Learning Methods, What's working and what isn't?

[tapper mike]

Not all styles have the same approach to dynamics and it's not always about playing as fast as you can.

[mystran]

Not all styles have the same approach to dynamics and it's not always about playing as fast as you can.

Ofcourse not, but what I'm trying to say that I would personally want the expression to become muscle memory the same as everything else.

[tapper mike]

Today I have no rhythm for Travis picking and it's driving me insane. Then again my fingers/brain don't usually wake up till 11.

Yesterday I looked around at all the gear I never touch. Like my new tele and strat. My linnstrument. Everything I've put on hold while trying to master Travis Picking. I'm sinking into a hole. It's time for a brain break.

[tapper mike]

In a slightly related thing...

I finally took the time to figure out how the drum sequencer in cubase works so I could put in my own patterns. I've had two years with Cubase now and it's one of the things I never learned how to do. I'd just get frustrated and use predefined patterns or lift drum patterns from midi files.

I've been sequencing drums since the 80's on various hardware drum machines and even in other daws but I never sat down and followed along with a video on how to create or select a kit and then step sequence or simply perform on my keys/linnstrument. Which is funny to me because when I was using Abelton Live and bitwig I'd be able to knock it out of the park.

Now I can actually write drum patterns that match the rest of my songwriting rather than having to alter my guitar/keys playing and lose the beat I had in my head.

[hardyharrharr]

i don't want a wife
she would end up like my guitar
untouched for years

[lfm]

Today I have no rhythm for Travis picking and it's driving me insane.
. I'm sinking into a hole. It's time for a brain break.

That's not good.

Make sure what you eat, and maybe multivitamin to make sure you have it all covered.
It may be a physical thing too, just not mentally enhausted.

Our brain is magical but it also adjust very quickly to what is used or not.
- revisit warmups from before as well

As I understand you do keys as well, but do you have proper weighted keys piano?
- these sloppy synth like keys do nothing for strength in fingers

A good friend, an experienced drummer said, it takes about 4 days for new synapses to form, so don't expect result the same or next day.

Just a few thoughts...

[tapper mike]

Thanks, Yes you are correct in many ways.

No I sold my keys everything is guitar and linnstrument now. While the Linnstrument has velocity and pressure sensitivity there his very little throw and subtle tension on the surface.

It's a number of things both physiological and psychological. I'm getting older and seeing the early signs of memory loss. Part is diet but I have a family history of early Alzheimer's. While I had strong quick memorization in years gone by it's getting harder to learn and retain new things. I could be making considerably more if I retained my cognitive abelites of just a decade ago. Mostly I operate on wisdom. I'm to the point where I have postit notes through out my apartment reminding of things I need to do. I've had nights of complete blankout where I'll buy groceries and leave them in my car overnight because I forgot about them when I got home.

Yes I take all the right pills. Vitamins and what not. No my diet is not what it should be. I lose my appetite eat not nearly enough. Forget to do cardio Diet and Exercise are both important for mental acuity.

It's also important to have and end goal with a defined timeline. Beating a dead horse isn't the answer. If you are applying yourself to something you should have an end goal in mind. Play it in a song that has been written or improvise/write a song with what you are studying. Which leads to my current dilemma.

I may get the pattern but lose the feel. Patterns are taught using one chord then playing them in sets so each measure has a variation of said pattern. Then applying all that to a chord progression. Learn songs write songs perform live if you can.

Performing live is always the end point for me but that's always slipping away. Older songs that I've done for decades I can for the most part play from route if I have setlist with their names. The newer ones or ones I learned later on but didn't keep up with sometimes need a serious refresher. And then there is that addiction to sheet music all forms. Sometimes if I've only read it off a sheet I draw a complete blank without the sheet in front of me.

Sometimes backing tracks just get in the way especially if it isn't an exact match to what you are doing. On a good note. As I've stated elsewhere I finally took the ten minutes to figure out the drum sequencer in Cubase. Putting a kick on all four or on just i and 3 or a basic kick / stick /kick/stick is much more organic to me than a metronome will every be.

The above is funny to me as I've been programming drum sequencers since the 80's I learned to read drum notation and would study patterns to play/program. Just to have a little bit of a backing track in my four track cassette days.

[hannes-software]

For me the biggest shift came from changing how I practice, not just what I practice. Three things made a real difference: 1. Isolate the hard part and loop it — playing the whole song again wastes time on sections you already know. 2. Slow it down until you can play it cleanly, then gradually speed up. Accuracy at slow tempo builds better muscle memory than sloppy at full speed. 3. Record yourself and listen back — you hear mistakes that you miss while playing. Also, practicing with some kind of backing context (metronome, drum loop, or isolated stems) helps connect what your hands are doing to what your ears should hear. Interested to hear what others have found useful.

[Cuauhtli]

Muscle memory is where it's at. Repetition. That's what it boils down to.

Maybe this is just me because I've always had a light touch on guitar with the pick hand: I started using light strings and it helped me a lot with practicing.

[tapper mike]

This is what I feel the guitar forum should be. Members helping other members in musical development. I like all the contributions so far to this thread.

Some things I've forgotten over the years. A little cardio to get your blood moving can go a long way into breathing life into practice and performance especially if you aren't performing live regularly. Get excited.

Here's an antidote about Travis Picking. ( wish I could source the material.

Both George Harrison and Paul McCartney wanted to learn how to play Travis Style. Donavan said that's easy it will take about three days and you'll learn everything you need to know.[*] He wasn't fully adept at it[/*]
They were out in a jungle inside a Hut and required that they sit on the floor and play. Paul McCartney said no he wanted to stand and he wasn't going to sit in the hut. So he straps on his guitar stands up follows along for a little bit and then wanders outside to practice. Harrison stays with Donavan in the hut. McCartney would listen in for a bit come back in and go back out.

McCartney learned little and improvised thereafter. You can tell it's not strict Travis Picking but has the main elements in "Blackbird"

When guitarists think of Travis Picking three names rise to the top. Chet Atkins, Paul Simon, Mark Knofler. There are so many more. Paul Simon's father taught him guitar starting at a young age. What isn't known is that his father and later his brother were the musical directors of a private music school in NYC. Along the way he studied piano as well as composition and arrangement.

To me my main focus is on lesser known guitarists on the musical landscape. John Prine and Townes Van Zandt. TVZ is a great songwriter and an admirable Travis Picker but his singing leads much to be desired. Yet his lyrics and his travis picking survive him. Same with John Prine who takes a more minimalist approach to travis picking. The accompaniment should support the story telling not the other way around.

Josh Turner plays a wide spectrum of styles and techniques to support the song he writes his own songs and enjoys playing covers as well. He's a fine Travis picker and can sing a song or two. Here's a Townes Van Zandt song he and Carson Mckee cover.


John Prine has written hundreds of songs for Movies and other people including Bonnie Raitt He is the quintessential storyteller songsmith

[hardyharrharr]

when/if i learn to write proper songs, songs that will always have guitar parts in it, i will just use a talblature software to learn the guitar part(s) and play it myself

tablature is the easy way to learn any guitar parts?

[tapper mike]

This all goes back to two stories.

When I was a teen there were these old men who would busk in the local park. Singing and playing guitar fingerstyle. I was amazed at how well they could fill the song with just voice and a guitar. But I blew it off as I was in a band at the time two guitars bass and drums. Playing originals and 70's rock.

Later in the 80's equipped with a couple of guitars a drum machine a four track I wanted a bass to help with my writing / playing. I passed by a small guitar shop with limited selection along my way back from the mainland Florida as I wasn't happy with what I saw in the bigger guitar and pawn shops. There was this old old guy who owned the store and he told me something. Someday you are going to have to perform live and it's just going to be you. You'll need to be able to sing and accompany yourself. Travis picking will fill the void without getting too busy. I bought a starter bass from him and it served me well for years. But all along what he said haunted me. I could already do a little fingerstyle playing but not strict Travis.

Now I'm an old man. I've got more than I'd dreamed possible in the 80's All in one 8 track mixer/digital recorder. Daw. Guitars MFX midi controllers linnstrument but it's not stuff I'd take to a park and play.

[tapper mike]

when/if i learn to write proper songs, songs that will always have guitar parts in it, i will just use a talblature software to learn the guitar part(s) and play it myself

tablature is the easy way to learn any guitar parts?

Tab is great but if you are learning to read. It doesn't teach you to write. You need to get acquainted with chord charts to see the big picture. Learning how progressions work and then playing your own rhythm and melody work.

Chord Charts look like this in fake books

chordchart.jpg

Figurative chord progressions are expressed by roman numerals This allows for easy transposition to different keys

Roman Numerals.jpg

Chord progressions are usually displayed in Roman Numerals. You should know your scale degrees and know that a iim in the key of C is Dm or D minor. etc
When progressions are taught they are usually done via roman numerals. Which means if you know the scale degrees you can easily transpose to other keys


Let's talk about what we see from big picture to little one.
A song has a form. A form is a collection of progressions.
Basic Blues is AAA The progression does not change through out the song
Jazz Standards are usually AABA (repeated three times"
Most complex forms are ABCAB

So that's the big picture. Progressions can be four measures, eight measures, 12 measures (such as 12 bar blues and even 16 measures. With the exception of a vamp which is one chord throughout.
This has a slight turnaround but mostly it's a vamp


This is another vamp.


Vamp no chord changes.

So you have a progression. See the chord play the chord. Hopefully you've worked out some basic strumming techniques. The song is what you make it when you are writing it. Not what someone else did.

You should know all your basic major and minor chords and be able to move from one to another without seeing a chord diagram. See the chord play the chord. If you feel it's best played using open chords or barred that's on you. It's your song.






Here are some more chord progressions


In summary.
Tablature is literal. You play exactly what is their to copy exactly what they are doing. It's not about being you or writing. It's about covering.

Chord progressions are figurative.
Tones of songs use the same chord progression though may be in a different key or use different rhythms to achieve an end goal. How you use the progression is you writing and trying different variations of rhythms to get a feel. It's your song. It's not about you learning someone else's song.
Although if you do have a good grasp of rhythm and can read a chord chart you'll prolly find that you can learn songs more quickly.
https://guitarchordslibrary.org/learn/song-examples

[mystran]

1. Isolate the hard part and loop it — playing the whole song again wastes time on sections you already know.

Yes. Also when you feel like you're getting better at the hard part, expand the context slightly: start a bar of two before it and play until a few bars later. Then repeat that larger segment. This helps make sure that you're not actually "cheating" by trying to do something that works in isolation, but in context.

2. Slow it down until you can play it cleanly, then gradually speed up. Accuracy at slow tempo builds better muscle memory than sloppy at full speed.

This is tricky, because if you play too slowly, you risk practicing motions that won't actually work at the higher tempo. Personally I'm in the school of thought that if speeding things up is the goal, you should practice at the maximum tempo where you can still identify and attempt to fix individual mistakes. This is faster than what you can actually play cleanly, but it kinda doesn't matter as long as you don't repeat the same mistakes; if you do repeat the same mistakes, then you need to slow down to try to fix that, but otherwise I feel like trying to push a bit past your comfort zone is the faster route to speeding up.

YMMV though. I have some ADHD traits and pushing speed also tends to put me more into hyper focus where as trying to play slower tends to cause my brain to drift into autopilot, so that might also contribute... but I feel like the old advice of "just play slow until you can play it perfectly 10 times (or whatever), then speed up a tiny bit" is kinda nonsense and I just try to find the tempo that's "uncomfortable, but doesn't completely fall apart" and then practice at that (and speedup/slowdown depending on whether I'm happy with the progress I'm making).

That said... I do adjust my tempo (and metronome if I'm using one) ALL THE TIME. I'm not talking about "play 5 times at this tempo" but rather... I set a tempo, play a bar, if it feels too difficult, nudge a few BPM down, if it's too easy, stop, nudge a few BPM up, restart, see if it feels like a good practice tempo now. I usually don't even look at the numbers, I just nudge it up and down... and I keep readjusting it whenever I feel like I'm no longer in the optimal "sloppy, but making progress" zone. If I need to play really slowly ('cos I'm repeating wrong notes or something and need to get them straight), then I'd stop the metronome, practice a few times, then start it again... but always adjusting tempo, 'cos point is not the BPM number, point is just a steady click at whatever tempo seems most profitable (you'll get a feel after a while).

3. Record yourself and listen back — you hear mistakes that you miss while playing. Also, practicing with some kind of backing context (metronome, drum loop, or isolated stems) helps connect what your hands are doing to what your ears should hear. Interested to hear what others have found useful.

You can kinda learn to hear your mistakes even while your playing. Metronome practice depends a bit on what you're trying to learn, but it's a good idea as a "sanity check" that you aren't cheating and I also find that sometimes having a click actually helps me push tempo a bit higher than what I can do without. This is mostly a thing for stuff where I'm specifically trying to practice speed, but .. yeah, metronome is cool, but also (sometimes) practicing without a click is also important, 'cos you should be able to stay in tempo without a click too.

ps. For the most part all of this applied whether we're practicing something chill, or something very fast. Most of the time I find that getting the expression right requires practicing somewhat slower even when the tempo is such that playing the correct notes at the target tempo would be fine from the get go. Might be just me not being very good, but ... don't feel bad for practicing slowly because you want to get the expression right, even if you don't need the slow tempo for the notes.

[lfm]

You can kinda learn to hear your mistakes even while your playing. Metronome practice depends a bit on what you're trying to learn, but it's a good idea as a "sanity check" that you aren't cheating and I also find that sometimes having a click actually helps me push tempo a bit higher than what I can do without.

My view is that you slow down for two reasons
- manage flow over some bars, if tricky, so clean sync left and right hand
- really listen to something, metronome or music
- pick technique change, but that is another matter when restore to normal speed

When playing close to speed you can handle is very different than slowing down a bit.
- I found many occasions if doing 140 bpm and almost feel like getting close
- but going down to 120 or even 80 I feel all lost for 10 minutes almost
- so conclusion is that my listening is not that good

Full speed is good to optimise pick technique, small efficient movements, and relaxed not getting tension.
- thinking mostly exercises, not actuall playing for musical content, in my case

But for timing and flow and expression and really listening carefully
- slower is better
- but you have headroom if able to go faster too

Been working lately on changing pick movement to more sideways wrist, less up/down, and let pinky anchor on pickguard, sliding with it more.
- can also be fully relaxed doing that for minutes without tension

When going down in speed, I easily start to turn wrist more. Old habit.
- so slowing down was really helpful maintaining sideway motion more
- more minimalistic move of pick parallell to guitar body

My style is inside partial chords and partly strum and pick arpeggios, kind of.
- embellish a bit deviating from chord filling in
- not so much pure soloing

A few thoughts just after breakfast...