Month to Master Blues

[DougE]

I came across an interesting blog post today I thought I’d share. This guy has a series in which he sets a goal and gives himself a month to master it. In this post, his challenge was to play a 5-minute improv blues guitar solo. He does it by breaking down the challenge into small daily chunks and practicing those chunks with intent. At it’s core, Blues is very simple.

He makes more progress in a day than I make in months. Frankly it’s a little unbelievable and felt like he got too good too fast. But the point is the process. It’ll be interesting to hear others thoughts.

https://medium.com/the-mission/how-to-become-a-master-of-improvisational-blues-guitar-in-one-month-d05a1afcb465

-Doug

[Billy]

I would be interested to know just how good he was before his experiment seeing he was playing on and off over a ten year period, I liked his playing though it didn’t light my fire because I thought he over played the piece..interesting concept though.

..Billy..

[sunjamr]

I think that’s pretty much the same logic and path most of us AM members have followed (or are following). Maybe one thing we do differently is to study the styles of many blues musicians, whereas he focused on mainly one. That was his mission, and he achieved it.

Sunjamr Steve

[Dieter]

I am always very careful with such sensationel successes. It can be true, but maybe it could be a fake. At least it is sponsered by a Commercial Company. Of course, there are Super-Talents, but they represent the absolute exception, we can t measured with. Long times ago, I played for a short time with such a guy. He won prizes with the Violin, before he learnt the Guitar. After only 2 Years, he played every Song in recorded Version with the Radio. This had been Lightyears to me. My first Guitar-Teacher said to me: Boy you don t have much Talent, but much diligence – and therefore you never will become a great Artist, but always a good workman. And that s my Motto since.
Dieter

[JoLa]

This concept is kinda interesting. Although I fully agree with the comments above, it got me wondering… I think what it boils down to is defining a very specific goal and an incredible self-discipline to go through the same motions every day for the whole month no matter what.

In fact, I am sort of tempted to try it out, on a smaller scale, of course, like a specific technique exercise or something like that. I noticed that whatever I try to learn, I get excited at first, practice and practice, but soon my excitement and determination fade away and self-doubt sets in. Why?
Probably because I generally find the exercises extremely boring. And if there is any progress, I simply don’t see it without recordings.

Learning how to master improvisation in a month sounds very intense, not everyone is cut out for that. But I do believe in the method. I’d say, if you do the same thing every single day for 30 days, it’d be impossible not to get better at it, right?

🎸JoLa

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