How many new songs........

[neverfoundthetime]

I trained horses for many years, still have a neighbor who does so professionally.

Now that I've got to see wily, a horse playing the guitar!

I'm fairly new to guitar and just wondering if I'd be better off sticking to one or two songs relatively heavily, or spreading myself a little thinner over more songs.

H.

@H. Good question H! You can see here how people have different strategies and for some 1 is enough for others 5 is just fine. Important is what Matt says: getting songs finished (at some point not too far down the line). You need to get a version down that you can do from start to finish even if there are bits still to be worked on. If you don't you'll be forever flitting from tune to tune and never complete anything.
Satisfaction is a function of Completion (not just a Stone song!). Sounds like you should pick one song at a time to complete and have on or two to doodle with.

[tombo1230]

tovo wrote:

I like to keep it to only 1 or 2 until I feel I almost have it down cold, then a bit of a break looking at something else and come back and finish it off. Couple of months ago Kenny posted a Tommy video from a workshop and he was saying when you learn a new song play nothing else but that song every time you pick up your guitar. But I guess when you are at his level learning a new song is a few days at most. For mere mortals that could translate to playing one song for a few weeks which can get a bit old. Seems logical to me that you don't want to have too many on the go at once otherwise you end up knowing bits and pieces of each and none really mastered.

Good topic.

The best advice Tommy gives, in my seldom humble opinion LOL, is "Get to work"

The advice in this interview is great what ever level you're at and for how ever many songs you're working on:


[video][/video]

[video][/video]

[Lavallee]

Thanks Wilson for these clips, this a great interview. I like to see these people like Tommy or our Neil that have so much passion for the instrument. Whenever they speak, you just have this urge to pick up the guitar and work hard.

Karma for you

Marc

[tovo]

Mate thanks SO much for posting that, it's on youtube obviously but I hadn't seen it. Tommy is fascinating to listen to and his mastery of the guitar is awesome. He has quite a unique accent going these days as well, a real cross between his native accent and an American twang. I quite like listening to him, obviously not for that reason alone. Very enjoyable interview.

Karma for that post.

[tovo]

Mate thanks SO much for posting that, it's on youtube obviously but I hadn't seen it. Tommy is fascinating to listen to and his mastery of the guitar is awesome. He has quite a unique accent going these days as well, a real cross between his native accent and an American twang. I quite like listening to him, obviously not for that reason alone. Very enjoyable interview.

Karma for that post.

[jayswett]

i will have to come back to this as I couldn't get it to load. bummer.

[aitch]

Thanks for all the advice/replies. Wiley, you kind of touched on something with the horse training analogy that sort of prompted me to ask this question. My frustration level was getting "on up there" and I took a night off from my normal routine and started with Yellow Submarine. It was a blast, I picked it up fairly easily, and ended the night playing on a positive. The next day (yesterday) I couldn't wait to get back to practicing....even the frustrating stuff.

And thanks for the two Tommy E videos. Watching them eventually lead me to Amazon.com where I'm currently downloading one of his live CD's.