I had a strange experience today…
For the first time in three years... I spoke with an old friend…
I didn’t know what to expect...
Or what they would be like three years down the line.
A lot can change and you know what… it was great.
We talked about guitar…
What we’re doing right now…
What’s changed in our lives...
It was clear we’ve both changed… and we’ve both grown a lot.
This got me thinking about how people grow on guitar….
And how some people improve faster than others.
There’s always one area that comes up for me time and time again...
It always gets in the way of playing the songs I want...
Not having enough technical skill.
Let me give you a personal story of something I’ve been working on...
There’s a solo from a band Extreme... I’ve been trying to learn for years.
It's from a song called Get The Funk Out (I’ll crack this bad boy one day.)
It’s very technical... and I definitely can’t play it yet.
It’ll probably take me months to have all the skills to play it...
But here’s the thing...
When growing technical skills… sometimes they need a break to grow and mature.
They need sometime to sit and marinade in the background.
My problem is that I can get obsessed…
It doesn’t matter if it’s guitar…
A Netflix show (recently it was “Tiger King”)...
Video games...
A new approach to being healthy…
Or anything else.
I’m not saying that becoming obsessed with something is inherently bad...
Becoming obsessed with something can be good.
When you are… your brain soaks up what you're learning like a sponge.
However... there’s a problem when it comes to getting better guitar skills...
There’s only so much practice you can do before you hit a brick wall with it.
Once you’re at this brick wall… progress slows down.
Sometimes it’s due to how you’re practicing...
But most of the time... you’ve just reached the limit of what’s possible…
At least for where you’re at with your current skills today.
Now here’s the cool thing…
A lot of technique skills are “transferable”
This means you can practice one thing… and get better at lots of other things…
Without ever having to practice them…
I’ll say that again…
You can get better at something without actually practicing it.
Let me give you an example…
Imagine you have a strumming pattern in a song.
It's proving tough… and you feel like every day you practice it's not getting better.
The approach to take here is not to keep going…
The better approach to take would be to give it a break…
And practice a different strumming pattern (or a different skill entirely.)
It actually doesn't matter what strumming pattern you practice...
So long as you're focusing on the core skills.
This is how you can continue growing as a guitar player… without doing the same pattern over and over.
There are other examples… but I don’t have time to get into today…
My point is...
Sometimes you need a break from what you’re practicing.
You need to go and practice something else... and then come back to it in a few months.
When you do… you’ll probably be able to play whatever you were trying to play before much easier.
This is because your overall technical skills have grown.
The song now feels easier to play (or whatever else you’re practicing.)
If you feel like you’re at this brick wall...try having a break from what you’re working on...
Go away... and practice something else...
Then come back to it in the future.
This could be a different song… a different chord change.. or whatever...
It's surprising the impact it has.
Let us know what you've been working on in the comments below!
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