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  #16  
Old 06-25-2017, 10:38 PM
donh donh is offline
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Some people are capable of hearing an entire piece and mimicking it perfectly, the rest of us learn it in tiny chunks and stitch them together in a way that makes sense at the time.

If you are the latter sort, play along until you hit a bit that you stutter on, stop. pick out that bit and go over it (sloooowwwwly) until you do it three times successfully. Stop. Do something else. Come back later and marvel that you can do that bit way-better, perhaps even on-call perfect.

Wash, rinse, repeat.
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  #17  
Old 06-26-2017, 07:23 AM
mattbn73 mattbn73 is offline
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Learn to practice well. It's the most important "skill" of a musician. Most of us, as guitarists, are not great at practicing. If you were never in school band or whatever, it's well worth spending some specific time on learning the skill of practicing well. https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/14575...=UTF8&qid=&sr=

Get a teacher, even if it's monthly or every two months or whatever. Try several, over the next year or so, until you find one who knows what they're doing in this area. Get in the business of taking teachers "out for test drives etc".

I've never been an exceptional talent but I know how to practice better than most, and it's a very rare skill.

I'll mention one very common mistake, which you'll probably see mentioned in the book I linked above, and it's this: practicing only IN sections sections and not ever practicing transitions BETWEEN sections. This is a huge bang-for-your-buck improvement on practicing if you've done this. I find that most are blind to this problem. Again, it's a little harder to see the problem if you never took school band or piano lessons or whatever.

I find most students can play a difficult section in isolation, but they very often mess it up when they get to it initially, playing through the tune. The solution is usually to play last phrase of the first section going into the first note of the new section. Just stop when you reach that "first note". Practice it until it's clean, and then maybe add a note or two at a time, but honestly, once you practice the transition to the FIRST note, most of the other falls in the place.

This is what most of my students work on IN lessons. They see improvements in 20 minutes that they don't see in hours of practice throughout the rest of the week , when they're NOT doing this type of thing. I find that students who have school band experience generally don't require this kind of thing, because they already have the basic skills. But you can't skip this basic stuff.

Learn to practice. Check out the paperback book linked above. It's a food one. I think it's $11 or something. Start to think about the number of hours you spend playing/practicing versus the number of hours you spend developing practical and philosophical approaches to practicing ITSELF. Practicing WELL is the most important skill in learning to play an instrument, and in learning music more generally.
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  #18  
Old 06-26-2017, 03:33 PM
s0cks s0cks is offline
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matt has nailed it.

It took me a while to realize how to practice. It's very focused effort. When people suggest practicing something in front of the TV they are talking crap tbh. You can't have focused practice in front of the TV. Perfect practice makes perfect.

Personally, if it's something pretty hard and above my current skill level, I practice it very slowly ("bullet time" as SD said) making sure I'm moving the fingers how I want them to move (without tension, with fluidity). It probably won't sound musical or be that great for a few days, so I'll spend 10-20min on it once or twice a day. Almost magically it comes together (usually the following day as sleep is what strengthens neural connections). From there I can speed up a little and work the rhythm into the tune. I practice that until it feels virtually effortless, because it has to be effortless if I'm to play it easily and without error. After that I practice the transition (as matt says) into that part.

It's slow. Can take me a few weeks to learn a song that way (if it's above my current skill level) but totally worth it. It always brings something more to my playing.
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  #19  
Old 06-28-2017, 02:28 AM
Playuh Playuh is offline
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Find joy in playing and play with others better than you.
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  #20  
Old 06-28-2017, 05:56 AM
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fazool fazool is offline
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I am a believer in the concept of neuroplasticity, which basically says your brain finds new pathways for information - new routes from nerve to nerve to nerve and permanently makes that path.

So, one part of the theory is that you have to "train" your brain to do something. Then when you are sleeping, your brain goes over this again and again and again (one theory that is connected to dreaming), exploring, by trial and error, different neural "pathways" that replicate this training.

So, the idea here is that learning isn't just sheer repetition. Your brain needs down-time to process and "remember" this training and sleep is the best time for that.

So, you don't want to practice something new too much - it will overload and confound that second part of the process.

I've heard/read that 20 minutes is about the optimum amount at a time. SO do something really totally new for 20 minutes, then sleep on it. After three days, you will be much farther ahead than if you did one single 60 min session during that three day period. Same exact amount of practice time with dramatically different results.

One thing I do (thanks to conversations here on AGF). I practice something tiny right before bed, then right when I wake up. I feel, for me, that these things have made astronomical improvements in my learning abilities.
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  #21  
Old 06-28-2017, 04:26 PM
s0cks s0cks is offline
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Research has shown that even thinking about playing something also strengthens those neural connections. You don't even need to play it. Just imagine playing the part you are struggling with for a few moments before bed.
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  #22  
Old 06-28-2017, 05:18 PM
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rick-slo rick-slo is offline
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You usually do need to play something over and over to discover and overcome all the little gotchas some pieces have.

I vary tempo while working on something, more so on the harder pieces. I like to get a feel for how a piece flows (section by section as needed) ASAP so that I can practice my phrasing while practicing memorization. Also, learning a new piece by playing it really slowly and ever so slow ratcheting it up supposedly prevents practicing mistakes. However there are not infrequent times where the correct way to play something is not apparent except when playing at or near tempo. In those cases practicing really slowly all the time leads to having things that have to be unlearned to be able to play at tempo.

If you are playing a piece that just does not feel quite right to you it may help you to listen to a few other people play the same piece and carefully analyze any version you hear that you like an perhaps incorporate some things.
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  #23  
Old 06-28-2017, 08:26 PM
amyFB amyFB is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by KFP55 View Post
I've been struggling with the same question. My instructor insists on continuing to work on scales every day no matter what for 20 min but they're just so boring to me and it's so much more enjoyable to work on learning new songs..



I've recently started using the Yousician app to force me to practice in some linear fashion but find it less pleasant as well. I get it, practice isn't always fun, but since I've got a career already I figure it's ok to just enjoy the time I get to have with a guitar in my hands but....I would like to get better...


When I practice scales (not enough)
It is much preferred to play them to my favorite music or at least to backing tracks.
Working scales smoothly through chord progressions is my goal so I like to force myself into that space.


Jamey aebersold has a great set of tracks for this purpose . For example, if you like jazzy stuff as I do,
Here is a riff in F - https://youtu.be/Bg-Ea7aCb1E
Here is a different mood in C - https://youtu.be/YdZbNix4nJM

Search you tube for backing tracks - there are a lot of them.

Good luck and have fun!
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