can be a tall order. As Carol mentioned, those who tend toward meditation will probably have an easier time adopting a practice such as described here. I know it isn't easy for me, though for whatever reason, learning a tune by ear seems to hold my attention much better than a printed page.

Also, as far as any memorization goes, I seem to retain what I hear, much better than what I get off a printed page, so for me, learning by ear is the most efficient way to do it. but, then, music is a HEARING art, so I guess that would make sense.

Edit: I find after a while that all these goodies such as the computer, DVDs, etc., become a distraction and I tend to put all that away and regain my focus with simplicity - just my classical guitar and just do arrangements and get ideas from arrangers that I hold in high regard - Stan Ayeroff, Howard Heitmeyer, Laurindo Almeida, and Harold Streeter. These are really fine arrangements for classical guitar of tunes from the Great American Songbook (standards, show tunes, etc.) and pop tunes of the day from the 40s through the 70s. Playing through arrangements by these guys is always a great exercise, and certainly more enjoyable than exercises. This is where being able to read standard notation really pays off - none of these guys wrote TAB. I don't mean to get into a TAB vs notation discussion. Instead, it is simply that there is a whole world of music out there for those who can read.

The only daily exercises I do are the following:

1. A note finding exercise I have described here on a number of occasions to keep the fretboard fresh in my fingers and mind. The result of this exercise is that I can instantly find any note, anywhere on the fretboard. I got this from Ted Greene's Chord Chemistry book.
2. Run through the CAGED forms using the note from the note finding exercise for the day as the root.
3. Play the major scale whose root is the note of the day from the note finding exercise along each string up and down, as well as within each CAGED form.

This is simply, keeps the fretboard well in hand, and only takes 2 or 3 minutes tops now that I have been doing it a long time. It helps with everything I do on the guitar. for me, simple is always best. Anything else I do such as building chords I need from the CAGED forms, I do always in the context of whatever song I am playing. For me, progress in playing comes from playing music, with exercises kept to a minimum while remaining relevant to my approach to the guitar.

Tony