Luigi taught me a lot about guitar recently...
If you don't know who he is... he's Super Mario's younger brother.
You might be thinking “how a video game character can teach me a lesson?”...
Let me explain what I mean…
But before I do… a quick story.
Recently on one of my days off work...
I got sucked into a Nintendo game called “Luigi’s Castle.”
In it you play as the character Luigi.
The aim of the game is to run around a haunted castle… collecting gems and fighting ghosts...
I'm sure there's some big boss fight I haven't got to yet...
I had a lot of fun playing this game...
But when it comes to video games… I get addicted.
I spent the best part of 6 hours on that game in one day.
6 hours *poof* gone in a flash.
I got obsessed with this video game.
I wanted to get all the gems...
I wanted to get to higher and higher levels...
I wanted to unlock cooler gadgets in the game…
I'm the same in life too... I can get sucked into things.
This is something I’m trying to get better at…
Trying not to spend hours doing the same thing…
It happens to me with guitar too.
I’ll get obsessed over “mastering” a single chord change… or a small part of a song...
I’ll sit and practice it for 20 - 30 minutes straight…
But there’s a problem with this...
This isn’t how our brain learns things.
The brain needs time to forget...
It prefers you to practice things in short bursts of time…
To move on… and to come back to them later.
Allowing yourself to forget a little where real growth happens on the guitar.
Think back to exams at school...
How did we all revise for them?
By cramming in as much info as you could… like you’re at an all you can eat Chinese buffet before closing time.
People do this all the time when they practice…
They try to cram in practice time hoping it will make them better.
And it does... in the short term.
What I've found is that it’s much better to jump between different things you want to work on.
Have 3 or 4 items you want to practice... and switch between them every 2 or 3 minutes.
You might feel like you’re moving on too soon...
You might feel like you haven’t spent “enough time” on it...
This is normal...
Resist the temptation...
Resist the voice in your head saying “one more minute.”
Try this one out and see how you get on.
I’ll be posting more articles soon with some more useful tips.
Until next time,
Darryl “I’ll stop playing the game… I promise” Powis