What's Best - One Perfect or Several Under Construction?

Should I concentrate on that tune for more than twenty minutes, because I know I'll just move on to something a bit easier If I don't improve on it....Maybe this is all subjective...Maybe I expect too much of myself too quickly...

I would work on it for twenty minutes a day maybe, and move on to something else, that way you get the sense of repitition of the song and can get better slowly but surly, but you also have the variety after that to go on to something that you can play.

Also once you start playing, and not worrying about bum notes (they'll happen anyway) then your muscle memory may take over and you won't think about it as much.

Hope this gets to more the point you were asking...it's a great question!

in general, the longer you play, the better you get, and the longer you work on a song, the better you get at it. so keep learning new songs if that's what you like doing, but keep playing the old ones, and they'll naturally polish up and you'll start to find your sound.
there you go. two birds, one stone.

it's a process, though. sometimes hard work doesn't pay off immediately. it can take me days to break through to the next level. don't sweat it, though. if you're putting in the work, it's happening. advice i give myself, but it's hard to believe it when you keep making the same sounds and you're losing perspective.

if you're going to play for a crowd, though, i'd suggest you play through these songs to the point you're happy with them, even if they're not perfect. they're not gonna care if you fumble a run or muff a line, but if you take 5 seconds to change chords, can't play the riff, and forget the words halfway through, etc... then you're just wasting people's time.

in any case, recording yourself is always a good way to gauge your progress.

Hi all

Thanks for the feedback on this question which I have read, digested and pigeon-holed... :?

I have filtered it out and come to the opinion that I'm probably doing it pretty much as I should be, I'm just too bloody impatient :roll:

Put in 10-20 minutes on a scale or lick or tune, then move on to another. Then get rid of the frustration by playing something easier that I know pretty well - it's good for the soul! Then go back and practice a few more tricky things.

I try and practice for at least an hour or more each day, on and off during the day and evening, sometimes I do have to miss an evening to spend some quality time with the little lady but that's ok - As I play just for personal pleasure, I think it doesn't hurt having a short time away from the instrument. It helps you to regroup your thoughts....

Have any of you ever noticed that when you first pick up the guitar for a session the first time you play a practice piece it actually sounds pretty good and the fingering is nice and tight and you think...yeh, this is it...I've got it... then it all goes back to buzzing strings and muted notes... :cry: Probably not, but I have that problem with Norwegian Wood... When I can play that to my personal satisfaction, then I will know that everything can be achieved with practice, time and effort.

Anyways, I was watching VH1 last night and they had a Cure evening - one of my old favourite bands so this morning I looked up a tab and lyrics and I reckon it took me about an hour to get it down, including a barre chord - if you'd have told me I could have done that 12 months ago - I would have had difficulty in believing it....

Thank you all for your comments and time in responding.

Rock on!
D 8)

I'd like to correct a generality. The longer you spend playing something correctly, the better you'll get at it. The longer you spend playing in incorrectly, the harder it will be to get it right eventually.

Nuno and I recently finished a collaboration on a song. we both had to learn our parts.
during the two week period from start to tracking we both commented that we had to 'internalize' the song.
I doubt that we will ever forget how to play our new song.

internalize.

I'd like to correct a generality. The longer you spend playing something correctly, the better you'll get at it. The longer you spend playing in incorrectly, the harder it will be to get it right eventually.

that seems pretty counter-intuitive. even assuming you're trying to learn something note for note, and you mislearn it, then you just have to go back and learn the parts you messed up, which shouldn't take any longer than it originally would have to learn that part. plus, you know the rest of it.
that's why i'm not one of those people who think tab is a bad thing, any more than i think training wheels are bad. even if it's not perfect, it's helpful. you can spend so much time searching for the perfect method that you never get started at all.
it's like when my coaches used to tell me "practice doesn't make perfect, perfect practice makes perfect."
so then, how do you have a perfect practice?
"oh, that takes practice."

you can spend so much time searching for the perfect method that you never get started at all.
it's like when my coaches used to tell me "practice doesn't make perfect, perfect practice makes perfect."
so then, how do you have a perfect practice?
"oh, that takes practice."

:mrgreen:

Nicely put.

It is absolutely true that you do want to try and avoid entrenching errors too deeply, but filling students' heads with vague ideas about "Perfect Practice" is more likely to result in counter-productive tension and angst than anything useful. One line 'folk wisdom' is rarely that useful when you look closely at it. For example, these two well known sayings are both generally agree to be wise:

Look before you leap

He who hesitates is lost

But the small snag is that they contain exactly opposite advice. :wink:

The truth is that it's impossible to totally apply notions of perfection and error free practice to the reality of learning to play, because music has so many different but essential aspects. You simply CANNOT get everything right as a beginner - it's a logical and practical impossibility. If you play slowly enough to get the notes all in the right order then your tempo will be wrong. If you concentrate on playing at the proper tempo then you'll almost certainly get the notes wrong and have all the dynamics and expression screwed up. And so on....

As a beginner you will suck - it's an immutable law of nature. You just have to accept being crap in many different ways whilst you work on the various elements bit by bit in the best way you can. Many people seem to concentrate so grimly and relentlessly on getting the notes in the right order that they sacrifice the senses of rhythm, touch, timing, and general expressiveness that I think they should be giving equal time to. Others will of course disagree with my preferred order, but I long ago dispensed with the idea that there was some magical method whereby, if I was a REALLY good boy, and concentrated REALLY hard then I'd be able to practice without most aspects of what I was doing being off the mark much of the time.... :?

Instead, I accept that it's a never ending process of thousands of repeats and tiny incremental improvements in many different aspects, and much that's mediocre will happen along the way. For me, it will never be finished or perfect. For me, there will be no stage at which further improvement will be impossible. But I also know that's true for everybody else too. 8)

Cheers,

Chris

Anyways, I was watching VH1 last night and they had a Cure evening - one of my old favourite bands so this morning I looked up a tab and lyrics and I reckon it took me about an hour to get it down, including a barre chord - if you'd have told me I could have done that 12 months ago - I would have had difficulty in believing it....

D 8)

Dylan "just like heaven" is a great one to try on acoustic , really cool song.

Dylan "just like heaven" is a great one to try on acoustic , really cool song.

Yup, I agree, but a bit beyond my capabilities I think - I can't even get Norwegian Wood down, so playing the riff over the strumming on that superb song would be impossible at the moment. I think I owe it to Cure fans to miss that one for another year...

Rock on!
D 8)

Dylan, I've found that digging into a song over my head to be rewarding in a couple of ways. The biggest thing I get from it is some different techniques or things like tougher chords to work on. Helps out on some easier songs when there's the odd-ball chord thrown in. I've got a couple I've been working on 2-3 times a month, and it get's better each time. I don't let it stress me or frustrate me. It just goes back into the folder.

It also helps me to know what I need to know or learn to do. The only thing for me that's worse than not knowing something is not knowing what I do not know. (Great! :x My head just spun off. Would someone get that for me......)

I've got a couple I've been working on 2-3 times a month, and it get's better each time. I don't let it stress me or frustrate me. It just goes back into the folder.

It also helps me to know what I need to know or learn to do. The only thing for me that's worse than not knowing something is not knowing what I do not know. (Great! :x My head just spun off. Would someone get that for me......)

Wise words from Roy. :)

That whole business about 'not knowing' and trying to grope your way into uncharted territory is surely an inevitable part of the process? As Roy neatly puts it, when you start you don't even know what you don't know but, to add to that, you can't even hear it or feel it properly even when somebody more experienced points it out.

Everything has to be developed and learned - not just the notes but also all the tools that you need to judge whether you're getting it right or not. Stuff like your sense of rhythm, the accuracy of your timing, the ability to judge pitch and timbre and so on all have to be improved and matured, not just the ability to remember how to get your fingers into a complicated sequence of positions.

It's an endless business of having a breather and then taking the next leap of faith. There are scratches and bruises aplenty along the way. But I think that Roy has the secret, when he says "I don't let it stress me or frustrate me."

After 3 or 4 years I still suck at playing- but I suck much more elegantly, and in an altogether more relaxed way than I did back at the start... :wink:

Cheers,

Chris

I'd like to correct a generality. The longer you spend playing something correctly, the better you'll get at it. The longer you spend playing in incorrectly, the harder it will be to get it right eventually.

My thoughts exactly. IMHO, better to have one perfect and two under construction, then 2 perfect and 2 under construction, then 3 perfect and 2 under construction, etc... etc... etc...

My thoughts exactly. IMHO, better to have one perfect and two under construction, then 2 perfect and 2 under construction, then 3 perfect and 2 under construction, etc... etc... etc...

But the slippery thing is that there is no 'perfect'...

There's only whatever we individually think is good enough by our current standards. Unless you have stopped progressing, or have low expectations, that standard will always keep changing and moving upwards.

I saw an interview with Michael Crawford once where he talked about preparing himself for his highly successful role as the Phantom in Phantom of The Opera. There's a crucial spot in one of the hit songs where the singer has to hit a particular note as 'perfectly' as possible. I can't remember the details, but it's something like... a pause... then a fairly big interval jump from the previous note... and the sound and emotional punch needs to be spot on. Crawford said that as part of a long period of rehearsal and preparation he spent an hour or more every day, for nearly three months just working on that one moment until he felt he could nail it to within a tiny fraction of accuracy each night. And that's a guy who could already sing...

ALL my music is 'under construction' and I hope it always will be. :)

Cheers,

Chris

I think anyone who teaches, even casually, will agree with Nick's statement. I agree that sometimes the perfect pracitce vs. practice can be a very blurred line, but trying to get someone who's used a more "interesting," shall we say, way of fingering a passage of notes or a particular change of chords for any length of time longer than a week can often take more than a week to correct. And that's when the person wants to correct it.

Like anything, it varies from person to person, but once something is in someone's muscle memory, it usually takes more effort to not fall into the rut of doing it the same way even though you may not want to.

Self-taught folks may find it different. I didn't - there are a lot of habits I picked up early that, once I realized there were better methods and techniques, took a lot of effort to change. But I can't speak for everyone's experiences and wouldn't dream of doing so.

Back to the matter at hand - Dylan, as you've said yourself, you're becoming impatient. That's normal. One thing to remember is that as you get better, the steps involved in both having something "under construction" and something "performance ready," whatever your criteria for either category, will be significantly shortened by all the work you're doing currently.

And, note to self, Just Like Heaven would also be a great beginners' lesson.

Peace

I think anyone who teaches, even casually, will agree with Nick's statement. I agree that sometimes the perfect pracitce vs. practice can be a very blurred line, but trying to get someone who's used a more "interesting," shall we say, way of fingering a passage of notes or a particular change of chords for any length of time longer than a week can often take more than a week to correct. And that's when the person wants to correct it.

Hi David,

I don't think that anybody - either teacher or student - would disagree with the underlying premise that we can entrench bad habits and mistakes just as easily as the good versions. There's obviously no value in being lazy, sloppy, or not bothering to pay proper attention to what's happening. But the fact remains that, no matter how keen or obedient a student you are, you simply cannot play everything “correctly” when you don't have the required skill yet - because that's what you're practising to try and acquire. It's the Catch 22 that everybody faces. :?

My feeling is that it doesn't matter if I make mistakes when I practice, provided that I'm paying enough attention to spot that it was a mistake. I'm confident that my brain is perfectly capable of filing the screw-ups under “Don't Repeat This” and the good parts under “Bravo! Keep That One”. After all, I've had a pretty successful life built on controlled trail and error. :wink: I believe that the trick is to not get uptight about errors - indeed to be relaxed about seeing them, because they all teach you something useful, and show you where the edge of the road is (and sometimes they even show you a possible new track...). I just try and pay close enough attention so that that the errors are both picked up soon and kept within in a modest range.

How do you advise your students to practice “correctly” please? Can you share any tips?

Apologies for hijacking your thread Dylan. I think I'll see if I can get another one going just about approaches to practice.

Cheers,

Chris