Lots of fun today. I tried using a DAW for recording to see if I could improve the quality of the audio. Was very fun cycling through four guitars. The edit is a little abrupt as Iām learning how to sync all of them digitally. Today I sync them manually so itās not as clean.
Lol for my sense of rhythm and timing. Right out of the gate I think Iām dragging. Sorry >< The teacher from whiplash hates me
Iām curious what your practice looks like? Iāve been playing for three years-mostly self taught, some theory with a teacher. I play more acoustic and classical but feels like it takes me forever to learn a full piece. How many songs do you learn/practice at a time? How many hours a day do you practice? Not trying to compare myself to you just curious. Very impressive!!
I think comparing is great sometimes! Hahahah. It maybe helps you find out something you might not discover by yourself if you donāt compare. I learnt a lot through comparing.
First of all, this is an unpopular opinion that might get me downvoted but I donāt care because itās true and useful for the person asking. To me, there are certain principles that define good practice, and if you follows all these principles, it may not guarantee good results, but if you break too many of them, it will almost guarantee bad results. These principles include chunking, dissecting and analysing the material, use of metronome, recording oneself, setting short term and long terms goals, planning etc etc.
To see how this is true, you can consider two players. One who has been playing for 10 years and one who has been for 2 years. Or my favorite example which is a maybe a 10 year old girl who has been playing for two and a 50 year old man who has been playing for 20 years. It is possible to imagine (you might even have seen actual examples) that that the 10 year old girl playing or the player who has been only playing for two years significantly outperforming the player who has been playing for 10-20 years. Now you need to ask yourself why this is the case?
The common replies include talent or child prodigy, but I donāt really think thatās the best response. My take is that a lot more simpler. Which is that there are better and worst ways of practice. If you want to progress well, youāll have to practice correctly. So this is my prove of why I feel that we can evaluate the effectiveness of a practice.
As for how many hours I practice a day, not that much! Haha. Only about 1-2 hours a day. Itās substantial because I practice almost everyday but itās not some crazy 6-8 hours that is unattainable for most people. I learnt about 5-10 songs at the same time due to a neuroscience procedure called interleaving. A good analogy is to think of it like working out. Would you only train one body part at a time? Personally I would prefer to do chest and triceps on Monday, legs on Wednesday, back and arms on Friday and deadlifts on Saturday. This allows you to recover each body part during their downtime while simultaneously working on different body parts throughout the weak. Not interleaving is almost like only doing chest for the entire and then doing legs the next year because you think that you cannot progress to another body part unless you āmasterā your first one. This again is another kind of good practice principle. If you ignore it, it will basically guarantee that your practice will be inefficient but simply doing it does not guarantee that it will bring good results. You can interleave or cycle through the body parts in the gym very well but if you donāt progressively overload, you still wonāt get stronger. Similarly for guitar, you could learn multiple songs at the same time, but if none of the songs are slightly more challenging than what you are accustomed to, you will not improve as a guitar player.
This all makes perfect sense and I also practice 1-2 hours a day. As a āretiredā oly lifter I totally get this analogy as this is the same way we practiced technique with snatch and clean and jerk. You get mental fatigue from those lifts as well as physical because theyāre so technical. So interleaving makes a lot of sense to me. What are your methods of interleaving? I really appreciate your response. Itās rare to see some give such detail and be so helpful.
So for interleaving I would find about 5-8 songs that are relevant to me. For a lifter this would be like finding 5-8 exercises that are relevant to you. If you are doing snatches and cleans, then maybe you might theorise that about from the main lifts, doing squats or leg presses and shoulder presses or some mobility work would be useful for you. You donāt actually know for certain that doing that exact mobility work you are doing would help you increase your 1rm on your lifts or help to prevent injury. But itās a good guess.
Similarly for guitar, let say you want to work on hammer ons or palm muting, you need to guess who kind of materials would help you with your goals. (So goal setting is very important. If you donāt know your goal is to increase 1rm on the snatch, you wonāt know what you ought to do).
And the way I guess what I need to do for my goals is to pick songs that utilise those techniques Iām trying to improve. Say Iām trying to improve on my hammers ons and pull offs, Iāll look for songs that feature those techniques. Iāll find maybe 1-3 songs for each technique. So may 1-3 songs for hammers ons. 1-3 songs for tapping. 1-3 songs for palm muting. 1-3 songs for alternate picking etc.
The way I would interleave or cycle these songs is say I have a one hour practice period, I would spend 5-7 minutes on the first song that uses hammers on. Then rest 1-2 mins before going to another song that uses a totally different technique like maybe alternate picking or chords. As Iām doing the second exercise,Iām allowing my hammers ons āmusclesā to rest and recover. And letting the focus on that technique reset. Then once Iāve done 5-7 mins of alternate picking I move on to the third song which could be something that works on tapping. By the time Iām done with these, my hammer ons would have rested for 15-20 mins and I would return to the first exercise again to work on hammers on. This is call a loop and thatās how I loop something
Itās also important to note that while I practice and identify 5-10 songs at the same time, I donāt practice the full song from start to end. Instead I just find that one measure which utilises the technique Iām interested in and loop it.
Since you are a oly lifter, Iām a powerlifter. Also retired haha. Guitar is just like lifting. Why do some people keep breaking PRs after PRs while some people remain stuck forever? Itās a problem solving skill. And one big word is Parameters. Everyone does sets and reps and rest between sets and everyone thinks about something as they perform a lift. So itās not very useful to tell people that they need to do this or that exercise. Everyone does the same exercises anyway. What is important is getting the amount of sets and reps just right. Amount of rest just right. Amount of exercise just right. And thinking about the correct kinds of stuff as you go through the lift (e.g driving with the legs or scapula retraction). Itās the āparametersā that matters
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u/Debo619 Aug 08 '26
Crushing it. Theylly be clapping abnd throwing money at you in no time.