As I was sat in front of the computer this morning, I decided to pick up the guitar and do a few perfect reps of a type of lick that I'm working on at the moment. The lick itself is 3 notes so one rep is completed in under a second.
After doing 100 I thought, hey why not try for 1000 ?
I forgot to time it but it probably took less than 10 mins to do 1000. I would do 100 at a time and then stop for a about 10, 20 seconds in between. The hardest part is keeping focus and not losing count. They way I do it is to count 10, then picture a big 10 in front of me. I then count the next 10 and then picture a big 20 in front of me. This way I can keep track of which multiple of 10 I'm on but never have to count higher than 10. Let's face it, have you tried counting 21, 22, 23, 24 etc ???
It's hard to keep count and stray thoughts will intrude. If I get unsure I just add another 10 reps to be on the safe side.
After I did 1000, I thought why not try doing it with some of the other shapes that I'm working on. Well, almost an hour later I've done 3000 reps in total ! During the last 300 reps of the last shape (which involved a massive stretch for the left hand) things got a lot harder so I slowed down a bit to make sure I could maintain the quality. However, it feels good to have done it and it didn't take that long. I even made a cup of tea in between !
I think everyone should do something like this at least once a month, just to prove it to yourself that you can.. and get some serious quality reps in of something that you're learning at the same time. What do you think ? We can share our 1000 rep experiences whenever we do them.
Pretty Good idea... I do something similar...
Do you still have a "day off" every now and then, to give the fingers a rest from serious repetition training like that?
I found it helps....
I have noticed that the next day when you pick up the guitar it does feel like you have a better "grip" on the strings when you play the lick you had practised... I think it's a mental thing too.
I haven't done them in a row but it feels like I have done Sinisa's "Harmonic Key Changes" 1000 times!
you just gave me some food for thought mate thanks!
I will try this for a particularly sensitive lick in my next lesson
Well, over the last 3 days I've done thousands of reps of different licks. I know I was saying that it would be good to do something like that every now and then but you know what it's like, sometimes you just can't resist !
Depending on the length of the lick, it took me between 30 mins for some and the last load took me 40-45 mins. I focused on 4 different licks so that's 4,000 reps in total. I definitely feel the benefits from it.
I'm also doing these free time with no metronome and letting my hands dictate the pace according to how warmed up/tired they are. I always find that things seem to bed in and flow a bit better around 600 reps, I don't know why.
Has anyone else braved the mighty 1000 yet ???
My wife would knock me out with chloroform if i try so many reps ...
Spiff! I've done something similar when learning new bits. I usually dont' count but that would work too I typically would probably time a given lick played against a metronome or backing, played say 10 times. Say it takes 30 seconds to play the lick 10 times. At that point, I know on minute is 20 reps, ten minutes is 200 reps, 50 minutes is 1000 reps.
So at that point, you can put on a movie or something and start a timer set for 50 minute and start the backing track or metronome. A backing will loop in your daw, and metronome will just get keep going so you can just let it play. I found it a bit easier as tracking the count was always tricky. But really whatever works!
The tough bit for me was to not lose track of proper form at some point so you have to practice keeping focus. I've found simple repetition to be a brilliant way to build basic muscle memory and such. Of course, it's just one bit of a very large puzzle but getting that bit down can really help the other bits IMHO
Todd
that's pretty much how I practiced getting my 110 up to 135 doing speed drills. I didn't keep count, but I went for burn-out every night as my last routine. Takes about 1.5 to 2 minutes to get the "burn". And I was doing it every night ~ I haven't felt any warning signs of injury doing this, so it' different for everyone I'm sure, but I rather enjoy the "burn-out" feeling, just like a good day's workout at the gym.
Yeah, keeping count is not for everyone and it is really taxing mentally. However, I'm enjoying the challenge of building my focus day by day. Sometimes you'll find yourselves thinking about other things and also you'll get sometimes where a few dodgy reps will slip in but the challenge is definitely more of a mental one for me.
I also feel a huge sense of achievement with knowing how many reps I've done as opposed to playing for a set amount of time but either way works
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