Any advice on preventing a lack of focus?

[tbirdman]

Originally Posted by Robin, Wales

I have a pretty simple solution for you. Set a specific goal related to a performance. For example, you could say, "I will have 4 songs ready to play by heart at the local open mic on the 15th of April" . Or perhaps you could say "I'm going to have 6 songs ready to play by heart at our family bbq the first weekend in May" .

Nothing will focus your practice time like having a performance aim. It will certainly stop you drifting and give you something measurable and meaniful to aim towards every time you pick up your guitar

I'm following this method also. With a group I'm associated with, holds weekly open mic. I don't go weekly, but mostly monthly. I try to go with mostly new material or a difference in a song I played before. Recently I was playing songs that I had memorized, but I had played before with lyrics in front of me.

Most of the players just keep playing their small repertoire of songs. I try to bring mostly new material. A friend said the most new material I should play is one out of the three songs. That said, my material is not as polished as I would like it to be and sometimes I crash and burn. I also bring back material that I have played before, but I have gotten better on.

The biggest problem is I'm practicing and learning 4 instruments at once. Acoustic, harp, classical and the piano. My practice time on each instrument is finite even though I practice 4 hours a day.

[tbirdman]

Originally Posted by TBman

I'm the worse, or at least I used to be. I would constantly get bored with a tune and start on something else before I really had the first tune finished. To combat this habit I bought a bunch of folders from Amazon and I keep different tunes in them. One folder is for "current" things which is a mix of classical, Celtic and other things, another for "Classical Repertoire 1", "Repertoire 2", etc., etc. I'm working on #2 right now so I leave it on the top of the stack of folders and I fairly consistently pick it up first and work on the classical pieces in it. So far so good. Even with a hobby a certain amount of organization pays off I suppose.

Now I really should make a folder of warm up exercises and stretches and leave that on top of everything else.

My singing instructor suggested three folders. 1) Ready for the public 2) Close to be ready 3) Needs a lot of work.

[tbirdman]

Originally Posted by Aspiring

I think that is a very over generalized statement. There are multiple things that have to be there to make it successful and passion or enthusiasm is only one of them.

If the song or arrangement is not suitable to your current skill level no amount of passion or enthusiasm is going to keep you going on that song.

If the arrangement is poor and doesn't sound good and you don't have the skills to make it work better than no amount of practice is going to make it sound good to you.

I agree. There is material I have tried, and I have put aside that it was was way beyond my skill. The key is knowing when to move on. There are songs I've been working on off and on for over a year. However, every time I go back to the song I get better.

[Mr. Jelly]

I'm probably not explaining myself well. I figure that if a person has the passion for something they will make it happen eventually. Without the passion then there needs to be some other reason to continue to move forward towards a goal. Money comes to mind.

[Aspiring]

Originally Posted by Mr. Jelly

I'm probably not explaining myself well. I figure that if a person has the passion for something they will make it happen eventually. Without the passion then there needs to be some other reason to continue to move forward towards a goal. Money comes to mind.

I think the part I am disagreeing with is the statement that if a person has enough passion they will make it happen eventually.

To me this is implying that all you need is to want it badly enough. There is certainly truth that the motivation will help in perseverance and if it is not there you will be more challenged. What I am saying is that is often not enough on its own.

I have learned that when I have the passion for something I also have to find a reasonable plan to get there and be smart about how to achieve and improve.

All of the practice in the world on a song with the skills you have now isn't going to get it to sound like what you want if those skills don't include the fundamentals needed to play the song or knowledge of what that fundamental missing piece is or access to resources that can help you figure it out.

The point being the ability and self awareness to recognize that you are missing something and then having enough passion and resources to find a way to fix that missing piece is also required.

We all have a certain level of natural talent that will take us part of the way some more than others. From there to mastery is a very different and individual journey.

[Jamolay]

Originally Posted by Andyrondack

You really do need to break your young students of this habit of only being able to practice pieces from the beginning.
I never taught anyone except myself but when as a kid I had lessons from professionally trained teachers they made sure that if there was a section I was having trouble with they would get me to focus on just that for a while.
Today for those few pieces I play from tab I always get to the point where I can play most of it cleanly but find the most challenging section requires more practice.
If I had to go back and start at the beginning just to put in the extra practice required by a fragment of the piece...well I wouldn't have the time .
Difficult sections need to be isolated and practiced more .

Computer algorithms don't work like the mind though I get your point about the sequential sequence but the mind only gets hung up replaying that sequential sequence because of the way your teaching and the way the kids are learning, it's not natural your just not directing the learning experience.

And no DNA is certainly not sequential, genes are arranged in a haphazard way along strands of DNA and many genes on that strand are redundant and don't actually do anything.

I am struggling with this as a beginner. I understand I should learn in sections, but I keep wanting to play from the beginning so I feel like I am playing a song. Right now, I learn the first set of bars, then the second, and then I want to play them sequentially while I work on the third section. I don’t know if this is optimal, because what I think I need to do is also to keep the sections small while I work on more and more advanced learning (like timing and dynamics) in a section, but once I have been playing them strung together, that is how I want to keep at it because it feels more like the song. Does that make any sense?

[gerhardp]

To ensure constant repetition I use flashcards.

Pile 1, about 80. These songs I know either on autopilot or I give them little importance and don't want to forget them completely. I take 2 from the top and put them on the bottom after playing them.

Pile 2, about 50. Play them pretty well or are not the most important. 3 daily.

Pile 3, about 25 songs, ready, but with difficulties and important. 4 daily.

After a gig I check through and put all the played ones with no issues to the bottom.

And then there is always a little pile of 5 to 10 songs I am still working on. Ad lib here.

This helped me to build up a 100+ song repertoire in less than 2 years, no textbook or teleprompter needed.

[Andyrondack]

Originally Posted by Jamolay

I am struggling with this as a beginner. I understand I should learn in sections, but I keep wanting to play from the beginning so I feel like I am playing a song. Right now, I learn the first set of bars, then the second, and then I want to play them sequentially while I work on the third section. I donÂ’t know if this is optimal, because what I think I need to do is also to keep the sections small while I work on more and more advanced learning (like timing and dynamics) in a section, but once I have been playing them strung together, that is how I want to keep at it because it feels more like the song. Does that make any sense?

I think that's all fine really you have to find what works for you, except I would add don't get too hung up on the 'bars'. Music as we hear it does not arrive in regular spaced bars, that's a reflection of the rhythm not the music as a whole. When I was a kid my music teachers could see the phrases in the music because they were just so familiar with it and they would get me to learn and practice sections that made musical sense .This was music that I was mostly unfamiliar with and I had no idea what it was supposed to sound like until I had played it , I was being trained to sight read. Sometimes the first and last note of a phrase or group of them coincides with a bar line but often they don't, or the first note of the phrase does but not the last.
So the first thing I suggest is listen to a recording and learn manageable sections which begin and end with a musically recognisable phrase that makes sense, if you learn bar to bar many of the segments you learn will sound like sentences with words missing. I don't think that helps to make the music memorable .

I do a lot of arranging of songs finger style on guitar and frequently a strategy for how to play a particular passage needs to be worked out, it's like playing snooker you have to figure out how to line up the moves to make them work smoothly but unlike bar lines the vocal lines do usually correspond with the phrases of the melody and that makes it easy to pay more attention to problematic sections because I just need to run the vocal line in my head and I'm there.

When I had piano lessons I often had to learn short classical pieces that were 4 or more pages long and would have got nowhere if I had to go back to the start every time just to practice some difficult passage on page 3.
I can't remember how my teachers did it but their role was to make sure I didn't get hung up on having to do that, and I don't remember it ever being a problem for me. I can only put that down to their teaching method.
These days I don't learn anything new untill I have the sound in my head first which makes it all way easier and more fun.

[Bluenose]

Sounds like learning to play the guitar is about as much fun as learning to be dental hygienist. The difference is, of course is that you can make a good living as a hygienist.

[Mr. Jelly]

Originally Posted by Bluenose

Sounds like learning to play the guitar is about as much fun as learning to be dental hygienist. The difference is, of course is that you can make a good living as a hygienist.

That's what allot of these solutions sound like. Like it's some route in a professional situation to continually better yourself for some future reward. And when you arrive you will be great, sort of thing. Work in other words. I enjoyed playing guitar when I didn't have a clue how to play it. Maybe more fun than I do now. Without that enjoyment and passion I would have quit a long time ago.

[Cecil6243]

Thank you all for your suggestions! I just went thorough all my songs and I have about 40 of them! Made a list and will set priorities in folders! No wonder I felt like I was spinning my wheels.

[Andyrondack]

Originally Posted by Mr. Jelly

That's what allot of these solutions sound like. Like it's some route in a professional situation to continually better yourself for some future reward.

No not for some 'future' reward but because striving for it's own sake is hugely rewarding in the present.
But the big difference between stretching your capabilities for a hobby and for work is that the hobbyist can just take a break whenever it suits and that stops it getting stressful.

[Cecil6243]

Originally Posted by Andyrondack

No not for some 'future' reward but because striving for it's own sake is hugely rewarding in the present.
But the big difference between stretching your capabilities for a hobby and for work is that the hobbyist can just take a break whenever it suits and that stops it getting stressful.

So true! As a professional artist in a different form of art, I can relate to having to push harder in that art form because it was how I made my living. It actually got to the point where it was not fun anymore, but I had to keep that paycheck coming in. Part of my problem was I should have asked for more for my services, which is s common problem with artists. I think those deadlines and all nighters finally took their toll, as after 38 years I was burned out. To this day if I spend more than a couple of hours in my studio I go stir crazy.

I sometimes wonder about the musicians that are on the road doing 4 or 5 concerts a week if they don't get burned out too. I don't think I would enjoy going on the road but then that's just me.