Working on songs from zero

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21

I’m also fairly busy; I’m working and putting myself through a new university degree. I would say learning a new song is a lot like eating an elephant: you just take one bite at a time. It might take you a lot longer than someone who can practice for eight hours. You can still make a lot of progress, even with practice sessions of 10-20 minutes as many days-per-week as possible. Divide the song into managable chunks and practice each one, and then start putting them together. I, for one, actually enjoy the progress I’m making, even on short little practice sessions.

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22

Hi there,

It is interesting that you asked this. I was thinking the name thing lately, why is it so darn hard to find time to squeeze in time for music? I don’t know if any of this will help, but a few things that have helped me in the past are:

  1. schedule time in the day to practice. If it is 5 PM on Tuesday Thursday only, stick to it like you are showing up for work or school.
  2. Keep your guitar out in plain view. A guitar in the case under the bed or in the closet is less likely to be played than one on a stand in plain view.
  3. Start with the 5 minutes plan. Say I will practice for 5 minutes a day, which is better than no minutes. In most cases the 5 minutes will turn into a lot longer. If it doesn’t, don’t beat yourself up because there will be days the music just flows through you and you can’t put the guitar down.
  4. New songs specifically-look in all kinds of places. Justin has several lessons, but he can only offer so much. Find something that interests you and google the tab. If it is too hard, try something else that seems to fir your ability. Maybe you like Metallica, but if it is beyond what you can do, broaden your horizons. Tom Petty, Green Day, even AC DC can be easy to learn and fun. Try anything from your favorite artist and you might be surprised that you can play the song. The main thing to get down is where the chords change and how many bars of each. A simple strum will work to get you going and you can always improve later.

I just added some new songs here after being inactive for a month. After failures and delays, I just got up and tried again once the dust settled. With a will there is a way. You can do it if I can. A 12 hour work day is a short day for me plus wife and kids too. I still don’t give up the dream of playing guitar and playing with skill.

Jeff

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23

Hello friends! Such wonderful comments I have been reading and rereading.

I consider myself unlucky for not having wife and children yet. On the bright side, I could consider myself young (<4 years to go before I become middle age uncle T.T)

To work on songs from zero, got to sort out the goals and motivation. After getting the mindset down, it is time to work on it, and work on it until it works. And when it is about time management, it is about prioritizing life events.

On guitar and music, my first priority is to work on music projects to be published on YouTube. And I will commit to learn new songs (new tricks essentially) to be applied on the project. If I ever getting busy in the future, and I could find some time to work on music projects, then I will find time to work on new songs.

Every morning I will go through the repertoire (selected songs), and it is inpiring to do so :sparkling_heart: (Oshio’s Wings You are the Hero make my day happier, really =) )