Hi Tomo,
In one of the first few sight reading series you mention making notations in your Modern Method book - places to mute strings and things like that. I don’t mark up the book at all, but I have seen music teachers mark up my kid’s piano books. Would you be able to share a screen shot or something of the markings you add to the lessons in the book and talk about what you are reminding yourself when you mark the book? Also, in the GW introduction you talk about keeping a notebook. Should we make an entry in the journal every practice session or more summarize what we do for a week or so.
Right now I’m working on the Leavitt book after chromatic exercise. Before I started that I work on triads, blue shuffle, etc. The Leavitt book is helping me develop better discipline - time/counting, posture, thumb, right and left muting, reading music, naming the notes, etc. I’ve enjoyed working on these this type of learning is really new to me.
Best,
John
John - I noticed the "notebooks" advice in the introduction as well. When I re-started my guitar practice (but before I joined GW) I got myself a practice notebook just to keep myself accountable; I treat it like a ship's log, and as a minimum day's entry I record which exercises I did. (I keep it on my music stand and sometimes stop in the middle of practice to write things down so I don't forget.) Then I started adding more when there's a change, like if I pick up an approach from another video that helps a particular exercise, or if I'm having a particularly hard time with an aspect of an exercise. If nothing else, it shows me that I am making progress, which is encouraging.
In the introduction, I remember Tomo suggests more than one notebook - one for practice, one for watching the videos, I guess like the difference between "class notes" and "lab notes". One is for what you notice about what you're doing, and one is for what you're learning from the teacher. (I am using yet another notebook for my non-guitar music explorations.)
When I took piano lessons in the previous century, my teacher always wanted me to keep a practice notebook, and I never did (or at least, never well). Now I understand why.
- pjm
That’s a good call - 2 notebooks - I forgot about that.
Thank you Parker for sharing your experience! I use my little note book and I use just 1/4 of paper so I can write more details what to do each day. I want to push myself to do a few things everyday. It is very easy to forget or simply not do it. I am so thrilled each day! Life is so much things to do and it's fun when I am doing good with my plan.
Tomo