Ziggys Learning Log

GRADE 2 CONSOLIDATION WEEK 1
Week Ending Friday 6 September 2024
Target: 7 hours of practice per week (average 1 hour/day). Actual: 10 hours 30 minutes
Practised every day, Daily Min: 90 mins. Daily max: 90 minutes.

The format of this log has changed to reflect the move into Grade 2 consolidation. The focus for the next few months is improvement rather than learning new things so there may not be quite as much detail as previously. I have an offline Learning Log where I will keep up that detail but will likely limit the length of posts here to the key points each week.

Summary Progress and Observations
I’ve set a 90-minute daily practice routine, mapped out in a spreadsheet, with supplementary sessions for Garageband, Ear Training, Singing, and Jam Track play-along (to cover reactive listening). I have recorded the beginning states for each of the practice items in the first week, so I have a basis to refer to and hopefully see improvement as the weeks of consolidation pass. My intention is to compare progress at the end of each month, any more frequent than this probably won’t show up any meaningful progress. The aim is to upload AVOYP at the end of consolidation as part of “graduation”.

I started with the basic categories and subjects suggested by Justin but have already changed some of the items that I can already do quite easily and use the time to work more on things I find harder.

Chords: made a chord pairs chart categorised by the different types. Aim by the end of consolidation is to have 90% above 60/min and 75% above 80/min. Working through assessing my current speeds outside of regular practice as there are 495 chord pair changes to get through. The idea is to whittle the list down to the ‘problem’ children and work on those in consolidation. Progress this week is: 66% above 60/min and 32% above 80/min, so a long way to go yet.

Scales: working on the major and minor pentatonic scales, with alternate picking. Playing each pattern up and down the neck between 1st and 12th frets (1st finger in 9th fret). Tried the tempo at 120 bpm (metronome: 60 bpm) to try and get through 5 minutes error free. Continued to make errors so slowed down to 100 bpm where I can get it right most of the time. Will stick here for a while until comfortable. Minor pentatonic is easier than the major scale so I may up the tempo here first.

Strumming: just working on repetition of the patterns (Old Faithfull, Accent 2&4, Muted Hits, and 12-Bar Blues) along with a metronome at 90 bpm. Focus is on dynamics and consistency and am mostly using muted strings apart from the blues patterns where I use chunka-chunka. The blues in G is a stretch and is challenging to keep up for 5 minutes.

Technique: after initial assessment I’ve dropped some items that I find easy and have reallocated the time to additional sessions for the 4 items that remain (Hammer Ons, String Muting, Alternate Picking, and Fingerstyle Patterns). Starting with the basic fingerstyle patterns from my old JG Intermediate course book (p.158) and taking it slowly. They’re not complicated patterns so just need to practice. Based on what Justin says in his video I may drop the string muting so as not to over-focus on it, and just try to be aware of muting during other practice items. Re-visited the pick angle exercises again and will try this with a simple exercise going up/down the chromatic scale with alternate picking. For the Hammer-Ons I’m just re-visiting the exercise from lesson (Crossroads also requires hammer-ons).

Repertoire: revised these practice slots to be in line with the “10-Step” process. Working on Lay Down Sally, Teenage Dirtbag, and Crossroads (Developer) this week. Mostly tried to get the strumming automated whilst trying to distract myself during practice, and it’s not there yet for any of the songs. Played along to the recordings as fun time as it seems this is going to be a battle for me.

Note Recognition: continued with the Note Trainer app. Average speeds this week for a 3-minute test were: Name the Note: Average of 92 notes this week (Last Week: 89) and Find the Note: Average of 40 sequences of 6 notes this week (Last Week: 39). Started doing both memory quizzes but man, are they hard! I suppose it’s doing some good and reinforcing what I’m learning in the other exercises, so I’ll keep going in the hope it gets better. This is the first week where Name the Note has been above 90 every day.

Beginning Blues Guitar: moved on to learning the song “Muddy A Blues” in a chord/melody style. Working on counting out the rhythm whilst playing. Have each of the 4-bar sections playable and working on stringing the whole thing together whilst counting it.

Garageband: having connectivity issues that are not sorted yet. Can hear the guitar in the interface but can’t get GB to pick up any signal in the software. GB recognises my interface, and I have the channels correctly set, so it’s a bit of a mystery for now.

Singing: I watched the lessons on singing and have included some additional practice to improve my singing – just trying to hit pitch of the C major scale for now.

Other: I’ve downloaded the Blues Jam Tracks volume 1 and will use these outside the formal practice routine to play along to. Had to convert the mp3 files to wav files so the Ditto+ looper can read them but this severely reduces the storage available in the looper as wav files are about 5x the size of mp3’s.

GRADE 2 CONSOLIDATION WEEK 2
Week Ending Friday 13 September 2024

Target: 7 hours of practice per week (average 1 hour/day). Actual: 9 hours 50 minutes
Scheduled 90-Minute Daily Practice Routine
Practised every day, Daily Min: 50 mins. Daily max: 90 minutes.

Summary Progress and Observations
Chords: Total of 495 chord pairings. Target is to have 90% above 60/min and 75% above 80/min by the end of Consolidation. Progress this week is: 84% above 60/min and 33% above 80/min.

Scales: continued working on the major and minor pentatonic scales, with alternate picking, at 100 bpm. Pushed up to 110 bpm at the end of the week and was able to play still, so will try push up to 120 bpm next week but be prepared to come back down if there are too many mistakes.

Strumming: continued working on repetition of the patterns (Old Faithfull, Accent 2&4, Muted Hits, and 12-Bar Blues) along with a metronome at 90 bpm. Focus now is on dynamics and consistency and am mostly using muted strings apart from the blues patterns where I use chunka-chunka. Accuracy starts to drift towards the end of the 5 minutes due to arm getting tired. Need to review posture and relax the arm and shoulder more.

Technique: Continued with the basic fingerstyle pattern 1, can now play at a reasonable tempo so will move to pattern 2 next week. I will drop the string muting from this point so as not to over-focus on it, and just try to be aware of muting during other practice items. For alternate picking practice I continued with going up/down the chromatic scale at 60bpm. For the Hammer-Ons I’m playing the minor pentatonic scale in various places on the neck, up and down across the frets, picking then hammering on for the next note at 80bpm.

Repertoire: Rotated songs to Brown Eyed Girl, Everybody Hurts, and Crossroads (Developer) for this week (last week’s songs will re-appear a couple of times before the end of consolidation, so I’m not finished with them yet). Focus on getting the strumming automated whilst trying to distract myself during practice, and it’s not there yet for any of the songs but I can at least play them without looking. Started singing along with the recordings to get familiar with lyrics and phrasing.

Note Recognition: continued with the Note Trainer app. Average scores this week for a 3-minute test were: Name the Note: Average of 94 notes this week (Last Week: 92) and Find the Note: Average of 40 sequences of 6 notes this week (Last Week: 40). Continued doing both memory quizzes.

Beginning Blues Guitar: continued with “Muddy A Blues” in a chord/melody style. Can play it through at the slow tempo along with the video. Need at least 1 more week on this to get up to tempo before moving on to the next song. Remember to count out loud when practicing this.

Garageband: continuing connectivity issues that are not sorted yet. Research appears to indicate that my USB hub may be interfering with signal path and recommends going direct into the Mac so have ordered a cable to allow this that hopefully will resolve the issue.

Singing: didn’t do singing practice this week.

GRADE 2 CONSOLIDATION WEEK 3
Week Ending Friday 20 September 2024

Target: 7 hours of practice per week (average 1 hour/day). Actual: 9 hours 0 minutes
Scheduled 90-Minute Daily Practice Routine
Practised every day except Wednesday, Daily Min: 90 mins. Daily max: 90 minutes.

Summary Progress and Observations
I introduced more measurable weekly goals based on reflection of the previous weeks practice. The hope is this will help to focus on problems rather than just playing through the exercises without really thinking about them too much and without knowing if I achieved anything other than completing the exercise.

Chords: Total of 495 chord pairings. Target is to have 90% above 60/min and 75% above 80/min by the end of Consolidation. Progress this week is: 88% above 60/min (Last Week: 84%) and 36% above 80/min (Last Week: 33%).

Scales: First goal this week was to play the major scale 4 times up/down with alternate picking at 110bpm and zero errors. Goal was achieved and I’ve pushed on to 140bpm by the end of the week. Second goal was to play the minor pentatonic pattern 1 scale 4 times up/down with alternate picking at 120bpm and zero errors. Goal was achieved and I’ve pushed on to 200bpm.

Strumming: First goal this week was to play ‘Old Faithful’ pattern for 2 minutes at 90bpm with consistent volume and the goal was achieved. Second goal was to play ‘Accented 2&4’ pattern for 2 minutes at 90bpm with consistent volume. This goal was not achieved: the strumming remains uneven with inconsistent volume. Third goal was to play ‘Muted Hits’ for 2 minutes at 90bpm consistently with no strings ringing out and this goal was achieved (remove from routine next week). Fourth goal was to play a variety of 12-bar blues patterns from memory for 2 minutes at 90bpm. This goal was not achieved: the changes between chords is inconsistent and not in time, palm muting is variable, and results in tired shoulder. Need to work on posture as tiredness affects timing and rhythm gets sloppy towards the end.

Technique: First goal this week was to play the minor pentatonic for 2 minutes at 80bpm using alternating picks and hammer-ons. This goal was not achieved: inconsistent volume between picked and hammered notes, and inaccuracy in finger position for the hammer-on. Second goal was to alternate pick chromatically across the fretboard and advancing 1 fret at a time to the 12th fret at 60bpm with no errors. This goal was not achieved: best achieved was 2 errors. Third goal was playing basic fingerstyle pattern 1 (C chord) at 50bpm for 2 minutes. This goal was not achieved: fingernails hitting and muting strings, inconsistent volume, problems holding the chord down for 2 minutes straight.

Repertoire: Working on Margaritaville, Take Me Home Country Roads, and Crossroads (Developer) this week. Goal for Margaritaville and Country Roads was to be able to play the song from memory at full tempo, without looking at chord changes, whilst reading the lyrics. This goal was achieved for both songs. For Crossroads the goal was to be able to play the intro riff at 80bpm. This was a ‘partial’ achievement in that I can play it through, just about, but I still get duff notes in the 16th note passage at the end.

Note Recognition: continued with the Note Trainer app. Average scores this week for a 3-minute test were: Name the Note: Average of 96 notes this week (Last Week: 94) and Find the Note: Average of 40 sequences of 6 notes this week (Last Week: 40). Continued doing both memory quizzes.

Beginning Blues Guitar: goal this week was to play ‘Muddy A Blues’ piece through with the video at full speed with no errors. This was not achieved: still a little too fast at the triplets section. The rest is OK though. A couple more sessions should see this achieved and I can move on to the next song sometime next week I hope.

Garageband: continuing connectivity issues that are not sorted yet. Bought a new USB cable but still had problems. I tried with my old 2009 Macbook and it all seems to work fine, so maybe there’s a defect on the new laptop? It’s an old version of GB but at least it works well enough to record practice materials.

Singing: didn’t do singing practice this week.

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GRADE 2 CONSOLIDATION WEEK 4
Week Ending Friday 27 September 2024

Target: min 7 hours of practice per week (average 1 hour/day). Actual: 7 hours 30 minutes
90-Minute Daily Practice Routine
Practised every day except Wednesday and Thursday, Daily Min: 90 mins. Daily max: 90 minutes.

Summary Progress and Observations
Work caused me to miss a couple of days this week and work commitments mean that playing time is going to be restricted over the next 5-6 weeks or so. My aim is to use the time available to try and complete the practice items each day as a minimum.

I had 12 measurable goals for the week. Achieved only 4, not great. May be being too aggressive in what I think I can achieve so will keep monitoring for a couple of weeks and then review. Ideally I would like to achieve >70% of goals each week.

Chords: Total of 495 chord pairings. Target is to have 90% above 60/min and 75% above 80/min by the end of Consolidation. Cumulative progress this week is: 91% above 60/min (Last Week: 88%) and 40% above 80/min (Last Week: 36%).

Scales:
• Goal 1: play the major scale 4 times up/down with alternate picking at 160bpm and zero errors. Achieved.
• Goal 2: play the minor pentatonic pattern 1 scale 4 times up/down with alternate picking at 200bpm and zero errors. Achieved.

Strumming:
• Goal 1: play ‘Old Faithful’ pattern for 2 minutes at 100bpm with consistent volume. Achieved.
• Goal 2: play ‘Accented 2&4’ pattern for 2 minutes at 90bpm with consistent volume. Not achieved: the strumming remains uneven tempo with inconsistent volume.
• Goal 3: play a variety of 12-bar blues patterns from memory for 2 minutes at 90bpm. Achieved.

Technique:
• Goal 1: play the minor pentatonic for 2 minutes at 80bpm using alternating picks and hammer-ons. Not achieved: inconsistent volume between picked and hammered notes, and inconsistent tempo.
• Goal 2: alternate pick chromatically across the fretboard and advancing 1 fret at a time to the 12th fret at 60bpm with no errors. Not achieved: best achieved was 1 error.
• Goal 3: playing basic fingerstyle pattern 1 (C chord) at 50bpm for 2 minutes. Not achieved: fingernails hitting and muting strings, inconsistent volume, buzzing strings.

Repertoire: Working on Working Class Hero, The First Cut Is The Deepest, and Crossroads (Developer) this week.
• Goal 1 for Working Class Hero: play the song with simple chords whilst talk-singing. Achieved.
• Goal 2 for First Cut: be able to play the riff at full tempo. Not Achieved: problem with the finger roll at the start of the riff muting strings, slide up into notes is only working some of the time.
• Goal 3 for Crossroads: Play intro riff at 80bpm and cleanly transition to verse 1, no errors. Not Achieved: still getting muted notes but the finger speed is feeling more comfortable now.

Note Recognition: continued with the Note Trainer app. Average scores this week for a 3-minute test were: Name the Note: Average of 95 notes this week (Last Week: 96) and Find the Note: Average of 40 sequences of 6 notes this week (Last Week: 40). Continued doing both memory quizzes.

Beginning Blues Guitar: goal this week was to play ‘Muddy A Blues’ piece through with the video at full speed and to start ‘Deep Sea Blues’. Achieved.

Garageband: no GB work this week.

Singing: didn’t do singing practice this week.

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GRADE 2 CONSOLIDATION WEEK 5
Week Ending Friday 4 October 2024

Target: min 7 hours of practice per week (average 1 hour/day). Actual: 4 hours 30 minutes
90-Minute Daily Practice Routine
Missed practice Tuesday to Friday, Daily Min: 90 mins. Daily max: 90 minutes.

Summary Progress and Observations
Work caused me to miss a few of days at the end of this week and work commitments mean that playing time is going to be restricted over the next week or two. My aim is to use the time available to try and complete the practice items each day as a minimum.

I had 12 measurable goals this. Achieved 9 of these, a 75% success rate. I would like to achieve >70% of goals each week.

Chords: Total of 495 chord pairings. Goal 1 is to have 90% above 60/min and Goal 2 is 75% above 80/min by the end of Consolidation. Cumulative progress this week is: 95% above 60/min (Last Week: 91%) and 42% above 80/min (Last Week: 40%). Goal 1 is achieved but I’ll keep going to see if I can knock off the last 23 changes of the 60bpm ones (all stuck 3&4 types).

Scales:

  • Goal 1: play the major scale 4 times up/down, starting anywhere frets 1-12, with alternate picking at 180bpm and zero errors. Achieved.
  • Goal 2: play the minor pentatonic pattern 1 scale 4 times up/down, starting anywhere frets 1-12, with alternate picking at 200bpm, 1 run/day w/o looking, and zero errors. Achieved.

Strumming:

  • Goal 1: play ‘Old Faithful’ pattern for 2 minutes at 100bpm with consistent volume. Achieved.
  • Goal 2: play ‘Accented 2&4’ pattern for 2 minutes at 90bpm with consistent volume. Not achieved: still too tense in the shoulder leading to inconsistent tempo and volume. It is improving though.
  • Goal 3: play a variety of 12-bar blues patterns from memory for 2 minutes at 90bpm, with consistent volume and palm muting. Achieved.

Technique:

  • Goal 1: play the minor pentatonic for 2 minutes at 80bpm using alternating picks and hammer-ons. Achieved.
  • Goal 2: alternate pick chromatically across the fretboard and advancing 1 fret at a time to the 12th fret at 60bpm with no errors. Not achieved: best achieved was 3 errors.
  • Goal 3: playing basic fingerstyle pattern 1 (C chord) at 60bpm for 2 minutes. Achieved.

Repertoire: Working on Chocolate Jesus, You Never Can Tell, and If It Makes You Happy (Developer) this week.

  • Goal 1 for Chocolate Jesus: play from memory, simply, whilst singing. Achieved.
  • Goal 2 for Never Can Tell: play from memory, simply, whilst singing. Achieved.
  • Goal 3 for Happy: Play from memory with recording using the Gsus riff. Achieved.

Note Recognition: continued with the Note Trainer app. Average scores this week for a 3-minute test were: Name the Note: Average of 94 notes this week (Last Week: 95) and Find the Note: Average of 41 sequences of 6 notes this week (Last Week: 40). Continued doing both memory quizzes.

Beginning Blues Guitar: goal this week was to learn the remaining parts of ‘Deep Sea Blues’ and be able to play through with the slow tempo video. Not Achieved: not enough practice sessions in the week. I only got as far as the first 9 of 12 bars learned, and not yet memorised.

Garageband: no GB work this week, no time available due to work.

Singing: practised 3x sessions just singing scales along with the guitar

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GRADE 2 CONSOLIDATION WEEK 6
Week Ending Friday 11 October 2024

Target: min 7 hours of practice per week (average 1 hour/day). Actual: 4 hours 30 minutes
90-Minute Daily Practice Routine
Only managed 3 sessions this week, Daily Min: 90 mins. Daily max: 90 minutes.

Summary Progress and Observations
Work caused me to miss most of this week and work commitments mean that playing time is going to continue to be restricted. My aim is to use any time available to try and complete some practice items each day as a minimum.

I had 12 measurable goals this. Again achieved 9 of these, a 75% success rate (Last Week: 75%). I would like to achieve >70% of goals each week.

Chords: Total of 495 chord pairings. Goal 1 is to have 90% above 60/min and Goal 2 is 75% above 80/min by the end of Consolidation. Cumulative progress this week is: 96% above 60/min (Last Week: 95%) and 44% above 80/min (Last Week: 42%). Goal 1 is achieved: there are now 20 changes remaining to be accomplished of the 60bpm ones (all stuck 3&4 types).

Scales:

  • Goal 1: play the major scale 4 times up/down, starting anywhere frets 1-12, with alternate picking at 180bpm and zero errors. Achieved.
  • Goal 2: play the minor pentatonic pattern 1 scale 4 times up/down, starting anywhere frets 1-12, with alternate picking at 200bpm, 1 run/day w/o looking, and zero errors. Achieved.

Strumming:

  • Goal 1: play ‘Old Faithful’ pattern for 2 minutes at 100bpm with consistent volume. Achieved.
  • Goal 2: play ‘Accented 2&4’ pattern for 2 minutes at 90bpm with consistent volume. Not achieved: improving consistency of tempo and volume but still not relaxed enough.
  • Goal 3: play a variety of 12-bar blues patterns from memory for 2 minutes at 90bpm, with consistent volume and palm muting. Achieved.

Technique:

  • Goal 1: play the minor pentatonic for 2 minutes at 80bpm using alternating picks and hammer-ons. Achieved.
  • Goal 2: alternate pick chromatically across the fretboard and advancing 1 fret at a time to the 12th fret at 60bpm with no errors. Not achieved: best achieved was 1 error.
  • Goal 3: playing basic fingerstyle pattern 1 (C chord) at 60bpm for 2 minutes. Achieved.

Repertoire: Lay Down Sally, Teenage Dirtbag, and If It Makes You Happy (Developer) this week.

  • Goal 1 for Lay Down Sally: sing with recording. Play simple & sing. Achieved.
  • Goal 2 for Teenage Dirtbag: sing with recording. Play simple & sing. Achieved.
  • Goal 3 for Happy: memorise progression using the Gsus riff. Not Achieved. Didn’t get enough sessions in to fully memorise the progression.

Note Recognition: continued with the Note Trainer app. Average scores this week for a 3-minute test were: Name the Note: Average of 87 notes this week (Last Week: 94) and Find the Note: Average of 39 sequences of 6 notes this week (Last Week: 41). Continued doing both memory quizzes. Performance dropped off a bit, which may be from tiredness after a long workday. Hopefully will get back above 90 and 40 when I get back to practising every day.

Beginning Blues Guitar: goal this week was to learn the remaining parts of ‘Deep Sea Blues’ and be able to play through with the slow tempo video. Achieved: can play from memory and at the slow tempo.

Garageband: no GB work this week, no time available due to work.

Singing: practised 3x sessions just singing scales along with the guitar

GRADE 2 CONSOLIDATION WEEK 7
Week Ending Friday 18 October 2024

No practice this week due to work commitments

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that must be your shortest update :smiley:

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It’s a fairly easy update if you haven’t done anything :grinning:

Back to it today. Fingers are a bit slow and a bit sore after 2 weeks off

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GRADE 2 CONSOLIDATION WEEK 8
Week Ending Friday 25 October 2024

Only managed to get 1 practice session in this week. I think the work commitments should ease off next week and let me get back to more regular practice. Fingers are going to be sore after 2 weeks away!

@MacOneill That’s the second shortest update ever :grinning:

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I hope for you there wont be a third :sweat_smile: :rofl:

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Practice Routine Changes

The last couple of weeks of very little practice has given me the opportunity to review how I’m structuring the sessions. The most recent ones were a bit ‘just going through the motions’ simply to get it done and I don’t feel like I made much real visible progress. I’ve decided to change things up a little

I have cut down my ‘official’ practice time down to 60 minutes (was previously 90) and will split into two 30 minute sessions, morning and afternoon. I’ll still have the other 30 minutes identified but they will be electives. I still want to do most of them every day but the key is to get the 60 minutes done first. Having the 90 minutes all in one block just became a chore and I was losing motivation to sit down and get started - 90 minutes of scheduled practice is about 2 hours sat in the chair in reality with breaks and futzing about. I was OK once I actually sat down and started.

I watched a YT video by a piano teacher for how she structures practice for her students. She recommends sessions to be 30 minutes or less before you take a break and I’ve seen other psychology papers recommending to split up practice across the day (spaced practice). I’ll give it a go and see if it helps me to focus better.

I’ve also gone back to pen and paper for my practice log. It helps to keep the extraneous stuff out of the log if you have to write it by hand. Each 30 minute session is only 5 lines in the notebook (1 item per line). My Word document was recording too much information to be able to make sense out of it :unamused:

If anyone is interested in the psychology of practice you should check out https://bulletproofmusician.com/ and this YT channel by a Classical/Flamenco teacher has some science-based practice advice https://www.youtube.com/@DiegoAlonsoMusic

GRADE 2 CONSOLIDATION WEEK 9
Week Ending Friday 1 November 2024

Target: min 7 hours of practice. Actual: 5 hours
60 minutes/day routine, 2 sessions of 30 mins each.

Summary Progress and Observations
Managed to get significantly more practice done this week and managed at least some practice every day except Friday (I was away all day and overnight). As noted above I changed up my practice routine as I felt it wasn’t really sticking. This week seems to have gone better, once I got back into the regular sessions.

Splitting practice up into 2x 30 min sessions seems to work better for me as it doesn’t seem like such a chore half way through. Most days I continue to play after the 30 minutes, mostly keeping songs fresh and some playing along with recordings.

I’m reading a couple of books on how to structure practice sessions and have started to incorporate some of the suggestions. It’s early days so we’ll see if they stick around! When I finish the books I plan to do a review post here with the main points.

Going back to pen and paper for my daily practice log has helped I think in that I don’t spend as much time collecting data and spend more time actually playing! Having the paper notebook open during the session is less distracting than having the computer on. I spend a few minutes at the start and end of each session to think about what I’ve done and to record one thing that went well and one thing that needs more work. These end of session thoughts will start to become the goals for future sessions and should direct the sessions to the things that need work rather than trying to play through everything every time. I’ve done 2 months of this bulk practice and the final 2 months of consolidation will be more targeted on the things that need the most work.

Chords: Still working my way through the various changes and trying to get as many of them at 80bpm as possible. Looks like I’m left with the more difficult ones now as I’m only really completing 1 chord per session. The Stuck 3/4 continue to be the most problematic.

Scales: continuing to work on the major scale and minor pentatonic scales. I was running these at around 200bpm but have slowed them right back down to 70-80bpm as I was getting too many errors. I’m focusing more on getting good quality clean notes rather than calling it done if I just manage to hit it. Also trying to concentrate on producing a consistent volume.

Fingerstyle: continuing to learn the 4 beginner patterns from the Intermediate course, mostly concentrating on pattern 1. Still trying to work out position of right hand so that I can cleanly pluck the string without catching it with the fingernails. Working at 70bpm I can mostly do it cleanly with consistent volume for a couple of minutes but any longer than that and it’s a problem. I plan to start with the other patterns at a slow tempo for variety.

Alternate Picking: continue to run chromatic scales from the 1st to the 12th frets and have started to be able to this error free at 80bpm. Will look to increase tempo now. I’m also alternate picking the scales exercises.

Hammer Ons: using the minor pentatonic scale and running at 160bpm. Getting more consistent notes ringing out with decent volume for the most part and it feels more relaxed than it did previously.

Strumming: running ‘Old Faithful’ and ‘Accent 2/4’ patterns at around 100bpm. Generally have both down with consistent volume but occasionally miss an up-strum. I’ve also been going through 12 bar blues patters in A, E, and G. The G pattern continues to be a stretch.

Repertoire: working on ‘Margaritaville’ and ‘Take Me Home Country Roads’ and can play both from memory and have started talk-singing with the chord progression. It’s starting to come together but need to start isolating the problem parts and just working these in the practice slots. Leave the playing through until after the initial 30 minute period. Synchronising the lyrics for Margaritaville as the verse changes into the chorus was problematic but I think I’ve managed to sort out where I was going wrong and it’s been a lot better the last couple of days.

Next Week: I want to finish the books and start to put into practice more of what I’ve learned. I still have a couple of days work to finish but will try to get the 7 hours of practice done in the week.

For those interested the books are

Learn Faster, Perform Better: A Musicians Guide to the Neuroscience of Practicing, by Dr. Molly Gebrian, Oxford University Press

Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning, by Peter Brown, Belknap Press

The Musicians Way: A Guide to Practice, Performance, and Wellness, by Gerald Klickstein, Oxford University Press

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GRADE 2 CONSOLIDATION WEEK 10
Week Ending Friday 8 November 2024

Another hit and miss week for practice due to other commitments. Only managed 2 sessions this week but I did take the time to finish the first of the books I am reading whilst away from the guitar. I’ll make a separate post reviewing the book below.

BOOK REVIEW: Learn Faster, Perform Better

This is a long post. The first section gives my general thoughts and the part below the line gives my major takeaways from the book.

General Thoughts
I’ve recently read Learn Faster, Perform Better by Dr. Molly Gebrian (2024, OUP), which seeks to present strategies for music practice by relating them to research in learning and neuroscience. Dr. Gebrian is a music teacher and a performing viola player. She also holds qualifications in neuroscience and cognitive psychology and is perhaps uniquely qualified to present her arguments in this manner. The book is written for classical players at undergraduate level but there is plenty here for beginners playing popular music on any instrument.

The books main argument is that many musicians, particularly amateurs and undergraduates, don’t employ effective practice strategies and seeks to suggest alternatives backed up by the latest scientific research. The author intersperses descriptions of the research with discussion on what it means when applied to music practice. She will often describe what she sees in her students and shares how they have addressed a variety of issues in their playing ability. Rest assured, the science part is easily understandable for the lay reader and doesn’t require any prior understanding of neuroscience. This book is highly readable and clearly explains any jargon used.

I’ve started to include some of the suggestions in this book into my own practice but, as suggested by the book itself, I am not trying to completely overhaul my routine in one fell swoop! The book advises an incremental approach, allowing each change to bed in before looking to make further revisions. I think most musicians, at whatever skill level, can get something out of this book and it is certainly beneficial if you feel your practice sessions are merely going through the motions.

Many of the book’s findings back up Justin’s teaching and recommendations. It should be a good complimentary read to anyone following his courses and lessons. Cross-posted with Just Chatting


My Main Takeaways from the Book
The book has 5 main sections:

  1. Brain Basics
  2. Using Your Time Well
  3. The Power of the Mind
  4. Challenges Specific to Music
  5. Conclusion – Bringing It All Together

Section I: Brain Basics
Section I describes how the brain, and specifically memory, functions and identifies what ‘good’ practice should look like. The author argues that successful practice is not simply endless repetition of the same thing. Good practice should focus on identifying problem areas, developing solutions, and then repeating those solutions to reinforce the correct way of playing.

The book discusses various strategies for correcting mistakes and makes the point that mistakes are inevitable during practice. The important thing is how the musician recognises and deals with these mistakes; “playing without analysis is just playing, it is not practice”. The author argues that each practice session should have goals related to the identified problem spots, these goals kept in a practice journal and reflected on at the start and end of each practice session. The focus of practice must be the parts you cannot play, not the parts you can (a message continually reinforced by Justin).

The author discusses bad habits and describes strategies for fixing them; amplification of error, and old way/new way. Both methods rely on the exaggeration of error and playing them on purpose to isolate the issues to fix them. However, the book makes clear that this approach can be damaging if you don’t already have the necessary playing skills and so this technique appears to be aimed more at intermediate and advanced players. Beginners should probably not use them and should be focused more on technique exercises to improve their skill level.

Section II: Using Your Time Well
Section II outlines the importance of taking breaks both within and between practice sessions. The book argues that continuous practice for hours without a break is not effective and it’s better to use a concept called ‘spaced practice’ that includes time for breaks. The research has shown that it’s especially important to engage in spaced practice when learning new material and to be careful of learning pieces that are too similar – research shows that subsequent pieces, if too similar, will interfere with the brains ability to learn the first piece making your practice ineffective.

The author argues that getting enough sleep is critical to learning and preserving in memory what you have learned. Not getting enough sleep risks losing what you have learned that day. There is an abundance of research in a variety of fields that backs this up and has to do with the brains process of moving things from short-term memory to long-term memory whilst you sleep. The author states “If you take nothing else away from this book, take this: sleep is absolutely essential for learning and if you want to maximise the results of your practice, you have to prioritise sleep.”

The book states that there is no ‘perfect’ schedule of breaks. The brain needs time to assimilate new information, but it also appears to need to forget in some form to make it effortful trying to remember it. For new materials the time between sessions should be shorter and can expand when there is some familiarity with the material. The author suggests starting with micro-breaks within a single practice session, then come back to the piece a couple of times a day, and finally, once you can play the piece well, leaving it alone for several days before practicing it again from memory.

A variation of spaced practice, Interleaved Practice, is discussed as a method for improving the eventual performance of a piece and being able to play it right first time. It’s important to note that interleaved practice is best used once the piece is known well enough to be played from memory but needs to be polished. Other strategies should be used for learning new material and the book outlines this process and the approaches that should be used at each stage including blocked practice, serial practice, and interleaved practice.

The author suggests that changing some aspects of what is practised rather than practicing the same thing multiple times can make practice more effective but there must be solid technique underlying the material before this is tried and care must be taken not to make the variation too dissimilar to the piece. Suggestions for variations are to change the rhythm, the tempo, even detuning your instrument!

Section III: The Power of the Mind
Section III focuses on the beneficial use of mental practice or practicing inside your head without your instrument. The author argues that adding mental practice to your routine enhances learning over just doing physical practice alone. However, some knowledge of the physical process is required to derive maximum benefit from this approach. The book recommends that we start with physical practice and include mental practice once there is at least some familiarity. The author recommends the use of video and watching back, even if it includes mistakes, if you can identify that these are mistakes.

The book presents research demonstrating that mental practice works and suggests several strategies to be included in practice routines. The author notes that mental practice is a skill and itself needs practice, so start with just one aspect of playing and don’t try to do everything all at once.

The author describes the difference between having an internal versus external focus during your practice and presents research to support why having an external focus is better. Internal focus is focusing on what your body is doing e.g. finger position; external focus is outside your body e.g. the instrument or how it sounds in the room or to the audience. Internal focus is fine when learning the mechanics of a skill but try to refocus externally as soon as possible.

The book discusses the most effective ways to memorise music and describes the 3 steps of the memorisation and recall process: Encoding, Consolidation, and Retrieval. The research suggests the use of ‘chunking’ (e.g. learning phrases and then assembling them) to ensure deep encoding and the use of structural and performance cues to help remember where you are in a piece. The research again suggests that sleep is essential for the consolidation of memory and that retrieval practice must be done from memory, no cheating! The author recommends begin playing from memory right at the start of learning a piece as getting it wrong and correcting it soon after helps to form the memory.

Section IV: Challenges Specific to Music
This part of the book discusses practice strategies specific to music, in particular improving rhythm and tempo, pitch and intonation, and playing at speed.

The key to improving rhythm and tempo is not to practice with a metronome all the time as you won’t have a metronome going during performance. The research shows that continual practice with a metronome does not ‘lock in’ your sense of time beyond a very basic level. What has proved effective is moving the body in time with the music to strengthen your sense of time. The metronome should be used only to test your sense of rhythm e.g. by having it periodically go silent and seeing where you are when it comes back in.

Pitch perception is important for all musicians but for guitarists intonation is taken care of by the frets and with good setup and accurate tuning. Audiation, the ability to hear the pitch of a note in your head, is important and is a skill that should be developed (ear training, also stressed as an important skill by Justin).

When the book describes the strategies for improving speed most of the suggested methods are more applicable to classical pieces than to popular songs. However, the suggested strategies involving metronome clicking-up are applicable and can be easily implemented even by beginners. The book describes some more advanced techniques involving interleaved practice but suggests that these are more appropriate for advanced players. Beginners and intermediate players should begin with the simpler strategies. The author stresses that, whichever method is used, be patient and don’t rush as you can harm your ability if you practice the wrong thing (another Justin recommendation).

Conclusion – Bringing It All Together
In her conclusion Dr. Gebrian discusses time management, focus, motivation, and strategies to cope with feeling overwhelmed. The main recommendation is to keep a practice journal, record in it what problems you are having, what you are doing to solve them, and what your goals are for each practice session. Your session goals need to be structured around the problems and your strategies for overcoming them. Make your goals specific and measurable for best results.

The author suggests breaking your practice into 25-30 minute sessions and to schedule short (5-10 minutes) breaks in between. Never practice for more than 90 minutes (3x sessions in a row) without taking an extended break of at least 90 minutes. Avoid mindless practice and learn how to focus. Understand how to motivate yourself and try to do something, however small, each day (another Justin recommendation). Prioritise sleep and don’t try to change too much all at once. Pick one thing to start and then add others over time.

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Stuart, going back through your learning log since we both are working on grade 2 consolidation songs. Your idea about transferring the learning log content to local storage is a good idea. I don’t think that JG is going away any time soon. But it is nice to have local access in case of a network outage. I did experience the annoyance of losing all of my work when I had an account on Line 6 GuitarPort website many years ago. A year of lessons disappeared when Line 6 dropped the website subscription service. I also have online subscriptions to Guitar Techniques, Total Guitar and Guitar Player magazines accessed via app on my tablet. I had to permanently download 12 years of issue for the 3 magazines since all 3 are going away by the end of the year. So caution about nonlocal or online or cloud storage is sometimes justified.

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Stuart, the book sound interesting. Some of it seem to correspond to some of the lessons that start the modules in Grade 3 - such as:
Module16 - Supercharge Your Practice with Timboxing
Module 17 - Goals and Destinations
Module 20 - The Spacing Effect and module
Module 21 - The Objective Observer

I think that I will take a look at the book. Thanks.

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@SteveL_G99 Hi Steve. Interesting that some of this stuff comes up in Grade 3. I’ll be starting to have a look at that in a few weeks. A lot of what I read in the book backs up what Justin has been teaching for years. My biggest takeaway is that just banging away at the same thing over and over will NOT ‘burn it into your memory’ because this isn’t how brains work!

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For anyone interested Dr. Gebrian has a YT channel where she demonstrates some of the techniques in the book.

https://www.youtube.com/@DrMollyGebrian

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GRADE 2 CONSOLIDATION WEEK 11
Week Ending Friday 15 November 2024

Target: 7 hours of practice. Actual: 6.25 hours

Summary Progress and Observations
Getting back into a regular routine this week after a few weeks disrupted for work. Starting to incorporate ideas from the books I’ve been reading: I’ve split practice up into 2-3 sessions of 30-45 minutes each day (after breakfast, after lunch, and after dinner) and taking time at the start of each session to set targets for that session. Now have the target of completing 3 consecutive repetitions of an item before moving on and if I mess up on the 3rd rep then it gets set back to zero - it MUST be 3 consecutive error free reps to count!

I’ve seen noticeable improvements in most areas this week, which may be because I’m just being more specific or setting more realistic goals, but it feels like progress is being made :grinning:

Chords: spent the week focusing on the ‘weak’ G changes and have just 4 of these left at 80bpm. I was reminded from Justins stream this week to split chord practice into getting accurate fingering as well as the speed of the change. I was only doing the speed part and wasn’t really seeing much progress in chord quality. We’ll see if there’s an improvement next week.

Scales: started the week making errors in the Major scale at 70bpm but progressed up to 85bpm by the end of the week with no errors (3 consecutive sets of 3 reps up/down the scale, alternate picking, no mistakes). Minor Pentatonic is up to 120bpm and some reps are now without looking at either fretting or picking hands.

Rhythm: continued with Old Faithfull at 100bpm but have started using the metronome with bar breaks (3 muted bars + 1 sounding out). A bit inconsistent to start with but it’s getting better. Same deal with Accent 2&4 strumming so still some work to do to tighten these up.

Fingerstyle: continued with playing Pattern 1 but introduced chord change C to Am to save being on the same chord for too long. Improved speed to 80bpm but pushed this higher today but w/o metronome, just to see how fast I could go. Will look to increase speed next week and maybe introduce pattern 2.

Alternate Picking: using the chromatic scale and moving it across the neck and back and up the neck between frets 1 and 9. Mostly without error but haven’t managed 3 consecutive reps yet - keep working on this at 80bpm until I get 3 clean reps.

Repertoire: focus on Working Class Hero this week. Had an issue where Am chord was stopping the high E when wrapping thum around to mute the low E. Mostly sorted by the end of the week after a couple of sessions ironing this one out in line with suggestions from the book. By the end of the week the strumming is pretty automated and I’ve started to include the lyrics. Need to learn the words properly now, so that will be focus for next week. Playing Margaritaville from memory as a warmup and this is starting to get comfortable now. I seem to be using the afternoon session mostly for songs - good tips from Justins stream too so I’ll be having a think about Campfire, Developer, and Dreamers.

Griff Hamlin Blues Guitar: continued to work through this and completed the Fast Walking Blues exercise with the alternate picking at full tempo.

Singing: continued to sing major scale whilst playing on the guitar. No specific goals for this, just to practice trying to hit notes and checking them.

Takeaways and Goals for Next Week

  1. Continue increasing the tempo on the scales exercises but don’t increase tempo until I get 3 consecutive reps of 3 up/down sets. Click up by 5bpm.
  2. Continue the metronome bar breaks exercises for both strumming patterns. Focus on hitting the ‘1’
  3. Continue the fingerstyle pattern 1 practice. Try and find a song to work on, rather than just rather bland exercises.
  4. Alternate Picking: continue 1 more week with this specific exercise. I’m also doing scales with alternate picking so can probably better use this time elsewhere. Can come back to it later if needed.
  5. Learn the words to Working Class Hero before moving on to the next song. It’s taking longer to get to 10 songs that I can sing and play from memory but I feel I need to focus on them individually until they are playable, rather than rotating them in and out of my routine. Working Class Hero will be the 2nd song I should be able to play and sing at the same time if I can learn the words next week. Will use some time to play these through as a ‘set’ every couple of days and add other songs to them when I’m comfortable with them.
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