When Is An Excersie/Song Learned?

[stefeb]

When I was taking jazz guitar lessons my teacher was of the opinion that while learning, tempo was not as important as playing the notes correctly with the best tone possible. He believed speed would come with time.

There are no mandolin instructors in my area so I'm left to my own judgement (recipe for trouble) as to when I've "learned" an excercise or piece of music.

I play mostly Celtic music, some to tempo, some not. My concern isn't so much with the tunes themselves, but with the more technical excersies, etc.

I've been using, "Wolfhart - Sixty Studies For the Violin", and have found the his method most helpful, but today I noticed one of the pieces labeled with a tempo of, "Moderato" which I believe is between 108-120 BPM. I was ready to move on to another lesson and gave the piece a try at 108. I could play it, but did make a few mistakes most likely attributed to the increase in speed.

When do you move on? Is it when you can play a song at tempo, or when you can play through the song without mistakes, or at half-tempo, etc?

Going back to my jazz guitar days, I'd move on to the next excercise based on my tone and error free playing rather than the tempo. It's very hard (for me) to judge when I've "learned" an excersie. In other words, is my good, good enough?

If there were a teacher in my area I'd be there in a heartbeat, but without one I must rely on your advice.

Thanks. Sorry for being so long winded.

[Pete Martin]

I don't think there is a "right" answer for this. #If you move on to new pieces too early, your technique will not improve much. #On the other hand, if you always want to "perfect" the current piece, you won't have much of a repetoire.

You might try having a number of "performance" type pieces you work on continually, always trying to improve them. #You also have some new pieces to learn. #This keeps your technique and your knowledge growing.

I like to have students break practice time into the following:

1/3 #technique practice
1/3 learn new tune/perfect old tune
1/3 play for fun whatever you want to play

Do it in this order, technique first. #Identify your biggest weakness, make it a priority for a number of weeks or months. #Turn it into a strength. #Then work on your next biggest weakness, whatever it is. #I believe your playing skills will improve the fastest this way.

Best of luck!

[John Flynn]

Unlike tunes, exercises are not ends in themselves, but tools to you help you get better. In theory, the more you do them, the better you get at the skill the exercise is meant to teach. So it's really up to you. I would ask myself things like: What is the exercise trying to teach? How important is that to me for the music I want to play? To what extent do I feel I learned the lesson? To what extent do I think continuing to do this exercise will continue to improve me in directions I want to go? Are there better uses of my practice time? Depending on the answers to those questions, which can only come from you, you may want to drop the exercise now, keep doing it forever, or anything in between.

Personally, I am really skeptical about canned exercises. My goal is to play what I feel is great sounding music. So I find and learn tunes I think are great and work on them until I can make them sound the way I want. When I get hung up on some technique or other aspect of playing that is holding me back, I create my own exercise out of it and drill on it until I can make it work in the tune I am learning. An exercise that is out of context of my immediate musical goals does not make sense to me as a use of my practice time. I am sure that philosophy is an anathema to music teachers and other purists, but I can live with that.

[mahlboogie]

When you are playing the tune watching tv and you find yourself lisening to the tv while you are playing the tune.

[luckylarue]

For me, the exercise or tune is never completely "learned". I feel that I can always work on something - or tweak an exercise or a song so it keeps evolving. I'm with MandoJohnny - I need to work on something in some sort of context to really get a grasp. Sometimes I use a metronome while practicing something new and when I can play it at a certain speed w/out messing up, I add something or move on to something else. Maybe when I can play a tune in two or three different keys or in two or three different positions can I call it "learned". Which, come to think of it, is only a few songs! I best get after it!

[sunburst]

I think learning has to build on itself.
In other words, I don't think one can start from scratch and learn one tune perfectly, then learn another perfectly, and so forth. I think that what you learn in the subsequent tunes helps with the earlier ones, so that all your tunes get better as you learn and practice more.
I think it's time for me to move on when I have the tune basically down, but I'm not bored with it yet. I can come back to it later and improve it.

[gnelson651]

When Is An Exercise/Song Learned? Why when I can play it fairly well from memory with few mistakes.

I started as a beginner last year so I begin with learning standard notation first (sorry but I really hate tab, its cumbersome, stilted and is really for the lazy or lame-that's my opinion, so take for what it's worth). It took about 3 months to be able to read and play a tune with some marginal skill.

However, in the interest of gaining as large a repertoire (about 40 fiddle tunes in 8 months), I sacrificed learning the chords to each fiddle tune I learned. #Since I started going to jam sessions this worked out OK at first to play lead or to start off a song, but I now want to concentrate on accompaniment. So I am moving backwards as I relearned the chords for the memorized songs and am I also working on my chop. I either use the champion CD that came with the learned fiddle books or I tape record a song at a speed where I am comfortable to chord along.

I have been unable to find a decent teacher in my area that I feel will help me accomplish any more then I already have. I don't plan to become a professional musician, for that I am too old. I just love music and I especially love to play the mandolin. I do this for my own pleasure and enjoyment and for the challenge. My goal is to continue to move toward improvement and to be able to say I am an accomplished mandolinist (I doubt I could ever master this instrument, only be able to play it well).

[250sc]

Just the other day I was playing a tune that I've been playing for years and thought back to how I played it when I first started. By playing the same material over a long period of time you just get to know that material more intimately.

When I learn a new technique or idea I tend to throw it in everywhere I can think of to see how it works. If I'm learning tunes from tab I'll try to find at least two good versions to learn. When I get bored with playing them as is I end up pulling stuff from each and making up my own.

I'm not sure if this applies to exercises too since they are set and unchanging but it seems to me that there are probably exercises that the more you play them the more they will teach you.

[AmosMoses]

The first fiddle tune I learned was Whiskey Before Breakfast. I've learned a couple dozen tunes since then.

Still can't play WBB!