Tipping Point

Spring Morning

Last night I practiced guitar for a couple of hours. My normal practice routine is to start with slow finger movements, such as the "walking" exercise set out in the Andreas Principles book. This exercise is the crux of my current practice routine. Once learned, the student has a set of finger skills which can be used for playing any style of music. However, it is not an easy thing to master, as I have been working with it for 6 months and am still far from obtaining the required speed and accuracy. But the more I work with it the stronger my fingers become, which allows my practice in other areas to become more productive.

After 30 minutes of the walking exercise and a few minutes spent on sliding bar chords, regular chord changes, and the chromatic scale, I played along to an A minor blues jam track for 1 hour. I put the track on repeat, each new time around finding a nuance in note selection, vibrato, string bending, or picking style.

During this session it occurred to me that I had reached one of the tipping points in my guitar quest. One of the reasons I write in this journal is to examine how I go about learning something from the beginning. I have already made note of the 1st year struggles, and how it is important to have faith that the mind and body will discover a way to overcome the many obstacles which prevent the beginning student from playing well. My current learning phase is in the refining of basic skills, allowing for added confidence and momentum, which in turn fuels the desire to practice more. This extended practice and enthusiasm leads to a further gain in skills, which in turn fuels greater momentum. Having reached this stage, learning and progress becomes quicker and easier.

There is another interesting thing to note - the perception that one has put in hundreds of hours of practice. Thinking back on the struggle and the will to continue and push forward, the thought arises as to how many beginning guitar students have put in as much work as I have? The people who have are undoubtedly already proficient in guitar play, but I believe that my Asperger tendency to focus intensely on a subject puts me ahead of a person who believes one hour a day of practice is a lot. On the other hand, my paltry 2-3 hour sessions look pale in comparison to a virtuoso who plays 8-10 hours a day. The lesson here is that the more one plays, the better one gets - practice, practice, practice!