Am I too unfocused?

Its ok to learn new songs once you've completely learned the previous song fully. You don't have to be perfect on one song to move on to a new one. Just remember that even thought you are focused on learning a new song, you have to practice all the old ones too. What ends up happening is you constantly learn new songs while also improving the old one. If you always wait to perfect one song, you end up playing that same song for hours with no variety. Guitar is for fun unless you plan to perform.

I've been learning a bunch of different songs lately... generally what happens is I'll start learning a new song, get it to about 90% complete

90%!! :shock:

Compared to many of us you're a crazed perfectionist. Well, compared to me anyway. Someone else once posted here that if they took a song all the way to 100% before moving on to the next one then they'd totally hate it by the time they got there and would never want to hear it again. Can't remember who it was, but count me as agreeing. :) Further down the track you'll be able to get a song up to speed pretty quickly, but I wouldn't be too worried about perfection on the first few songs. I'd hope to be able to play a song reasonably accurately, but not be too stressed about speed and final polish on the first few.

What ends up happening is you constantly learn new songs while also improving the old one. If you always wait to perfect one song, you end up playing that same song for hours with no variety. Guitar is for fun unless you plan to perform.

+1 to that.

I always have many songs 'on the go' at the same time. A few that are very early in the learning process, some that are well advanced and some that I can play pretty much the way I want. But all of them are always open to being added to, reworked, improved or whatever. But enjoyment is my number 1 goal, not a performing career, so there's never any deadlines or exams looming. :)

I can understand that you might get worried that you'll end up with a big repertoire of slightly half-baked stuff, none of which ever got taken through to the standard you'd like. That nagging fear probably won't go away until you've got at least one or two reasonably well 'up to scratch'. But too much self applied pressure can ruin the song for you and still not necessarily get that last 10% for you anway. Try putting them more to the back of the priority queue for a while, without actually abandoning them altogether. I reckon I could play 20 or 30 songs before I could play my first one as well as I wanted. I just kept adding small improvements to the way I played it, without ever losing the pleasure of it. And I'm sure that I'll add more improvements and arrangements of it over time too. :)

Good luck, you sound like you're doing fine.

Cheers,

Chris

if you will never perform in front of people or play with another person
then what you are doing does not matter.
having a pile of unpolished attempts, however, is like never picking up after yourself.
if you can live with that mess, fine.
if you do want to join a band or play at parties or to your beau
then you discipline your time with the guitar.
learn the song all the way.
build up a repetoire.

I've been learning a bunch of different songs lately... generally what happens is I'll start learning a new song, get it to about 90% complete (where basically, I can play it at full speed, but it doesn't sound very clean/polished) and then I tend to lose motivation to finish off that last 10% to get it perfect. I think it's because the last 10% seems to take a lot of time, for very small gains.

So what I wind up doing is switching off to learning a new song, with the idea that perhaps once I learn the new song, I'll have developed my skills further, so that perfecting the previous song will be easier. And also, it gives me a break from the previous song so that I don't completely burn out from playing it over and over.

I'm wondering if this is a good approach to learning new songs, or should I perfect a song before moving on to the next? As it stands now, I think I can play around 6-7 songs, but I don't think any of them are at a polished, "performance" level (although a few are pretty close). So in that sense, it's a bit frustrating, as I don't feel like I have any songs where I can just bang out on command.
Hi,

I did exactly the same as you. i tot i should be worried, but now after hearing what the guys comment, i'm safe i susposed.

Though i never perfected most of my old songs to a 100% or maybe even 90%, when i started to move to new song to learn, i would always spend a few mins practising the old songs as well as learning new ones. :)

Rgds
Kenny

Though i never perfected most of my old songs to a 100% or maybe even 90%, when i started to move to new song to learn, i would always spend a few mins practising the old songs as well as learning new ones. :)

Sounds OK to me. :)

When I started, like most new players, I was keen to have some songs that I could play really well. But I quickly found that making something sound like a pro is simply out of reach of a beginner. You can get the basics of the note lengths and fingering close enough to right, but the full kit of tone and expression that you want can take a much longer time to get.

I'm sure that some good players would tell you that you never make it all the way to 100%, and that there's always that tantalising extra bit possible that you'd like to get... :wink:

I reckon that if our learning methods are solid, and that we learn a song to the the best of our current ability, and don't just jump around in a slapdash sort of fashion, then we'll be fine. It's frustrating for a beginner that you can't make songs sound much like the commercial version, but if I can get the basic work done I have no problems moving onto something else and then returning later to improve and polish.

There's a lot of subtle things that are hard to describe in mechanical terms, but which make all the difference to the finished result. I think they only come with experience, and I can't imagine how you could learn them all in advance before you started tackling songs. One of the things that I now get a great deal of pleasure from is revisiting those first 3 chord songs I learned and filling the sound out and bringing them more to life. I couldn't even really tell you how it's done - but my fingers just seem to have abilities now that they didn't have when I first played the songs (and, to be realistic, couldn't have at that stage) . :)

Chris

I also seldom perfect a song before moving on to another. I find that moving on after hitting a wall allows some of the mechanics of the new song to soak in without becoming frustrated with a lack of progress. Switching back to a more familiar piece reminds me of past progress which then reinspires me afresh. Typically, when I go back to the new song things suddenly click and further progress seems to come easier.
:)

What was the question?... :wink:

Cool, thanks for the input guys, I think I feel better now. I'm not really in a band, but I do jam with a few friends every now and then... and we usually have some songs that we're all working on... so it would be nice for me to play those songs well... but again, it's hard to get it perfect....

There's a lot of subtle things that are hard to describe in mechanical terms, but which make all the difference to the finished result. I think they only come with experience, and I can't imagine how you could learn them all in advance before you started tackling songs. One of the things that I now get a great deal of pleasure from is revisiting those first 3 chord songs I learned and filling the sound out and bringing them more to life. I couldn't even really tell you how it's done - but my fingers just seem to have abilities now that they didn't have when I first played the songs (and, to be realistic, couldn't have at that stage) . :)

Chris

I definitely know what you mean about that "professional" sound. Whenever an experienced player plays a song, it just has a very polished sound. For example, whenever my guitar teacher plays a song, it just sounds so fluid and effortless, no matter how simple the song. However, when I play it, even if I'm hitting all the notes on beat, it just doesn't quite seem to have the same polished sound.

It sounds like this polished sound is really just a matter of increasing your skill in general, and not really with trying to practice a single song for months until it's polished.

I am with everybody here....
I have just done up a play list in Winamp of all the songs I know bits of 143 LOL

One Hundred And Fourty Three !

BUT, I can play a lot of these start to end at speed with the cd to me it sounds fine BUT to someone musical I might (probably) sound awful, to my friends that don't play I sound good so I guess its all relative.

My guitar playing aspirations is to have a good time. I play mainly in my bedroom or out in the yard. I will never join a band or play on stage and this is what I am happy doing...

So for me.......

Hapiness is playing guitar...

Keith

Globe,

I totally understand where you are coming from as I do the exact same thing. I am really trying to break that habit but some of the parts I get stuck on aren't something I'm going to be able to accomplish in a short amount of time so I tend to move on.

I really am trying to break myself of that habit since I don't think that's the right thing to do. Obviously there will be some songs that are to advanced for where I'm at and hopefully I won't attempt those.

I get hung up now mostly on the lead part. Most times I am able to play the rhythm part to the song but there is almost always some part of the solo's that are above my current skill level. As someone already mentioned by the time I've worked those parts out I don't ever want to hear the song again.

I don't think what you're doind is a bad thing but I would maybe spent sometime going back over those songs now and then, eventually you'll nail them.

I am with everybody here....
I have just done up a play list in Winamp of all the songs I know bits of 143 LOL

One Hundred And Fourty Three !

To be honest, if you can play a 12-bar in G and put all the blues songs in the world in G in Winamp you'd probably run out of storage. And then if you take all the blues in A....

A :-)

LOL good point Al......

Now if I could just vary my strumming patterns a little :wink:

Keith

I wonder what it feels like to play a song perfectly. Someday I hope to find out. If the lack of focus were a good thing, I'd be great.

Count me in too!

I don't think I've EVER learned a song 100% complete. In fact, just the other day I started putting together a list of "stuff I know at least half way". As it turned out. the exercise of me writing down the lyrics and chords for all of the songs I know (or bits of songs) actually helped me start to identify those areas where I need to improve in each song.

Since most of us have started out this way...here's a little brain teaser for you. What was the first song you learned half way, and then said to yourself, " I'll get back to that one..for now, I'm gonna move on to another song"? Seems like it was just yesterday I said that about my fist song, but I could not tell you which song it was... even if my life depended on it. I must have 6 songs that I'm "working on" right now. Is it the right way? I dunno. I don't care! I'm having a blast doing it this way!