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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[DarkWaveRiffer]

Lots of great points here. I agree its not about watching the hours, but it is about optimizing the practice during those hours. People who document their progress have a higher change to succeed than those who don't, because I think its because those who do document, analyze the way they play, and make adjustments sooner, than those who have a more loose way of practicing, and playing. I heard an old saying. "A man without a plan, is still a plan to fail." I don't believe in absolutes, but I know having a plan helps immensely. Before I started documenting my progress, I would have grossly over estimated my time in practicing, but now I know, and I see how fast I am improving. So it eliminates the feeling that this is taking forever, which is counter to what you would think (watching grass grow). When in fact its like isolating everything, and focusing on improvement. I can tell you at the exact point where it no longer felt uncomfortable to up strum. I can tell you where I had committed learning the G major Scale to memory.I am documenting my journey. Also by analyzing, usually we regularly test our limits for success, and near successes.I am not bashing people who do things more organically, or driven by a need, they have an idea for a song, but they lack knowledge. So they learn what they need to, to make that song. So they are motivated by need to create, and that drives their practice. Practice should be fun. If its not, then find a way to make it so.

Another concept to practice for success is Replay Value. I am referencing thetalentcode.com:

Though the motivation feels internal, in fact replay value doesn’t come from the user; it comes from the design of the game itself. Games that provide lots of roles, lots of paths, lots of possible outcomes have high replay value — people love to play them, and get addicted. Games with few roles, few paths, few outcomes have low replay value; people play them once and then quit.

If you look at the practice routines of high performers, you’ll find they have high replay value. They are designed in such a way that you naturally want to do them again, and again, and again. For example:

Bubba Watson, who won Sunday’s Masters golf tournament with an “impossible” curving shot from the woods, learned to control the ball by hitting a small plastic ball in his yard when he was a small boy. The game young Bubba invented was to see if he could go around his house clockwise, then turn around and do it counterclockwise.
Earl Scruggs, the greatest banjo player who ever lived, practiced his sense of timing by playing with his brothers. The game went like this: the brothers would all start a song, then walk off in different directions, still playing. At the end of the song they’d come together to see if they’d stayed on time. Then do it again. And again.
Pretty much any skateboarding or snowboarding practice has a high replay value: think of how the sides of a half-pipe or ramp literally funnel the athlete into the next move. No wonder they learn so fast: the replay value in most gravity sports is off the charts.

The larger pattern here is that practices with high replay value tend to be practices the learners design themselves. One of the reason the learners can’t help but repeat them over and over is that they have a sense of ownership and investment — they’re not robots executing someone else’s drill; they’re players immersed in their own fun, addictive game.

Which leads to an interesting question: how else can we raise the replay value of our practice? Here are a few ideas.

1. Keep score — and I’m not talking about on the scoreboard. Pick exactly what you want to learn, and count it, or time it. Musicians could count the number of times they play a passage perfectly; soccer players could count number of perfect passes; math students could count the time it takes to do the multiplication table — just as they do in addictive math-learning apps like Math Racer and Kid Calc.
2. Provide multiple roles. Basically, switch places a lot. Everybody should periodically trade positions, to experience it from a new angle and come to a deeper (and more addictive) understanding. Batter becomes pitcher; salesperson becomes client; musician becomes listener.
3. Set near/far goals. The most effective goals have two levels, one near and one far. The near goal is today’s immediate goal; the far goal is an ideal performance far in the future which serves as a north star. Putting both goals out there (as video games do so well) add a dose of sugar to the practice process, and keeps people coming back for more.
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We invest in the lessons here at GMC because we see how it will make us better guitar players. I challenge anyone to find a guitar exercise that has no musical application, it can't be done, because it's all connected. If someone practices a scale for 50 hours, I guarantee they will know it. Ask them to play some notes within that scale, and guess what? You will hear melody. Same thing with rhythm patterns put the time into rhythm patterns and now you can take that play a couple of simple chords and sound amazing. I know amazing is a strong word, but I have seen it done Steve Stine from Rock Guitar for Kids showed some great examples of this. Someone once said "it doesn't matter how much you know on guitar, but what you do know. You know very well." This is something I am just learning. I need to give myself time to make the lesson a part of me, because then once I do, I can then apply it, and grow my skill as a guitarist.Where I see the disconnect is when people practice aimlessly, and don't give it enough time to get the gains from the practice that they could have, had the put more time in. They will play a piece of tab here, struggle with it, something else will than grab their attention, try that, struggle with it. Mean while reaping very little benefit had they just focused on one thing, and knowing it well.

So my whole reason for this thread, was to show people when you become more aware of the hours you put in, you make adjustments sooner, and your perception of your progress isn't distorted by what you think you put in. Also makes you more aware of how you practice. I believe you can double, maybe even triple your progress this way. Also I think you realize when you employ proper technique, guidance/feedback that you are progressing faster than you think. You build momentum, and helps you get through the rough spots. I am enjoying my journey. So far I have put 28 hours into my practice since re-joining GMC. The progress I have made in the couple weeks I have been here has been very noticeable to me, and my instructors. So the 1000 hour goal I have made for myself, and using the methods of practice that I have discovered (I didn't invent) I believe will allow people to actually be performing as if they have put in 2-3000 hours in. I don't know, but I am excited to find out, by making me the first case study. I have no shame in saying that I currently suck at guitar, but what fuels me is this desire to express myself musically, the great feedback I get from GMC instructors, and community, and the methods of practice I am now using.

Oh and Mudbone, I believe you said something about micro improvements, that they are hard to notice, so counting hours doesn't have much value. I have to disagree, and if I misunderstood, I apologize, but I knew instantly when I got it, because I was no longer thinking about it. It was becoming a part of me.

I have been playing about 9 seconds of Metal Rhythm with Octaves over, and over, and over, I have the hours logged, but not handy. So I will guess I have put in many hours, and also I am fine tuning my practice, and the methods I am using. Where it started to click for me, is when I took the video converted in audio, and with the instructor, and backing track I used a program to slow down the tempo. So i would play along with it at different tempos. Had I did that from the beginning I would have progressed much faster, but that's ok. Any ways just by playing the first 9 seconds of the song has yielded gains in timing, and rhythm. I am trying to reach a point of critical mass, or momentum. Where once I have learned that part really well, the other parts should be easier to learn, because I have focused one one part and I have absorbed what I could learn from it. Up/down rhythmic strumming, timing, octaves (finger placement), slides, and working on speed. All of this I am sure will have a direct benefit on when I go on to learn something else. Usually I will try to learn the whole thing, and I don't give myself enough time to really know a particular element of the song, and it sabotages my efforts. I learned this from project management. take a project, and divide it into small doable chucks. Same thing with a song.

OK..I could go on, but I want to go play guitar. See ya!

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