Two questions- one on strumming, one on learning technique

[Silvia80]

Hi Stacy, I’m not sure this can help you, but that “brute memorize” caught my attention…

@artax_2

I don’t want to brute memorize, I want to gain skill and use it comfortably.

How much can we rely on muscle memory?

I found this interesting article, it’s from a classical guitar site, but it well applies to fingerstyle and lead guitar in general I think. Anyone else experiencing this? It reminds me of the 6 areas of practice from one of Justin’s Food for Thought articles; we need to develop our skills in all the areas, otherwise something will be always missing, and when fingers memory lets you down you go blank and get stuck it used to happen to me so much! But I’m trying to avoid…

As for the strumming course, the strumming S.O.S. is something I highly reccomend you start asap because it’s a whole concentration of goodness that will help you consolidate your foundations 'skills. I can’t tell you how long it took me, anytime Justin says to give one or couple of weeks to a certain exercise then I always end up giving it one or couple of months (I’m also very much engaged with Classical Guitar and my brain wouldn’t be able to process and digest too much at the same time, just a little bit everyday is my option). I’m now working on the strumming Dynamics and I’ve already put my heart at ease with the idea that it will take me ages to complete it, it needs time for me, I guess for anyone else, for skills to start developing. Hope this helps somehow.