Your thoughts?

[andrewjohnsson40]

I need some tips:
I kmow that some people say that learning two pieces at once is good.
I say there is something better, ie. learning more piece at once.
Instead of taking one tune in harmonic minor and the other one in major there is a much better alternative. You could actually try learning 4 tunes in harmonic minor and 4 in major. You would then automatically stop thinking tunes and start think musical languages. What do you think?

 

[Eddy Yates]

The more you play, the better you get!
There is no try, there is only do.

 

[JerryPH]

Learning one song at a time... there are good and bad points, however, that said, even as a student, I was never learning just one thing, I was doing multiple things per lesson and days of practice. There was a very good reason for that... you don't get bored if you have an intake of 5, 6 things instead of focusing only on one thing.

Now, granted in those days we are talking 10-12 hours a day of playing time, so coming back to reality, if you play 1-2 hours a day, practicing some exercises just a little and then working on 2 songs is a lovely way to kill an hour still slowly advance. Sure you won't advance as as as if you place 100% focus in to one thing... but then again, it will take you longer if you get bored and don't come back for 2-3 days.

Here is the bottom line best advice... KNOW YOURSELF. Do you get easily bored? Do many things. Are you able to focus for 1-2 hours at a time? Do one thing for that length and get through it to the end faster.

Me, I know myself, and I know that I can spend an entire day on one piece, but it is not as much fun, too much of the old/bad memories for me there, so with purpose, I change things up often during any time I spend on the accordion. Yes it slows down my progress, but I come back to the next session in a better frame of mind, and for me that is more important than learning one thing perfectly until I move on.

IMHO, If it's not fun, it's not worth doing and playing consistently is more important than focusing for long periods of time and then not playing for long times... this is my error now, and I know it, but cannot do a thing about it due to my schedule and fatigue levels.

 

[andrewjohnsson40]

Well, actually...it is my experience that if you look at four tunes in harmonic minor you have a great chance of looking at the patterns for that mode/scale. I often find that lookibg at one tune only makes me more tune focused.
Music to me is not individual tunes but rather melodic and harmonic patterns that is put together into tunes.
So the idea of just learning many tunes due to it being more fun is something I don't get. Please explain what you guys think of my idea and if I am practical or just oceranalysising (people have told me I often do that).

 

[Tom]

I think your idea of working on songs in harmonic minor, and in major is sound. It will put the difference in perspective. If this is your objective, I commend you for pursuing it.

I agree that everyone learns differently and that everyone has to find for himself the best way to practice to meet your own objectives.

I have never thought about learning major and minor key songs together to see the patterns. I play songs that I like, that I want to play, some are major and some are minor, so I do play both on most days.

At this point in time I am concentrating on my repertoire. My objective is to perfect a series of songs that I play well, from memory, in performance. I desire to change the songs over time, so that I don't always play the same ones. I seem to naturally gravitate to new songs that are more difficult, each one teaching me about some new technique. I may be wrong not to approach it more didacticly, but perfecting and expanding my repertoire is what is important to me right now.

 

[jozz]

I agree that sounds good, sometimes it's just the logical thing to do.

Current project has lots of stuff in D major, and I guess the learning process benefits when grouping things.

But mostly I must follow set-lists for rehearsals so I will stick to learning things in the proposed order.

 

[JerryPH]

I still tend to fall back on saying knowing ones self is the best place to start from.
From there the choices become easy. If you are someone with a short attention span, forcing yourself to work on the same piece note by note for 4 hours is going to be torture. If one is the type where the goal is to perfect one piece to "perfection" and you are comfortable doing it, spending 10 hours a day on a single piece for a week is not only doable, but likely the only way to attain that specific goal, and that also brings in the big question... what *is* your goal?

Is it to learn a well stocked repertoire in a fixed time? You need to spend time on a large variety of pieces.

Is it to master one piece to professional or competitive levels in a fixed time? You are going to spend every moment of available time on that one piece.

Goal setting is a skill that is almost as important to develop as it is to learn to play all the scales in all keys. Not that important if you have no goals, but disastrous in terms of if you need to do something within a certain time and you don't make plans on how to get there.