This is probably necessary for most people at first, but I found I got a lot of benefit from adding some “no looking” practice once I had the basic patterns down.
I found that made me focus more on the kinaesthetic senses - like I was feeling what my fingers were doing…which was quite a different mental experience than just watching them.
This made me much more aware of previously unnoticed muscle tension and clumsiness of specific fingers, and let me focus on relaxing, or giving the problem finger more practice.
I usually had to lower the BPM at first, but it seemed to improve my speed in the long run.
@stitch often says “use your ears, not your eyes”, which is resonating with me more and more as I progress.
I think this is a similar thing, though it needs a nice catchphrase.
Or you could say “Your hands already know what to do So let them” sometimes our brains get in the way of progress. Like Justin says “You think You Stink”
@Tbushell
Totally agree with what you’re saying Tom, and with what you’re quoting Rick @stitch saying.
I’ve only had a few practice sessions with it so keeping it slow and deliberate and watching and thinking and counting.
I intend to wean myself off looking when I’m at the stage of not needing to think about it as much.
Only when I can play it without looking will I start to increase the speed.
And yeah, I listen to the notes I’m picking and hear those same notes in the strumming part.
When you think about all the things we do with our hand when we can’t see what they’re doing, like undoing a bolt behind something in a awkward spot. Playing guitar should be as hard as it is.
What a great lesson! I went into it thinking it was going to be a lot harder than it was. I’ve by no means perfected it, but I believe that having done Justin’s blues lead course REALLY helped with the targeting of the individual strings for this technique. I believe his lesson on practicing scales with a metronome has helped with this as well. I absolutely love how everything I learn on guitar carries on to future techniques without me even knowing it.
Last night I randomly decided to watch Justin’s Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door lesson (BD not G’n’R one) and he specifically mentions THIS lesson. It is great song to put the technique into practice, especially since it’s a grade 2 and has only few chords with the same progression throughout.
I am new to making GP files, but I am pretty sure that I did it correctly.
I am sure someone will let me kindly know if I messed up
It may not be the exact way Justin would have created the GP, but I think I have all the exercises, patterns, etc. correct.
Please let me know if there are any mistakes that need correcting or recommendations for formatting for any future GPs that I may make.
(Maybe I should have done a different speed(s) for the MP3s)
So, I’ve been on this for about two weeks now. It’s a bear! My question is, when you come across a lesson like this, does one want perfection or an understanding of the concept and some practice with the notion that you can revisit this later on. Sometimes I feel as if I spend way too much time on certain things. Do others have this issue and how do you handle it?
For me, the point is, to have absorbed the technique, not absolutely perfectly, but reasonably well. A lot of techniques in Grade 3 need some more practice to sink in, so I keep them on the schedule or cycle back from time to time, whilst moving on. I guess, it’s a point of decision about your own direction too. Some skills might be more relevant for your individual development than others. Sooner or later, we all have to set priorities.
Two weeks isn’t long enough to claim there is a problem. I have been at this for about a year and it points right at my primary shortcoming to get resolved.
I tried a few methods to get accuracy in general working, expecting 2-3 weeks to show good progress, but nothing I tried showed substantial success. I finally asked for help and heard a common theme from folks that I am trying now. I see some progress, so maybe I can say I am over the stuck point, but progress is still slower than I like.
Here is a link to my question in case the feedback is useful for you:
When I run across something that is slow to pick up, I just keep it in my practice. Techniques come and go as I get comfortable with them, not because of how much time I have had them in practice. Once there is room in my schedule for something new, I watch the next module video and add that to my practice. This keeps me rolling along with fresh topics until I really need to clean out the tough stuff to make room for new. I then do a fairly dedicated practice to resolve the tough topics until I can call them “learned”.
Strangely I found this one quite easy although I have been practicing Toby’s @TheMadman_tobyjenner finger picking efficiency exercise quite a bit which has probably helped!
6-5-6-4-6-3-6-2-6-1-6-2-6-3-6-4-6-5 and loop.
5-4-5-3-5-2-5-1-5-2-5-3-5-4 and loop
4-3-4-2-4-1-4-2-4-3 and loop
know if I messed up 
