Guitarist Levels, Your path to 1000 hours Options

[DarkWaveRiffer]

I think its safe to safe if you have a 1000 hours under your belt, you have a good understanding of what you are doing. I am going to be using this for my progress. I have come up with a fun way of reaching goals. I would like to invite the instructors to give their input, but I have come up with dividing up the hours from 0-1000 into 7 levels.

Hours Title
0-10 Guitar Hero Defector
11-50 Air Guitarist
51-100 Guitar Not A Zero
101-300 Ax Grinder
301-500 Shred N Butter Man
501-750 Guitar Virtu-So-So
751-1000 Guitar Hero

What I would like to know is given the average person what things should the know at the various levels? Do you think we could quantify? I like the idea of having a measuring stick to strive to meet, and beat. I have made the hours not to be too long between titles. People can get to Ax Grinder pretty fast. We could create a chart to show what kind of techniques, scales, chords, songs would be equivalent at this level. We could take this beyond 1000 hours, if others who are past this want to develop this further.

To me, its about the practice time, the good practice time. I can riff away aimlessly and not get better. I think if we record, observe, and evaluate our practice time. We will see great strides in progress. We all know its not how long you have owned a guitar, or had access to one, but how long you have been playing, and pushing yourself to get better.I would like to hear your thoughts. I think this could be a lot of fun.

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[Ben Higgins]

The thing about the 10,000 hours theory is that it can only apply to one specific task, surely ?

10,000 hrs doesn't mean mastery of the guitar.. it can only possibly refer to mastery of one specific task. So that would mean we need another 10,000 hrs devoted to any other technique we want to master ???

Let's take alternate picking, which is the most common target for guitarists. Does 10,000 hrs even mean mastery of picking or just mastery of one specific type of lick, like outside picking ? What about inside picking ?

To be honest, I think it's a little bit of outdated science, because what if 2,000 hrs of that was crap repetition and poor technique ? Let's face it, if you practice 8 hrs a day you're not keeping up the quality all that time, you just aren't. The brain can only do so much.

Speed is not important, and making your fingerwork sound like music is not important. If what you're practicing sounds like music, you're playing it to fast

I'm going to respectfully disagree here Mr Bone, making it sound musical is always possible with lick drills etc. In fact, I would encourage it to ward off boredom. If we're only practising hand mechanics without any melody or music we're making it harder on ourselves I think, because we're still going to have to employ the musical side of things anyway. Say if you practised only robotic licks for 5 yrs, now you've gotta start from scratch with melody etc. Better to encompass it all together from the start.

It's possible I misunderstood you.. or it was a typo on your behalf ??

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[Todd Simpson]

Ben brings up some great points here. The 10,000 hour thing is just one study by one guy and is a very general sort of thing. I only use it to illustrate my actual point, and the point of some other posts here. The road ahead is long and truly without end so getting to focused on the mile markers on the highway might just make you crazy and unhappy. So like the other guys are saying embrace the road, not the exit ramp. It's good to be able to see progress happen. It usually happens slowly and we almost don't notice until we look back.

I can't tell you how many students I have had over the years that get almost obsessed quantifying their progress and while it's important to know how you are doing (REC is great for that) and important to stay motivated (GMC in general is great for that) it's most important to try to enjoy your practice sessions as the most important thing you can do is this....

NOT QUIT.

That's at the root of everything else. If you keep learning how to practice, keep learning about how you learn, you'll formulate your perfect plan on the way as you go. So keep learning and keep practicing and above all DON"T QUIT PLAYING!
Todd

The thing about the 10,000 hours theory is that it can only apply to one specific task, surely ?

10,000 hrs doesn't mean mastery of the guitar.. it can only possibly refer to mastery of one specific task. So that would mean we need another 10,000 hrs devoted to any other technique we want to master ???

Let's take alternate picking, which is the most common target for guitarists. Does 10,000 hrs even mean mastery of picking or just mastery of one specific type of lick, like outside picking ? What about inside picking ?

To be honest, I think it's a little bit of outdated science, because what if 2,000 hrs of that was crap repetition and poor technique ? Let's face it, if you practice 8 hrs a day you're not keeping up the quality all that time, you just aren't. The brain can only do so much.





I'm going to respectfully disagree here Mr Bone, making it sound musical is always possible with lick drills etc. In fact, I would encourage it to ward off boredom. If we're only practising hand mechanics without any melody or music we're making it harder on ourselves I think, because we're still going to have to employ the musical side of things anyway. Say if you practised only robotic licks for 5 yrs, now you've gotta start from scratch with melody etc. Better to encompass it all together from the start.

It's possible I misunderstood you.. or it was a typo on your behalf ??

Todd, that is too cool! I now see if I practice 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, I can be a master in just over a year! I hope I don't have to take any bathroom breaks! Seriously though, very neat reply you gave there!

BINGO! That was the entire point of the post. And yes, nearly everyone ramps it to the right first thing. HOW LONG TIL I"M A GUITAR GOD! THIS "PRACTICE" THING IS TAKING FOREVER! Now go lock your bathroom door!

Then that's all that matters. It all comes from belief first !

I"d agree all the way Quite a bit better hopefully! And again at 2k, 3, 10, even 100k (f we are lucky to live that long)!

Mates, there's another thing here which should be taken into consideration. Only practicing will not transform you into a musician and it will not guarantee you will be able to perform on stage as well as you do it in your practice room.

In my opinion. alongside practicing, it takes a lot of stage experience and playing in front of people and with other people, to be able to fully express yourself. When you are subdued by pressure and stress, in the first years on stage you are most likely not going to be able to shine as you know you can. Pressure does that to us in most of the cases. I am not saying it is a rule, but it's a situation which occurs pretty often and should be thought upon.

AWESOME POST! This is CRITICAL and should be included in any PRACTICE regimen. How often do you get up in front of actual people and play? Because the first few times most people play live, your last several years of practice will somehow evaporate and you'll struggle to play stuff you nailed alone at home.

Playing live, standing up, with lights in your face, a crowd to entertain, and no room for error, is entirely it's own thing and to get any better you have to do it a TON.

Getting your "STAGE LEGS" is crucial. After all, playing live is one of the best experiences one can have.

Its not a typo But I'll try to elaborate a little bit for now, and I'll come back to it when I have time to type more.
"The Talent Code" by Daniel Coyle.

Why does slowing down work so well? The myelin model offers two reasons. First, going slow allows you to attend more closely to errors, creating a higher degree of precision with each firing - and when it comes to growing mylelin, precision is everything. As football coach Tom Martinez says, "It's not how fast you can do it. It's how slow you can do it correctly." Secondly, going slow helps the practicer to develop something even more important: a working perception of the skills internal blueprints--the shape and rhythm of the interlocking circuits.

If you're not familiar with myelin, it is the sheath that wraps around your neurons. The more wraps there are, the faster the pulses flow through the neuron. Practicing builds myelin.

This is great stuff If you listen to players that do play fast, they will all tell you that you need to start crazy slow. If your technique is improper and your getting in your own way, then speeding that up will yield gibberish. Doing almost anything slowly, methodically, repeatedly, will help the brain develop pathways for that specific action. After a while it becomes almost a "Meditation". Your brain waves will actually change and time will seem to pass quickly. But only once you get to that spot. In the same way that Yogi can meditate for hours on end and it will seem brief. But that is something at the extremes, I"m not suggesting everyone learn to meditate while playing guitar. Just that you embrace playing slowly, methodically, purposefully and repeatedly.

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