I have been learning to play since early June. Lessons once a week since. I have never worried about progress really as in no rush. However, for the last 2 weeks with pretty much daily practice between 1 hr and 2 1/2 I just can't seem to Improve my basic chromatic scale. I nearly always bum the note, buzz the string or play very staccato. That's playing down from bottom E first 4 frets and then A first 4 frets etc. Coming back up again is worse.
Is this common? Will I suddenly have a break through?
My teacher is great but I used to train people and know that you don't always get told you are defeated.
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If you are getting bum notes and string buzz, try to make sure you are fretting just behind the fretwire. It is alot easier to get clean notes that way.
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Don't assume that you can pick up in this practice session exactly where you left of in the last. If you spent an hour on a piece and got it clean at say 110BPM yesterday then don't expect to start at 110BPM today. You need a little while to get warmed up and comfortable again.
If something is just not coming together then sometimes it can be useful to give it a little break and work on something else. Often times when you go back after working on something else the first task can seem a little easier.
Don't be too hard on yourself. The more you stress out about something the more tense you become and that doesn't help at all.
Remember to occasionally look back and not always forward. It's easy to be always chasing the improvements (which is good) but sometimes you need to remind yourself how far you have already come.
All good advice.
Progress is never linear, and everyone goes through stages where they don't seem to be making any progress, although I reckon you often need to go through these stages to get to more productive stages.
If you are practising 1- 2 hours a day, I hope you aren't just practising chromatic scales!!
In the last few years I've taken up lap steel, and it's really interesting to going back to being a beginner on an instrument.
If I'm playing guitar or bass, I can get into playing almost from the point I pick up the instrument, however it takes me a while to "warm up" on the lap steel, so as Paul7926 says don't expect always to be able to pick up exactly where you left off before.
Can I suggest that playing up and down the way you have (that doesn't sound like a proper chromatic scale by the way) can be useful, but I think someone starting out would benefit much more from practising scales. Ask yourself this - how much music could I create from chromatic scales? and how much music could I create from say a Pentatonic or major scale? In fact, I would suggest practice all three.
Also try different intervals like a major scale in thirds for example. That alone sounds musical and will encourage you to use thirds in your playing.
You could try different combinations of fingers for the chromatic thing. For example try playing fingers 2, 4, 3, 1 in that order. It's much harder to do! Yay! I think this will definitely help but be warned at first its horrible and can be quite frustrating.
You should keep in mind that trying to get all fingers to work is a bit like a pro runner going to the gym. They are not trying to get good at gym, they are using the gym to be a better runner.
Same with you, the exercise is to improve your playing, not just to improve your ability to do the exercise. So after you spend hours doing this, treat yourself to a bit if improvisation and you'll more often than not notice some improvements.
To answer your original question, yes, this is common. I would say every guitar player on the planet struggled with this exercise initially, never met anyone who could do this straight away.
Not playing for a few days can help too. Coming back to it fresh will often lead to good results.
There are lots of different approaches to learning. I have been playing for years, definitely not the best or most technical of players, but have literally never practiced going up and down scales. Just not something that interests me at all. Practicing going up and down scales will just make you good at going up and down scales. Not very interesting to play or to listen to. Try some other stuff too.