Tracking your practicing

[Daijoki]

I've been looking for a simple way to track my practicing and came up with a Google Docs spreadsheet. Thought I'd share it. Feedback is welcome:

https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?...OSXh5N0E&hl=en

Best,

Scott

[John Bertotti]

Record or video your practice. I have recorded a few that I thought went well only to find out on play back that my practicing and playing was horrible! Man does the recorder and camera catch al the problems. I was so disappointed I deleted them. I have made a resolution not to do that again it is a valuable learning tool, IMHO!


Recorders never lie, unless they are broken.

I also think the spread sheet idea is good. I think it is good to have a plan of attack before picking up the instrument, it is way to easy to start playing around instead of practicing. Another revelation for me recently. I have a toddler and you can not get a good practice in till you are completely uninterrupted.

Sorry if I wondered of topic here but doing what I do for a living and living where I do I am almost completely on my own so things like this if I had realized sooner would have me a lot farther along in my playing now.

[Bertram Henze]

Second the recording suggestion.

Tracking should at least answer two questions:
- have I made any progress on a given tune? Compare different recordings of the same tune. Be prepared for surprise in both directions
- what weak points should I address? Compare recordings with expectations and other people's recordings. Surprise coming your way again.

Another interesting dimension is time (how fast do I learn?), so keep time information with the recordings. I found that with a growing repertoire of tunes I can learn new tunes faster.

[John Bertotti]

One other thing I noticed is I can not work on to many problems in one practice session. I find if I am trying to fix to many things then I am wasting my time. Instead I try to find something that will let me work on a problem without reinforcing some other bad habits. I figure if I have to many different problems with a tune or such then it is probably still a bit beyond me and I back down to something a bit more doable which isn't necessarily easier, well usually it is in my case but not necessarily.

[Earl Gamage]

Writing things down can help. I just noticed I am working on 6 new tunes which is way too many at one time.

[Patrick Bouldin]

Agree with all this. I remember I realized one day I hadn't learned any new tunes in about 6 months (talking about memorized tablature stuff, not jamming). Anyway, so I set goals, one every two weeks for awhile and in just a year doubled by tune repertoire - and I agree learning new tunes makes learning easier.

A little off topic but my best luck on new tunes is almost immediately memorizing it. I can't really progress unless I do that.

Patrick

[JonZ]

There is a long thread about a computer-assisted method for tracking your practicing here.