A Proposal To Revitalize Submitted Content Of Bushido Tasks. Options

[Cem]

I'm currently following Advanced tasks and one thing I noticed something about myself and the other people. I am sure we are all paying attention to the tasks as much as possible but there are too few records coming out of these tasks. I was thinking if there were a system which encourages us to submit our records no matter how good the record is. My ideas are as follows :

- A point system which will rank our progress among participants of the temple. (competition)

- These points will be accumulated by a formula like ( Tempo of the record / Original Tempo ) * (Ben's Rating of the record / 10 )
To explain the formula, Ben will rate every submission over 10. This coefficient will be multiplied by the tempo of the recording divided by the original tempo. The purpose of the formula is to reflect our progress, not give a measure to how good we are.

- A record must be submitted within a week or the maximum points available to the task is divided by 2.

- After the first record (which should come in within the week), ninja's of the temple can re-submit the task as much as they would like to improve their score. Every new submission would accumulate a small amounts of points if it can pass a small threshold (i.e. Ben should rate it at least 4 in order to get these) plus the updated evaluation of the formula.


These are my crude opinions about the subject. What do you guys think ?

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[Ben Higgins]

That's quite a good idea, Cem although my main concern would be adding a competitive element to it. I'm not saying no but at the moment I'm in two minds..

so let's ask everybody what they think ?

The other thing is we would have to make it much more simple than that because 1) People will find it hard to follow and 2) I'm crap at maths !

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[dark dude]

As I understand it, submissions aren't being made because those people don't have the time right now, but I could be wrong. I think it'd be unfair to basically lump Ben's own REC on top of him, too

There could be a dash of 'I don't feel like I've improved enough' or 'this really sucks, I'd embarrass myself by posting it' present, too. I know I felt like that at some point.

I think that a few people have stuck with a task after 7 days, and posted it again to have Ben A-okay it, which is great. They clearly saw importance in working on a particular aspect of their playing and wanted to focus on that. By doing that, however, you lose the pressure of practicing as much as you can in that week, which I'm loving, so I try to keep up with the tasks instead.

In the end, you should be doing it for yourself, seeing how much you can improve in 7 days, and not worrying about how quickly or slowly other people progress.

I don't think an extra element of competition is needed, personally (I don't think music and competition mix), but if it means more people posting takes, I'm all for it, sure

It's nice having a group of people motivating eachother to practice more, which you often see in these tasks, and which you don't get in the mentoring threads.

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This post has been edited by dark dude: Apr 17 2012, 10:22 PM

[Cem]

As I understand it, submissions aren't being made because those people don't have the time right now, but I could be wrong. I think it'd be unfair to basically lump Ben's own REC on top of him, too

There could be a dash of 'I don't feel like I've improved enough' or 'this really sucks, I'd embarrass myself by posting it' present, too. I know I felt like that at some point.

I think that a few people have stuck with a task after 7 days, and posted it again to have Ben A-okay it, which is great. They clearly saw importance in working on a particular aspect of their playing and wanted to focus on that. By doing that, however, you lose the pressure of practicing as much as you can in that week, which I'm loving, so I try to keep up with the tasks instead.

In the end, you should be doing it for yourself, seeing how much you can improve in 7 days, and not worrying about how quickly or slowly other people progress.

I don't think an extra element of competition is needed, personally (I don't think music and competition mix), but if it means more people posting takes, I'm all for it, sure

It's nice having a group of people motivating eachother to practice more, which you often see in these tasks, and which you don't get in the mentoring threads.

Personally I don't submit often because basicallly a week of time is not enough for me to make a record worthy of submitting. During the semester holiday, bushido tasks were felt like magic as I was able to practice guitar 30+ hours a week, I could really feel that I was improving which, as you would know better gets harder and harder to get as you play, but now every task is kinda passing by without me being able to build expertise on them.

I understand your concerns about creating a competitive environment. I don't mind competing with other people but giving it a second thought I agree that music and competition don't mix well and can have a serious backfire especially here.

There is nothing wrong with the status quo, but all we have is deadlines, wouldn't creating an environment which has deadlines with rewards make this place more vibrant and alive?

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[GrindGuer]

I do agree with dark dude. I'm not sure adding a competition will motivate people. It once existed a competition each month here at GMC, a three level one. We were first a lot to submit takes, but in the end, there were not so many students and it disappeared. I kind of fear the same thing happens with Ben's Tasks.

One week is a short period of time to practice a lesson, but it's what's interesting in this concept. That's why I came back to the beginner thread, as I couldn't manage to do a correct take in a week with the intermediate ones.

What we could propose, is that people post a take at the slower tempo before they post a full speed one. That's what I did quite often and Ben was nice enough to tell me what to work on before speeding it up. It is really useful to know your flows, and it makes the thread more alive and we are aware of how many students ninjas are working on it each week.

I really want to thank Ben for this, because it is really useful to me, and I'm sure it could serve others. So I want it to go on, and if we need to add competition to make it live, let's do it. Otherwise, let's find another trick.

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[maharzan]

Frankly, I have a baby to look after. Although I work from home which is great, there is little time to spare nowadays because of these. I do practice guitar (thats all I do when I am working), guitar on lap, hands on keyboard. But seriously, the time I am giving is just casual and with the tasks Ben assigns, its very hard to master within a week. I used to take 3 weeks to 3 months to master a level 7 or 8 lessons. And while I have done level 9 and even 10 lesson, it feels really awkward to not be able to do a level 4 or 5 lesson. :S

I personally feel that with us given one assignment each week and not be able to master it or just doing it in half tempo isn't really leading to something. It might be subtle but I have always been like that. Being able to do nicely at lower tempo but always not being to do at original tempo.

No competition from my side (unless Ben wants to give away his donuts for free ). The last 3 assignments have been just 1 submission. It doesn't really make a difference. One thing that might help is give a harder lesson that can be doable in 1 week or 2 week and the next week, give a easier lesson that can be mastered in say 3 days. That way we get time to submit lower tempo harder lesson in a week and maybe in the 2nd week we can also submit easier lesson plus the harder lesson at tempo. Just a thought.

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[zoom]

I'm with Dark Dude on this one also.

I enjoy the challenge each week. It's like Ben knows I avoid bending and pull offs so that's what he giving me (us) and it's making me work hard. I found it a little hard to get a decent amount of practice in lately but still it's great and I also love that we can check out other GMCers takes, that motivates also to nail the lesson.

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[SirJamsalot]

I actually learn the recs to a point, but I'm limited in my time to actually get the entirety of them learned for a take ~ I find myself instead stealing the best sounding licks from each task, and practicing those. I have about 4 hours a night, which might sound like a lot of time, but when I'm learning cover songs for my band every week, that time just disappears! So even if there were incentive / competition, my real-life incentive is the responsibility I have to my band to learn the songs, because I'm singing them, and if I don't get it learned, the band doesn't play it!

But I would like to add that I love the fact that Ben and all the other instructors have created a program for students to latch on to. Prior to this, it was every student for themselves, trying to find lessons and direction on their own, the only difference from being out in the internetz, being the high qualify of the instructional videos!

This way it is structured right now I think is the best thing GMC has done since I first started trolling the forums!

booyah!

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[Ben Higgins]

Thanks for all your input on this guys

Yeah I think the general consensus is that we don't really feel the need to introduce points or competition to things then, which is cool by me. Anyway, surely the desire to improve oneself is the motivation ?

There's also one little point I'd like to make, which could be a sensitive issue.. please remember that there are 3 levels of Task. If you're really finding it very difficult to at least get the basics of a lesson down in a week then you might be looking at the wrong levels. No one can be expected to perfect a Task in a week, nobody can.. but the Tasks are aimed at a general level that, given the skill level you're in, can be at least learned and motivate you in that particular area of technique like picking or legato, bending etc.. I hope I make sense ?

I actually learn the recs to a point, but I'm limited in my time to actually get the entirety of them learned for a take ~ I find myself instead stealing the best sounding licks from each task, and practicing those.

Yeah I totally support this.. I've always said to other people that it can be a good thing to look at lessons at really high levels and just take bits from it, you don't have to learn the whole thing. You might find a lick that you want to put into your own practice regime and work on it at your own speed.

It's like Ben knows I avoid bending and pull offs so that's what he giving me (us) and it's making me work hard.

Hehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehe














P.S. Just something I remembered, which is how I view my Karate classes. I view them as : I go there to learn and discover what areas to work on, what are my weaknesses.. the real training is done at home. So, if you like, the video and audio submissions are just like a little marker for yourselves and me to point out any areas that need some attention and also to point out your strengths and give you some confidence and faith in your own playing, but the actual practising will always go on... and on and on...

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This post has been edited by Ben Higgins: Apr 20 2012, 09:39 AM