Practice Time

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The Practice Group

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For/to help beginners/improvers indulging in deliberate practice to improve their banjo playing. An open group.

88 Members, Created 11/6/2017 -

Administrators: AndyW (owner) , Boadicea , WayneConrad

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From pickn5 on 1/16/2019 6:42:37 AM

Most days, I have an hour or hour and a half to practice. As I progress, there is more to practice. New tune, tunes I know, backup, and now, learning to play the harmonica. I've found over the years, that I need to spend at least a half hour on one thing to make progress. That is 2 or 3 things a practice session. I'm trying to come up with a logical plan for being able to practice everything that needs to be practiced. Bear in mind, that in each of the categories, there are multiple things to practice. I know I have to split things up to different days. Does anybody else have this problem? How did you solve it? Keep picking.

8 Comments
	Judith511 says: 1/16/2019 7:22:28 AM I practice the banjo, now am learning Clawhammer and I play the guitar and am learning the mandolin. I only get about an hour a day in but I feel like I Am progressing. So I play banjo most days do some Clawhammer then play some Scruggs style tunes, and maybe a bit of mandolin. Other days I play guitar which I also pick rather than strum so practice some flat picking and fingerpicking. Now I do find that the 3 instruments go well together and I am finding the mandolin easy at this point. It depends on how I feel on a particular day :)
	Junior_co says: 1/16/2019 7:24:40 AM Right now I have about 6 tunes that i've learned in Standard G tuning and 2 in Gnodal tuning... I practice Strumming 3-4 chords for 5-10 minutes and then practice each song ~5 times each... Some days I pay more attention to one song more than the others. Keeps my attention a little more focused for me than trying to just work one song over and over and over... My attention span doesn't let me do that very well...
	WayneConrad says: 1/16/2019 7:29:32 AM Goodness, yes, I have this problem. I stopped trying to practice everything I need to practice. I just focus on whatever's got my attention right now. So my solution isn't really a solution, and I hope I can learn from what others say about this.
Deleteme says: 1/16/2019 9:50:26 AM I am with @WayneConrad, whatever has my attention now. All learning is interrelated and benefits.
	AndyW says: 1/19/2019 9:53:15 AM You can lay aside stuff you know really well for a fair bit of time. Everytime you come back to it you get it back a little quicker. So don't be frightened of concentrating on new stuff even for weeks at a time. It can be a bit disconcerting 'forgetting' some of your well known stuff first time around and having to spend a while relearning it, but once you get through that process you realise it's not impossible. Eventually that stuff stays after a few times relearning.
	pickn5 says: 1/26/2019 5:17:48 AM Thank you all for responding. It took me a while learning Red River Valley and I let some of my other tunes slide. I can play the following tunes. Banjo In The Hollow, Cripple Creek, Boil Them Cabbage Down, Cumberland Gap, I Saw The Light, Do Lord, Worried Man Blues, Two Dollar Bill, Foggy Mountain Breakdown, John Hardy, You Are My Sunshine, and Red River Valley. All need work, some more than others. In preparation for warmer weather, and trying busking in town, I'm going to concentrate on improving the tunes I can play now. This will include playing with backing tracks. I will work on a couple a day, rotating through all. In addition, I'll keep working on backup and the harmonica. While the cold weather is here, I'm going to try a local open mic/jam. Keep picking.
	WayneConrad says: 1/26/2019 8:07:49 AM @AndyW I feel frustrated that I can't practice everything, but your comment is very encouraging. Thanks.
	AndyW says: 2/3/2019 11:30:05 AM I'm sort of trying to work on new tunes most of the time now, stopping and revisiting everything else in the week before our monthly jam session so as not to be 'caught out'. It's working ok and my older new tunes are now pretty much learned.
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