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I have often wondered, days after the dust settles from the Monthly Challenge, what I could have done differently? How could I have played ‘this’ better? What other licks could I have incorporated? Could I have done a better job even with audio/video? I do this all the time, with the intent to resubmit in the Forum but never get around to it. Anybody ever thinking along the same lines?
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Ha ha, I get it. Thanks for the input. But where I am going with this is this-The challenge topic was relevant enough for us to study, develop, learn, master etc. etc. I would hate for learning to jam over two chords (or whatever the challenge might be) to be a one and done guitar experience. I have often thought of revisiting some of my older submissions and polishing them up a bit. But then again, there is the time element.
John
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My personal outlook is I have my practice routine and the challenge is a chance to display or test my skills. I don’t get too hung up on mistakes, real or perceived. The response is a good snapshot of where I’m at as a player for a given month.
I’ve been here long enough where I’ve seen progress. So I have faith in my routine. I occasionally get an idea to focus on a particular concept, but typically I let the challenges come in and out like the tide.
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Great question, John.
The way I feel about the challenges is close to what Alan describes above. Usually, what I submit is the compromise between what I wanted it to be and the deadline. But it’s not always the lack of time, sometimes I’m just done with it, it’s out, and I wanna forget about it. So it depends on how much I liked working on it, I guess.What you describe here sounds more like you really liked the exercise and would like to elaborate. I totally get it. You know you did some good studying and the results were showing so you feel like you should keep diving into the topic. But then the next challenge is announced and it’s a distraction. Of course, we don’t have to participate in every challenge but …….. if we want to, we kinda have to, hahaha! 😂 😂 😂
Just because of that, I (double) challenge myself – whenever possible – to work on something else as well as the monthly challenge. The long week we have between submitting the last efforts and the new challenge announcement seems like a good time to do that. Also, I don’t always spend the whole 3 weeks on the monthly challenge; for example, the last one took me less than a week – and so even more time for other projects.
So, I’d say it’s a good idea to keep working on something you really enjoyed, John. You could set a deadline to submit in the Forum, just like your own personal challenge 🙂 It’s crazy but I think that many of us (myself included) put in the extra effort just because of the challenge deadline. Without that, the urgency disappears and we start slacking 😉
🎸JoLa
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After six years here, give or take, the challenges have become the primary way I engage with AM. Because I don’t currently do live gigs or jam with others, it’s a way to apply what I’ve learned, exercise my creativity, and push myself to new levels. I spend a lot of time on them, and don’t record until I’m reasonably satisfied. There is always something different that I could have done, but I’m generally happy with the choices I made. I learn from each challenge, and I ALWAYS feel there is room to grow and get better. Kind of like live gigs would be; it came out as it did at the time, for better or worse. Take the learning and on to the next one.
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Hi John,
I know what you mean, I generally feel the same way a few days after I’ve posted a challenge. I’ll always practice the challenge reasonably well beforehand and often develop a few extra verses of whatever I intend to post.
However my final recording is invariably different to the way I’ve practised or intended and as such, a few days after I’ll ponder what I should have played or maybe think of improvements I could have made.It is true that I mainly post challenges that I can add to a play-list, I rarely play an improvisation just purely as a learning curve.
Maybe not the model student,
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Interesting thought John. I was actually watching back through some of my older submissions and realize if someone asked me I wouldn’t be able to play them just like that again without studying the video. It’s like once it’s recorded I move onto the next thing. But I think there are definitely strands of everything I’ve done that keep coming out in my playing.
One thing is for certain that the time it’s taken me to prep for the challenges has gone down generally speaking. I attribute that to keeping consistent with them and training that creativity muscle.
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