PRACTICE - keep track of progress?

Chris Walke · From: St Charles, IL

There have been some interesting discussions on practicing lately. I didn't want to hijack anyone's thread with this sidebar.

Do you keep any kind of written/journaled records of your progress? Any kind of method for tracking milestones, tempos reached, songs learned, setting new goals, etc?

Do you have some sort of template(s) you use when you have new material to learn? Are you willing to share these with the Forum?

Jon Voth · From: Virginia, USA

No never.

I've played PSG less than two years, but been a professional musician over 20 years.

Never documented progress. Not to say it's bad, just adding to the conversation. In school as a tuba player, worked most of the day every day toward the goal, but I never kept a journal as to what I accomplished.

Fred Treece · From: California, USA

Iâ€™ve been at it a little over two years now. At the end of each year I have written a long winded post in the forum summarizing my experience.

Like a lot of players here, I have played guitar long enough and well enough to know how to practice and measure progress over the long haul. Breakthroughs happen weekly, even daily sometimes. But the rubber hits the road on the gig. That is where you find out if the progress you think youâ€™ve made is all in your head, and sometimes it definitely is.

Ian Rae · From: Redditch, England

Although I'm too undisciplined to keep it up, I know that I should keep a practice diary of the kind I imposed on my students when I taught trombone. Problem is in adapting a system devised for weekly lessons to a rolling daily one.

But I do try to keep a list of things I'm supposed to be working on so I don't get caught out by something I overlooked.
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Mike Beley · From: Alberta, Canada

I'm hitting the 2-year mark as well. I'm going to make a really long-winded 2-year report on here as well some time soon.
My best way of tracking progress is simply recording when I play. I just use my phone placed strategically on stage. Tape don't lie! Sometimes it's painful to listen to, especially the next day after you thought you had a really good night, lol. It gives you some affirmation that you are getting better (when you compare a recording from a month or so ago) and it gives you an honest look at what you still need to work on. For me right now, it's intonation, which I think will come with confidence from knowing where I'm going next on the fretboard.

Markus Mayerhofer · From: Vienna, Austria

I made me an OpenOffice practice sheet. On the upper side, there are 2 rows of tab (U-12 in my case), where i write down the exercise and variations or refinements, which may occur during the practice process.
Below i made some columns, where i'm recording the date of the practicing session and observations like metronome settings and other details.
Works not too bad for guys like me w/ rather limited time...

Donny Hinson · From: Glen Burnie, Md. U.S.A.

Dennis Montgomery · From: Western Washington

Bobby Nelson · From: North Carolina, USA

As a guy who, for some reason, was able to sing pretty well, but never set out to, or really wanted to, behind the mike is usually where I wound up in a band. The problem was, that I was really so uninterested in it, I couldn't remember words to save my soul. So, for years I had to take sheets of hard paper, and a black sharpie, write the words to most every song, and have them on a music stand in front of me. Through this process, I realized that once I actually wrote them down on the paper, It helped commit them to memory for me. So I was able to loose the music stand if I just wrote it down at home - but I always kept copies of the words in my briefcase in case.

I never had this problem with playing an instrument too much. But what I do do, is keep a journal of how many hours a week I practice. This helps prod me to practice more - or at least as much as I had the week before. I also write down keys to songs I work on, so I don't have to listen to them to find it every time I play it.

Chris Walke · From: St Charles, IL

Thanks for the responses.

I've tried different things over the years. Not so much for tracking technique building. I've come up with various templates for songs when working a heavy schedule with multiple cover bands, just to keep myself organized as a lead guitarist learning 3-5 songs/month. So the template/sheet would have sections for the different progressions:
- Intro
- Versese
- Prechorus
- Chorus
- Bridge
Also, the lyrics to backup vocal lines I need to sing, Key changes, misc notes about arrangement, tab on reverse side for signature licks that I need to remember.

I've sometimes used different versions of this kind of sheet over the years, and sometimes I'd rather just have a regular old note book and my a pencil, no template at all.

I'm starting to make a list of songs that have cool lead guitar lines that I'm going to translate to pedal steel, really just as an exercise for myself to keep me focused on right hand technique. I've already just started in a notebook, which is probably what I'll continue to work with.

I was just wondering how others may approach these type of things.

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