21 Day Method- Result.

So, if you’ve followed me on twitter, or if you’re a
member of the Ultimate Guitar Forum, you will understand what this is
all about; For the rest of you, here’s the method to my madness (or
should that be the madness to my method?!).

The theory: 21 days is the length of time something takes to become a
habit, if done every day- therefore, practicing something for 21 days
every day should be enough for you to master it. This is based on
psychological principals, and is supposedly very scientific, which only
leads me to the opinion that it has been thought up by one of those
“guitar geeks” that often tend to over-intellectualise the instrument.

The practical: 21 days is three weeks, which is equal to a very long
time in practice terms. After I had chosen the thing that I was about
to practice, a harmonic minor lick (the one in the TAB), I had to
consider how long each day I would spend on it (the same amount of time
each day, to make it fair). I didn’t want to spend too long, as I felt
this would eat in to my time, and I wanted time to work on other
things. Eventually I settled on 30 minutes each day, which is a very
short amount of time if you consider how longs I play my guitar for
every day- a long time!

Here is the lick I chose:

The conclusion: After playing this lick for 10 1/2 hours (1/2 an hour
multiplied by 21 days), yes it has become a habit. Result. On the other
hand, I can’t see how three weeks is so special- I mean, couldn’t I
have just played it for 1 1/2 hours for 7 days? Or maybe 10 1/2 hours
in one day to get the same result? That part of the experiment is
inconclusive.

What this does prove, however, is that with a consistent amount of work
on one thing, it pays off. When I first started this project, I could
play the lick slowly, if I thought hard about it (not because of
physical ability, but because of complexity) – but, by the end of three
weeks work, I can almost do it with my eyes closed!

The second thing that I found this useful for, was tone…and I can
almost hear you saying “Hang on, tone?! That’s a shred riff!”. Don’t
worry, it makes sense, what I mean is: as my fingers became accustomed
to the lick, they started to use less and less energy, becoming more
and more efficient in playing it. This enabled me to focus less on the
actual pattern of notes, and more on tone of the notes (and no, I don’t
mean the phrasing!). The tone is the attack, the sound of the notes,
ok, yes; I can now play it with alot more speed- but what means more to
me is the tone of the notes becoming smoother and more musical.

So there we have it: the 21 day method and my experiences with it.
Although this is only my opinion, if you would like to try this
yourself: pick a riff/lick/scale/solo, preferably one that you struggle
with at the moment, and practice it every day for 21 days. Please let
me know the result if you do, or have done this before- how did it work
out?

July 22, 2009 at 11:14 am | Practicing and Practice Routine | 1 comment

One Response to “21 Day Method- Result.”