In my last post, I made the point that learning songs is the single most important thing to do to advance on the guitar. This can often be problematic — especially for beginners. After years of teaching, it became clear to me that there are certain mental habits that some students have that allow them to progress on the instrument much faster than others. I’ll be writing about more of these practice tactics soon, but let’s start with one of the most powerful: chunking.
What is chunking?
Chunking involves practicing only portions of music that you can make clear progress on in a short amount of time.
Sometimes my students seem a little shocked when their favorite song turns out to not be easy and intuitive to play with a few hours of work. Often, that’s just because what they are attempting is well beyond what they’re capable of at this stage of their progression on the instrument, but quite frequently the problem has more to do with the fact that they’re taking on too much of the song at once.
Unless you’re playing at a pretty advanced level, learning most songs should be viewed as a project. Most modern pop or rock songs have 2 to 3 major sections: verse, chorus, and bridge. Usually, material from these sections is also used for instrumental sections such as intros, interludes, solos, and endings. For most beginner and intermediate students, it’s probably not a good idea to try to tackle more than one of these sections at a time. If you’re trying to memorize a complex melody, even smaller segments may be in order.
What you choose to work on for a single practice session should not be difficult to hold in your head as you practice. If you find you’re making a lot of “mental mistakes” as you’re working (i.e., playing a wrong note or hesitating because you don’t remember what comes next) then you’ve likely taken on too much at once, and you probably need to chop your chunk in half!
This may seem like it will take forever, but it’s actually the fastest way to master a song.
How do you know when you’ve done it correctly?
It may take some time to get the balance right, but you’ll know you’re succeeding and practicing effectively by the way it feels: when you get up from a practice session, you should feel like you made real progress. For example, you should be able to say “When I sat down, I didn’t know that 8-bar intro, but now I can play through it slowly from memory,” or “When I started working, I could play that challenging lick from the solo at 60 beats per minute, but now I can play it at 67 beats per minute.”
Real progress is made in this incremental fashion on a day-to-day basis. You should be able to feel yourself growing, and if you’re doing it right, your motivation will grow with your skill.
Feeling a million miles from this?
If your practicing feels meandering and unproductive, don’t give up! But it’s also important to remember not to keep doing the same things. Try a different approach if you feel like you’re not making progress. Try chunking and see if it helps. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that even one lesson with a good teacher can really help, especially if you let him or her know that you’d like help addressing your practice routine and song-learning strategy. If you’re in the Atlanta area, sign up for a lesson with me and I’ll be glad to walk you through this.
Now go pick something small and learn it!
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Wes Freeman is private guitar lesson teacher in the Atlanta metro area of Georgia. He teaches lessons primarily in the cities of Lilburn, Snellville, Marietta, Decatur, and Brookhaven. Learn more about taking lessons with Wes on his Lessons page.
Wes Freeman Music 