Are you improving?

Chasplaya
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Thu Feb 10, 2011 12:33 pm

Before TG I was stagnating had hit the brick wall, now with TG I am very conscious of more aspects of playing than ever before. I have had to go back and rethink things a little and relearn. I am more conscious of timing, rhythm playing position and strum patterns. So at first I probably went backwards to outside ears. However, my Wife now makes unsolicited comments and tells others that I have improved and sound pretty good now and she also says this is since I joined this damn site that takes up way too much of my time lol.

So I got worse before I improved and I am still improving this is noticeable by attempts at songs I once considered out of my league. and are now within reach.


thedancer
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Joined: Sun Sep 26, 2010 12:09 pm
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Fri Feb 11, 2011 10:10 am

Hi

Not only am I improving. But I am enjoying my practice more than I ever expected and it is all down to you guys in this community for putting me back on track with your help advice and encouragement. I can see a light at the end of the tunnel. And it does not seem to matter anymore that the tunnel is very long. I am just enjoying the journey.
I thank you all
Dancer


tvarga
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Joined: Thu Mar 05, 2009 5:36 pm
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Sat Feb 19, 2011 12:48 pm

I just read an interesting article in the NYT at:

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011 ... crets.html

Although it may appear to not have anything to do with learning to play guitar, I think the paragraphs about innate ability and improving beyond that is spot on and reminds me of Neil's suggestion to focus on the hard measures and practice them over and over. That realization has really changed my guitar learning experience and in the last few months has truly accelerated my ability to improve my skills.

Here's a particularly poignant paragraph:

"They’ve found that top achievers typically follow the same general pattern. They develop strategies for keeping out of the autonomous stage by doing three things: focusing on their technique, staying goal-oriented and getting immediate feedback on their performance. Amateur musicians, for example, tend to spend their practice time playing music, whereas pros tend to work through tedious exercises or focus on difficult parts of pieces. Similarly, the best ice skaters spend more of their practice time trying jumps that they land less often, while lesser skaters work more on jumps they’ve already mastered. In other words, regular practice simply isn’t enough. To improve, we have to be constantly pushing ourselves beyond where we think our limits lie and then pay attention to how and why we fail."

I think that's the secret to getting better!

-Tom


tombo1230
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Sat Feb 19, 2011 2:28 pm

tvarga wrote:

"They’ve found that top achievers typically follow the same general pattern. They develop strategies for keeping out of the autonomous stage by doing three things: focusing on their technique, staying goal-oriented and getting immediate feedback on their performance. Amateur musicians, for example, tend to spend their practice time playing music, whereas pros tend to work through tedious exercises or focus on difficult parts of pieces. Similarly, the best ice skaters spend more of their practice time trying jumps that they land less often, while lesser skaters work more on jumps they’ve already mastered. In other words, regular practice simply isn’t enough. To improve, we have to be constantly pushing ourselves beyond where we think our limits lie and then pay attention to how and why we fail."

I think that's the secret to getting better!

-Tom
I think you have hit the nail squarely on the head with all of the above, especially in the last sentence, " To improve, we have to be constantly pushing ourselves beyond where we think our limits lie". I believe this to be key. To get better at anything you need to be outside your comfort zone, pushing hard to master something that is difficult and at the time you may even think it to be nearly impossible. I have experienced this in several different things but in guitar playing there have been songs that I have tackled and had some sections that I struggled with initialy, but I eventually mastered the song.

There is no secret to achieving success at these things, it's hard work and practice for me and it works! To balance things out I find that I tend to have at least one hard song on the go at any one time and several easier ones I play for fun. This way I don't get bogged down and dissilusioned with my playing.

To answer the original question, there are many ways to guage improvement. If you are working hard enough I am sure you will see it.

Tom N.


frybaby
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Joined: Mon Jun 01, 2009 9:03 am
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Tue Feb 22, 2011 1:19 pm

Cash me in and Check me out, it’s time for me to go,
Burning time

YES definitely.
Even as a non TARGET member I have learned so much an improved greatly.

I take advantage of all the free material, and gleaning from the Target previews, is enough to keep me going and growing.

If nothing else, I have benefited from just play more often experimenting with the information available .

I would venture into dogmatism and say, any body who does not improve from being a regular and frequent visitor to this site, is really not trying hard enough to improve.

That all.
Frybaby


eagle670
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Joined: Sun Mar 08, 2009 3:45 pm
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Tue Feb 22, 2011 7:16 pm

While I was waiting on my guitar to get restrung at the shop I was playing some stuff on a few of the new guitars. I was curious about there lesson prices so I ask one of the instructors what it would cost for me to take some lessons and he said "well you are definitely an advanced player, so we will have to find a good fit instructor for you" I was like you have got to be kidding, they must hear some really bad guitarist in here. Anyway I know that I have improved alot since joining this site. Hats off to you Neil!!

Kevin


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