Printable Version of Topic

Posted by: wethepeople469 Jan 13 2010, 08:54 AM

I love the lessons on this website, from all these great and talented musicians. I just wish they were longer, how do you guys feel about this?

Posted by: audiopaal Jan 13 2010, 09:02 AM

I know what you mean..
But I think it's a good thing they're a bit on the short side, because that way I can practice more lessons
There are a few longer lessons though, but I don't recall their names I'm afraid.

Also, when you master a lesson it gives a feeling of accomplishment and you get that fire to learn even more.
With shorter lessons you'd get this more often, making you wanna master even more techniques

All in all it's a good thing, although I wouldn't mind a few more longer lessons for the interrested

Posted by: Gitarrero Jan 13 2010, 10:21 AM

I like the short lessons, you can master them much quicker!
But I think GMC has a good overall mixture of short and long lessons, since the full song lessons appeared. What I like about the short ones is that you can practice differnet techniques in one minute, so it's not just brainless drilling of the same thing over and over again.
e.g. how start with pm downstrokes, go to galloping, then start a solo with hammer-ons and pull-offs and end with a fast picking run. Many lessons are shaped like this and I think it helps your versatility.

Posted by: Sentenced Jan 13 2010, 11:31 AM

You can expand the length of a lesson by arranging it parts like in a song, just add some repetitions and there you have a longer lessons, that feels more like an actual song.

Posted by: Emir Hot Jan 13 2010, 12:18 PM

Audiopaal explained the way that I would agree. On the other hand I think there are more reasons for that. For example if I am doing a lesson about tapping, I can show everything I wanted in about 1 min so you have enough material to practice. There rest would be just a repetition. But we leave 5 min jam track so you can extend your ideas and play longer. Even for the 1 min leseson I spend 8-10 hours of recording, rendering, uploading, transcribing, editing... Imagine 3-4 minutes lesson. That would need to have 20 slow videos and it would take us 3 days. You wouldn't learn much more than from just 1 minute.

Posted by: Vasilije Vukmirovic Jan 13 2010, 12:22 PM

Yes they are short, but there are lot of them. And lot of them are rather difficult!

Posted by: Marek Rojewski Jan 13 2010, 12:33 PM

I like long lessons also, but all there reasons mentioned here are valid. GMC is a limitless mine of licks and ideas, if we practice hard enough, and try to create something on our own, than we have everything we need here.

Posted by: Pedja Simovic Jan 13 2010, 01:31 PM

I totally agree with Emir! I would also like to add that shorter lessons will attract more members to study them vs very long lessons which might throw off members to work on them.

Posted by: Praetorian Jan 13 2010, 01:46 PM

I think they are the perfect length. Any longer, and it would be overload on my brain!

Posted by: Fran Jan 13 2010, 05:45 PM

They are short but packed with licks, techniques, etc.

To me mastering these lessons, and I choose easy ones, takes more time than learning some real full songs, because they are so dense and make you practice things which take time to master, as opposed to some real songs in which you play powerchords for 4 minutes and then do a 20 second solo in between.

Posted by: Staffy Jan 13 2010, 05:59 PM

I think they are perfect length-wise, they gives the opportunity to focus on a special technique/concept and since some of them are really hard to get through it would be impossible if they were longer.... Also they works very well as a source of inspiration (which is the way I use most of the time, rather than learn everything note-by-note) An important goal as a guitar player is to find Your own voice instead of copying other players.... (even that this is good for learning though)

What I REALLY missing is the feature I talked about before - when the instructors are playing the phrases slow, there is no reference in time (e.g metronome), that will help A LOT imo.

//Staffay

Posted by: Ivan Milenkovic Jan 14 2010, 12:56 AM

I think the lesson format is great. Longer piece can be put easily into smaller lessons number 1, 2, 3 or so. With big ones, I think that wouldn't be possible. Also, the length of lessons is varying a lot.

Posted by: Gary Jan 14 2010, 05:15 AM

I like the length. A one minute lesson is hard to give up on because it's focused and the short time span allows for quick learning / memorization. I also think you get what exactly what you need out of the shorter lessons and thus can move on to another topic. The shorter lessons also work well in your daily routine (Emir's pentatonic in 5 positions in a good example).

One idea I have floated for a longer lesson would be for the instructer to play the beginning of a solo, leave the middle section out (instructor would play rhythm here) and then play the end of the solo. This would allow the student to connect the two pieces with their own bit of solo.. kind of a solo with training wheels I guess There could even be a contest to see who "connected the dots" the best.

Gary

Posted by: Daniel Realpe Jan 16 2010, 04:08 PM

agreed. There's tons of info here and always more coming. And you can even request your own.