who wants to do a 40 day practice challenge with me?

Days 32-33: struggling the past couple of days. I've been screwing pieces in my repertorie that I usually whiz through. I worried I'm starting to get burnt out with the practice challenge. 40 days of 2 hours a day is a lot. The 30 day practice challenge I did before this one felt more manageable. Kudos to you guys who are still hanging in there!

That said I nailed my new song last night so I'm considering it done and I've added it to the end of my repertorie list. I'm thinking about digging out my next video and starting another song but I'm not sure right now. I may just coast to the end, working on my repertorie and record one last song.

[clintj]

I had a day like that, and just spent that session going over old material I have down pat already. Just fun stuff I like to play. The next day I could play what I am working towards more freely and just felt better all around. Fatigue, both mental and physical, can be a real roadblock at times.

[delb0y]

Well I haven't been doing two hours every day. Some days I've done four, sometimes two, sometimes just one (or less). It is wearying focussing on just one thing for so long but I think it's been valuable. I've definitely discovered that I can do some of the things I aspire to, what I have to work on now is being able to do them at will, not by accident!

Originally Posted by clintj

Fatigue, both mental and physical, can be a real roadblock at times.

I hear ya. I'm trying not to get discouraged when random stuff goes wrong and just focus on this blessing that the challenge has been for my playing. One of the reasons I did this is I wanted to be in top shape for my Fur Peace Ranch workshop with Woody Mann next week. I think I've achieved that already. The risk is that I don't want to be totally fried by the time I get there. On top of it it's a 12 hour drive to get there.

So I think I'm heading into coast mode for the next 7 days.

[delb0y]

For the last several days I've been playing Annie at around 215 bpm and never quite managing to get all the way through. This evening I dropped back to 207 and found that I suddenly had time and space to think, articulate notes, put in some bounce and syncopation and, most importantly, get all the way through. 207 was itself, a week or two back, way too fast, and now it feels good... Definite progress there, then. The obvious thing to do now is try it at around 220 and see if after a week 215 feels easy... but I think that's a bit too ambitious. I will keep playing at 215 and when I record the final thing I'll probably drop to 207.

Looking back I've met and exceeded my goals on this and I still have a week to go

Originally Posted by delb0y

Looking back I've met and exceeded my goals on this and I still have a week to go

Nice! You should be proud of yourself.

Day 34: totally exhausted. I practiced a full 2 hours last night but I pretty much felt like I just pulled an all-nighter the whole time. I think I'm burnt out and I may take Saturday night off, just play my new song for a bit and skip my repertorie. I'm starting to think 40 days of reduced sleep is not a good idea at my age. I'm not a kid anymore. I'm having a hard time seeing the light at end of the tunnel.

Tonight: business as usual and record another song, my last one of the challenge. Not sure what the heck record though. Maybe my latest song...?

[bayoubill]

WOO WHOO! I just finished learning the whole song. Now comes the hard part. Practicing it. By section and over and over till I can play it from start to finish without messing it up. Very nice arrangement! I will have to add my own spot in it somewhere but that's the easy part. Now, after I partake in some peach cobbler and vanilla ice cream, get to work on playing! Whoa! This day 10.

[mc1]

Originally Posted by delb0y

For the last several days I've been playing Annie at around 215 bpm and never quite managing to get all the way through. This evening I dropped back to 207 and found that I suddenly had time and space to think, articulate notes, put in some bounce and syncopation and, most importantly, get all the way through. 207 was itself, a week or two back, way too fast, and now it feels good... Definite progress there, then. The obvious thing to do now is try it at around 220 and see if after a week 215 feels easy... but I think that's a bit too ambitious. I will keep playing at 215 and when I record the final thing I'll probably drop to 207.

Looking back I've met and exceeded my goals on this and I still have a week to go

keep slowing it down, until it feels really easy. try 176, over and over, then 184, etc. perhaps you're pushing too hard.

Day 35: pretty good practice, felt alert. A couple of repertorie pieces kind of fell apart tonight but I worked out the kinks. Nailed the new song in one try which felt nice.

Tonight was also my last recording night of the challenge and probably the last one for a few weeks. Here's the result:

http://soundcloud.com/tripleohdoug/shake-sugaree

As always feedback is welcome.

I can't believe there's only 5 days left!

Plan for Saturday night: short practice of the new song and listen to the first piece on my next DVD. Nothing serious, no repertorie. I need the rest and to spend some time with my wife. She's been pretty patient about this challenge stuff!

[delb0y]

Nice playing on Shake Sugaree, J-Doug. Great feel and articulation and that Gibson has a beautiful sound! All those hours have paid off

keep slowing it down, until it feels really easy. try 176, over and over, then 184, etc. perhaps you're pushing too hard.

The speed question is an interesting one, mc1. I've been playing for a long time and have always adhered to the learn it slow, get it right, don't practice mistakes, and the speed will come school (let's call it the "play slow to play fast" school). Except in 35 years of playing the speed has never come. Heh. Doing these 40 days on one tune has given me the bandwidth to try different things, and one of them has been to take the advice of Steve Kaufman (who's arrangement it is) who says:

You then take the one song that you know best and you practice your break to that song at about twice the speed at which you can comfortably play it. You play it in the privacy of your own home with no one else around so that you are not inhibited. You know that you are going to make mistakes, but don't worry about it. You are going for raw speed in this exercise. You play the song at least six times through at this speed. Each time you go through the song, you "bubble sort" out your mistakes.

I recommend that my students make a rhythm track of themselves playing at this double time speed on one of those answering machine loop tapes and practice the lead along with that rhythm track. Of course this speed will be different for everyone. If you are just a beginner and can only play a song comfortably at 80 bpm, then you make the rhythm track of yourself playing at 160 bpm. More advanced players can play faster. When I demonstrate this at my workshops, I'll play a song like Old Joe Clark up at about 400 bpm. That is faster than I would play it in the real world at a jam session, but that's OK in the context of the exercise.

After about a week of practicing like this for 5 or 10 minutes a day, you will be able to play that song up to the speed of your rhythm track. Once you can play the song up to speed, you can then go back and work on timing, tone and technique to clean those things up. But in the meantime you have raised your average speed and you can eventually get comfortable playing at the higher rates.

Now I've not been playing at twice my comfortable speed as I'm just dipping my toe in this "play fast in order to play fast" school, but it definitely works.

The only downside to this is what happens if you prefer the sound of the faster tempos!? Then you need to play even faster still to be able to drop back to those fast tempos...

Anyway, last night (day 35), it was the usual thing for this last week - just play through the track over and over. I'm now getting through it more often than not.

Kind regards
Derek

[delb0y]

Day 36 - four days to go...

Spent an hour in the garage whilst everyone else was sleeping in this morning. This is where I'm at so far.

Getting there, I feel!

Originally Posted by delb0y

Nice playing on Shake Sugaree, J-Doug. Great feel and articulation and that Gibson has a beautiful sound! All those hours have paid off

Thank you so much for the kind words Derek!

[mc1]

Originally Posted by delb0y

Nice playing on Shake Sugaree, J-Doug. Great feel and articulation and that Gibson has a beautiful sound! All those hours have paid off



The speed question is an interesting one, mc1. I've been playing for a long time and have always adhered to the learn it slow, get it right, don't practice mistakes, and the speed will come school (let's call it the "play slow to play fast" school). Except in 35 years of playing the speed has never come. Heh. Doing these 40 days on one tune has given me the bandwidth to try different things, and one of them has been to take the advice of Steve Kaufman (who's arrangement it is) who says:



Now I've not been playing at twice my comfortable speed as I'm just dipping my toe in this "play fast in order to play fast" school, but it definitely works.

The only downside to this is what happens if you prefer the sound of the faster tempos!? Then you need to play even faster still to be able to drop back to those fast tempos...

Anyway, last night (day 35), it was the usual thing for this last week - just play through the track over and over. I'm now getting through it more often than not.

Kind regards
Derek

the speed question is a very interesting one. am i am in a similar position to you in that i've played for a long time but am no speed demon. it's only in the last few years i actually seemed to have figured out beneficial ways to practice.

i think there is a lot of merit in what steve kaufman says. but i also think playing fast or above a comfortable tempo has a specialized purpose. as steve says, then you can go back and clean those things up, presumably at a much slower tempo. so the speed thing is working on speed more than accuracy.

i sometimes will set the metronome ridiculously slow, which has it's own benefits, then keep notching it up until i can't keep up anymore. i also feel playing above a comfortable tempo is for after one has learned the tune well, although i suppose it could also expose those sections that aren't memorized yet.

[bayoubill]

What a happy song! I've never heard this song before. I love this kind of music but my ignorance run amuck! I need to get out more