Jeff McErlain's Practice Schedule

How practice, what to practice... is a very common question on the forum. Jeff McErlain recently posted a video discussing his practice schedule. Jeff has a lot of good tips here, I especially like his comment at 20:14: "when we haven't put in the work, which is the main thing".

This is another issue I see on the forum with newbies. The work. So instead of concentrating on practice, time is spent on wondering if we have the right guitar. And I speak from 1st hand experience.

When I bought my 1st guitar at 17 I convinced myself that there was something wrong with my guitar and that is why I wasn't making headway. Well, I still have that guitar, and 1 day a local player by the name of Brent Mason walked into my office, picked up that old guitar (which I still find hard to play btw) and just started jamming. I made a post about this back then. I said "Brent, how can you play that thing so easily?" His reply was the response a good player would give and a reminder to me, the work the work the work: "time in man, just time in".

So, again, Jeff gives some great tips here and if you don't know Jeff, he offers courses - mainly on the blues - through TrueFire. Another service I subscribe to.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yrb_PtzzW2M&t=1123s

A few months ago I came across a new-to-me guitar lesson web site and found a great line paraphrased here; 'It looks easy because those you are watching already know how.'

I'm fascinated by the success GT's newbies have. These days it seems I see forum posts every week that relate difficulties with skills they have been working on for mere days or weeks... skills that took me months or years to pick up when I was a kid. The credit goes to GT's lessons and instructors and some to the newbies themselves.

I've always believed I don't have talent, I never was and never will be someone whose progression on guitar comes easy and fast but... so what? It's not a competition. If I want to play something I practice it and practice a lot. I think newbies would benefit from a similar attitude. Speaking of newbies and attitudes...

Over and over on the forum we see overly high expectations that learning guitar will be quick and easy. Then there is the 'ka-boom' when those unjustified expectations run into reality. That reality is more harsh for some than others.

In the end, it takes patience and discipline; two key characteristics of maturity. It the newbie doesn't have it, if the player doesn't want to play enough to sit down and do the work, then the newbie will soon move on leaving nothing but old posts about how hard it all is.

I believe those of us that know how to play and/or those who have been around GT for a while (not necessarily the same ) should help newbies with encouragement, advice and solid, well thought out suggestions. We should always remember and remind the newbies the admonition to "have fun." And always point them to the Chet Atkins quote in my signature block below.

john

I have to smile at the bit of high expectations John. Everytime a GT pop up ad of Mike or Dave comes on YouTube I wonder how many subscribers they would get if they promoted an activity that would require practice, patience, dedication, painfully boring repitition and days when you just want to pull your hair out :)

PS: just want to add, I'm not being critical of the GT ad campaign. They have a business to run. And agree GT is a great tool to have.

Originally Posted by: William MG

So, again, Jeff gives some great tips here and if you don't know Jeff, he offers courses - mainly on the blues - through TrueFire. Another service I subscribe to.

Thanks for the link, William. I watched that video and it is every bit as helpful, although brutally honest, as you describe it.

If anything positive can be said about this pandemic, and there isn't much that can be, many gifted musicians, that are also instructors, are offering up free lessons on YouTube. Most are titling them "lockdown" or such. As you know Jeff calls his "Brooklyn Lockdown". And many have gone to a weekly schedule so that people can plan. I think Jeff's is Wednesdays at 3 Central. And all any of them ask is a "like" (or "thumbs up") and a voluntary contribution through Venmo or one of those services.

Many also offer downloadable sheet music or tabs, Guitar Pro files and backing tracks.

Jeff recently had a series, 3 consecutive weeks, that he called "Pentatonic Deep Dive"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfeanYqZnWA&t=2268s

I downloaded these and am studying them.

Another musician that I really like is Kirk Fletcher. My wife and I got to meet him on the Keeping the Blues Alive cruise and he is also a really nice guy. What makes his YT videos interesting are a couple things. 1) They are always relatively short, 10-15 minutes or so, so there isn't the significant time investment. Maybe not as important as normally these days of lockdown. 2) They often are not about licks or technique but more nebulous subjects. One of his I really enjoyed was his about finding players that one really appreciates and then study that player. He stressed how he still does this and then listed a long catalog of his influences, most I had never heard of. Also recently he discussed his decision to play only one guitar for a full month, his PRS McCarty 594 Semi-hollowbody. He explained the importance of why he did that and why that guitar.

Another guy that I watch that has weekly sessions is Corey Congilio.

This got way longer than I had planned but there is a lot of these on YouTube free to complement our Guitar Tricks study. Thanks for pointing it out.

I will have to check those out matonanjin2.

Jeff is a great guy as you know but it must be frustrating to deal with people who don't have more to offer to a conversation other than as he points out "stuff they can't do".