20 days of practicing and learning 1 song

[JackC1]

******************** DAY 12 ************************

I guess the problem of playing so late at night is that sometimes I just get too tired to play. Sorry, Day 12, I wasn't able to practice for you.


******************* DAY 13 ************************

Ah, Mr. Sunday. Let's see what today brings WRT practice. I'm very eager to play some guitar today. (If I put all the time I spent on AGF on actual playing, I think I'd have the skill of a guitar god. I guess I can say the same for most things I do. Lazy old me.)

[JackC1]

****************** DAY 14 *****************

Oh, sorry Day 13; I decided against playing yesterday because both hands (fingers) were super sore. I don't know why. Anyway, I decided to just rest them yesterday.

Today, finally got around to practicing today!! Yeah!!!

I think part of my problem is that I've been playing only 30min-1hr PER WEEK before posting this thread. My hands are just not used to this much playing since the thread started; fingers hurt and sore (very sore); plus the cut on my pinky didn't help.

Since this thread, suddenly, I'm playing 3-4x the amount. The first week is painful; the second week is more pain and also soreness. So, a break is probably a good thing.

Now I'm feeling pretty good. Fingers and hands great (except they've got no endurance and I had to stop after 17min because I can feel the pain coming).

Spent the first part of practice getting to know the song again; and later putting the metronome at 104BPM (the target tempo). 104 feels pretty good with only 1 area (Measures 12 to 13) giving me trouble.

I'm going to devote the next practice to making my first play-thru of this song. I want to have the correct notes; rhythm; fingerings; and damps.

After making that recording, I want to memorize this song (again) and work on dynamics and phrasing. (And thanks to this thread, I've got a lot of ideas I want to put to use.)

It's good to be back!! I'm saving my figners for this song and shall resist the urge to play my guitars except for practicing this song. (I've not played my acoustic in a few days; I miss it... ) Anway, better safe than sorry; need to slowly build up my finger endurance.

[JackC1]

********************** DAY 15 *****************

Spent the practice session on memorization. The trouble with memorization is that sometimes I skip entire sections or replace measures without even knowing (like Measure 12). A bit scary; but it happens frequently (so I tend to not bother memorizing music; of course, there's the extra time needed to memorize something). The good part about having a song memorized is that the playing gets better.

So, today's first practice session: 25 min. I think this is the longest yet. I'm outdoing myself. My fingers are feeling just fine; but my brain is a bit tired so I stopped; I think I could have gone on for hours and hours (well, probably not, but it is good to stop before any pain).

Something interesting while driving today: Wife asked when I'm getting a new guitar out of the blue. I didn't know what she was talking about. Then she reminded of the gutiar-for-physical deal. You see, I don't like to do a few things and getting my physical checkup is one of them; so a while ago, (when I was thinking about buying a new guitar), I made a deal with my wife that I'll get a physical if I buy the guitar. Well, the guitar urge has since passed so I'm off the hook for a physical. I guess my wife was hoping a new guitar will be showing up soon. Hahaha.

[JackC1]

Pulled another practice session today. Fingers starting to hurt; good idea to end it. Almost have the entire song memorized.

Measure 12; hmmm, I always seem to forget you. There's a secret trick that I use to work with difficult passages... I pretend that it's my favorite part of the song (yes, it's all mental). So, let's see if this works in the next practice session.

I still have problems with the transition in the problem areas that I identified in the beginning of this thread (i.e. Measures 8 to 9 and Measures 12 to 13). The string damp is killing me. I really like to damp it just after playing the new measure to keep legato; need more practice.

[Gitfiddlemann]

Hi Jack,
Your persistence will pay off. Keep at it. And listen to your wife. Get that physical, and a new guitar! What a nice spouse.
Your right hand seems to be working well, but your left hand seems to be doing a lot more work than it needs to. Think economy of movement. Also, avoid collapsing your tip joints. Keep them perpendicular to the fingerboard as much as you can. It's the default position to insure best fretting and minimal pressure.
I took a little time this morning to do a quick recording of this piece. I tried to focus the camera on my phone towards the left hand. I hope it helps you. You can also hear the metronome in the background. It's set at 52, with 2 beats per measure. That's the recommended tempo (1/4 note = 104) according to the music. But it's always best to keep the clicks down to a minimum. It's much less distracting.

[JackC1]

Originally Posted by AndreF

I took a little time this morning to do a quick recording of this piece. I tried to focus the camera on my phone towards the left hand. I hope it helps you.

Hi Andre,

Nice recording; the ornaments definitely make the music much more interesting to listen to.

Also, thanks for the tips on economy of motion; it's definitely something I keep forgetting and need remembering. Watching your left hand's lack of motion really makes an impression. As they say, the pros make things look easy.

I'll give decreasing the metronome clicks a try. Usually I timing is pretty bad, so less ticks = worse time for me. But I'm open to trying it; perhaps I've improved enough to make it work.

Thanks.

[JackC1]

***************** DAY 16 ******************


My first acceptable play-thru


This first play thru is unusual for me because it's played at tempo! Normally, my first play thru is at half tempo and I work my way up to tempo on the successive play-thrus; ending with the last play-thru at tempo.

I think the reason for this is because of this thread! I've never really practice this much on any piece before. I think I may have gone on too long (i.e. should have make my first recording much sooner).

There're many problems with this first play-thru; among them: I'm off the metronome a lot; I'm not damping the strings. These 2 issues, I want to resolve by tomorrow. (Hopefully.)

The play-thru is at the end of today's practice session (I was just happy to get a semi-clean-ish play-thru that I'm just going to ignore that dryer beep).

Today's practice session



Oh, I've decided to not memorize this piece; I don't think I have enough time. However, memorization is a very useful skill; and I want to practice it by memorizing my next month's pieces.

[JackC1]

Another over-achieving day. One more long-ish practice session today! With this extra session, I'm hitting 30min of practice today. It's probably not a lot for most people; but it's like a week's worth of practice for me!

I couldn't resist playing my acoustic guitar today. I just received some picks in the mail and I'm playing around with different shapes. https://www.acousticguitarforum.com/...d.php?t=669452. It's pretty amazing the range of tones I can get just just shaping the picks! Oh, the discoveries

I've slowed down the metronome to 52BPM; treating this 4/4 time piece as 2/2. Initially, I'm having a hard time with it; but by the end of the practice, I think I'm ok with it. I think, even if this change doesn't help my song, it definitely will help my time keeping.

I've just started to mind the damps more near the end of the practice. I shall focus on that on the next practice.

[JackC1]

***************** DAY 17 **********************

I wake up with incredible finger/hands soreness. Normally, I'd skip practice on a day like this; however, I'm hoping to do some practice later today if I feel better.

I think I should add a warmup/stretching routine before practicing. I always felt that's just wasting time; but now that my practice sessions are longer, it might be ok timewise.

Today's practice objective: incorporate all string damps. A reach goal is to get correct fingerings (or as much as possible). As I type, between the typing, I'm massaging my hands. It seems to help somewhat.

[Robin, Wales]

Originally Posted by JackC1

***************** DAY 17 **********************

I wake up with incredible finger/hands soreness. Normally, I'd skip practice on a day like this; however, I'm hoping to do some practice later today if I feel better.

I think I should add a warmup/stretching routine before practicing. I always felt that's just wasting time; but now that my practice sessions are longer, it might be ok timewise.

Today's practice objective: incorporate all string damps. A reach goal is to get correct fingerings (or as much as possible). As I type, between the typing, I'm massaging my hands. It seems to help somewhat.

Mmmm..... Day 17. I would have expected you to be working on each phrase without the music on the stand in front of you by now. It seems like you are not building up your muscle memory quickly enough with the learning process you are using.

For the last 3 days try a different approach. Take just one of the 4 measure phrases (any one) and work on learning to play it without the music in front of you. So your hands get used to building a relationship with your sound.

[JackC1]

Originally Posted by Robin, Wales

For the last 3 days try a different approach. Take just one of the 4 measure phrases (any one) and work on learning to play it without the music in front of you. So your hands get used to building a relationship with your sound.

Thanks for the tips.

Following another member's suggestion in the beginning of the thread, I've actually been working on memorization. Started on Day 4 with just individual measures; then arriving at phrases on Day15.

The way I memorize is to first learn to sing the song in my head without the music; then when I play I sing ahead (like reading ahead). I don't focus on muscle memory, but if I develop muslce memory during the process, that's good too. I think it is similar to the process you're describing with fingers finding the sound.

I think the reason it's taking me forever to memorize is because I'm just not used to doing it; also memorization takes more time.

Since I'm nearing the end of my 20 days; I've decided to skip the memorization part for this song. However, memorization is a very useful skill, so I've decided to do it on next month's pieces.

[JackC1]

Since I'm nearing the end of this 20-day practice journal, I've decided to increase my practice efficiency by setting goals for each practice session.

Setting a goal has both positive and negative effects for me. For work, yes, goals are necessary and people expect that from me as I expect that from them. But, having goals for hobbies can make the hobby less spontaneous and fun if done excessively; so, I don't tend to do this often.

I don't know how old everybody is here, but just in case (and also for the older folks). A few years I retired, this thing called Agile development with these scrum meetings were all the rage. Everyday, we have a brief meeting to set mini-goals and update issues. It gets things done but takes away some of the fun. After a while, it makes workers less human and more clockwork machines because you can't really goof off or more than a few days without feeling too guilty. I like long-term goals without necessarily putting in explicit shor-term goals; I like to leave that to the subconscious. Kind of like how plants grow towards light; it's in their genes/nature; so, for humans, it's in our nature to move towards the final goal, naturally as well. Kind of like sleeping and waking up. I like to wake up naturally; but I do use an alarm on some days. Using an alarm everyday would probably drive away some of the fun of waking up.

Was that the longest paragraph on the Internet? Probably not worth your time reading it; just my random thoughts.

Today's first practice session has a goal of....... string damping! (I'm reminded of the Iron Chef show's suspense when they reveal the main ingredient).

I changed the damp for Measure 3 to damp on the first beat. I've been damping just before on the second beat (as suggested in this Thread; and Thank You!). But, I'm having a real hard time remembering/damping Measure 9 when I do this. So, I changed it to first beat which I do the same for Measure 9.

I tried to change the damping in Measure 1 to a rest strok from finger 3; but I'm having a hard time. (This is following suggestion on collapsing my finger.
I've been using finger 3 to damp, so it looks collapsed because it's pressing 2 strings.) Looks can be everything on a guitar exam, so I tested the change to rest stroke. However, the rest stroke is hard because I don't do it consistently in this song and to get the same/similar tone is hard. So, I reverted back to using finger 3 to press strings # 5 and 6.

If I get some time later, I'll put in more time to do those damps more properly.

Overall, I think I got the damps down (there's not many in this song; and plus, the few around are really just 2 damps). So, goal accomplished.

Next up: reach goal of correct fingerings. I hope to get to that today; then make my second play thru recording.

[JackC1]

Oh, forgot my candid practice video. Sometimes funny things happen by accident in these videos; but not this time.

(Also, because these videos are candid; I mean very candid as in no editting or even review; sometimes the mic level is all messed up. A trick I've learned while doing this Thread is to always check the mic level at the beginning with a strum. I'll offer that as a minor tip.)

[JackC1]

Put in 2 more practice sessions today.

These 2 sessions; I've been working on correct fingering. It's not really that I must follow the fingering (since I'm a bit more experienced than, say, last year, and Delcamp is more relaxed on fingerings with the more experience students); it's more about alternating the fingers.

So, although I'm not exactly following the fingering suggestions, I think I'm alternating them more now. Repeating the same finger seems a big no-no in classical guitar.

Also, I'm minding the damps as well. So, today's goals of damp and fingering: accomplished.

Here is my second play-thru:


And today's practices:



Tomorrow's goal: measure dynamics. Because this song is a dance, I think with just measure dynamics, it'll sound ok. Since I'm playing it as 2/2 time, I might just accent beat 1 and see how it sounds. If it needs a little bit on beat 3, I'll do it (with the correct fingerings; all the accent beats are on finger "m").

The good thing about setting practice goals is that it drives me to practice. The bad thing is that it adds some stress.

Surprisingly, my fingers/hands aren't very sore right now. Maybe the massaging helped (or maybe I'll feel it tomorrow).

[TBman]

You're moving along and making good progress! Keep at it!