Practice log

"What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal, a freely chosen task."

-Viktor E. Frankl, Holocaust survivor


Guitarwise, it turns out (dear lord who'da thunk?) that six hours of focussed practice per day is HARD. I take it in 30 minute chunks, taking a five minute break between sessions and usually try to tackle it four chunks at a time. Even so, I haven't been successful in getting six hours in most days due to mental exhaustion or lack of time due to travelling etc. On the flip side, I am improving at a phenomenal rate with this much practice. Every day it gets easier to work for a little longer and I can notice the results, my fingers are becoming more controlled, more agile, and I make less mistakes with the exercises every day.

I had some thoughts about learning while I was practising today and scribbled some waffle in my book:

The brain is a statistical learning engine of some considerable power. It contains within it a flexible model of the world which is refined every time you give it input. Actually its world model is so complex it actually contains a simplified model of itself within it. This is your sense of self. It is VERY IMPORTANT to remember that this model of self is INACCURATE and constantly changing. IGNORE what your conscious mind tells you about how difficult learning is and your limitations because YOUR MODEL OF SELF IS ALWAYS PLAYING CATCHUP (essentially, get out of your own head!).

Learning is not difficult. It happens without you really needing to even think about it. All you need to do is submit to your brain as much information about the thing you are trying to model as possible. In this example my brain is building a model of a guitar and it's extremely convoluted relation to both music theory and the muscles that control my fingers. This is not a trivial model to build. But if I sit back and supply information to it about the system (this is what practice achieves) then it will quietly go about refining the model all by itself. I have been struggling with one particular exercise over and over this past week. Every day I would spend half an hour screwing it up a hundred times. Today, inexplicably, I can play it with close to no mistakes every time. My brain finally figured out a model that works better because I supplied it with thousands of ways NOT to do it (mistakes).

tl;dr - MORE FAILURE = FASTER LEARNING

In fact we can even simplify that little phrase to:

FAILING = LEARNING

And it does. The one thing every person who succeeds far beyond average has in common is that they screwed up more than anyone else in pursuit of one particular goal. So every time we mess up, we should be happy that we learned something and jump eagerly into the next opportunity to do it better.

Practice log:

1/12 - 4.5H
Had to cut short due to hand cramps, did a little theory instead.

2/12 - 2.5H
Went into town in the afternoon and didn't get back til very late, not really an excuse.

3/12 - 6H
My sense of time is getting fucked up, I woke up at 17:00 today. It is now 6:00 and I am not tired yet.

Today I went to the park near Lucy's house to sit quietly and practise outside. I saw two stoner-looking guys sitting on a log with a guitar so I went and said hi. We chatted a little in spanish then they asked me to play. I played some simple chord progressions and one of the guys soloed over the top of my playing, we jammed for about an hour. My first time jamming guitar with random musicians! I think this is an incredible key moment in my journey towards becoming a guitar player. This is what it's really all about. It has given me new reserves of fire and drive for practising. Taking a moment to reflect on my life right now, I am living with a girl in a city in a strange country, learning a new language and guitar at the same time, spending barely $10 a day. This is living. I am truly free. It seems I am most happy when I am learning at the highest intensity I can manage. Whatever I did to end up in this situation right now, it was the right choice.

4/12 - 4H

5/12 - 5H + 1H playtime
Discovered an awesome Simon and Garfunkel song called Richard Cory which I am learning.

6/12 - 0.5H
Bus travel all day, squeezed in 30 mins of barre chord practice in the station before I left.

7/12 - 2.5H
Working on octave jump string exercises, simple melodies and some chord change practice. Also aiming for 30 minutes of barre chord attempts every day.

8/12 - 3H
Ended up on some chord work, had to stop because my hands were hurting.

9/12 - 2H
Travelled on the bus most of the day

10/12 - 4H

11/12 - 3H
Learning guitar in the jungle AWWW YEAAAH

12/12 - 2H20

13/12 - 3H