Hoffming, I have the same hurdle here. I too have grand ideas of what I'm going to get accomplished, make lists, buy books, come up with a logical, progressive scheme/plan to get information and skills into my head and hands. It goes along great for a few weeks, and then wham...a tangent rears its head from across the way and I follow it. Could be a new tune, could be a new video, could be a cold, whatever. Mainly, it's a break in the routine that does it for me, that ruins my good intentions. I think I do it to myself, really. I think it starts to sink in that what I've given myself to do has absolutely no use to me in my current situation, that I am mainly just busy being busy. Now Matt Flinner, on the other hand, tailors his exercises to what he needs to know, or at least that's what I'm told. I don't know it to be fact. He makes his exercises pertinent to the present and he learns from them. Seems to me that would make playing exercises more fun as well.
I agree with your idea that possibly slowing tunes down may not be entirely educational. It is a good way to learn the notes, sure, but in my experience, I find that a lot of Monroe's recordings don't really sound musical at half speed because I think he used techniques that fit the songs at those tempos and it doesn't seem that they fit that well at other tempos. Shoot, so much to do. Keep it coming. Overwhelmed in TN On Mar 4, 3:28 pm, Mike Hoffmann <[email protected]> wrote: > This is always difficult for me. I come up with grandiose ideas like, > I will complete the Odell Method for Duo and Trio mandolin or I will > do all the Bickford or Van Eps methods, but when I sit down and do it > I only do a few exercises before playing some other "recreational" > stuff. When I feel motivated to learn, lately, I have been slowing > down music and trying to learn it that way. This is both fun AND > educational, but may not be great for technique. I must say though, > when I do force myself through some exercises before during and after > playing over the course of a month or so I do notice immense > improvement. Right now though I have been doing schoolwork since 8 am > until now and am sort of looking at my mandolin as it is saying, > "hey. psssst. Forget school." > > This topic came up at an old time party last weekend. Me and some > friends were upstairs in the cupola of the center for cultural > evolution while three great jams raged below us. I just didn't feel > like playing. I knew that I went all the way up to this party to > blister my fingers, but at that moment I sort of felt more like > talking about divination and making fun of round peak banjo snobs. > Sure i missed out on some great opportunities to hone my skill, but > sometimes we can't force ourselves to improve and we must just meddle > in mediocrity and make fun of those who are really good at that skill, > ricky scaggs. > > Robin, did you attend a Matt Flinner workshop? I recognized the one > exercise GD-GA-GE-GA-GD from his workshop, but then he added all kinds > of cool double-stops to that picking pattern and also did EA-ED-EG-EA > to work on picking the other way. I took a lot about practicing from > his workshop (and did nothing about it) but he seems like a dude who > LOVES to practice, don't get me wrong, he really seems to make it > fun. He was encouraging us to take drills we know and make songs out > of them or incorporate different melodies into them each time we do > it. Imagine the possibilities, we would be at 10K hours before we > know it! > > On another note, that 10K hours does not take into consideration > talent. I am a believer that musical ability is a combination of right > and left brain input. i am a guy with a marginal to slim amount of > natural talent, but I have taught myself a few things, imagine the guy > who is REALLY talented (ricky scaggs, ; ) who can get there in like > 2500 hours? > > back to Professional Development practices in Outward Bound EL schools. > Mike --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Taterbugmando" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/taterbugmando?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
