Uh-oh - am I drinking the Kool-Aid?! (re: practicing)

Playing Technique
#1

No need to use names, but I have to admit that I’m fascinated by a particular school of guitar thought out there that claims you will finally see the results you’ve been hoping and working for if…

You do one thing, obsessively, for a decent period of time (weeks, but better if months).

Let’s put aside the question of whether this is a good way to injure yourself (it might well be). The proponent of this approach claims that this how he got his considerable fund of guitar chops. And given that I’m trying to get away from the shmorgasbordy, little-bit-of-everything approach that has epically failed for me, I am intrigued by the claim. I may be in danger of drinking this guy’s Kool-Aid.

But given that I’m also trying to go more with intuition when it comes to practicing… My intuition tells me this is yet another novel and interesting idea that no one actually uses. (Maybe the ‘proponent’ actually did, but who can know.)

Bottom line: did you? Is there anyone out there who drilled down on one-thing-only for a decent period of time, and feels they got somewhere this way?..

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#2

In my experience, it doesn’t work. A few reasons:

  • you could be practicing the thing wrong
  • it doesn’t address the chronic underlying tension i suffered. This is the most important thing.
  • it is boring, so it is a chore.
  • it has limited scope and applicability in general playing.
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#3

From our many discussions on this forum you’ll be surprised to hear this… but I have the tendency to repeat stuff a lot, way past the point where it’s useful. So when I talk to you about these things I talk to myself as well :slight_smile:

I think the bottom line for me is this: when you repeat something a lot, you quickly reach a plateau where whatever it is you are practicing quickly stops getting better.

Whenever I made progress it was usually because I introduced a change in what I was doing.

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#4

And if you find them, you will have a sample size of exactly two, or three etc… :slight_smile:

One of the things I’ve been thinking about recently is that most people who attempt to teach this kind of thing are essentially reverse engineering how they got there themselves. Take the infamous Petrucci chromatic exercises: John talks about bumping the metronome as you go, but he doesn’t say grind it out for weeks on end, or that that is what he did. I also wonder about “ret-conning” - did he really play chromatics all the time and that’s how he got fast? Or are the exercises constructed with a bit of hindsight and he’s thinking “knowing what I know, if was starting from scratch I would do this”?

I absolutely get the allure of the whole sensi/zen/jedi master approach, like in “Kill Bill” - carry the buckets up the steps every day. But the sports science these days is pretty clear: deliberate, focused practice in short bursts (because if you can do it for longer it’s not deliberate); and then randomise that, so you break it up into short sections and mix em up.

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#5

In my experience, it works great. A few reasons:

  • I was practicing isolated sequences that could only be played one way using one technique
  • It addressed the underlying tension I experienced by making the challenge so simple that I could focus on my musculature and body as I practiced.
  • It was fun, I got results very quickly, and it increased my enthusiasm to get even more results, which is half of the battle.
  • It had an insane amount of applicability across the board for all songs I was later learning that year, and it took me between 10-15 minutes to learn 6 minute+ songs because of that mastery effect.
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#6

Really agree with that - I’ll happily sit there just banging away at one thing, it’s almost like meditation.

The Kageyama interview was a game changer for me. The randomised practice thing both sorta blew my mind, and made sense to me in my bones at the same time.

Now I force myself to change exercises after a few minutes tops (basically when I feel it’s starting to flow I enjoy it for 30 seconds then stop and move on). With the same caveat as above, sample of one, it’s really pushed things forward for me.

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#7

Nowadays I practice this way: I take 3 licks I want to practice, I put the metronome on a near max tempo for each lick. I play lick 1 for 2 minutes, lick 2 for 2 minutes, lick 3 for 2 minutes and I take a 2 minute break. I repeat this 2 more times. It feels like the grid class in the gym, but seems like working…

#8

Right, me too. But the one-thing-only guy actually addresses that. He says you’re gonna reach plateaus with everything (which has been my experience for sure) - and that the key is to fight through them. That’s why you stay doggedly with that one thing.

…And to speak out of the other side of my mouth now;)… I often suspect this, too, @Big_Jim_Slade. An example is fretboard memorization. How many times have you seen a great ‘system’ for memorizing notes and thought, come on - you didn’t actually do that, Guitar Teacher Guy! You don’t even know how you know the notes! So you came up with something convoluted that sounds good but doesn’t wash.

I actually suspect the one-thing guy of this in other areas. But the thing is, he claims repeatedly that he did in fact engage in ‘perseverative practice’ (my term) on his way to shred wizardry (and the videos don’t lie; he’s a smokin’ player).

[If I’m really feeling cynical, I could say: of course he wants you to focus for months on one thing - that’s how he gets you to buy his products!]

Anyway, back to my original question: if you’re reading this, and one-thing-only worked or didn’t work for you, let’s hear about it.

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#9

I feel like I routinely do this and it works for me (I think).

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#10

I think we achieved N=2 on both sides as it is of course appropriate and as was predicted by @Big_Jim_Slade :smiley:

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#11

I think it needs some kind of general law:

“Where N is the number of guitarists, those agreeing with any given proposition shall be N/2” :rofl:

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#12

It might be interesting to note here that there is a phenomenon in the psychology of learning called the variation effect. The finding is that when practising something people got better results when they practised different things in an interleaved fashion as opposed to focussing on on thing at a time.

So I guess I am not in the one-thing-only camp. N=3…

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#13

Claus gives that advise - it’s usually in the context of memorizing (scale patterns) or developing a new skill (your first alternate picking patterns). It comes with the provisio that it’s 80% of your focus.

You need to define ‘one thing’ reasonably. I’ve been focusing on my picking technique for a year and a half…so ‘one thing’ however as the skill has developed I’ve been able to apply it to many different styles (i.e. shted, Gypsy jazz etc) and functions (i.e. navigating the fretboard).

Claus also is keen to point out you should not force yourself to practice anything…otherwise you associate that feeling with guitar…not good. His ‘excersizes’ are usually quite musical…or at least he encourages you to branch them out and make them your own.

I think the point is to choose a focus to develop which a good thing to do.

#14

I haven’t hit any plateaus that were not technique oriented. As soon as I found and fixed what I was doing incorrectly, I immediately continued making progress. Eventually I get that thing I’m practicing as good as I want it and just use it when I play. It becomes part of my guitar vocabulary.

To me it doesn’t really matter if I practice one thing obsessively or many things, I tend to progress at around the same rate. Skills just take time to learn and there is no way around that. I do some of both, mostly because of what excites me about music. Sometimes I just have to drop everything and learn that sick ass riff that just blew me away, even if it takes me a few days.

One other thing I’ve found is that I don’t get better while I’m playing/practicing. I am at the level I’m at that day. It’s when I sleep and come back the next day or two that I’ve improved.

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#15

I think this one-thing-only idea is different, though, in that with interleaving, you’re rotating several things - e.g. ABC ABC ABC. So I thought the idea was that pattern is better than AAA BBB CCC. WIth one-thing-only, it’s AAAAAAAAA… :wink:

Right. There’s room for a bit of variety, but the bulk of time is reserved for your ‘one thing.’ Have you in fact devoted ~80% of your time to picking…?

Would you say this happens more so when you’re in the one-thing-only mode (which is seems from your post that you sometimes are)…?

For how long? I know it will vary, but can you give some examples…?

#16

In a sitting, or total span? Depends on the goal and how I feel in the session. The last couple livestreams I did of the Erotomania riff I worked on it for like an hour each?

#17

For sure. It doesn’t feel like it anymore since it mainly serves to drive my musicality now…but I’m mostly stopping mid-phrase to look closer at the picking mechanics when something doesn’t sound or feel right…more than stopping for any other reason (like to find the right notes) then it’s a few minutes of repetition before moving on…the picking focus is there 80% of the time…but it’s still only used as a tool to play. I guess I like the sound of a strong picking technique (suprise, suprise)…so it’s the focus.

When I was finding my first fast/smooth motion…it was 100%…until it became usable.

#18

Span. So you worked that riff a couple times for an hour. Would you ever hammer on one riff like that for an hour or more daily, for a number of days, or even weeks…? (These days you probably don’t need to; when you were greener, though…?)

So if it doesn’t sound like the recording, or as good as you’d want it to in front of an audience, you’re basically relentless in trouble-shooting/fixing until you’re happy with the whole lick/solo/whatever…?

#19

Pretty sure I have, but as I said before, it was tied to experimentation, not just repeating a riff hoping that it would feel better without me mindfully changing something.

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#20

There is no difference in the pace of learning between the modes. The progress seems to be about the same regardless.

Nothing happens fast. My progress is steady and not always where I am spending my time.

For instance, working on my fast alternate picking, I have noticed that my ability to play in time at slower bpm has massively improved. I have found that I can lock in easily where it was much more difficult before. I have also noted that moderate tempos seem much easier to get in front of, and I am anticipating much better. I am ready and waiting for the changes. It just seems like there is a lot more space between the notes, if that makes any sense.

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