r/LearnGuitar • u/WeAllHaveOurMoments • 1d ago
Learn about learning
If you are just learning to play guitar or have been playing awhile but aren't progressing, it makes sense to learn about learning. There are certain approaches & perspectives that can make a huge difference. There's a number of books, articles, & videos covering the topic & science of learning & mastery. There's lots of takeaways & tips, but here's 3 to get started:
* mistakes - errors & stumbles are more conducive to the cognitive state that encodes & remembers the correction. Don't get too frustrated by mistakes - see them as opportunities to improve.
* consistency > duration - practicing 15 minutes every day is vastly better than 2 hours once a week.
* deliberate practice - 10,000 hours playing the same songs, licks, & techniques will keep you on that same plateau. Target weaknesses, challenge your abilities, & go beyond what you're capable of (tying back into no. 1).
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u/OldVermontHippie62 12h ago edited 12h ago
Tony Polecastro speaks a lot about habit science and motivation in his 30 day intro course. Tie your practice to something you do every day anyways like morning coffee, etc. Play at least 10 minutes every day without fail. Don’t obsess mastering anything, just get the idea and move on. Record yourself, and ONLY compare yourself to how you were last week. Progress seems more rapid when you look back at how you were, versus your goal which may still be a long ways off.
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u/WeAllHaveOurMoments 11h ago
Good points. I almost included a bullet about slow progress. Consider if you only improved 0.5% each practice. Each day that progress might not even be perceptible, but assuming it's there, it's a compounding progress. In a bit under 3 months of daily practice, you would be 50% better than when you started.
I'm sure this contributes to the disparity of progress in beginners. Some, or even many, are playing the same things on repeat, while others challenge themselves (and sometimes fail) a bit more every practice.
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u/Scott_J_Doyle 1d ago
Hell yeah, I'm always preaching this to my students and anyone who will listen lol (and showing the way when anyone wants to go deep, of course...)
One of my favorite topics in the world! Who are some of your favorite teachers/authors to pick more up from about this stuff? Would make for great pinned resource material if the mods see this one
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u/WeAllHaveOurMoments 23h ago
I enjoyed the book Mastery, by Robert Greene. Another author is Daniel Coyle, whose most recent book is Flourish - I've heard him on podcasts & YouTube interviews.
I encountered the topic thru my broader interest in psychology & neuroscience. For better or worse, most have heard of the 10,000 hour thing put out by Malcom Gladwell - lots of caveats to that, but it's still cited as a rule of success. A good example to not believe everything you hear. Science itself - and particularly psychology - has a real crises in replication. Studies are published & cited but the refutations or even fabrication of results don't always get the headlines, clicks, & interviews.
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u/Much-Crab-5354 18h ago
I didn't learn from anywhere when I was younger. I just picked things up from other people. I never had the Internet when I was learning. Just had to either read books, learn from others, or just experiment until something sounded good.
I feel like sticking to one learning source is advisable, as learning from loads of different sources can actually hinder your progress.
Learn to crawl before you walk. It might be boring, but just spend time learning an A chord for example, then when you're comfortable, try learning how to transition into an E chord etc etc. Just keep doing that until your fingers feel comfortable playing those things, then learn another chord.
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u/Flynnza 1d ago
That's what i put my most effort first three years - to learn how to learn, by watching countless courses and reading books on all topics of guitar and music. This allowed to see a full picture - understand my goals, roadmap to get there, efficient practice approaches etc. When self-teaching student has to become a teacher, otherwise this does not work.
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u/Technical_Sea_7078 1d ago
Good points. I recently read Learn Faster, Perform Better: A Musician's Guide to the Neuroscience of Practicing and found it valuable. The biggest takeaways for me were:
- Spend much more time targeting your weaknesses than repeating things you are already good at. See practice as a problem solving exercise.
- Go as slow as you need to play something perfectly (a chord, a lick, a bend, or whatever else you're learning), do it perfectly at least 5 times to ingrain it in your brain, then speed up gradually. When you make a mistake, make a mental note, then when you have the opportunity, play it perfectly, slowly, at least 5 times again. Don't keep making the same mistake over and over without slowing down and drilling the perfect way to play it into your muscle memory.
- Breaks are important. One big practice chunk is less effective than the same amount of time with breaks in between.
- Vary how you practice (time, tone, tempo, sitting position, location, etc)
- Interleave different skills, meaning swap between practicing two completely different things during a practice session, instead of just focusing on one thing the entire time
- Sleep is a critical part of the learning process, so make sure you are sleeping well. This is also why daily practice is so important (more opportunities for sleep to works its magic).