Review and Reload

Learning is about honesty.

Its also about setting goals and working towards them.

Part of the process is reviewing what you have achieved and resetting your plan / expectations accordingly.

I have been really pleased over the last 8 weeks with how I have been able to both dedicate time to my goal and that I have been able to progress.

Recently a couple of step changes have really boosted me and motivated me to move on.

To help me track my progress I keep a diary - how long I play and what I play.

Over the last day or two I have been reviewing this and have made some interesting discoveries.

I have, for example been able to average well over an hour a night on the guitar over a seven day week - on some days achieving up to 3 hours.

I have spent the majority of this time on Yousician - a great motivational challenge tool and I have dedicated whole nights to getting a clean run on just one challenge.

Great so where's the problem ?

I have spent less than a quarter of my practice time learning songs etc.

I have also taken to recording my playing to help me review but also for a little ego boost.  The problem is this has highlighted a bit of an issue.

Yousician is a computer program and measures accuracy  - It also provides a bit of a backing track.  I have noticed in listening back to my playing without the backing track that it is very clinical and flat.  Most motes and chords are damped  ready to play the next note perfectly (to aid recognition and high scores) - so it seems that the cost of motivation for me has been 'feel' and musicality.

Finally - Honestly I want to be able to play along to songs - after two months I'm still struggling with that so it's time to change it up.

As my subscription is up in two weeks I am going to try a different tactic.

I'm going to continue to devote the practice time but I'm going to go  60:40 the opposite way and concentrate on songs rather than Yousician.

I have got a copy of Audacity and a trial of RiffStation so I can slow and loop tracks nicely.

I have some cool Youtubes from GuitarJams / Justin Guitar and Steve Stine. So this weekend I'm going to make some practice loops for the tunes I'm learning and see where that leads me.

Lets see what a two week change of focus brings.

My personal goal is to be able to record a full recognisable tune within that two weeks.