My guitar teacher has tasked me with learning the solo from Father and Son as it’s a relatively simple acoustic solo.
At first I really struggled with it but I’m plugging away at it with some success. There’s one bit I’m stuck on and I feel like if I can get past this hurdle the rest will flow.
But now I’m finding that my brain is just hyper focused on that and I can’t face anything else (any otber songs or anything). Usually I sit down and do through a few things but all I want to do today is keep doing a bit of that solo!
Has this happened to anyone else and did it get better ince you’d got over that learning hurdle or did you have to force yourself to get back into other things?
A few times. I actually love getting into that state of mind, usually it results in more time spent with guitar and total focus, which helps overcome difficult things and make you progress. This year I managed not to leave all else aside while I am doing such mini projects. I do other parts of my practice, sometimes with reduced times though.
And, despite the difficulty, I think the key is to give yourself a strict timeframe in each session.
Its like firmly telling your brain, “OK buddy, we have 20 minutes; make the most of it”.
Well, I clicked on this thread because of the title: I’m currently hyper-focused on learning a particular solo, and if I just sit down, that’s what I’d do over and over.
What I did to break out a bit the obsessive nature was to go back to the beginning (think Grade 1) and structure my practice sessions as Justin teaches in the beginner course. This way I have a set of things I need to go through before I dive into the solo again
Me too, and, as a newb, I know I should be working fundamentals, instead I keep going back to Mad World. My pseudo pscience is that it all about battling brain parts:
Oh…I’ma gonna solo (minor panic attack), I don’t want to look stooopid, so I better practice this song until I’m perfect: flight
Coupled with
Oh, that’s nice. When I played the progression that new way, I liked that more. Maybe it’ll sound even better in a way I haven’t tried yet…: fight
Plus, let’s be honest, one minute chord changes, finger stretching, chord perfect changes, scales, they are pretty: boring…
That amygdala: it sure has a lot of power for such a itty-bitty piece of brain.
Maybe talk to your pre-fontal cortexes and they’ll help you do the stuff you know you should be doing…
Discipline. I’ve learned to have routines, based on what i’m practicing at that moment.
I don’t feel good knowing i’ve wasted a whole practice segment on one thing.
It’s not about one thing, it’s a collection of things. They all somewhat work together.
Mostly, it’s warming up, doing some fingerstretching/excersises, work on chord changes, practice song(s) i’m learning and if there’s time left, i’d improvise over a backingtrack with the scale i’m learning at that time.
Again, discipline is the key here.
