I’m only 2 months into the course, but I tend to get bored quickly of repetitive tasks and can feel my motivation wane which is the beginnings of getting stuck in a rut. I finished Grade 1 in about 3 weeks, and have been consolidating and working on my songs to be memorized/recorded for over a month now. Here’s what I’ve done so I don’t lose momentum and give up:
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Tried the first rut buster with my wife “hun, my online guitar instructor says I should buy another guitar so I don’t get stuck… yes I know I’ve only been practicing for two months, yes I know I already own two electric guitars, but…”. Let’s just say that hasn’t worked out well yet. Will be reattempting that in a few months for sure
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While consolidating and practicing daily, I did some other courses. Finished Grade 2 on Practical Music Theory, and working on Grade 2 Strumming SOS - Strumming Dynamics which is really helpful for the songs I’m learning and improving my strumming, rhythm and timing overall. I’m including the exercises from those courses into my daily practice routine to keep it fresh. I had started Ear Training, but realized that I was trying to do too much at once, so I stopped that for now. I’ll save it for a future rut busting period so I don’t run out of new courses to use (along with Grade 3 PMT).
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I found my fourth song “How to Save a Life” a bit more challenging than the others I’ve recorded, and started to get frustrated and thought of picking an easier song, but I’ve really wanted to learn and play that one for a long time. So, while still practicing that one daily, I’ve been practicing the previous ones I’ve already recorded and added more things to them (different strumming patterns, better chord changes, a few embellishments, etc.) and recorded them again to compare with my earlier recordings. I’m really happy that I did that, as it’s improved my playing of those songs, and has shown me the progress I’ve made in just a few weeks of extra practice which I didn’t realize. That gave me a motivational boost to keep practicing my fourth song.
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This past week I decided to move on and begin Grade 2 of the beginner course, but at a much slower rate than Grade 1 while continuing my consolidation and song practice. I only started the first module 8, and added the stuck chords and my first Pentatonic scale to my daily practice routine. That gives me new things to practice daily and keep my interest going while continuing to work on my Grade 1 song practice.
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Finally, I’m exploring listening to new music. While one of my goals is to play Blues music, I only really listened to and knew one album/musician which is Eric Clapton’s Unplugged album. So I’ve been using Spotify to explore both older and contemporary blues musicians and making my own Blues Favorites Playlist for future dream songs to aspire to. It’s also introduced me to Blues Rock which is a great combination of the two genres I’d love to play
So, thank you for this video Justin! Lots of great suggestions which shows that there isn’t just one way to go about this. I’m loving exploring different ways of both enjoying my daily practice while adding variety to it that keeps it interesting without straying too far from the structured learning approach of the course.