Focus 90% Of Your Practise Time On SKILLS and only 10% On Songs... Here's Why

tomhalliwell93

Woww Guys.. I came on here just to see if anyone replied and it looks like a lot of people did.. Thank you for the feedback, Iv'e had a mixture of good constructive criticism which i think is fair.. but also some weird and angry at the world type of feedback.. and once again i want to make it clear.. that this approach of 90% skills and 10% songs is aimed at a complete beginner (someone who has never touched a guitar before).. i think its fair to say a lot of people who start guitar, give up very quickly when they realise playing a song is harder than they thought.. so for the first 8 weeks.. i focus a lot of my students practise on those 5 skills and 10% on little riffs and bits of songs.. then after 8 weeks.. everything changes.. learning songs becomes much more important.. Iv'e checked out Levi Clay who someone recommended and He's awesome  

tomhalliwell93

missmisstreater said:

Wheeeyyyy! I honestly thought that post might get 50 comments... it's at 1600 now... 

I stand by it. Rio was being abused, and his parents lied to. They were paying this snake to radicalize their son, make him through away his career goals to be brought on as a teacher.

Why am I exposing this? Because ALL of Tom's teachers act like this. That's the MO. NONE of them see an issue here. If we let them set up in our towns, they'll group together to target your business's reputation online, they'll do everything they can to run you out of business, and then they'll spread their soulless playing further and further.

I don't believe this kid is affiliated with Hess - for one he's got a video of him teaching online. Tom doesn't allow that because it competes with him.

Ack... it's not a great video, but he's honest - he says he's not great at it, but it's interesting for some people to see how others are learning.

Hello Levi.. Thanks for your feedback.. Ive been watching some of your videos this morning and i really like them (especially the tom hess ones haha) .. I agree with you that we need feedback and constructive criticism so we can see the 'holes' in our own teachings and approaches

Old_Swanner

Danji said:

Playing and practicing are not mutually exclusive

I disagree because I view things like this ... if your "playing" is improving your ability level then it isn't playing, it's practice ... keep doing it.  All other playing is not improving that level, therefore it isn't really practice.  As ever, the key is to know for sure whether what you're doing, whether "playing" or "practice", is making you better.

Practice to purely maintain one's level might be considered an exception, but I don't believe many guitarists take that approach.

Danji said:

I don't understand why practicing via songs has a scattergun approach, 

Good practice via new songs hasn't, but I'd say that merely learning and playing new material, in the hope that one improves, more often than not, has!  There are certainly huge benefits in addressing the challenging requirements a new song can introduce us to, but doing this effectively will fall into the realm of practice, and not playing, for the most part.

Danji said:

 that repetitive exercise that you demonstrated is a great example of an exercise with little merit. 

I don't think I ever said it was an "exercise", rather, a test!  I've found great merit in it over the last 10 years when used as such, hence the reason I still use it.

Rocker

I dislike practicing anything. Once a year I spend about a half hour practicing wedge shots from 50 metres to 20 metres from the green. I can't take any more than that. I can live with being a very average golfer...

Danji

Old_Swanner said:

Danji said:

Playing and practicing are not mutually exclusive

I disagree because I view things like this ... if your "playing" is improving your ability level then it isn't playing, it's practice ... keep doing it.  All other playing is not improving that level, therefore it isn't really practice.  As ever, the key is to know for sure whether what you're doing, whether "playing" or "practice", is making you better.

So that's where I've been going wrong practicing extended arpeggios from the melodic minor scale over Stella by Starlight taking the form into account. 

I'll practice these arpeggios in isolation in the fear that I'm not improving, then worry about understanding the application of these ideas over the chords later, and real world implications of it.  But when I do is that playing or practicing? 

Old_Swanner

Danji said:

 But when I do is that playing or practicing? 

It sounds like you're doing it in the hope of getting better at it.

If it makes you better it's effective practice.  If not it's ineffective practice.  Mind you even ineffective practice can lead you to learn something important, ie. that which doesn't work.  The trick is to not spend years learning that it doesn't work (I speak from bitter experience).  Then you can look for something better,

Vibetronic

Danji said:

Playing and practicing are not mutually exclusive @Old_Swanner I don't understand why practicing via songs has a scattergun approach, that repetitive exercise that you demonstrated is a great example of an exercise with little merit. 

I'd agree with that...but at the end of the day, if @Old_Swanner and @tomhalliwell93 's teaching techniques work for them and their students (which they obviously do) then fair enough. I still disagree with some of the stuff you two have said, but if we all had the same approach then the world would be a very boring place indeed 

Old_Swanner

Vibetronic said:

I'd agree with that...but at the end of the day, if @Old_Swanner and @tomhalliwell93 's teaching techniques work for them and their students (which they obviously do) then fair enough. I still disagree with some of the stuff you two have said, but if we all had the same approach then the world would be a very boring place indeed 

My approach is a direct result of the stark realisation that the other approach didn't work in the vast majority of cases.  Took 15 years of playing and about six months of teaching to reach that conclusion though!

UnclePsychosis

Philtre said:

Took classical violin lessons from age 10-13. We were taught pieces 90% of the time, and skills and technique just sort of followed (10%). Oh, and I taught myself vibrato, because it sounded shite without it.

---to be fair, lots of the "pieces" that one learns as a classical music student are Etudes: pieces of music composed specifically to develop technique. The fact they often sound nice too is a bonus.

Gassage

'Practice' not bloody 'practise'.

Danji

Gassage said:

'Practice' not bloody 'practise'.

YES!! Thank you

tomhalliwell93

Vibetronic said:

Danji said:

Playing and practicing are not mutually exclusive @Old_Swanner I don't understand why practicing via songs has a scattergun approach, that repetitive exercise that you demonstrated is a great example of an exercise with little merit. 

I'd agree with that...but at the end of the day, if @Old_Swanner and @tomhalliwell93 's teaching techniques work for them and their students (which they obviously do) then fair enough. I still disagree with some of the stuff you two have said, but if we all had the same approach then the world would be a very boring place indeed 

I like that.. we don't have to agree exactly.. but some of the people here just say things out of anger instead of just having a discussion.

Old_Swanner

http://writingexplained.org/practice-vs-practise-difference

PolarityMan

As we know from quantum physics time and space are entangled in an 11 dimensional string so I dedicate all my space to skills and all my time to songs and get the best of both worlds.

viz

Danji said:

Gassage said:

'Practice' not bloody 'practise'.

YES!! Thank you

Practise - verb
practice - noun. 

Easiest way to remember this is - think of advise / advice.