Working on excercises does not make someone a failure, but neither does it make them a success.
Showing the ability to conquer songs is what demonstrates success.
Any real measure of success in music, passing an audition, performing for an audience, making videos for youtube, involves successfully playing complete songs.
The measure of success and the route to getting there are not the same thing. Yes, you can prove that you can play songs by playing songs. That doesnāt mean learning complete songs is the only way to learn to play or that those who donāt succeed spent too much time on exercises.
Iām glad you found something that works for you, but I think youāre jumping the gun on assuming itās a universal rule.
Wealth is judged, not by how much you have worked, but by how much money you have. I think if you get your mind around this it will open some doors.
Again, youāre confusing how you judge with how you learn.
Success as a surgeon is judged by successful surgeries, but that doesnāt mean surgical students donāt spend tons of time on textbooks and cadavers.
Ok, unless you convince me this isnāt a waste of my time, this is my last post in this thread.
But, this is one of the things that jumped out as the strangest in your post above this - āā¦the general trend of failed playersā¦ā But, whatās a āfailed playerā?
You define it here:
But, isnāt that a little bit of a logical fallacy? If you define success as āthe ability to play other peopleās songsā then definitionally of course the fastest way to learn to play other peopleās songs is to learn to play other peopleās songs.
I guess the point Iām trying to make here, though, is not that I question your prescription - I think itās dead-on right, given the way you define the problem. where I disagree is how you define the problem - to me, āsuccessā or ānot being a failed guitaristā isnāt the ability to play other peopleās songs (and, to reiterate a post above, that was absolutely not what impressed me so much about that Timmons clinic, because it was incredibly clear he HADNāT practiced instrumental versions of Beatles and Kinks tunes - full disclosure, this was maybe five years before he did Sgt. Pepperās).
Rather, for me, āsuccessā is the ability for me to hear a set of chord changes or for someone to call them out to me, and to rip off an off-the-cuff killer guitar solo. Or, itās to sit down and write and perform a piece of music Iām genuinely excited and proud of when I hear the playback. Playing other peopleās music is cool and all, but itās not really a priority. And I donāt think that makes me a āfailed guitarist,ā I think that just means I have a different set of goals than you do.
Does that make any sense at all to you, the distinction Iām drawing? Do you see the point Iām getting at?
I mean, devilās advocateā¦ But Iād be surprised if Joe Satriani can play a lot of MABās harder solos. Likewise, I imagine Yngwie would struggle with Satrianiās music, as well. That doesnāt mean either is a āfailed guitarist.ā And one of my favorite new players, Nick Johnston, I believe has been pretty honest about the fact that a lot of his style came from trying and failing to play Yngwieās music. Past a certain point, part of having a distinctive style and voice on a guitar is as much what you canāt do as it is what you can, and thatās totally ok.
Ironically, I have learned handful note for note satriani songs and from technique standpoint they are somewhat easy, so I consider them a stepping stone to the most advanced songs. They were some of the most beneficial things Iāve studied however.
If anything, they taught me the amount of time it takes to progress through pieces of that length. He uses so many bends that they really take their toll on the fingertips after many hours, even with caluses. I got to a place where i would say this is āwithout bendsā version of his songs for practice.
BTW I had to put Nick Johnson on ignore. There was no reason his stuff should have kept showing up in my YouTube feeds, leading me to believe he has juked the search engine, or maybe has a brother that works at youtube.
I see what you are saying about improvising, but everything I improvise that is worth a damn stems from something from a song.
In karate they have Katas which are a collection of techniques like a song. They are graded so you can progress through them and they capture all the techniques of the style.
This is an acknowledgement of how the mind works, how it best learns. Being able to string techniques together in the context of something greater is the best way to capture and memorize.
I think youāll be hard pressed to argue that learning unrelated exercises without any context is as valuable at least from a memorization standpoint.
Iām sorry, but this conversation is a waste of time - one of the things Iāve really come to appreciate about this forum is a lot of the members are very open minded and inquisitive, and youāre more invested in shutting down opinions that donāt match your own than in discussing. Iām legitimately, non-sarcasically happy that youāve found a way to progress that meets your musical goals, but as long as you keep defining success as a guitarist, whatever that means, in terms of your preferred manner to acheive success, then we canāt have a serious conversation about the pros and cons of different approaches. All the more so if youāre going to pause to take shots at players I like.
Iād also suggest that if your preferred way of improvising is ājust play something I learned in a sing,ā then youāre not improvising, but thatās neither here nor there. Best of luck in your musical journey. 
EDIT - also, considering so much of the CtC curriculum is very exercise-based and hones in on how various picking approaches lend themselves to playing different sorts of patterns, and addresses that concept using small, finite, licks and exercises, then what are you even doing here? Iām legitimately confused.
And youāre more interested in making personal attacks against someone with a different opinion who tries to argue his side. Just because you donāt like my arguments doesnāt mean Iām trying to shut down or not discuss this.
Check yourself. (I wrote a lot of text for someone who is trying to shut down discussion)
nah bro, you are just stating the same thing over and over.
āfailedā
āsuccessfulā
thats all 100% subjective. there are people who call Joe Stump a failed guitarist. So I guess everyone in this conversation is also āfailedā
and when you said this you really jumped the shark: āthe general trend of failed players is that they spend more time on exercises than on songs.ā Im the third person to point out that you just pulled this out of thin air lol. I could just as easily pull out this statement: āthe general trend of failed players is that they spend more time on songs than on exercises.ā āScience shows that most failed players own fakebooksā
Nobodys mad or anything but you are simply trying to push your personal preference or theory on the worldā¦with no proof
Squids produce a lot of ink but you donāt see them getting the Nobel prize for literature.
In subsequent post I provided a logical argument and clarified my position.
Iām just trying to light a spark in you guys. Maybe a year from now when you get stuck and you are admiring other players and ask why you didnāt get there, maybe you will remember what Iām telling you now.
ok thanks, ill remember this if I get stuck next year. other than that im deffo thru here.
peace out, JJ
Hey all, been following this discussion and I think so far itās mostly been in good faith all around. Letās try to keep it that way and be open to opinions that may or may not be wildly different than your own 
It strikes me the crux of the disagreement here might arise from the sentiment here:
Totally fair to define āthe point of learning guitarā this way for you personally, but (and Iām echoing what others here have commented) we should keep in mind not everyoneās going to approach it in the same way.
I think probably the case for any hobby, creative pursuit, whatever ā just to take another random example, some people who love rock climbing might say āthe pointā is to summit amazing mountains; others would say, no, the point is most definitely to solve challenging technical problems. Both are right! Thereās no one answer to this question. I think fair to say with music, too, thereās no universal measure of āsuccessā.
If we can agree on that, at least, and be clear when weāre sharing opinions / preferences as opposed to trying to define a single goal for everyone, I think thatāll make it easier to debate, or at least agree to disagree, on the finer points of how and what to practice, etc.
well also its sort of obvious to point out that a term like āfailed guitaristā is simply a grenade to drop into a room. ill leave it at that
The whole PREMISE OF CTC is that teaching failed us, that we didnāt become what we wanted because there were problems with the way we were educated.
The first part of fixing a problem is admitting you have a problem. If you are golden, if you feel that your abilities are on par for how much time you have invested, then calling you a āfailureā would be incorrect. If that is the case, I apologize and am a bit envious. Post a link so I can listen to your album.
BTW, Iām not trying to drag you down, just discuss all the time I wasted on exercises in a hopes that you donāt fetishize practicing exercises the way I once did. Technique studied in the context of songs is technique that is remembered and used in the future.
this sort of shows where u r coming from. any of us could have asked the same from youā¦but we didnt. Since you are the one touting some superior method, YOU should be the one offering proof of some superior skills.
btw, any blind monkey can have an album. again, you have proved nothing.
factually speaking, I have probably 15-20 complete demo songs online. By your ridiculous logic, I am already a āsuccessā.
Ill tell you the same thing I told someone at work recently. You (obviously) dont know anything about me.
Mr X, you might be able to stop a couple of people repeating your āmistakeā, but in the end everyoneās going to make their own mistakes anyway.
It wasnāt a challenge. If you donāt have anything you want to share I think that kinda proves my point. Lets not use the word āfailureā but how about āin progressā.
I put myself in this category and I aim to change that. Doing exercises without continually advancing my repertoire is the trap I fell into. Fetishizing technique under the guise of āimprovisation practiceā is how I fooled myself.
I was going to start another thread about this, but might as well do it here. What level of player do you see yourself becoming?
Do you want to just be able to shread some 80s rock solos?
Or do you want to be the modern day equivalent of the āGuitar Store Heroā playing bits and pieces of everything while you demo gear for views?
Or are you content to do some melodic instumental rock like Satriani or Jack Thammarat?
Or do you have greater demands of your technique like YJM, petrucci, Marco Sfogli, Andy James, Martin Miller, or any of the other new internet generation players?
I personally am looking at the latter category. Frankly, you really only need CTC for the last category, everything else can be accomplished with run of the mill technique.
Im starting to feel somewhat special here like this thread has turned into an internet classic lol!
Only five people are reading it.